Creation

Tot School is typically less structured than what I'm sharing, but I still wanted to share! Tot school is typically just learning through play. Our weeks of Creation were fun, and we played with a lot more toys and speech activities than Creation activities, but I like the idea of putting my Creation thoughts together in a post. Meghan is 34 months old. We've spent the past two weeks talking about how God created the world in seven days. This was a lot of fun for M and me. We use Hubbard's Cupboard for the base, but use very little of the ideas. We focused on the verse Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. We sang it...well, I sang it. M attempted to fill in a few words. Though she is not capable of singing, she would ask for more. (I'm thankful she has no clue how horribly I sing!) This is a mini-Creation book that M colored and read. We also made binoculars to go for a walk to see all of God's creation. We mostly saw rocks, plants, and trees. We did see a few animals and friends, too though. A note here: Super glue made them much sturdier. They were also reinforced with packaging tape. We played a game putting animals in the sea or sky. (FYI, I printed them smaller than the game is made to save ink. Yes, I am cheap like that.) I purposefully made sugar cookies for this little study of creation. As it turned out the animal cookie cutters were quite large, so M only iced the much smaller heart cookies. It wasn't a bad idea though, just not as practical as I would have liked. We also ate Oreo cookies to show the dark and light like God made. We had fun with our moon magic, too. This week we'll be talking about Adam and Eve...I'm looking forward to the challenge. See others' Tot School ideas here.

Grandma Rabbitty's Visit (Review)

This past weekend while Derek's mom was visiting we found this book at the library. We checked it out (along with 18 others). Grandma Rabbitty's Visit by Barry Smith is a delightful book for toddlers. Its illustrations are vivid and have a variety of vehicles that children love in it. Some of them are a bus, ice cream truck, steam roller, and sports car. The book is also filled with a wide range of sounds that kids like to imitate. Even M was able to do this! It is not a board book, but it has the thick, durable pages that make the book last and last. Grandma Rabbitty's Visit begins with the "bring, bring" of the telephone. Grandma calls to say she's on her way for a visit. The bunny family spends the day listening to the sounds of the cars and trucks passing by wondering if each sound will bring Grandma Rabbitty. The illustrations show the family in their living room with a large window that has a wonderful view of the street and all the vehicles passing. Grandma Rabbitty finally arrives with a "vroom-vroom-vroom"-on a motorcycle! (The book calls it a motorbike.) M has enjoyed this book a great deal, and has requested it time after time. The best part is that my mom does ride (not drive) a motorcycle! How sweet! I've noticed that when books try to not stereotype, it comes off as too strong. Grandma Rabbitty's Visit is a wonderful surprise, but not because it isn't stereotypical, but because it's just plain sweet that Grandma has finally arrived. Even if your child's grandma doesn't tote a motorcycle helmet, this is still a great book for a toddler! Enjoy!

Speech Update

M is just two months away from her third birthday! WOW! She has come so far! First, we have an Early Intervention meeting scheduled for next week to see how her services will change. It's an annual meeting, and a follow up to the evaluation she had a few weeks ago that concerned me so much. It was explained to me that since the SLP, special education/early childhood teacher, and M's parents all want services to continue, they probably will. So I'm not so concerned now. Thinking of the future (the end of October) when she turns three, we have two of three evaluations scheduled for early September. These evals will lead to an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that will determine what services M will receive from the Intermediate Unit. We are waiting for the third evaluation to be scheduled. Hopefully we get the call soon. M is making wonderful progress despite the apraxia. She said, "No. E (brother's nickname). Eat. Mama. Shoe." Five words! She also started adding -ing to words by telling her brother, "No talking." He was just jabbering in the car. A little. Since then she has added -ing to other words too! It's wonderful to hear. M is putting three words together at least once a day, too. Any time she has a longer sentence "mommy", "please", and/or "more" are usually used. M will say "thank you" and "bless you" at appropriate times! The words are very high-pitched and not understandable (without context), but they are there! Her vocabulary, in general, is growing all the time too. We're excited for all the new words!

Featured On...

Just wanted to share with you that ABC and 123 featured our Moon Magic Painting that we did last week. They're a great resource for me...and will be for many years to come! It's not just for preschoolers! Check out today's post for more space ideas!

Magnetic Fun

This is not my idea. This was given to me a year or two ago to be used as a serving tray. It's a cookie sheet. Then a place mat (maybe 1/8 inch thick) was cut around the cool designs. This one has bird houses on it. Each piece has several magnets on the back. Some of the magnets need to be hot glued on to the place mat, but it's pretty clever. M really enjoys playing with it. It's something fun and different.

I just thought I'd share in case you'd like to do something like this! I don't think it's fabulous as a serving tray, but it's certainly a hit as a manipulative toy! Enjoy!

Egg Carton Shake

Traditional ways of practicing numbers just has not worked for us. Books. Games. Puzzles.

M will count (once in a while) for hide and seek. She also counted grapes as she pulled them off a bunch last week!

Here's a pretty physical game to help a child identify and distinguish between 1, 2, I, and L. It's the Egg Carton Shake game from Hubbard's Cupboard. I taped in the numbers/letters. Then we put in a button and shook it up! Wherever the button landed M told me what she saw. She knew all of them already, but soon we'll add more numbers. It's a good, active game for us...yet it still didn't do super to hold her attention, but we played for a few minutes the first time we played.

Moon Magic

I was really excited to study the seven days of Creation with M. She loves the moon and stars. She enjoys asking us to draw them and has even tried on her own a bit. As much as she enjoys seeing pictures of the moon, she loves seeing it in the sky...day or night! This was the perfect opportunity to do a bit of magic painting. Ahead of time I used a white crayon to draw the moon and lots of small stars on white paper. M used watered-down black tempera paint to cover the paper. If you look closely, you can see some stars in the picture. The moon is a bit harder to see though.

When I do this again, I will use water colors instead. I think it will show better. Some other ideas for the magic painting might be a special birthday message or even the letter or number you are studying. For older kids they might like to write secret messages to one another or even vocabulary words or a Bible verse they are trying to memorize.