Tot School

LilSweetie is 24 months 

(During this TotSchool)

She plays so well by herself and is undemanding of my attention for the most part. Actually she takes it further and really prefers to do it herself - story reading, project work, playing with toys.  "Do it myself - Mommy go over 'dare" is almost her mantra. On the other side, Turbo prefers to have my time and attention every minute of the day. He wants to do his school work on my lap (mostly a 'no') and considers me his primary playmate. Too many nights I've put the kids to bed and realized LilSweetie's only 1:1 time with me was story and lullaby before bed. Can someone say Mommy guilt!

So I'm especially grateful to do Totschool with LilSweetie as it's ensuring she gets my focused time. She, now,  understands we do 'school' together and we're both enjoying this time tremendously.

We're using Carisa's TotSchool Printables combined with tray activities.

Since we're doing most things together, I don't have tons of pictures - plus I forget to take them.

This was our first weeks of TotSchool, so I kept the trays to a minimum and used these for two weeks to get a sense of what she really enjoyed, how she'd respond to a toy she'd mastered and what she didn't prefer or seem to understand.

Here's where I keep her trays.

Sorting. She didn't care to do it at all.  Maybe I should have put a picture on the bottom of each container. Even after a week of just playing with the items, when I encouraged her to put the Monkeys here and the Turtles there, she wasn't interested.  Next time I'll change it up and make it more simple for her.

Lacing Snake. She enjoyed this at first and chose it several times. By the next week, she had started to pass it up.

Puzzle. She played with this shape puzzle significantly more than I anticipated.  I imagined it would be easy and boring for her, but no. She chose it almost every day for two weeks.


In/Out/Open/Close.  HUGE HIT. She played with this often for the entire two weeks. She'd lay out the cups and put a ball on top. She'd open the container, put in the balls while counting them, then close it up.

Color Wheel.  This was a completely new concept for her. She'd not worked with clothespins before nor done color matching. She enjoyed this and chose it several times.

 

Lots of drawing on the whiteboard. She does great with the pens so I leave them out for her.

Playdough!

Much more stuff, but seriously inserting a picture to blogger from picasa webalbum is getting frustrating because of some technical problems. I've been trying to post this for almost a week and so I have to just move on.  Darn blogger - I love you and you frustrate me!

Learn more about TotSchool here!  
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Tot School ~ Little Sweetie ~ 13 months

Tot School

Little Sweetie is 13 months

While we do a lot, again, I don't have many pictures. I need to get my little camera and sit it next to me while I work with Little Sweetie.  I've been using Rick's SLR camera and while it's wonderful, it's big and a complete baby magnet! 

Here are the hightlighted things I had out for her this week

- Ball and basket ~ HUGE Hit. She really loves ball and is getting good at throwing!

- Laugh and Learn Piggy Bank - This is still one of her favorite toys. She can do all of it herself and plays with it often.

- Bowl, spoon and cup - She's getting good at feeding herself at meal time and enjoyed the pretend practice.

- Blue Bristle Blocks - Wasn't interested in playing with the few in the basket. She likes the big tub.

- Stacking Cups - She loves to play these with Turbo and by herself. She understands the nesting and tries to stack them.

- Baby Touch & feel books - this girl loves her books and will happily sit there while I read book after book.

We played ball a lot this week. Rolling, dunking, and a little bit of keep-a-way by Turbo.

Hanging out with Brother working on food matching. This climbing business is new to me as she is really very daring!

Family Calendar Time.  Little Sweetie really has the cruising down and goes after what she wants!



She is so excited when Turbo builds something for her to knock down.



This girl is into her ACCESSORIES!  She especially loves to use Turbo's (clean) underware as a bracelet.



Or a Hat.



Big smiles for her brother

Going after the chalk

Working together

Working on a drawing

Other Posts This week
~ See what Turbo did doing during Preschool Time
~ Check out our Calendar Time for this year

Head over to 1+1+1=1 to see what others are doing with their Tots!

