Doesn't Ladybug look cute? ;) I know I am a bit biased, but still...
Want to win something she has on? Head on over to see our latest review and giveaway!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Featuring Apple Cheeks!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Raising Rock Stars ~ The Pumpkin Patch Parable
Bible Focus...The Pumpkin Patch Parable
We had fun talking about Halloween again, and what it means for our family as Christians. I made the boys a coloring book based on the book, The Pumpkin Patch Parable, to help illustrate the meaning of the story for them.
First, Daddy read them the book (Ladybug was napping)...
Then we headed to the table where I told them the story again using the coloring pages I created for them. We all colored them together as we talked all about the meaning. Even my Dad joined us!
I also had Pac Man make a Memory Cross to illustrate the story, he did a great job!
It was a fun night, and we are all looking forward to bringing the lesson we learned to life when we select and carve our REAL pumpkins this week!
Weekly Bible Verse...
Songs for Saplings ~ Ee
We work on our verse every day during calendar time, and we also listen to the entire Songs for Saplings CD during recess at least 1-2 days per week!
Resources used this week:
- Pumpkin Patch Parable Coloring Book (this links to the new website, I disabled the main navigation since the rest of the site is still under construction...you can get to the Halloween page though!) There are 2 options for the clean the yuckies page...one has a photo of Pac Man and the other is generic! Feel free to use either!
- Christian Halloween Books (from our theme bookstore)
- Bible Memory Verse, Ee
- Songs for Saplings CD
- More Pumpkin Patch Parable ideas from Totally Tots
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Tot School ~ Life School
~Krash is currently 41.5 months old~
Theme ~ Dinosaurs!
We did have one day and just 2 pictures of actual Tot School, from our Dino Stuff!
Here K is matching up the dinos to the ABCs. This activity is for the episode called "One Smart Dinosaur" where the conductor sings the dinosaur ABCS. I copied the entire song and made little cards to go with it, both boys love it!
Here he is working on 1-10, and also patterning...
Life School...
Nanee sent the boys an ant farm (oooh goody ~ I hate ants)...
Krash has a chore he loves (and I love it too), he takes the cloth diapers off the clothesline for me now!
Camping in the basement..
Krash, Krashing....and loving it!
Sharing with brother... (oooh my heart is melting, so glad I caught this on camera for proof!)
Mommy's Favorite...
A little taxi service with the Plasma Car! (don't forget to enter to win one! Winner will be chosen later tonight!)
- Are you wondering where to start with Tot School? Read here!
- Read more about Tot Trays here
- Visit Totally Tots!!!
- Want to see more Tot School posts? Click HERE
- Visit our Tot School Webpage HERE
If you have a tot (approximately ages 12-47 months) at home, join in the fun and share what you're doing with your tot! Here's how to get started if you're new... If you've never read this: Go HERE 1st for more details- please do!!! Then if you have any ideas you'd like to share, link up your exact post to MckLinky (if you have questions about how to do that, let me know in a comment or email-links to homepages will automatically be deleted).
When you add your name(blog name) to MckLinky will you put your tot's age (in months) after it, like this: 1+1+1=1 (41 mos)? I think this will help new readers a lot as they look for ideas for their specific aged tot!
If you are NEW will you please leave a comment letting us all know so we can be sure to visit you?
Also, if you have not commented on my "Tot School List" post, please do ASAP so I can get the official list updated! Also ~ there was a great suggestion for us all to add our tot's bday month/year to the list. If you would like to do that, I would be glad to add it to those of you who comment there (yes again...sorry). Just put your blog name and then the age like this (6/06).
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tot School List
I am working on the new website and am almost done with the Tot School page. This is my current list of all blogs that participate in Tot School (although I have not added any new ones in about 3 weeks). I will be doing some serious editing to this list, SO I need you to leave a comment ...
- if your blog IS on this list and you are still participating in Tot School. Just say (or copy this), I AM on the list and I am still doing Tot School, the name of my blog is:
- if your blog IS NOT listed and you ARE doing Tot School, please comment telling me that and give me a link to either your homepage OR your labeled Tot School posts (that is preferred). My blog is not listed and I do Tot School, here is my link:
- if your blog is on this list and you are NO longer doing Tot School. We have moved on from Tot School, my blog is listed as:
- if your blog is on this list and I have something wrong (spelling, name, link, etc.). Tell me what corrections need to be made in your comment!
A Boys Life 4 Me
Top 5 Friday ~ Mom's Wish List
I am not a big participator :) in weekly carnivals/memes, due to lack of time, however I found a VERY simple one I like, that would give me a good Friday post for ya! (since I don't have another one and usually don't on Friday's)! This may be the only Friday I join in, but we'll see...you never know what a new week will bring.
I love short, to the point blog posts sometimes, and I also love knowing what other moms love, that is why I am joining in with Christy from Superheroes and Princesses with her new Top Five Friday's!
This week she's sharing her Mommy Wishes ~ I have a few of those too. No needs, just wishes!
My Top 5 Mommy Wishes...
- My husband home more (a little less busy). He hasn't been home a lot lately due to a hectic ministry schedule right now. I miss him, so do the kids, and he misses us. I LOVE it when Daddy is home!! This is my #1 wish for so many reasons-the help, the joy, the fun, and much more! We LOVE Daddy!
- A bathroom. As missionaries, we live in the inner city in a VERY old row home. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE our house-it is really cool and I feel very blessed. There are however, a few quirks about it that I dream of changing! One is the bathroom. We all (2 parents and 3 kids) share one tiny bathroom.
We lived in a brand new typical suburban family home right before we moved here over 5 years ago and it had an awesome master bath-like most new homes do nowadays. I miss my master bath so much. We have a dream of saving $ and building a master bath onto our bedroom...we'll see! - Shelves. I love shelves, I want lots of them, I want them all to match and look pretty. I never can have enough shelves. Currently I am trying to convince my husband that I need just 1 more bookshelf for our school book storage...we'll see!
- Less Stuff. I want a week or 2 to go through every area of my entire home and get RID of stuff. I have been doing this and we have decreased our amount of life-baggage significantly over the past 2 years or so. But, I am desperate to have the time to completely finish and know that every drawer and box has been gone through.
- A Big Desk. I want one of those fancy wrap around the corner desks with incredible storage (something like this-although I could never afford to shop at Pottery barn!). I want shelves up the wall, big drawers with little storage compartments. I work on an Ikea desk, that is in the middle of my "closet." It is fine, I am blessed to have it, I just wish I could have a Mommy-office that ROCKS!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Dinosaur Tot Pack
It's done! I have been working on this Tot Pack for a long time now, trying to make tons of fun stuff for Krash! We are in the middle of using the pack right now, so you'll be seeing more of the dino theme in the next couple of Tot School posts! We are having SO much fun!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Moving on Up...
As our Tot School continues to grow, and now that it has been online for over a year, many of us have older tots that will soon be moving on up! I have recently gotten a few emails about the age range for adding posts to Tot School each week, and thought I would take some time to address this question!
The "set" age range for posting to Tot School is 12-47 months, however that range may vary a bit for differently abled children. Your 10 month old may be ready for some Tot School type stuff and that fine...feel free to link up early! Or, your older child may have special needs that make Tot School the perfect match for his/her abilities...that's fine too!
If you are doing Tot School type stuff with your child, feel free to link up! Tot School type stuff would be defined as...purposeful play to expose early learning skills.
What if your Tot is progressing normally and will be moving on around age 4? I then would ask you to switch your links to the Preschool Corner!
My friend and Totally Tots partner, Jolanthe hosts the next step - The Preschool Corner on her blog. She offers wonderful ideas and puts up a weekly MckLinky for all families who want to join together in home-preschooling!
I hope that helps and when you move on to the Preschool Corner, please let me know if you think about it so I can remove your blog from the Tot School blog list, and also so I can say farewell! Krash will be moving up to Preschool when he is 4, and I will begin linking up on Jolanthe's Preschool Corner then. Only 6 months or so and my Tot School posts will be featuring Ladybug!!!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
1000 Subscribers Celebration ~ Grand Finale #4
Need a place to plop your tot in your schoolroom or other various locations? Head on over to see the cool baby gadget we have for giveaway now!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Raising Rock Stars ~ Halloween
Bible Focus...Sharing God's Love on Halloween
We took a break from our weekly Bible stories to spend some time talking about Halloween and what it means for us as Christians. In the neighborhood where we live and serve as missionaries, the scary part of Halloween is everywhere. People decorate like crazy and there is no avoiding it. We feel it is important to not just ignore this holiday but to find a way how we as believers can share the light of Christ on this day that is often focused on the evil and darkness of the world.
We personally allow our children to dress up and have fun on Halloween, usually spending the evening at our church for the fun party! Our house is all decked out in fun fall stuff and also TONS of Jack O Lanterns. (The Jack O Lantern-God takes all of our yuckies out and puts His light in us- lesson is on the agenda for next week!)
We began by reading the book, Let's Shine Jesus' Light On Halloween, which is filled with Bible verses that we really focused on.
We then came to the table where the boys each made their own "Christian Pumpkin."
First they colored them orange...
Then we cut them out and glued the poem on the back...
Finally we added the symbols to the pumpkin, and talked about what they mean...
Here's our finished Christian Pumpkins...
Krash was SO very proud of his, it was the sweetest thing. At one point he said, "I got to make mine all pretty like Pac Man's." He colored forever to get it all orange!
Weekly Bible Verse...
Songs for Saplings ~ Dd
We work on our verse every day during calendar time, and we also listen to the entire Songs for Saplings CD during recess at least 1-2 days per week!
Resources used this week:
- Pumpkin Poem Printables (this links to the new website, I disabled the main navigation since the rest of the site is still under construction...you can get to the Halloween page though!)
- Christian Halloween Books (from our theme bookstore)
- Bible Memory Verse, Dd
- Songs for Saplings CD
Homeschool Blog Awards
It's that time again! Last year was an exciting year for us personally, as 1+1+1=1 was nominated for the first time and took home 2nd place in the Crafts, Plans & Projects & also placed in Nitty- Gritty! I was so honored and met so many wonderful new readers as a result of these awesome awards! Homeschool Blog Awards has an awesome new nomination form this year for you to nominate your favorite blogs. It will be much easier for everyone involved this year!
{Click on the button to start nominating}
Here are a few new guidelines for this year:
~ Nominate only one blog per category – once. That means once you have logged in and nominated, you can’t come back and do it again… unless you didn’t nominate all 25 categories. Once you have all 25 nominated, you are finished.
~ Do not nominate one blog for MORE than one category. Sorry, but no more nominating your mom’s blog for all 25 categories.
~ If a blog does not get nominated in the same category at least three times, it will not be in the final voting stage for that category. You will find out who made the finals in November.
Go nominate some of your favorite blogs. This is such a neat way to learn about new homeschooling blogs each year! I plan on nominating several of YOU!!!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Tot School ~ Dinosaur Week!
~Krash is currently 41 months old~
** links to all toys and books are at the bottom of the post
Learning Toys...
We were sent this awesome toy(Guidecraft Shape Sorter) for review (and upcoming giveaway) and Krash loves it!!! It's an awesome Tot School tool!
He still loves his sound puzzles, even though they are way too easy for him now! (in the Amazon carousel below I added one that is similar to ours, as I couldn't find our exact puzzle)
He always loves when the eggs and spoons come out. We have so much fun with these when we play with them!
A little bit of lacing fun...
Theme...Dinosaurs!!!
I have been planning our dino theme for awhile now in honor of our new favorite show, Dinosaur Train. Both boys LOVE it, so it was time to learn a bit more! K was thrilled to see brand new dinosaur puppets on his trays when he came down for Tot School last Monday morning! My mom got them for him at Costco (recently), just for dino week! We also read a Creation book to talk about how God made dinosaurs. We discussed which day God made them, and talked about this more and more throughout the week.
I got him a dino coloring book from the Dollar Tree, he thought that was cool too ;)
Of course we had tons of cool dino books, his favorites form the week are below in the Amazon carousel. Here he is reading his absolute favorite, Dinosaur, Dinosaur. He loved this book!
He also loved this stereo book (also from Costco recently). The written facts are off in the book (as most are in dino books), but we didn't read those words ;). He loved pushing the numbers to hear sounds, and we learned the names of all of the dinos. It is a book more for older kids (on one page there's a dino eating a dead dino), but Krash is into stuff like that so he liked it a lot!
Of course I made him a dinosaur Tot Pack, which will be available for you soon ;), he loved these color matching cards...
We put the colors in a row like a train, he had to find the right "seat" for each character. Then he got his own seat (Ladybug's Bumbo), and hopped on the train!
He loved spelling his name...
We worked on size sequencing, and 1:1 counting as he fed each dino a pom pom ball ;)
A little Heads n Tails matching (they were hungry too)...
He loved the dino felt set/book my mom also got for him!!!
Fall Fun!!
We love talking about Jesus being the light inside of us during the month of October. Therefore we have tons of Jack O Lanterns around. We focus entirely on the idea of God scooping out our yuckies and putting His light inside of us to glow for the world to see. We played a few games with one of our pumpkins...
We had fun talking about body parts as we stuffed pom poms in his face!!!
Life School/Mommy's Favorites ;)
I couldn't possibly pick a favorite, so all of his life school pics are my favs this week! They were just all so sweet and bring back great memories from the week! Here Pac Man was reading to Ladybug and K walked up to join in. What a precious sight to a momma, huh?!
As if the above wasn't sweet enough, here he's reading the Bible to Ladybug...
you know, upside down. My kid is a genius, yes he is.
Below are shots from my fun day alone with Krash, I played and played with my sweet boy. No housework, no computer, no interruptions...just me, my little guy, and a few people...
yup, just a few ;)
- Are you wondering where to start with Tot School? Read here!
- Read more about Tot Trays here
- Visit Totally Tots!!!
- Want to see more Tot School posts? Click HERE
- Visit our Tot School Webpage HERE
- Visit our Tot School Tools store HERE
If you have a tot (approximately ages 1-3) at home, join in the fun and share what you're doing with your tot! Here's how to get started if you're new... If you've never read this: Go HERE 1st for more details- please do!!! Then if you have any ideas you'd like to share, link up your exact post to MckLinky (if you have questions about how to do that, let me know in a comment or email-links to homepages will automatically be deleted).
When you add your name(blog name) to MckLinky will you put your tot's age (in months) after it, like this: 1+1+1=1 (41 mos)? I think this will help new readers a lot as they look for ideas for their specific aged tot!
If you are NEW will you please add the word NEW to your link so I can be sure to welcome you? My memory is failing me now with so many wonderful links!!!! I am excited to see Tot School growing like it is and want to be sure to visit each one of you at some point.
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