Valentines Day

We are slowly getting back into a formal routine of school, While we are always learning and doing fun activities, I still have not figured out how to manage my little guy M when I am trying to work on things with A. M is my into everything baby. He waits until you turn your back and quicker then you can blink he has a chair pushed over and is climbing on the counters trying to get a snack. This makes formal school time hard and stressful.

Question for all my moms of multiple children.. Advice needed. A is 31 months and M is 18. How do/did you manage doing school. M is not content doing another activity on his own. He wants what big brother had and that's it.

Anyways we did manage to get a few activities in between M and A fighting and me swearing we were never going to do school again over and over.

I am starting to test A out to see just what he really knows. He tends to act like he cant do something and then one day will spit out stuff when he thinks no one is listening. So far I have caught him singing Row row your boat, Twinkle Twinkle little star, counting to 15, and saying his ABC's.

I printed out COAHS valentines activities and he did really well with the heart match ups. I am so glad he is patient and takes his time. This was something we really worked on when we started Tot School when he was 18 months old.

I attempted to give M popsicle sticks, straws and a few containers thinking he would love this, but he wanted nothing to do with it and A wanted to do his brothers school instead of his.

We are also working on our pre-writing skills still. this is a definite area I see A lacking in. Its not that he cant do it, its that he doesn't want to go slow and take his time. I think I am gong to have to have a lot more writing activities for him and maybe do them at night when I have daddy on hand for our other little guy.

We are also slowly starting to talk about Noah's Ark. A knows the story already but really enjoyed this activity.

So since A loves to paint and M wont even think about being left out, I decided to let them paint some hearts for Valentines day. Of course this turned into a HUGE mess, M eating paint, A yelling M was using his paint, and me swearing again we would never have school again.

A is never happy with just one project or one activity so we usually do almost all the activities I have planned in one day. A really wanted to make the Rainbow that he spotted so I set him up and explained and showed him how to take his finger and make prints in the correct rows. This did not end pretty because he was not following directions which was the whole point, so that project will be saved for another day. This again is a area he needs more work in. He does not want to be patient and listen and take his time. He just wants to do things fast and his way.

Here are a few other worksheets we also did this week. A is really good at patterns and with a little help. I am absolutely amazed at him and how far he has in the numbers and patterns area. I was afraid he would never count and now he is working his way to twenty!

So I got adventurous and put together a sensory tub with beans. We all have cabin fever so bad due to the harsh cold weather and since we had a horrible encounter with the flu earlier this month where all  of us were beyond sick, I am extremely cautious of going outside right now. I bought a few packs of different dry beans, laid a blanket on the floor, held my breath and let them have at it. It was and still is a huge hit. Other then the arguing and M occasionally dumping the whole container, they do not make a huge mess. Its my, they are destroying every inch of the house and I cant take it anymore, trick. They both sit in one spot for more then 5 minutes, which allows me to quickly pick up and regain some sort of order and a little bit of my sanity back.

We baked heart cookies one afternoon. I THOUGHT it would go smoothly... I am pretty sure "what was I thinking" entered my mind about every half second. It began very easy but the minute I had to mix the dough, all craziness broke out. We eventually did get some cookies baked, leaving out anything M touched since he was eating and spitting out the dough.

So we barely survived but we survived. Its going to take some figuring out to get M happy enough to let me work with A. Next lesson Transportation.

Week 5

Valentines Week 


This week we spent time away from our normal verse, letter, color format and enjoyed doing Valentines day themed projects and activities. I think Austin really enjoyed this. I know having two boys, I welcomed the opportunity to add a little pink and purple to the mix!

We did do a verse this week it was 

We started off the week with some yummy french toast.

The first activity that we did was our LOVE TREE. I had everything already premade. I used foam heart stickers from Michaels so that Austin could just stick them on. Austin loves his tree and will look at it and name some things we put on it. It is very sweet, almost like he is reading it. 

For lunch one day we had Hot dog Hearts

Of course we had to have some sort of water play this week so I decided to work on Austin's fine motor skills and start him using a dropper. I used one from an old medicine bottle (we have so many with two teething little ones). I showed Austin a few times what to do and he caught on really quick. He understood to squeeze to get the water out but needed help to get the water in the dropper. It was a great activity to help work those little finger muscles. After some dropper work, I gave him a baby spoon and he worked with that. 

This week we also did one of Austin's new favorite activities... Baking. He now loves to help me make anything and is getting really good at being patient and waiting for the next step. Austin also gets a chance to build his vocabulary during cooking time. I have him repeat whatever he is doing. He loves to "mix mix" now and will ask before I even tell him. This week we baked heart shaped chocolate chip cookies. Austin was very sweet when putting in the flour yelling "no no" (Snow).

On Wednesday, we got hit with a big snow storm so daddy got a snow day from his school. Austin loved this and enjoyed every minute of having daddy home for the day. Of course this threw our schedule off a bit but we didn't mind. While daddy made come breakfast, Austin enjoyed the new "no" in the sink. 

 Instead of the library, we took advantage of our extra set of helping hand and headed over to Kiddie Klub to play. This was Austin's first time there and absolutely loved it. After Kiddie Klub we enjoyed a play date with Austin's friend Nate for some playtime in the snow. 

This week we read 

I had Austin use a heart stamper and paint to make hearts on a large sheet of white paper. I also had him use one of his toy cars to drive across the paper. He liked this one very much. After it dried I cut out hears in different shapes and we hung them from the ceiling. Whenever you ask Austin where his rain is, he points to the hearts. 


** the heart stamper I made. We used a large foam heart sticker and stuck it to the bottom of an old film container I had. I forgot where I got this idea but it worked great. 

Some other activities we did this week was work on directions and self control. Austin loves to throw and kick his Elmo soccer ball so I cleaned up the floor from our many toys and had Austin stand at one end of the rug and me at the other. I would say an action like "kick" or "throw" and them pass the ball to Austin. He enjoyed this and actually listened and followed directions. It seems simple but for him to focus and control his actions is very impressive. 


Lastly we made a heart fishy and a heart piggy. Instead of putting all his crafts on the fridge, I have been displaying them around the house as decorations. He will proudly show you were something is if asked. 

Not so much a pig but we tried.