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In a world where your 6 month old is teething and refuses to sleep and your toddler has learned the meaning and power of the word NO, there is little time for organization and structure in the day. The game plan... survive the day with as few meltdowns by you, the baby and the toddler as possible. My strategy... expect the worst and anything else that happens will be a welcomed surprise. 


As you can tell things have been quite hectic around here. Last week John had a break from school so little was accomplished in terms of school. On Monday we were welcomed with a huge amount of snow, so it was another day off for daddy. I was determined to regain control of the house and get things back to "normal" whatever that is. 


I am determined to start being more prepared for school. Easier said then done with an infant who is determined to sleep no more then 20 min. at a time during the day. 


Week 7
Letter C
Color Yellow
Verse: Children obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Ephesians 6:1


We began by going over our verse. I can't think of a better verse for a toddler. 

We followed that with our letter C and dot markers. 

I attempted my firs file folder game. It came out pretty good. I will have to redo it later on when I have time but it worked well. This is where the proud mama steps in.. Austin did AWESOME! I was not even expecting him to want to touch it. I showed him how to do it first and he took over completing the whole thing. Here I thought the whole time he did not get the concept of matching. Boy was I wrong. Not only does he get it but he flew through it more then once and just to be sure I did it again today he and he did it on his own. 

This week we are also working on using a cup with Austin. He is getting the concept but my baby loves to pour and this is not limited to water play as we learned this morning when a cup of cold milk got poured on our precious little one who was innocently playing in the living room. For now the cup practice will be limited to the kitchen table under high supervision. 

Last night in attempts to be prepares, I stayed up late and planned and prepped several activities. I thought they would last me longer then one day but Austin wanted to do them all so we did. 


We made out caterpillar C which turned out really cute. This is where i learned just how observant toddlers really are. In the middle of the project, Austin grabbed the glue and started gluing himself! He knew just what to do by watching me. I didn't even realize after that Austin had created a pattern on the caterpillar. I let him pick each color to glue on. I am sure it wasn't intentional but it sure does look nice! After the C was done, Austin still wanted to glue so I gave him a piece of paper and he used the leftover circles or "balls" as he insisted. It may not look like much but he did it 100% on his own. I was at the counter gluing on the eyes and pipe cleaners for the caterpillar. I was so proud. 

Another project Austin did was make a corn on the cob. I used bubble wrap and had him paint it yellow, then i glued the husk on. 

Our last project (yes we did a lot today but Austin loves projects) was a popcorn C. This was not a huge success. I guess anything with food and toddler, doesn't go as planned. Austin glued one piece down then kept insisting on eating it. Whenever he is really determined about something, he will sign and say the word almost in a way to say " I really mean it so I am going to say it two way". For every piece I glues on, he ate about 5. 

Austin signing and saying "Eat"

Austin giving me a cheesy smile after each piece he ate. 

We wrapped up our very productive Tot school day with counting. I go this piggy bank at a mom 2 mom sale for $2.00. It an awesome toy. It comes with large coins in different colors and sizes. It also has two settings for music and counting. 

And not to forget our little one who suffered a cold shower of milk this morning. He recovered nicely and even proved he was ready for "Baby School"

Mid Winter Break

This week my husband had mid-winter break at his school our daily routines were thrown off. Austin was so excited to have his daddy home that I didn't make him take time out of their playing for Tot School. It was nice to have him home and we got many projects done and running around that needed to be done, but I am looking forward to getting back to out normal routine. Austin has been to bed late, up early, short or no naps and very little structure. One day while John was painting the basement, I attempted to do a structures activity with Austin and it worked for about 10 minutes.


I bought these grow capsules from Targets $1 section. Austin really liked them except they took a long time to dissolve.

we did a lot random activities whenever we could fit them in. One thing Austin enjoyed was washing the potatoes for dinner.

This week John and I have been really working with Austin on his pronunciation of words. He tends to say the beginning of a word. He has been doing really well with this so far.


Here are a few random pictures from this week. 

Brotherly love! Don't worry, Austin isn't sitting on his little brother, he is sitting on the tray. This is what happens when mommy has her backed turned to dust the mantle. Our little guy was just so excited Austin was that close to him. He loves his big brother!

Next week its back to work. We are going to be starting the letter C and the color yellow. I might also start throwing in numbers here and there since Austin has started showing an interest in counting. 