Tot School ~ Little Sweetie!

Tot School

Little Sweetie ~ 13 months

I think this might be my first real Tot School post for Lil' Sweetie.  I'm not structured in my approach with her. We're just playing together and having fun. Alas, since we're playing together, I'm not taking many pictures. 

I'll start with her 'trays'.  They're not really trays, just pieces of felt that designate an area for the highlighted weekly toys.   We have little cars and a paper tube; Leapfrog Magnet letters; a chunky puzzle; pompoms and a tall container; spoon and bowl; nesting/stacking cups.

The things on the bottom shelf were a smash hit!  The things on the top were mostly unloved. The puzzle got some playtime, but not much.  I rotated their placement throughout the week, but it didn't help much.
These are all the pictures I took of her tray play.  Be assured we played with those stacking cups more times than I can count!

 

The thing she wants the most is Turbo's car. Just to make it interesting around here, Turbo is ultra-possessive of this car. Can you hear the crying from our house every day?  It's worth it to see her very excited face while playing with it.  (we're working on the sharing thing, I hear it can take awhile HA! any tips?)

She played with Playdough for the first time (*blush* didn't even think to give it to her earlier) You can see she really loved it. It is the perfect thing to occupy them both while I'm making dinner. 

We also did a lot of outside playing.  We're outside everyday ~ in our yard and often to a park.

Playing toss with brother.  She LOVES to play ball. 

Intently listening to the directions on how to play toss & catch.

Yep, I know it's not Christmas, but I found this in a box of old things I had for Turbo and had to squish her in it while I still could.  Her legs are bent and the back couldn't zipper all the way  - but doesn't she look cute?  The photo op went quickly down hill. 

Playing with the very old camera. She was able to get the strap on and off as well as crawl with it around her neck. (closely supervised). She really likes to do the things she sees her brother doing! Although it would be nice if she would emulate the walking sometime soon!

Tot School playing really helps ensure I get that focused time with Lil'Sweetie every day ~ Just for her and totally at her level.  I love the joy of just playing with her!!

Head over to 1+1+1=1 to see what others are doing with their Tots!

Little Sweetie's first birthday

Here they are! Some pictures of Lil' Sweetie's first birthday party. It was her first piece of cake and she had NO problem getting her hands into it right away!

Notice the SIZE of that piece of cake!

 Many of these later....

It was GONE! Seriously, I still can't believe she ate the whole thing. At one point I tried to take it away. There was much squawking and the start of some crying. Of course I put it right back down.

So pleased with her self! (either that or the huge sugar rush that had to be happening!)

 In case you thought it might have ended up on the floor. Nope, not much to speak of!

Something tells me this look is going to be trouble in the future

My Little Girl is 1!

HOORAY! Our littlest baby has turned 1.  I don't have pictures of her family birthday party as they're on my hubby's computer and he's traveling.  But I didn't want to wait on my post!


Sweet Pea /Lil' Sweetie (Turbo's nickname for her), is such a joyous addition to our family.  She's happy, curious, easy going and such a terrific sleeper (Mommy really appreciates that!). She loves to imitate, be tickled and play with any of us, but especially big brother. 

Here she was just one short year ago.

Stay tuned for the 1 year birthday pictures over the weekend!

R is for...

ROLL OVER!!   Evidently Sweet Pea's in on this being R week. She rolled over for the first time today. Tummy to back over her right hand side.  She was so close for about 3 minutes so I grabbed my camera and was able to get it on video!! HOORRAY.  She didn't seem all that surprised to have rolled.  Such a cool cat.   She did it another couple times right after.

Then we had company and too many little feet running around so she didn't stay on the floor for long.  Can't wait to see if she'll do it again tomorrow.  I don't know if I'm ready for her to start moving her self around yet.  Ha, I don't know if Turbo will be ready for that either.  This is the first step to her getting into all his toys.

In the video I say she's 4 months old today, but she's 17 weeks today. She'll be 4 months on Friday. Yep, tired.