Tumbling Tuesday Bible

OK- here is the book of all books for our Tumbling Tuesdays. It is called "Unplugged Play" and is written by Bobbi Conner. A fabulous collection of some fun games to play with your child from ages 1 to 10.

Here are some games that I think sound like fun:

1. kitchen soccer
2. romper roll
3. beanbag basket toss
4. tunnel tube
5. pillowcase surprise
6. hallway bag ball
7. duckie dip
8. outdoor box ball
9. bumper ball
10. teddy says
11. beanbag toss
12. roll it, toss it
13. ringer ball, ring a ding soccer
14. toddler basketball
15. zoom zoom zoom
16. follow the leader
17. one two three. hop like me
18. toddler tag
19. stop and go dancing

It doesn't stop here.....in fact, this book has over 700 activities to do with your child! From arts, playdates, family nights..... this book has ideas for them all! This was truly a diamond found at the library!!!

Yesterday for Tumbling Tuesday (OK, yesterday was Wednesday....but Tuesday I was sick in bed all day so we are making up for lost time!) I taught my Boo how to play tag. She LOVES it. I had "it" wear a scarf so she would remember who "it" was. That really helped out a lot. We ran around the house until we were both out of breath and in need of a drink break. And who knows...maybe in the process of playing with my daughter, I burned some calories!

Happy Teaching!

A Little Catching Up....

I have been super busy recently with my new job. And have missed a lot of sleep. And have been pretty grumpy because of it.

To the 700 new posts in my RSS feed reader: I am so sorry I haven't read you. I am sure there is plenty of great teaching ideas, crafty projects, and yummy recipes. Please resend them my way if they are important! I might do the unthinkable and click the "mark all as read" button....

To the cute little worker at Costco who I gave a grumpy face to- I am sorry. Yes, I do agree that my daughter counting all the cereal boxes is impressive. She is a smart little thing. I am just running on little sleep....

To my camera: I do love you still. Don't think because I haven't had time to take a zillion pictures like I usually do that I have forgotten about you.

To my husband: I am sorry I have been grumpy. I am making it a goal to go to bed before midnight. You don't deserve an ornery wife!

And to my daughter- I am sorry the most... I feel like I have could have been a better mommy to you these past few weeks. I have been neglectful of our wonderful curriculum calendar. I have slept in while you pleaded with me to wake up in the morning. Oh it is breaking my heart writing this- I want to go wake you up from your nap now!!! I love you so much Boo!

With that all said, let me review some of the things we HAVE done these past few weeks:

• learned the nursery rhyme Three Little Kittens. My Boo can recite the first two lines... a pretty big feat for such an odd poem. I really don't know WHY I choose to teach her this one, other than she loves mittens and kittens! We played a FUN game called "The Old Gray Cat is Sleeping". Best part of our Tea Time and Rhyme Thursday. It goes like this:
  The old gray cat is sleeping sleeping sleeping
  the old gray cat is sleeping in the house.
  The little mice are creeping...
  The old gray cat is waking...
  The old gray cat is chasing....
• played a lot of princess and little people. Pretend play time is not lacking here at our house!
• learned some more spanish words for head, body, arms, and eyes. Working on nose and ears. Daddy gave blood and she told him- "Daddy, you have an owie on your brazo!"
• learned that people have different eye colors. Boo knows she and mommy have blue eyes, and daddy has brown eyes.
• during breakfast she informed me that Jesus was coming to tickle her.... this is a lot better than the pretend bones under her rocking chair and the genie from Aladdin downstairs that chase her!
• heard this at the table: " I have a runny nose like grandma shirley." i love all the connections she is making- like when she sees a fox in a story, she will point out that it's a fox like swiper the fox.
• alphabet song is sounding more and more "authentic".... we hear a lot of the "..h,i,j,k,mellamenno,p..."s, but for the first time today I actually heard all the letters pronounced clearly.
• Boo is loving books like the Dot, "fancy fancy" (fancy nancy), doctor dora who coincidently loves using her "step-a-scope" (stethoscope), max and ruby, Hattie and the fox, pancakes, Tuesday, ahh who am I kidding! My Boo loves to read any books!
• we played football games on football day, played various games with waffle balls, and roller-skated around the house. I checked out a pretty cool book from the library with TONS of large motor skill activities. We are using it as a resource for our tumbling tuesdays.

Montessori Jar Experience- Puzzles, Pouring Water Through a Funnel, and Drying Hands with a Paper Towel

Yes, we have been very busy with our little Montessori jar! My Boo loves having this- it has provided us with some on the spot learning fun when otherwise one might have gotten into mischief......

I have been getting some emails concerning this jar, and thought I would upload a file that gives brief instructions and the list of activities that we use as of right now. I plan on adding skills from different categories later on(such as Math, Culture, and Language).

Puzzles
My little one LOVES putting puzzles together. So she was happy as can be when we put several puzzles together! I guess I should have taught her HOW to put a puzzle together, but she already does rather well so we just played. :)

the Little People reindeer is helping her put the puzzle together :)

Pouring Water through a Funnel
My goodness, if you haven't done this, TRY IT!! This is an activity we did over and over and over... I showed her once, and she did pretty well! The next morning she helped me use the funnel to pour juice in my water bottle. She was tickled pink about being able to apply her new skill! If your little one has a difficult time holding the funnel straight, toss it in the bathtub the next time with your child (toss the funnel, please don't toss the child!) and let your child explore. That will help build the hand's muscle strength.

Drying Hands with a Paper Towel
Surprisingly another fun little activity that my daughter pulled out....well, sorda. I am about to tell you something top secret- If my daughter pulls out an activity that I know she isn't ready for (or that I don't know how to teach her) I will secretly change it for another one. This just happens to be one of those "switches"- I didn't think that getting another person's attention to speak to them was something I was up for :) If you have any great ideas on teaching this to a wild two year old please let me know.... So now you know my secret!!!
Back to the activity- we washed and dried our hands probably 5 or 6 times. Not good on the environment- wasting paper towels like that- and not good on our dry winter skin, but a GREAT skill. I will say that she can dry her hands about 90% of the way- but she knows without prompting to throw the paper towel in the garbage. I can't wait to put this to use at church next Sunday in the restrooms.
So there you have our most recent monti-learning!

By the way, hope you all had a great day celebrating Elmo's birthday! We made cupcakes and sang to our little stuffed Elmo. My daughter insisted on putting birthday candles on the cupcakes, and she used all her little arm power to do it! Poor cupcakes and pretty deep holes!
Need to get some things ready for our "Three Little Kittens" celebration tomorrow.

Happy Teaching!

February Learning Calendar

Here is this month's learning calendar!Enjoy!