B is for Brobee

Today was our final day with B. Tot school has been a challenge with Austin these past two weeks. Maybe because the first two weeks were awesome or maybe because he just has so much energy and its hard to keep him still. Whatever the reason, we pushed through and made some really fun projects and even learned a few things. Austin can identify the letter B but when asked what letter it is says A. Blue has been more of a challenge so I think we will be coming back to it again.

We began our day with me trying to use our new cloth letters. Unfortunately Austin had just found a new place to craw in so he was a little distracted. He did come by and show me the A and them step all over the other letters.

I started off by doing stickers. Austin really does love these but gets frustrated very fast. I tried teaching him the right grip of the stickers and he seemed to do better when I asked him to show me his pinchers. He still had trouble with the smaller stickers but enjoyed picking which stickers he wanted me to hand him.

I tried having Austin put pipe cleaners in a spice container and this was so easy for him that he was done is less then a minute and ready to move on.

Because I have been so unprepared lately I had to think of something quick while I got our craft ready. I handed Austin a bowl of ice and an empty egg carton and showed him how to put one ice cube in each slot. He of course wanted to pour the bowl in, but after a few "no just one at a time" he was patient enough and happily filled each slot. He really liked this and played with it for about 10 minutes. Not bad for an activity on the fly.

Ok all you parents who have been victims to the Yo Gabba Gabba craze sweeping through our young tots. We could not finish up B without making our Brobee. Austin loved this activity and since he tried to watch about 100 episodes a day of this, he was super excited to make this. This activity can also be done with Barney (Austin's second love) but I have not done that one yet.

We finished our morning with a snack of Blue jello

Here is our finished B Fridge. 

Next week we are taking a break from our normal routine and are going to be doing all Valentine themed projects and activities.

Week Four- Thursday

Today we all had cabin fever. These Michigan winters can really take a toll on you. Even though it is extremely hard to take both boys out since Austin is at the age where he wants to run, even when told to stop, I knew he needed to get some energy out, before he totally destroyed the house. So today for school, I quickly bundled up both boys (not having time to put very warm clothes on myself) and headed outside for the brief but wonderful hour of sunny skies we had. Austin needless to say, loved it and could not stop moving. We have several small hills around our condo complex and Austin was determined to conquer them. I took this opportunity to reenforce the concept of up and down. He caught on quickly and would state to me up or down, whichever he was doing. After running up and down for about 30 minutes, we headed for a walk around our building. I had Austin identify several things like trees and birds. He happily stated "tee" for each tree or large bush we passed and "no" at each small pile of snow we came across. Austin would have stayed out there all day but unfortunately I was very cold and our poor little ones cheeks were cold and rosy despite being bundled up and wrapped in two blankets. So with a kicking a screaming Austin in hand, we headed inside.

Our sweet little one, taking a nap during our walk. 

On a side note, today we got an awesome addition to our Tot School tools. They are cloth letters. I can not wait to use them and Austin already was excited to identify the A. Thanks Aunt Anne!!

Week four = Wednesday

Austin is 19 months old!!

Well we have changed names. It seems to suite us much more since we are new to home schooling. Everyday is filled with challenges and adventures but we are having fun doing it!

Today normally is our library day but my sweet angels decided to sleep in this morning so instead of rushing and trying to get out of the house, we decided to so school at home.

Austin started the day by doing a dot B. He loves these but likes to put the cap back on the dot marker the most.

After I gave Austin some pasta and a pipe cleaner. I showed him how to lace it on and he actually did it. i was very surprised because he has not been interested in any activity like this at all. He was entertained until he filled the pipe cleaner up and then was handing me the tray saying "done"

We made a hand butterfly. I just bought some foam stickers (Michael's has all of their foam stickers for only $4.99 right now!!) and Austin had been eyeing them all morning so we decorated our butterfly with these. Austin is still having trouble figuring out how to stick things on paper without it getting stick to his fingers.

I also tried getting Austin to color a B on dark paper with chalk but he did not want to even try this at all. He did use a sharpie pen for a few minutes to color on it while I was getting other things ready.

Lastly we did our big B. Austin was very excited and ran around me in circles the whole time i was getting it ready. Once it was done he wasted no time getting his cars and new love his Thomas train to drive around on it. The one issue we had this time was that after he was done playing, he began to pull it up. This was my mistake because when we were all done with out A, I had him help me pull it up and throw it away, do in his mind he was just cleaning up. Oh well, at least he was picking up something!

Here is a picture of our Fridge right now from all his projects.