Climbing to new Heights

These past two weeks have been busy and exciting. A started gymnastics and absolutely loves it. We have been wanting to put him in it for awhile but last week I decided it was time. His first class, he did cry when him and daddy when out there but he soon got over that and was jumping on the trampoline like a pro.

We continued our study of creation and worked on Day 5. A got to color fish and glue pictures of different types of birds on his number 5.

A is ABSOLUTELY obsessed with the moon. We have no idea why or where it came from but if he sees it he starts screaming and every night daddy has to take him outside to see it. If there is a book with a moon in the picture we are not allowed to turn the page. Since this is one of his new passions, I decided to do an art project and make a moon. I read somewhere (sorry I can't remember) to mix glue and shaving cream to create a puffy paint. A colored to moon yellow first and then he had a good time spreading the puffy paint on. After we sprinkled it with some glitter. Needless to say this was on of his favorite projects and the moon is now being displayed next to out TV per request of A. 

Messy Hands!!

This is before it was completely dried. I did cut it out that evening. 

A loves his worksheets and so do I. A gets very excited to use his school pencils. This week we worked on our pre-writing skills. A is getting a little better but still has a hard time focusing and slowing down. He would much rather just make a circle. 

I also introduced a new worksheet to A. I wanted to see where he was at and if he could understand the concept. On the worksheet there were objects shown from different angles and you had to match them. A totally understood the concept and could match them all. He did have trouble drawing the line from one object to another so I had to help him with that. 

A also got to make "Jesus Corn" anything that we do christian related, we label "Jesus" for A. This helps him connect what he is doing. I found the printable a very long time ago and came across it when trying to organize my stuff. The actual printable was two hard for A so we adapted and made our own Corn with q-tip painting. 

Black - I was lost in the darkness

Red - Jesus died and shed his blood for me

White - Now I am clean and mu sins have been forgiven

Blue - I have been baptized in the Holy Spirit

Green - I am growing in my relationship with God

Yellow - I have the promise of eternal life to walk on streets of gold. 

At the dollar store I had picked up these paper fish. I did not know what I was going to do with them so I just had then laying around. I decided to try a more interactive game which because of our Itty Bitty Infant M, we do not get to do very much. I put some letters that I knew A could recognize along with some shapes and numbers and we went "fishing". In theory this would have worked a lot better but A didn't seem to mind at all and even continued playing it later in the day. 

The tape wasn't that sticky so A decided to just press it on the fish he wanted to catch. M Is lending a hand.

A got use his imagination a lot these past weeks. I am so amazed at the things he comes up with.  A and his daddy were playing a guessing game where A had to act out something and I had to guess. A acted out a mailman and loved this. The next morning he woke up and wanted to play mailman again so we decided to make him his own mail carrier. 

A asked for my brush one afternoon. When I asked what he needed it for he said he had to brush teddy's hair. I didn't think anything of it but when I walked into his room this is what I saw. 

I asked him what he was doing and he said he was cutting teddy's hair. We cut A's hair at home with his daddy's clippers and he was pretending to do the same to his teddy. 

And as we enter another fall in Michigan, our weather is so unpredictable. One day its 90 and the next its 60. We decided to use the nice days while we have them so we headed to the park. We do not get to go very much because its hard chasing two little ones going in two directions and with the water at our park, it makes me nervous. This particular visit was a very important one for A. He finally ventured to the top of the "big" slide on the little kids play structure. 

And here is a favorite picture from this week. I had to get up and go do something so I asked A to cuddle his brother for me. He did such a good job. 

Letter B, Moon, Stars, and Sun

This past week A began the letter B. I decided it was time to move on when he pointed out EVERY SINGLE A we saw whenever we went anywhere. I am very excited he loves finding A's but its time to move on. The odd thing is he knows many letters. He can identify A, a, B, C, E, F, and O without a problem but only gets oddly excited to the point of screaming when he sees and A. So for now everyone in the grocery store for about 3 aisles over knows when my son sees and A.

