Wacky Wednesdays

We did some puzzles after having some M&M's for a snack. Wiggle Worm is a messy eater.
These are our sheets from Abeka books. We were supposed to glue beans to the Aa page but it really was hard to follow the little dashed lines on such a small Aa and Wiggle Worm lost interest fast. He liked coloring the duck though.These are our Kumon sheets. We did some cutting, coloring, and stickers. We gave up on pasting and just used the stickers for now.
We went outside for some play but wouldn't look at the camera. We found one of the big kids bouncy balls in the yard and he liked just holding it. We were starting to get ready for our nap around now.
This is a great little toddler size napsack. I like it because it has the zipper, snap, button, and velcro for them to practice with.
This was our Wacky Wednesday this week. We did our LHTH also. I think we won't do as many Kumon pages in a day from now on. I think Monday will be coloring, Wednesday will be sticker and paste, and Friday will be cutting with our Kumon books.
I need to get more of the motor skills we do on camera. A lot is done without us even realizing it and we don't get pics of it at the time. I have some great ideas for next week with painting and can't wait to see if they will work. I have to get some supplies first.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

Here are some pictures of our Tuesday at Tinytown. It is a really good time and Wiggle Worm has a blast. I enjoy myself too. There are lots of Moms and Dads to talk to while the little one roams and plays.
It was a good Tuesday for us. Tinytown, Target, Chili's for lunch...

Marvelous Monday

Here is our LHTH worksheets for Monday. It really is a fun program. I was nervous that this program would be too much for him but it is just right.

We also used our new ice bucket and scoop for some pouring practice.

We got bored pouring and decided this was more fun.

Hope everyone else had a marvelous Monday!

Fabulous Fridays

We got off to a rocky start by having to go to Walmart after dropping off the rugrats at school. Wiggle Worm was in no mood to sit in a buggy or to walk "with" me. The one good thing out of the trip is that I found this really neat placemat with pooh that I thought would be perfect for sorting our colors (it was only $2.97).
So while I was unloading the bags, I set Wiggle Worm down with his new toy and voila...



We also did our LHTH reading and activities. This was a fun one with cheerios. He loved it but I have to admit getting the cheerios to stay on the little drop of glue was kind of hard for his stubby little fingers. He could get it on there but everytime he pulled his finger up after placing the cheerio on the glue the cheerio would come up too.

Our finished A

What could be more fun than a project that you can eat the supplies when finished. We had an impromptu snack of cheerios and capri sun for all of our hard work.

Baby Signs

I don't know how many of you have heard of baby signs, but it is a wonderful program to teach your child to communicate before they can talk. It really, really makes those terrible 2's much less terrible.

You can start way early with your infant. By the time they are 8-9 months, they will be signing back at you and letting you know...hey, I want milk...no, I don't want a cookie...I'm wet...all with just their little fingers.

Wiggle Worm has been signing since he was under a year and still learning signs even though he can talk with words now.

I will be posting a lot about baby signs as it is part of our Tot School. We use signs every day with Wiggle Worm as well as words and he picks up more words (verbally) every day that we sign.

Throw away Thursday

We may as well have skipped Thursday this week. We did absolutely nothing Tot School or really tot productive today. We did go out to lunch with another Mom and her son, 4. So I guess I could stretch that into being a playdate of sorts.
It wasn't a total waste though. I found lots of good buys at Target and Big Lots and took pics of my latest additions to our Tot School "curriculum."

This is my new stuff

After looking at all the blogs using these items, I decided now was the time to buy.

These are neat little "pinch" bowls I found at Target. I think I may use them with pom poms, tongs, and color sorting...This is one of my good finds for $8 at Big Lots...It is an ice bucket with scoop and lid. The white bucket comes out and I am planning to use it to practice scooping and transferring beans.

My 2nd favorite of the day, this was $9 and it is so neat b/c the lid has a slit like a piggy bank and the child puts the "cookies" in and then pulls the lid open and dumps them and closes the lid to start again. The "cookies" are numbered 1-5 so you can teach counting and number order once they have moved past the motor skills of the toy.

We threw a fit to have this one right away. Big Sis is helping Wiggle Worm out with it. She wanted to teach the numbers and number order right away...but contented herself to just helping Wiggle Worm figure out the basics.

I have pretty much decided that we will only do LHTH on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This keeps my Tuesdays open for Tinytown and possibly my Thursdays open for some Mommy time with my friends and their kids too.

So, I guess we will be doing Tot School on M,W,F and Tuesdays at Tinytown and Throw Away Thursdays from now on out.

Wacky Wednesdays

Wacky Wednesday with Wiggle Worm...and it went pretty okay. I do not see how all of you blogging Mommas get your pics while working with the little one. I took lots of crazy pics today and not many that I really intended to get and the ones I wanted...well, they escaped my grasp...
But on to today's Tot School....


