Tot School – Dec. 27, 2009

M is 40 months old

Tot School was pretty much non-existent this past week, but we managed to get a few things in…
Snowflake matching:
I printed the snowflakes from here, cut them into cards and M tried matching them up in our pocket chart. He did pretty well with this considering some of them were pretty tricky.
No picture for this one, but I printed some snowman grid gameboards from here, and we took turns rolling a die, then putting that number of cotton balls on our game cards. We went top to bottom and left to right. Whoever filled their card first won.
M’s cousin S came over for the day on Tuesday and we made homemade playdough. I didn’t add any coloring (it was a little off-white due to the brownish vanilla I put in it), but we did add silver glitter and vanilla extract. Yum! And pretty! I set out a tray of goodies: There’s buttons, googley eyes, ribbons, pipecleaners, and various lids here.
And the kids had a great time making snowmen:
Aren’t they adorable? And if you’re wondering which child used the pipecleaners for super-long noses… well, that would be my child, hee hee. ;)
We also used up our green playdough that was getting a little old. We used cookie cutters, glass pebbles, colored pasta, buttons, and glitter glue to decorate them. M gave these to grandparents and godparents for Christmas.
On Christmas Eve we had about 8 inches of snow dumped on us. I grabbed a couple of buckets and M played (well over an hour) with real snow and his little cars on the kitchen floor.I’ve noticed that if I occupy him with this kind of thing, he is quite happy to play on his own as long as I’m sitting at the table, cooking, or just hanging out in the kitchen. We explored how snow melted into water and then we set it back outside. Saturday morning he remembered it and we brought it in and he played with the ice!
I hope you are all having a Merry Christmas (remember, Christmas has just begun - it lasts for 12 days!!!). :)
For more tot school, go here!

Book of the Week – Dec. 26, 2009

 
The hit of the week is, without doubt, GO!, by Daniel Kirk.  We made a quick run to the library on Monday and this was one that M picked out on his own. 
I had my doubts.  My husband had his doubts.  That night at bedtime M picked this to read… and we doubted some more. :)
However, M never doubted it; he knew it was a keeper.  And the next day when I pulled the CD out and we listened to it, I realized just how right he was.  This book is awesome!  Don’t try to read it as poetry, it just doesn’t work.  It’s songs – songs with some really weird lyrics and totally kid-friendly melodies.  The songs have super-catchy tunes, the book has amazingly interesting illustrations, and we are absolutely loving it.  M has listened to it no less than 5 times in the past 2 days – he sits on his bed with his nose in the book and listens to all 23 songs.  This equals 45 minutes of freedom for me, which is not the least of the reasons why I love it. ;)
There’s a song about a boy who wants to be an airplane when he grows up.  There’s a song about rollerblading to school.  There’s even a couple you might already know, but with new fun tunes.  It’s great, great, great – I think everyone I know with kids should go out and buy it.  It’s really that great! :)  Hee hee.
If you don’t buy it, at least see if your library has it.  It’s well worth the time!  And give it a chance, with the music, before you judge it!
Check out more book reviews here!
Have a beautiful day! :)