Tot School--Special Edition

Tot School went a little differently than usual this week. Remember how I said a while back that I was setting up the workbox system for the kids for school in the fall? Well, it's finished, and the kids have been dying to try it out. We use our office/guest room for the school room, and the kids have been constantly in there looking to see if anything is in the boxes. One night, I decided to fill the boxes just to kind of see how long it would take me to plan every night, and in the morning, both kids were begging to "do school". So, I thought, why not? If anything, it'll get them used to the system for the fall.

We did school activities twice this week using the workbox system, and it's been going pretty well. Ironically, the "fun" boxes have been the only ones the kids complained about. I guess I'm not that good at picking fun activities! I'm trying really hard though! ;) They actually look forward to the ones filled with curriculum stuff instead!?!

Here are some pictures of the boxes filled for the next time we do a school session. Blogger is being a bit stubborn tonight, so the pics aren't exactly in the order I would like them, but you get the idea.

Here's a close up of Bean's shelf with the top three boxes pulled out to see what is inside. I got the numbers from Sue's site, and made the "work with mom" tags myself, using clipart from Word:

Here is a shot of Bean's whole shelf. We are only doing 7 boxes on this day. The tag on #1 is a circle time tag, meaning the three of us will work together on this one:
Here's Miss O's shelf:

And Miss O's shelf and desk. The desks came from an online furniture retailer called Hertz. I looked into getting a kid's table instead, but it was actually much cheaper to do it this way (plus, the desks will grow with them, as the legs extend):

And here's Bean's desk and shelf. The shelves and boxes came from Target. The white rectangle you see on the desk is his "game board". It's where the numbers on the boxes go when he finishes a box. When all the numbers are on the board, he knows he is done with school (all of this is in Sue's book, so be sure to head over there and purchase it if this interests you at all):

Tot School

Miss O is 36 months old.

This week in Tot School:

Miss O colored:

She and Little Bean tried out these squeezable paints that Miss O received as a birthday present from some family friends:
She worked with this Guidecraft mystery puzzle:

And she worked with her magna doodle:

Miss O and Little Bean played with these puppets my mom got at Michael's Craft Store several months ago: Miss O was really into playdough this week. She was loving cutting the dough into tiny "cookies" for me to "eat":

Here she is playing with Legos. The house you see in the picture was built by her:

They asked to play with TJ Bearytales, which is like the Teddy Rukspin of this generation:

They sorted counting bears. This has been a favorite this week:

And finally, Miss O reading a Froggy book we checked out from the library:

Be sure to check out more Tot School posts at www.1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com

Tot School

Lots of games in Tot School this week. I used to keep all of our "educational" games up on a high shelf in the playroom, but this week I moved them all to the guest room closet on a low shelf. The kids wanted to try out every product in there when they saw the closet open like that. :)

Here, Miss O is sorting bears. I picked these up at the thrift store this week for less than two dollars! She and Bean sorted, counted, and made patterns, but for the most part, they just used them to pretend and make up stories. :)

Miss O inserting coins into our cash register. She really enjoyed this, and I am hoping some of the coin names will sink in.
Here she is with an animal matching game--another thrift store find, but we've had this one for a while. Also, it appears to be some sort of "happy meal" toy from Rubios:

This is a simple alphabet game I made up for the kids to play using our foam alphabet puzzles from Michael's Craft Store:

Here they are playing color and shape Bingo. This is a Leap Frog game, and it comes with multiple spinners and bingo cards for different educational skills (shapes, colors, animals, numbers, even addition).

This is a really interesting activity where the kids had to sort the shapes onto rods according to the pattern on the card. The one Miss O is doing is simply a color sort, which she found pretty challenging because she was following the pattern on a card, rather than just adding to an existing sort (I hope that made sense!), but there are 15 or so different types of sorting and patterning activity cards for this game. This one came from a teaching supply store.

Candyland. Miss O threw a fit when every card she turned over wasn't a "special" card. She still ended up winning, but would rather have just pulled the special cards each turn! ;)

Eric Carle's ABC game. I believe we got this two Christmas's ago from my parents. We have never played it just because it comes with a ton of cards that all have to be laid out beside the game board. It's very cute, but as for the fun factor, I wasn't impressed, and neither were the kids. :(

Here Miss O is playing with a three part alphabet puzzle. This came from Ross:

And lastly, her doorbell dollhouse, by Melissa and Doug. I got this one used on ebay. She absolutely loves it! This was a birthday present from us--each of the four sides has a door with a lock and matching numbered key as well as a different sounding doorbell. Miss O is rewarded for finding the right key and opening the lock when she finds a tiny doll inside each door.

Be sure to check out other Tot School posts on this website!

Tot School--Better Late Than Never

Lately I've been really lazy with the picture taking for Tot School, and this week I am actually 3 days late in posting my Tot School post. Ah! I need to get back in the game, I guess! Not to mention that I had a bunch of posts scheduled out last week, and for some reason none of them posted. I am now having to go through and check to make sure the scheduled posts actually published each day, which pretty much defeats the purpose of scheduled posting. Anyone else having this issue with blogger of late?

We had a pretty laid back week in Tot School. Miss O turned 3 this week, so the highlight of our week was making, frosting and eating cupcakes! :)


Miss O frosting her cupcake:

She was SO into pouring and mixing:
Here she is pouring in the oil:
Bean poured the mix:

Miss O reading:

Making 'O's on the Magna Doodle:

Silly Putty:

This is a brand new "old" game I picked up for 50 cents at the thrift store. The cards hadn't even been opened, but it looked like something made in the 80's! This is a Lutheran produced family communication game. The basic idea is that the players get to choose a colored card on their turn and answer the question on the card, then move their game piece. The questions are related to building each other up as a family, opening the lines of communication, building confidence, and talking about hard or important questions. The kids both really loved this game!

Miss O made a snake sock puppet:

Finally, Miss O using the dry erase board:

Tot School

Miss O is 2 years and 11 months.

This week in Tot School:

Miss O played with these K Nex:

She and Little Bean blew bubbles: She did this sound matching game. We haven't brought this out in a LONG time, and she really liked it! Miss O strung a Cheerio bracelet: She colored, always a favorite: Miss O read: Miss O spontaneously lined up these Dora dominoes: The three of us played a few games of dominoes: Here she is dressing up as a train conductor! Miss O did the nesting dolls. She frequently gets these down, maybe because she loves dolls of all kinds: I was surprised when she brought this six sided puzzle down. With my help we completed two sides together:
I got this set of four wooden puzzles at the thrift store for $2.50. Miss O could do them with help, but Little Bean was a super star with these!
Miss O also brought down this little used activity, and began attempting to stack the shapes as high as she could: And lastly, Miss O sorted these letter tiles for a while. She is taking forever (compared to Little Bean) to learn her letter names and sounds, so I try to give her lots of exposure: