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Tot School ~ Catching up!

~ Kaleb is 39 months ~
 
 

It has been FOREVER since I’ve posted about our Tot School activities.  Not that we haven’t been doing stuff with Kaleb ~ but he hasn’t been doing as much planned/focused activities as usual. These last two weeks have been much better, so here’s a little look at some of the things we’ve been up to!

I thought I had a picture of Kaleb playing the animal sorting game, but my brain must be mistaken. He really amazed me at how well he was able to sort all of the animals in the Animal Sorting File Folder Game I put together this week.

Before this cute little Melissa & Doug farm sound blocks disappear from our house, Kaleb had to play with it one last time.  I actually had it sitting out to give to a friend, but Kaleb had fun matching up the animals to hear their sounds.
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We had fun sorting pom poms by color in an ice cube tray from the Dollar Tree ~ the rainbow order came from an older sister who insists that all colors must be sorted JUST SO!

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Some friends of ours were kind enough to give us an electronic drum set for the boys. I’m still trying to come up with a way to appropriately thank them for their generosity {ahem}. 

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This picture is from a few weeks ago, but Life on the Farm has been one of Kaleb’s favorite games to play. Thank goodness the game is made out of a thick foam ~ super sturdy since he is rough on it. It’s been great too for going over our shapes and counting and colors.

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We took a trip to the children’s museum and Kaleb was fascinated by these tubes that would suck scarves in and blow them out up high ~ kept him occupied for quite some time! :)

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The dinosaurs were also something Kaleb spent a lot of time playing on ~ insisting that they were his ‘family’. I have no idea….

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And potty training…want to see how well it is going?? You can read more about the bribery initial potty training attempts and some umm…. technical issues. :)

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Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Tot School ::34::

~ Kaleb is 34 months ~

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted what we’re doing with Kaleb, partially because Mommy is falling into the slacker department and not doing as much intentional stuff as I originally planned. Because sometimes life happens and then Kaleb gets the short end of the ‘teaching’ stick.

On the bright side, he has his letter sounds down pat and is signing the days of the week thanks to a few Leap Frog dvds…But when I DO actually plan, remember to take pictures and when my camera decides to work, there can some actual Tot School results.

Exhibit A: Found these great simple puzzles from Leap Frog that have shape matching and also numbers and letters. We just worked with the shape matching this week.

Exhibit B: Blurry, but proof that we also played with blocks this week {from Discovery Toys}. We had fun naming colors and stacking them together to make a rainbow.

Exhibit C: Sink time and ‘washing dishes’. Why I haven’t let him do this sooner is beyond me! Kept Kaleb occupied for quite some time…even though I had lots of water to sop up later.

Exhibit D: The dry-erase board was pulled out along with the markers {he is fascinated by markers lately} and he had fun scribbling and writing along with all of us.

Exhibit E: Wii Time with Outdoor Adventure! Kaleb loves the pipe slider game on this as well as the jumprope game – but needs a little help with the mat patting, so the other kids help him out.

Exhibit F: Scrunchies on a stick. Great activity for fine motor skills and we also use it to name colors and count how many are on the stick.

Exhibit G: Silent reading time. Kaleb crawled up in bed next to me the other day and grabbed a book from Rick’s nightstand. Just cracked me up because he was so intently ‘reading’. Especially because of the book title.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Tot School ::33::

~ Kaleb is 34 months ~

Before anyone is under ANY illusion that this is my house pictured ~ rest assured it isn’t {grins}. While we were visiting with some friends this last week, we were able to spend the day at their wonderfully amazing children’s museum ~ and Kaleb was in pure bliss!

The day prior to the children’s museum we went to Colonial Williamsburg ~ a.k.a. not so much fun for Kaleb, unless being pushed around in a stroller all day counts for fun. Trying to keep him happy meant resorting to letting him use the camera and take pictures of me.

Mind you, it’s the only picture of me from our trip. I apparently need to work with him on framing a shot and more flattering angling…


I didn’t like the picture, so he had to spend some time in the stocks. :) I kid you not, there were people there {in their 60’s} asking if they used these to cut off people’s feet!!!


After a good night’s rest, we decided to head to the children’s museum. 244 pictures ~ so feel relieved that I’m only posting these. :) Kaleb spent the majority of the time at the museum playing in the ambulance. Lights. Sirens. Buttons to push. It was pure.boy.heaven.

The museum had a wonderful grocery store ~ after he was done grocery shopping, Kaleb spent some time checking himself out.

He spent a little time digging around for dinosaur bones…well, ok, more like playing in the pretend dirt and flinging it around.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures of Kaleb. Period. Just too stinkin’ cute he is.

They had the most amazing apple tree in the center of the museum that would pull up apples in a conveyor of sorts and then roll them down into tubes where they would drop out and wait to be picked. Baskets and baskets full of apples were picked.