We are walking Pooh on our A (we say aa instead of ay). We are focusing on the sounds of the letters instead of their names right now. He was supposed to walk the A after Pooh...but we had an A stomp instead. Much more fun for a boy.

Here we are doing our circles of color to start our color hunt. The circles at the top are my example circles. Yet again, today we are a lefty.

We found the color red. Alas, being the firetruck lover we are...the rest of our hunt was more or less Mommy hunting and showing and Wiggle Worm towing the firetruck with us.


We have started doing our Sandpaper Letters and there is a wonderful site with instructions on using and introducing sandpaper letters.

http://www.montessoritraining.net/preschool_kindergarten/courses/language_arts/sample_lessons.htm


Here we are doing our counting caterpillars page for LHTH. It went well and we counted to five (six actually...he didn't stop when we were out of caterpillars). And I have no clue why his tongue is out in this pic either.

All in all, a good day.

Wiggle Worm's stuff and area

I thought that I would show everyone what we use and where we store it. We are a works in progress tot school. I haven't quite gotten it all figured out how to keep stuff separate from our toys and keep his little hands from getting into some of it.

This is a simple less than $20 bookshelf I bought at Family Dollar (no tools required). The top shelf holds my teacher's manual for LHTH as well as the books that I don't want his little fingers into.

This is a little $1 metal basket I got in Target's $1 section as well as about 8 Sesame Street books on colors, letters, shapes, night time, bath time, numbers, body parts...(also from the $1 section in Target). If you have a Target or a Super Target, check out the $1 section it is a gold mine of resources.

I absolutely love this metal CD bin that I got at Target (not in the $1 section but less than $6). I use it to hold my flashcards. As you can see before Wiggle Worm had gotten into them and tore the boxes. This is a great way for me to have all my cards in one place and organized.

I am going to shamelessly plug another site now. These are my sandpaper letters (wonderfully made) by Polliwog Learning. And held in yet another of my $1 baskets. The numbers didn't fit so I will have to get a bigger basket.

They have more than just the sandpaper letters and numbers. Their site will do them more justice than my raving about them endlessly.
So, check it out...
http://www.polliwoglearningproducts.com/index.htm


Yet again, I will give Target free advertising...This is my puzzle keeper thing...and yes, I am sure there is a real name for the thing...I just don't remember what it said on the package, lol. This is just $20 and comes with 6 puzzles. It is a super buy for any toddler and helps to keep the puzzles neat and without missing pieces. It did take about 1 1/2 weeks for my little one to start putting it away properly, but now we are golden.

This is a picture that shows how I keep some of my stuff out of little hands. The sandpaper letters and his box of colors, markers, paints, glue, scissors...go on the mantel. I learned this lesson the hard way. I may post pics of my mural in the hallway that Wiggle Worm so graciously presented me.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

Tuesdays are our play date days. We go to a local church that has a really neat inside gym similar to the slides and climbing in some of the McDonald's and Chuck E Cheese stores. We have been going with another Mom who has an almost 3 daughter.
I wish I would have took my camera so I could have posted pics of our fun time. They even give a happy meal style box when you leave that has some fun stuff for the kids and a lollipop.
It is a real good time and they open it up to anyone...not just church members.
I will remember our camera next time to get some pics of how great a time we have there.

Our Official First Day

Okay, I have bit the bullet and created a blog for my little wiggleworm. I think this will be fun. I hope that I can figure it all out. Anyway, here are some pics from our 1st Official Day!

This is our Hands-on Fun from A to Z Wikki Stix Alphabet Learning Cards. Wow that was a mouthful.

Still checking out the Wikki Stix

Our Finished Aa Ant Wikki Stix Card (our ant has some issues :) )

Coloring with our Kumon Let's Color book (look I'm a lefty)Wait I am a righty

Well, those are some pics of the stuff we did at our table today. We also started HOD's Little Hands to Heaven, but I didn't have the black tempera paint for the art activity.

If any of you like the prang coloring and art supplies, Therapro.com has them on sale right now. They have a really good watercolor set for toddlers that comes with a drape. It is discontinued and on sale for $5. Plus if you buy $35 worth of stuff shipping is free. It is definitely worth a look. I bought the marker sets, coloring sets (their crayons are wonderful), and the watercolor set. I also got the wikki alphabet cards from them too.

http://www.theraproducts.com/index.php?main_page=product_therapro_info&products_id=321239

BTW, the green on his chin isn't from trying to eat the wikki stix...we had had jellybeans before starting. :)

Tot School!

After reading everyone's blogs and enjoying all the ideas that come from Tot School, I can't wait to jump right in and get started. To learn more about Tot School click on the link above.