A New Tot Spot


We have a full basement downstairs that we are gradually working on finishing.  Right now we have our guest bedroom along with Aaron’s office and my laundry room/ office.  Eventually we are also wanting to put in a bathroom and a family room.  But for now, I’m claiming the wanna-be family room as our Tot School room :-)  Isaac and I worked on getting things cleaned out and we moved things around to get it ready for this coming week. We have had this table for some time and it is the perfect height and size!!  On the left is also my big bulletin board that I have decided to use for our Calendar time.  (notice no calendar yet, hehe hopefully in the next week or two)  And to the right is our amazing find at our favorite consignment store!  This easel is heavy duty!  Chalkboard on one side, magnetic wipe off board on the other, and a roll of paper in the middle to drape over either side.  When we were finished getting things set up and cleaned up, we had a little fun with our pom-pom magnets ;) 

This might start out somewhat of a confession ;-)  I had started the Bible in 90 Days challenge and well . . . .I think it is almost over  . . .and I’m in Deuteronomy . . . . yes I was very hard on myself and quite discouraged when I fell off the wagon around week 2.  We had company come in and other things going on and I just couldn’t keep up and then just gave up (not on spending quiet time with the Lord, just on the 90 day challenge ;-)  (To do the amount of reading to make it all the way through in 90 days was about 45 – 60 minutes a day) So I am somewhat starting it back up again, at least the reading through the Bible part.  I have never read all the way through the Bible and I feel it is important to be able to see it as a whole.  So many times, in pretty much all of life, we have dissected the Bible and discussed, taught on, preached on a small portion of Scripture.  Sometimes that small portion is related to the whole, and sometimes it is sorely misinterpreted because of taking it out of context.   (I can already tell this post is going to be longer than I had anticipated)  So right now my morning quiet time is consists of praying through the Psalms and writing in my prayer journal and now I will be adding reading as much as I can before the kids wake up! 

Since I woke up at the same time as the kids this morning, I had my quiet time after they went to bed.  So this evening I starting reading in Deuteronomy.  This book is one of those that I have  not spent a lot of time in during my short lifespan and now I feel so disappointed that I haven’t!  I am taken back by the richness of this book and the depiction of God’s great love and faithfulness to his people!  At the beginning of the book, the Israelites are ready to enter into the promise land (Finally!) and Moses is going to give them the Commands of the Lord.  Instead of saying, here are the laws, now abide by them, he goes back and gives them a summary of their journey.  And most importantly, a summary of God’s faithfulness even in the midst of their grumbling and disobedience.  In the first third of the book, Moses lays the groundwork for why they should obey the Lord’s commands.  There are several repeating themes:

• God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
• God’s deliverance in the past and his faithfulness to deliver the promised land to them. 
• God himself would fight for Israel.
• The LORD is GOD!!
• God’s great love for his people! He called them to be his own, they are his treasured possession! (7:6)
• God’s desire for his people to come to Him, to know Him, to obey Him!
• That the commands of the Lord would be impressed upon their hearts! and that they would teach them to their children.  (At all times and at every opportunity! I  feel in my heart this is one reason why I feel the tug to homeschool our children!)
• God is bringing them into a good land.
• His law is for their good.

These is so much in these few chapters (right now I’m only up to Chapter 11)    But God is giving the law to his chosen ones because HE LOVES THEM!  He desires his best for them.  I love those words:  treasured possessions!    Even in the midst of the Israelites grumblings, complaining, mistrust and seriously turning their back on God, He still calls out to them and says:

“Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever”. (Deut 5:29) 

The depths of God’s love is amazing. 

 

I couldn’t resist taking this pic when I walked in to check on them yesterday.  They looked so peaceful.  They made a nap look so good I soon followed their example ;-)

(Yes, Isaac is claiming my Boppy pillow as his own :)

• We made an unexpected trip to see family this week. (Mon afternoon to Wed afternoon)
• I took my youth Sunday School class out to lunch and to the Mad Platter to paint some pottery on Thursday.
• Friday was my birthday and I got a pleasant surprise . . . my mom came for a short visit!  So we went shopping and out to lunch!

 

 Leap Frog Counting Farm

 
He loves this counting book from Leap Frog! I had put it away for a while and brought it back out this week.  I feel like I say this every week, but it is amazing to watch him grow and learn!  This time he found the correct animal on the block to go with each page and counted out loud by himself!

 

 

 
To see what other moms are doing in Tot School this week, check out the official Tot School site!

Last Saturday we had a Ladies Tea and Brunch at our church! It was such a special time of fellowship and renewal. 

 

As you can tell there was a lot of talent and creativity that went into putting this all together! We have a special lady in our church that is incredibly gifted in organization and planning of special events like this.  I am so grateful she is willing and excited to use her gifts for God’s glory and to minister to others.

A special thanks to another lady in our church that lent the beautiful handmade tablecloths and some of the china!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great group of ladies that came out (a few more came after pictures)

We used this time together to introduce our fall Bible Study.  We will be doing a Beth Moore study - Esther: It’s Tough Being a Woman.  We are going to have two groups again!!  One of our precious ladies who helped pull the brunch together is leading the morning group again this fall and I will be leading the evening group.  I am so excited to once again be a part of a ladies Bible study.  I love seeing women grow in the Lord and falling in love with His Word! 

