Dinosaur Tot School - week 1

I began dinosaur tot school this week with little Tot. He loved it...but he would love any 'school' I did with him :) 

This week was a lot of fun. We only did 3 days this week and here's what we did:

Day 1

 Here's his setup he wakes up to in the morning. We start the day always by reading one or more of the books.

 This little man is CRAZY about letters!  He is always spelling his name, my name and daddy's name....he hasn't gotten the brothers' down yet.  So I knew he'd love to spell dinosaur!

 Here were are making a dinosaur sticker book.

 Some practical life skills - mixing pancake batter - he did very good and was well supervised by the brothers!

 He always loves these kind of coloring books...

I liked this one ' to his nose, to his tail' :)

And now washing our dinosaurs (the middle tray above)...what started out as some shaving cream and rinse water...

 morphed a few times... (mud bath)...

 ..then making muddier cleaning them with our old toothbrushes..

 ...and finally a rinse in the mud bucket.  They spent so long doing this...such boy fun!

 Rex wanted me to play 'hide the dinosaur' (kind of like finding Easter eggs).  He and I probably played for 30 minutes, then he and Captain took turns for another 30!  Who would've thought it'd be so much fun!

 Tot didn't stop washing/mudding/rinsing...

 until he remembered his favorite view from the clubhouse!

 Oh, and cleaning up the equipment was also very enjoyable!

Day 2

setup

 Little man finding all the capital D's...

 Shadow matching

 Listening to an old school favorite here "Wee sing and learn dinosaurs"

 graphing dinosaurs (a favorite with Rex, Tot just dotted the dinosaurs)

 Day 3

setup

 Ok - the last tray was so much fun! I can't take credit for it.  I found it on someone's blog but can't remember, so I can't give her credit :(  But....I made dinosaur feet for Tot (and then of course some big boys) and made the towers below.  I'd call out a letter and he'd have to go (like a big dinosaur of course) and kick over the correct tower!

 For some reason he would sit down everytime I called the letter, then kick!  I'm not sure why he thought dinosaurs should be sitting down! Eventually Captain was making the towers and I think Tot was standing and kicking at that point!

 stamping dinosaur words - He's so cute how excited he gets to see something spelled! He loves making the connection of what letters spell what words!

Whew!!  Much more to come next week!  Tot can't wait to see all his grandparents this weekend! Yeah!

First Reconciliation!....already!

How is my sweet Captain getting so old?  Wasn't he just born?  He's turning out to be such a wonderful little man and I'm so proud of him.  I can't believe I'm even writing that he's received his First Reconciliation!  I find a hard time finding words to express what I felt the moment he was first in the confessional...

 after his first penance...

Proud, proud mama!

opening some of his presents from his teacher and a sweet little lady prayer partner whom we've never met.  He was the only one to receive one from this 'prayer partner'! He was very excited! 

They held a pizza party for them :)

Here he is putting the finishing touches on his Confession lapbook (purchased at www.catholicfilefolders.com - they have a ton of beautiful ones for all the sacraments and more).  He finished the little First Memories book. My favorite - one statement said "After my first confession I felt..." and he put "like there was the biggest party going on in my heart"!!!! He kept saying that for the whole first day! So sweet.  He loves it and wants to go every week (how I pray for that grace to continue!)!

I made him his first brown scapular.  I've never made one before, but Shower of Roses posted these beautiful handmade ones on etsy and I thought "I can do that!" :)  I had all of the materials that I bought 12 years ago when I was in college to make for them missions....ummm...that never happened.  It turned out nicely - he loved it!  He's going to be enrolled on Friday by Fr. W...We read the whole story (which I learned a lot too) and I fell more in love with my scapular!

Have a wonderful, warm, beautiful spring week! yeah!

Rainbow Tot School...con't

Last week was week two of rainbow week.  We continued making our play-doh rainbows, reading our books and playing with our rainbow people.  We did do some new activities though...

brought out Candy Land...

made a simple rainbow that he was very proud of..

very simple rainbow chain...

drew this rainbow over and over..

Around 6pm is when the rainbows come in the living room through the prism.  He loves climbing up on the couch and twisting the prism 'rainbows'. (It's been neat to watch the time changes of our prism...8 last summer when we got them...3:45 in the winter and now around 6 pm again. - observing seasons and sun setting times)

 working on hand/eye and gripping...

of course some activities were done with a rainbow wig :)

our 'rainbow balls' sensory bin (they are water beads from Amazon - super cheap/free shipping/lots of fun!)

and the last rainbow activity ...this one had Tot's heart....rainbows AND trains (I felt pretty ingenious after doing this one!)

Notice his loving stare - he laid right down by them... sheer amazement that his trains could make a rainbow ;)

As for some other tot school, we brought out our printables from "The Mitten" - placing all the animals, while we read, in the mitten.  They're magnatized on a cookie sheet - got them from http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/ somewhere.

I found these SUPER strong magnets that Aunt Margie bought Captain a long time ago.  When he opened them I thought...'magnets....hmmm...' - should have known they would be a winner for years to come (you give the best gifts Aunt Margie!)!  Tot LOVED them!! He laughed so hard because they're so loud and strong and whip the other ones to them so fast.  We dropped them on the cookie sheet over and over and then I laid them all out and he used his one to grab all of them.

I thought Tot was close to child prodigy one day when he climbed up on the table, saw this puzzle and said 'play America'...

 Then as he was clumping them back in, I heard him say "Jupiter goes here"... ;)  Harvard will have to wait a few years ;)

Amazing how much fun playdoh is with two eyes and lots of toothpicks - he does this one often.

One day to keep him busy and quiet for 10 minutes because I figured Harvard would be calling soon, I gave him some letters to play with...

He knew so many more than I thought he did - I blame the annoying ABC fridge magnet (that's how Rex learned all his letters and sounds too!).

So today, I read him the Catholic ABC book (which he loved) and he found the matching letter and lined them all up in a row and of course we sang the ABC song over and over and over and over again!

 Rex took a picture of us :)

 matching his 'C'

 lining them up...

 I really didn't know how long he'd last (though I often say he's my best student!)

 yep...all the way to Z! Yeah!

Then big brother brought in that annoying wonderfully educational fridge magnet and they sang the song over and over and over and over.... you get the picture!

I had one last rainbow surprise but have yet to get to the store to buy bubble bath.  We're going to do a bath with bubbles and drop in food colors and mix with popsicle sticks for a rainbow bath!

Next week we'll focus on Jesus of course for Holy Week.  He'll really like that.  Randomly he says "Jesus die on cross"....getting so big...

Have a blessed Holy Week.