Isaac is 32 months

Miriam is 15 months

Water Play

I have been wanting to do some pouring activities with Isaac for some time now.  This summer I had it in the back of my mind to do a water sensory tub outside, but never got around to it.  Now that the weather is cooling off, that idea will have to wait until next summer ;-)  But it has been warm here a few days this week, so Isaac and I headed outside to play in the water.  I realized as we were doing this, that he has never poured any liquid before!! So, we will continue to work on this.  He absolutely loved it and had a great time.  I had to strip him before we went back in the house. . . he was absolutely soaked, but had a huge smile on his face!

Alphabet Matching

I brought out our Alphabet Matching cards this week along with our pocket chart.  I made these cards out of 2 identical posters I got from the Dollar Tree.  I cut them out, laminated them, and now we use them for matching games.

Our pocket chart came with these sight words and also a set of Alphabet cards (without pictures).  To add a little extra this time, I had Isaac match up the correct card (without pictures) to the correct letter.  We then also talked about “words” and how they are made up of our letters.  I used the sight word cards and had him tell me what the first letter was in the word, and we matched those up too. 

Little Touch Leap Pad

  We pull this out at least once a week.  We now have 5 books that go with it and he LOVES it!  I had a whole stack of stuff to play with on this particular day and this was what he chose.  Miriam just likes to flip through the pages and doesn’t want me to show her how to play yet.  ;-)

Lovin’ Our Lacing Blocks

We’re including Miriam more and more in our Tot School play times.  It has been great and it’s fun introducing Miriam to all these new things!

I love how she is holding out a block to her brother!!

I noticed that Isaac stacked up the blocks by shape all on his own! He seems to have quite the organizational mind! (I’m sure there’s a much more technical word for it, but he likes things neat and organized)

Miriam and I had fun with the blocks while Isaac was napping.  I showed her the hole in the blocks and how to lace them together.  Here in this pic she is sticking her finger in the hole ;-)  We had such a good time and made some precious memories.  She was content to sit on my lap and snuggle as we played.   And of course I absolutely LOVED IT!!  She is such a little doll!

Bottle Cap Fun

We played with the bottle caps one day and both kids enjoyed it.  I first brought them out while Miriam was still taking her morning nap.  As Isaac was putting them in the container, we would call out what color it was, or what letter I had written on the cap.  As we were doing it, it gave me some more ideas of how to play with the bottle caps.  Hopefully more on that in a couple of weeks!

Miriam got in on the fun once she woke up. 

I had some tumblers that we have used with color sorting.  Isaac picked up the blue one and declared it his.  He then put all the blue bottle caps in it.  I have come to the conclusion that his favorite color is blue.  He picked out a blue fish the other day from our letter F printables and declared it his too.  ;-)

  Miriam loved playing with the tumblers as much as the bottlecaps.  She would stack and restack them.  In this pic I pulled out the green, orange, and blue caps and the same color cups.  I showed her how the colors matched, but she just wanted to play with the cups ;-)  I don’t have a picture of it, but Aaron played with her some with them.  She would hand him the stack, then he would only let her have one back at a time.  Once she had them all stacked again, she would hand them back to her daddy.

My cute kids also like the sound they make when they talk into the cups :)

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

I desire to LIVE HEALTHY, not only for myself, but for my family.  I want to model a healthy lifestyle for my children, so they can grow up and know what it is to live healthy and already have those habits formed in them.  So, I have decided I am going to let you all in on the journey :)  Sometimes I look at myself and see so many things that I want to change, but I have come to realize that I do much better working on one thing at a time.   (And I am able to stick with it!)  I’ve heard it said a few times that it takes around 3 weeks to change a habit.  So I am going to be working in three week increments.  I will be working on a habit for three weeks, checking in on Mondays to let you know how I did (accountability is a good  thing!).  After the three weeks I will move on to the next habit that I would like to change, keeping up with the previous ones.  First off I am going to change what I drink.  I like sugar.  I love sweet tea and soda. :( And I definitely don’t drink enough water.  So my goal for the next three weeks, (and forever) is to seriously change what I drink.  Here’s what it will look like:

• one glass of juice in the morning mixed in with my liquid vitamin
• one - two cups of hot tea a day (breakfast and/or evening)
• one cup of coffee (during my Bible Study)
• 8 glasses of water

And that’s it!  That’s what I will be working on these next few weeks.  How about you? Are there any unhealthy habits you want to work on in the next three weeks?

