Week 3 of Tot School

Another week in the books!  It's so fun watching Sam learn!  Here was our week:

Over the weekend I bought a calendar/weather set (better explained in the picture below).  

I actually put the calendar on the other side of the felt board I made last week and then bought a small trifold.  I laminated as much as I could of all the parts so hopefully they last awhile.

So that's how our Monday started, we checked the weather outside and  put our new letter and number for the week up.  

And she made Elmo out of an E.  She really enjoys using the markers instead of crayons now.

We have a few different puzzles like these that she likes to do and also stacking her blocks:)

Tuesday was a pretty busy morning even though we skipped the library since story hour doesn't start back until next week.  Started off the same as Monday, she's starting to get the hang of it:)

Then I took advantage of her love for googly eyes and glue, E is for Eye!  Although as I'm telling her this I realize she might get confused when it comes to the letter I😂

We went outside to play and ended up playing with colors.

When Howie got home we decided to build a fort, she wanted to read the belly button book to ALL her stuffed animals, so fun!

On Wednesday, since Sam's schedule has changed recently she's been sleeping in pretty late this week so I haven't had a lot of time with her on the mornings I open at work.  Howie does a good job at keeping the same routine minus the crafts lol. Since I was in the nursery with her at church it was easier just to do her story and craft there than try to fit it in between work and church.  This week it was David and Goliath.

We made a slingshot and rocks.

Thursday was our baking day and we made this delicious Amish Cinnamon Bread!  Sam loves tasting all the different ingredients that go into the bowl😬

We also took Sam skating for the first time Thursday night with our church group, she had a lot of fun except when we tried to force her onto the skating rink😄

And once again Friday came along and I was ready to relax so after work we just played and watched some Doc Mcstuffins before heading to church to watch a movie.  

Week 2 of Tot School

This week we focused on the Letter D and Number 2.  Not going to lie on Monday I did not have a lot of motivation so I printed out a couple of coloring sheets with D and 2 and called it a day!

This picture was from Tuesday but as you can see the coloring pages were still on the table😬

On Tuesday I was much more motivated, we made a duck and went to the library although there was no story hour so we just returned our books, picked out some new ones and let Sam play.

Using glue is her favorite thing to do right now.

On Wednesday's we don't have much time between work and church so we focused on our bible lesson for the week which was Noah's Ark.  We read one of her books about it then made a craft.

Thursday's are our only real night at home so lately that's when we've been baking!  I bought stuff to make cupcakes while I was at work and we used leftover sprinkles from Christmas:).  There's quite a bit to teach her while we're baking such as following directions, counting, colors etc.  

And then of course the end result!

Friday was my night to close at work so we had the morning free.  We ended up at Walmart to get a new tire and I decided to go ahead and buy the stuff to make a felt board.  We got a big piece of foam board and enough felt to cover it, spray adhesive and Velcro.  This was the end result.  So far I've just cut out some shapes but the options are pretty unlimited.

On here it seems like I do all the teaching but really just the crafty stuff, Howie always reads to her before bed/naptime, works on flashcards with her, and reviews throughout the day.  It's definitely a joint adventure for us.

One more picture to finish out the post:  Sam helping daddy change a tire:)

Next week we are working on Letter E and Number 3, anybody have ideas??

Our first week of Tot School

Our main objectives with this is

1) Getting her to learn letters, numbers, shapes, and colors

2) be more engaged with her as far as limiting tv/phone/iPad usage throughout the day for all of us

3) start incorporating bible lessons

4) work on fine motor skills.

First I made a trip to Walmart to stock up on some supplies:

Construction paper

Markers

Glue

Pipe cleaners

Popsicle sticks

Finger paint

Wiggle eyes

In addition to what I had already gotten from the Dollar Tree:

Flash cards

Cut-out letters and numbers 

Scissors 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to start focusing on one letter per week with her, so this week we are on the letter C.  We also started with the number 1 and our bible story was Daniel in the Lions's Den.

On Monday we added the Letter C to our wall with A and B and also added the number 1.  Our craft for the day was C made out of cotton balls for cloud.  And a coloring page of the number 1.

I had seen on Pinterest where you just give your child some pipe cleaners and a strainer and let them put the pipe cleaners through the holes to work on fine motor skills.  Sam loved doing this, she sat there for a good 20-25 minutes, we also worked on colors.  She actually did this every day this week.

Next we made a Caterpillar, gluing the circles on the letter C.  We also let her practice with the scissors which is what the squares are from, she wanted to put them on the caterpillar:).  We also went to the library for storytime and checked out a few books.

On Wednesday, she did some painting and then in nursery at Church we learned about Daniel in the Lion's Den and attempted making paper plate lions.  

On Thursday we made cookies!  She loves to help cook and bake and trying all the ingredients.  We incorporated the Letter C and counting as well.

On Friday, I was quite worn out from the week and Howie was working so we didn't work on anything in particular just reinforced what we had done throughout the week.

Some things I learned about all this through the week:

1. Pinterest is amazing 

2. We do the most on Monday's and Tuesday's when I have morning's off.

3. She takes really good naps when she hasn't had any screen time.

Toddler hairstyles!

One of the things I love about having a girl is getting to do her hair!  Every so often I get on Pinterest to get some new ideas on how to do Sam's hair and here's some of the stuff I've done.

I'll start with the most basic

The side pony, this is her daily hairstyle, easy and out of her face!

And then of course there are pigtails, another easy one but also ways to mix it up.  You can do a different part or just the top half.

This is where I started doing a little more and color coordinating the pony tails with her outfit:). This one just starts with a small pony tail and keep adding hair.

This one was inspired by my lack of ability to French braid.

Trying to get even more complicated, I discovered if I used a spray bottle to get her hair wet that it was a lot easier to get all those little hairs in.

I didn't get very good pictures of this

 one but I did a side part and then a couple of the pony tails back into pigtails.

This one I did the pony tails across instead of back and then into a side pony, super cute with the big flower too.

 

This one I can't take credit for, my sister in law managed to French braid Sam's hair.  She went along with her natural part on top and it turned out really good.

This was a new one for me, I divided her hair in 3 sections, twisted the three parts in a braid fashion, put that all in a pony tail and then did a braid down.

I've done some other ones but didn't get pictures but I'm sure as her hair gets longer I'll come up with some new stuff:)

Samantha's 2nd Birthday Party

Better late than never!

We celebrated Sam's 2nd birthday on May 29th, Memorial Day weekend.  

She has been really into Veggie Tales for a long time now so it was a no brainer as far picking a theme.  However, it's next to impossible to find any party supplies with that theme in stores.  So I scoured Pinterest for ideas and found some online stores that sold Veggie Tales stuff.

First up, the invitations, I found a pack of 8 online and since we only invited family it was perfect. (Of course I didn't get a picture of those)

I found reusable plastic cups, cake plates, and balloons online as well!

The hardest part was going to be the cake but thankfully my mom is super talented and was able to perfectly duplicate a cake I found on Pinterest!

For the rest of the decorations I just bought things with the basic colors and it mixed in well.

The birthday girl!  I loved this tutu over her swimsuit:)

She hated the waterslide😂

She loved this gift, Lambie!

All the kids playing.

Water slides!

Cake time:)

Overall it was a great day, celebrating our sweet girl with family!