To review the letter B, we did Balloon painting which was a huge hit. I gave A the letter B and a partially blown up balloon and let him dip it in paint. So simple but he loved it.

We also bought A he very own toddler bible with a case that he loves. He tells everyone he has his own bible and proudly carries to around. I have been making time each day before his nap for us to read a few stories from it and he is enjoying it very much and even told me the other day that Noah was in his bible. I guess he does listen when I read!

We have continued to make his creation numbers and this week we did day 4. I knew this would be exciting because A is currently OBSESSED with the moon. I had him use a cotton ball to paint the 4 black and them we used yellow pom poms for the sun, glitter for the stars and a moon sponge stamp to make moons. Again A loved this. We review each day what God made on each day and I am planning on putting it all in a binder and making his own "bible" that he can add to as he grows and does more activities.

We also attempted some fall crafts. I had A make a leaf wreath using his hand prints which he of course loved because he got to get all messy but for some reason all my paints are drying chalky looking. This is the first time I bought tempera paint from the store because we were going through so much paint so this might be normal but it seems everything he makes almost dries colorless. 

A also did some hands on learning. He loves to watch his Papa come over with his tools and fix things so on this particular day A decided to fix the sit and spin zebra. You gotta love the construction hat on backwards!

Fall is here!

Well the fall is here and we could not be more excited. Its so nice being able to take the boys outside anytime of day instead of at 8:00 in the morning before it gets to hot. Its has been so nice being in sweatshirts and jeans. The boys are soaking up all of the outside time and love playing in their sandbox any chance they get.

Tot school has been very informal for past couple of weeks. One week A was totally anti-school and wanted nothing to do with workboxes. This past week daddy went back to school and is working late nights at his other job so we are all adjusting back to a crazy schedule. We have managed sneak in some planned activities and have done lots of informal learning.

A who was totally anti-counting and anti-numbers has again showed me that just because he WONT do something doesn't mean he doesn't know how. For awhile now he has easily been able to count to 4 (when he wants to and never on command or when asked). This week since its been so crazy for all of us, he has had a lot of free play. Well the other day while playing with his puzzles (when I mean playing, I mean lining them up on the floor and hopping on top of each one. That's my A always thinking outside the box) I heard him counting. He would say 1-2-3-4, 5-6, 8-9-19. He was screaming it over and over as he hopped from one puzzle to the next. I was so amazed that he even knew the sequence and didn't mind at all that he was skipping 7. Even last night he started saying 8-9-10 in front of his dad and his dad was shocked. Just goes to show that toddlers retain a lot of information regardless if they l let you know or not.

I have been working on our printables because I am really working on writing with A. He has mastered a circles at about 1 1/2 so now we are working on control of the pencil. He is doing really well for the most part and loves tracing but lacks the patience to go slow and concentrate.  A did manage to make his very own A and was so proud. Usually I help him but he did it all on his own this time.

The learning placemat was a hit with A and he wasted no time identifying the letters he knew and telling me all about the pictures on it. I have taken a different approach with A on counting and numbers. I know now he does in fact know how to count and knows the sequence of the numbers but I do not think he gets the concept of what it means. He can tell you if you have one of something or two of something but when he is asked to count something he does not understand to apply a number to an object. I have decided to just present his numbers to him with groups of objects so he can visualize how many belong. I have not pushed him to count things and just let him do it on his own time. Along with grouping on the placemat I also did an activity for him where I put each number on an index card and then used little dot stickers to show how many with that number. I had A place pom poms on each sticker. To my surprise he actually liked it for a little bit.

Out outside time is going to be coming to an end soon so as of right now we are spending as much time as we can (meaning and much as I can take before someone runs off or doesn't listen) outside. A learned how to roll down a hill the other day and thought this was very fun. He has been enjoying looking for the ducks in our nearby pond, but since its colder weather they have all went to Florida or Taco Bell as A will tell you.