Kaleb also made his acting debut. He pulled a line from Letter Factory and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen…proud to present…”

And then there was the water table. The HUGE water table in which Kaleb got soaking, soaking, soaking wet. And then cried and fussed because he wanted a towel. Only to return later and soak himself some more.

After a full day, Kaleb took a break in the ‘lake’ and spent some time fishing. They had a variety of red, yellow, and green fish that Kaleb sorted after he caught them all.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Tot School ::32::

~ Kaleb is 33 months ~

While our overall week has an ‘idea’ or overall plan, I think that many of you would be surprised to actually be in our house and see how that week actually plays out.

There are times that I have great ideas and plans and things don’t work and go along with my plans. At all.

And you know what? That is fine!

This last week I have one picture of Kaleb playing and in all honesty there was little more done that I would qualify as focused time on him. One.

No pictures of the endless time pushing him on the swing.

Reading the same books over and over again.

Cuddling. Laughing. Giggling.

So while there may not be much to check off on my ‘list’ I’m really okay with that. Really.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Tot School ::31::

~ Kaleb is 34 months ~

Out of all the things that happened this week, the most exciting thing happened while we were sitting at the dinner table. Kaleb started telling us the sounds that different letters make. We pulled out some letter cards and went through the entire deck and he gave the sound for 20 out of the 26 letters.

Before you think I drill Kaleb the majority of the day {believe me it was a huge surprise to us!!}, I can honestly say it was all thanks to one little green dude {and no, he doesn’t watch it all day long – usually every other day over the last 2 weeks or so}.

We can say this for certain because when he saw the letter ‘W’ he said, ‘wuh, wuh, wuh, happy dude’ – and we just started cracking up. I *heart* LeapFrog.

During the week, here a few things that we did:

Kaleb thought he was big stuff being able to get up on Laurianna’s bed and spend some time reading with her.

We pulled out our felt board {just a piece of felt that I glued to the back of our white board} and Kaleb had fun sticking shapes up on the board. We had him put them up by colors, pull off ones as he identified them and line them up in a rainbow pattern.

If you look super close you’ll see that there are alphabet letters in the rice box. Such grand plans Mommy had for this…and then Kaleb decided not to cooperate. A few days later I found the rice box on my bed {with rice everywhere} and Kaleb had pulled it out and dumped all the letters back out to play with. Now there is rice in my bed.

We borrowed some nesting dolls from my mom since Kaleb has been fascinated by them. I’m not sure what it is about them, but he loves them and will play with them every day.

Kaleb loves to stack and knock things down. The pegboard cracks him up since the pegs start leaning when they get too high.

That’s all for pictures this week – and I am bound and determined to confiscate that binky of his so that the pictures are at least binky free next week! :) Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Tot School ::30::

~ Kaleb is 33 months ~

We’re *almost* adjusted and getting into a routine with our school time for everyone. The older kids are more of the primary focus, so Kaleb gets the brunt of ‘No Mommy Time’ but we’re still getting in some learning time together.

Here’s a little peek into our week together:

Monday

Kaleb loves the paper clip matching game that we made and we practiced naming colors while getting the paper clips on.

When I pulled out the foam shape matching cards for Zachary {from Discovery Toys} Kaleb wanted to play along too. He eventually did match shapes up to make the ‘clown’ but first had fun naming some of the shapes and also stacking the circles together.

His arms are the side-effect of Mommy trying to do school time with Zachary while he found his markers and hid in the kitchen coloring ~ himself. :)

When you have two older sisters, chances are you are going to play dress up and be sucked into the world of ballet. {He is sooooo going to love me for these pics in the years to come!}

Tuesday

To go along with our caterpillar studies, Kaleb had fun coloring the caterpillar from Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

Playing with our clothespin color swatch matching game and having fun naming colors.

Sorting all the pegs by color and then stacking them,

Wednesday

I found a mini-book geared toward little ones on the life cycle of the butterfly that has some cute graphics showing the caterpillar yawning and snuggling up in his chrysalis to go to sleep. Kaleb loved it and had fun telling me about the caterpillar {happy, sleepy, yawning, etc…}.

We pulled out our chalkboard this week too and Kaleb spent so much time drawing and coloring while we were doing school time with the bigger kids. He had fun drawing circles for me. :)

Thursday

In one of the rare pictures of me {thanks to Zachary hijacking my camera}, Kaleb and I lined up the markers and he would tell me the name of the color after I stood them up. When he finished them all, he took GREAT joy in knocking them all over and the ‘Do it again!!’

Friday

On Friday we played a bunch of games together and pulled out a Curious George balloon game I picked up. We couldn’t play it the way we were supposed to since I bought it used and quite a few pieces were missing. Instead, Kaleb would name the colors I held up and then match them to the right balloon.

That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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