Our Saturday mornings consist of pancakes and Veggie Tales all while spending time together in our pajamas!  Our normal week is so busy that I have intentionally made Saturdays our morning off to just relax and spend time together.  It’s also something for me to look forward to after a long busy week! 

 

Isaac watching Veggie Tales! This kid LOVES television!  Miriam on the other hand, could care less and she just likes to run around the living room playing.  This is where she hung out while the TV was on.  She can get up on the rocking horse by herself now!

 

Isaac is 30 months

Miriam is 12 months

We had a full week of Tot School this week and were able to do four days straight in a row!! (That is such a nice feeling!) On Saturday mornings (usually ;) I sit down and plan things out for the week: menus, grocery list , Tot School, updating my calendar for church and personal activities and my to-do list! This helps me tremendously to take this hour or so to do this!  If I have any printables to make, I try to make sure they’re done by Saturday evening. I then have a basket that I put all of our Tot School toys and printables in for that week, along with my planning sheet.  Each day this week I have been able to go to my basket, look at my sheet and pull out the items we need for that day!  This little bit of planning has made it so easy this week!

 (The planning sheet came in a Excel file from the Letter of the Week Curriculum.  This alone has been worth paying the minimal fee for the whole curriculum download!! It saves so much time! I just adjust it to fit our needs.)

All the printables this week (except the ABC matching) are from

Taking It Outside

  We had Tot School outside a couple of days this week!  Someone had generously given us this cute table and it works perfectly for us!  Our normal Tot time is from around 10 – 11, and the weather has been perfect around this time to be outside! 

This is Isaac’s first time with Play-doh!  As you will see he LOVED it!!  We made the letter C and placed it on our tracing sheet printable.

 

 

We also worked on a “C is for Caterpillar” puzzle.  I mostly showed him how to match up the colors and put it together.  As soon as we were done, he wanted to “clean up” and get the Play-doh out again!

 

Play-doh:  Round 2 

 

The first time around, I showed Isaac how to roll the play-doh out to make the Letter C and how to place it on the letter.  This time, he placed it on the mat himself and tried to make the letter.  (It was still rolled from the previous time :-)

Then we moved on to our caterpillar number game.  This was originally a floor game that I reduced to save precious ink ;-)  I called out the numbers as we laid it out, but as you can see Isaac was mostly interested in getting his lacing cards out!

 

Isaac did the best he has ever done with his lacing cards!!  I was so proud of him!

 

We then got out our magnets and put our squares in the circles to make the letter C.  We didn’t do this for very long, because Isaac wanted to play with the Play-doh again!!

Play-doh:  Round 3

 

We also played with the sidewalk chalk.  Isaac didn’t do much drawing.  He was more interested in trying to get the chalk out of the wrapper :)

 

He did manage to scribble a little on the sidewalk, next to my ABC’s.

 

One option for the D0-a-Dot page was to use stickers instead of the markers.  Isaac loves trying to get the stickers off the paper!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the week I had painted some clothespins to go with another color matching game.  I didn’t have any plain ones left for our number card game, so I just used the painted ones.  Our time evolved from putting the correct number of pins on the card to color matching! 

He was so proud of himself! This pic cracks me up!

 

He took it upon himself to “clean up”.  =D  Makes a mommy proud!

 

As we were working on the letter C this week, we read the Hungry Little Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  In the letter C printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler, there are some cards you can make to go along with the story! 

As we read the story, I handed him the cards and we would count how many pieces of food the caterpillar was eating (1 apple, two pears, etc)  We read through this a couple of times and then he wanted to give the apple to the caterpillar to eat ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We played some more with our nesting blocks!

And once again we found ourselves outside!  We colored our C page and called out the colors as he picked them up.  He is doing so well with color matching and is just starting to name the color by himself now!  So exciting for this mommy! 

(We also think he might be a lefty!  Even today at lunch he did better with his left hand!)

 

We also worked on some shape sorting this week.

 

He is a pro at matching them up, so now we are working on him telling me verbally what the shape is.

  

I found these fun mini foam alphabet letters for $1.00 at Walmart this week!  It was perfect timing because Carisa at 1+1+1=1 just posted a new alphabet printable!  It was the perfect size!

 

We matched them up, called out the letter and the sound it makes.

 

I think took the square part of the foam pieces and he had to match up the letter.

More magnet fun! This time he hung in there a little longer and we used our pom-pom magnets.

He also thought it would be a great idea to store his magnets underneath his tray ;-)

Then we did our first cut and past!  I did the cutting and Isaac did the pasting.

We tried our number sort caterpillar game and this time it held his interest a little longer.  We did it a few times before he decided to mix them all up (picture below ;)

And that was our week! My goal for the next few weeks is to be more consistent with Isaac and ALOT more consistent with Miriam.  Right now my time with her is from 2-3pm, when Isaac goes down for his nap and right before her afternoon nap.  More posts to come on the things we do together during Miriam’s special time.

 

To see what other moms are doing in Tot School this week, check out the official Tot School site!