Isaac is 32 months

Miriam is 14.5 months

This week we mostly did a little of this and a little of that. :)  We reviewed our letters we have learned so far: A-F and will probably continue that through this coming week.  Any printables you see are from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler!.

Enjoying the Sunshine

Our First Sensory Bin!!

I have had a sensory bin on my “to do” list for quite some time.  We have been having beautiful weather and one afternoon I just started going around the house collecting stuff to put together our FIRST!!!! sensory bin and take it outside.

Both kids enjoyed it so much! The hardest part was keeping the spoon out of Miriam’s mouth!

  In our bin we had rice, pinto beans, alphabet letters, artificial flowers, pom-poms, cars, and measuring cups and spoons.

Miriam’s First . . .

time playing with Play-doh!! 

and her first time playing with Pom-Pom Magnets!! 

Favorite Moments of the week :)

I was finishing up something in the kitchen and asked Isaac if he wanted to “read” his book while he waited on me.  This is how he ended up.  Absolutely precious!  For this bookwormish mommy, I LOVE to see my little guy enjoying books! 

Veggie Tales Live!!

Wednesday we got to see Veggie Tales Live as a family!  We all had a great time and the kids absolutely LOVED it! (even though we were cutting into naptime!)  Both kids bounced, swayed, and sang along with the music.  It is such a joy to see your kids having so much fun!

 Reading with Daddy

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

This particular recipe is my first very own creation :-)  I had wanted something with chicken and corn and creamy so I started looking up recipes and used ideas from about 3 or 4!  The result is one of my favorite comfort soups.  It is so quick to make and easy to keep ingredients in stock.  The other week I even made it on Saturday evening to have for Sunday lunch!  We like it with grilled cheese sandwiches :)

Here’s what you need:

• 1/2 – 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb. cooked chicken, cubed or pulled
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 can whole corn or bag frozen corn
• 1 can diced potatoes or 2 medium potatoes peeled, cubed, and cooked
• (optional) 1 c peas, bacon, and/or shredded cheese
• Above picture is without optional ingredients.

How to fix it:

• In your soup pot, sauté onion in butter and olive oil.
• Combine soup, milk, and broth and add to pot.
• Then add cooked chicken, corn, and potatoes to soup. (opt. peas) and simmer until heated/cooked through.
• Top with bacon and cheddar if desired.

Isaac is 32 months

Miriam is 14.5 months

We had another fun week of Tot School.  Right now we’re averaging about 2-3 days out of the week of having official Tot School time.    My dad came in for a short one day visit this week too, which was extra fun!

Online Fun

Isaac and I played one day on the computer.  We love the Fisher-Price online learning games!  They have a fun alphabet zoo game where he learns letter recognition and we also played a few new games this time!  One focused on colors and shapes and another we played taught him opposites. 

This was his first time using the mouse! He would learn in/out, up/down, etc and then had to click on the picture that corresponded with the one they called out.

Alphabet Foam Tiles

We started off “trying” to play a game where he would jump on the letter I called out . . . but that didn’t work.  Maybe next time :)

So then we put them in order and took the letters out of the squares and made a puzzle so he could match up the letters.

He did great with this!

Miriam had a lot of fun playing with these too!

And when you’re done learning your alphabet, you can wear them like a necklace.  Silly kids :-P

Ff is for Fish

All of our printables this week are from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler!

Miss Miriam

She is becoming such a little ham!

I really have no idea what she is doing, but she does it often, I caught her twice.  It’s kind of like she is giving me a cheesy smile and she tilts her head back while she is doing it. ;-)

On a more serious note . . . . :-)  Books are keeping her attention more and more.  Although she rarely looks at the pictures, she just likes to turn the pages, over and over again!

Our little princess :)

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