Tot School ~ CHRISTMAS!

~Krash is currently 43.5 months old~

We arrived down south on Dec 21 and have been enjoying both sets of grandparents!  Krash has soaked up the fun in every way!  Before Christmas, his favorite thing was definitely having room to ride (unlike where we live)!

He is amazing on his Strider Bike, we LOVE this bike!

He has enjoyed having our dog, Bower, outside to play with more!They are quite funny together! Christmas brought Krash many new toys (way too many actually), and he was a sweetheart through it all!  He loved everything he got and was very thankful! Santa showed up for a quick visit as he was out in my parent’s neighborhood!  K was scared of him, unless Daddy held him!We wore the little guy out!  He fell asleep on the couch on Christmas Eve during the family get-together! It was a fun, but BUSY week.  I am thankful for all of our family Bible nights in December when we focused on Christ, quietly as our own little family.  Christmas with tons of extended family is fun, but it isn’t very spiritual.  We have 1 more week down here to enjoy family, then it’s back to real life!

• 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 (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?

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 here with this info. Just put your blog name and then the age like this (6/06). I will add it to the webpage!

Merry CHRISTmas!

 

Wishing you a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our Savior!

Tot School ~ No School

Krash is currently 43 months old~

We had a week off of school, as we will for the next 2 weeks while we head down south to visit family, but learning still continues in the life of a tot!  Here’s a few moments I managed to capture of Krash this week!

We read lots of Christmas books!  He really liked Spunky's First Christmas, a LOT!!!

He helped Kirsten (our college “daughter”) bake some…

He he babysat Ladybug for me, and made sure she had all of her toys piled in her lap!!!  As he proceeded to run around the house with his wrapping paper tube…his new favorite toy.

I snowed a TON where we are and Krash played in it for hours with Pac Man!   They even went out at night!  We were amazed with his lack of whining, we thought he would only make it a few minutes!  Little did we know! I will be posting Tot School for the next 2 weeks while we are away, and plan to use this to recap K’s holiday and travel fun.  I may or may not be on the blog much other than that, depends how I am feeling while away!  Sometimes I get all anti-blogging, sometimes I am all over it…I will just go with the flow ~ you may or may not see me between Tot School posts!

• 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 (this is still linked to the old website for now)!!! 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?

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 here with this info. Just put your blog name and then the age like this (6/06). I will add it to the webpage!

What’s New on 1plus1plus1equals1.com

 

Christmas Tot Pack…

I added more printables, photos, links to the “More Christmas Fun” section, and also a new blog to “Have you Made this Tot Pack?”

Mommy’s iTouch Apps

I added some new Apps I have found and love for my iTouch, I have also started to add Podcasts ~my newfound love!

Brown Bear Brown Bear Tot Pack…

New blog linked under “Have you Made this Tot Pack?”

Join Tot School

I finally updated this portion of the webpage!

Tools for Tots

I added a felt snowman sent in by a reader!  Be sure to send in any links you’d like to see over there!

Raising Rocks Stars ~ CHRISTmas…Nativity Story

 

We read the Christmas story from The Anytime Bible, which continues to be one of our favorite Children's Bibles (my full review is here).  We also used our Fisher Price Nativity to highlight the characters in the story.   It was a good idea in theory, although K was out of sorts this night and all he really cared to do was make the stable sing “du-du-du-du-du” (when you push the top it sings Away in a Manger and he loves it).  It took some real effort to get through the entire story (from the angel to the wise men).

 

We were blessed to have guests with us for our family time, “Kiki” is our college “daughter” (she lived with us for over 2 years while she was in high school), and a good friend J.  They helped us color our Happy Birthday Jesus coloring book…

Krash also worked on his puzzle from our Christmas Tot Pack…

He also dot-painted the Happy Birthday Jesus sheet (which he was extremely disturbed about since I created the circles a bit too big for the dot paint)…note to self-make sure the circles are exact to avoid trouble from this particular little guy. 

We also talked about getting a gift for Jesus for HIS birthday.  We talked about what He wants most from us, discussing love and service to others mainly.  We selected an item to give to Jesus from the World Vision Gift Catalog.  We let Pac Man select and he chose a fishing kit and 2 chickens.  We discussed how these gifts would help someone else and why Jesus would want this for Christmas.

I will not be posting another Raising Rock Stars post until after the new year, probably Jan 12.  I will schedule this MckLinky to be open until the next one goes up, so feel free to add any posts you do between now and then to this one!

Resources used this week:

• World Vision Gift Catalog
• Christian Preschool Printables ~ Happy Birthday Jesus Mini Book (I enlarged ours using Photoshop)
• Bible Story Printables (find full size coloring pages here, the same as the mini, just full sheets)
• Christmas Tot Pack
• Bible Memory Verses
• Songs for Saplings CD

Visit the Raising Rock Stars Webpage to download your own notebook pages and to see links to previous Rock Stars posts! Please read there or here before you add your link.

 

Tot School ~ Christmas Break Style

~Krash is currently 43 months old~

Learning Toys/Trays…

Get ready to be impressed with our amazing Tot School adventures. All completely well thought out and planned by yours truly…or NOT. Just happened to have the camera sitting around to capture some of K’s Tot School-ish moments that he created on his own just playing in the schoolroom! We haven’t followed ay sort of schedule (see this post if you missed it), and have been winging it and having a bit of fun and a bit of stress ;-).

He cut shapes a lot!

He played with his musical instruments a LOT…

He finally decided he likes drawing on our big wall dry erase board. This is a chomper beetle and K’s fingers are his chompers going around the board eating other bugs.

Theme ~ CHRISTmas

We did do some Christmas Tot School, along with many crafts for Christmas gifts. Here’s a few of the fun things Krash worked with this past week. He made a Christmas sticker scene (got these from OT, although I can’t find them online now)…

He worked with positional words using our Where’s the Present mini book…

He matched up A-E using his upper/lower case candy cane letters.

He did it but did not enjoy it as much as he loves marching around his giant J singing ABCs…

iTouch Learning Fun

Five Little Monkeys was not a favorite app at first for Krash, but this past week he has played with it and really enjoyed it! I think he just didn’t “get it” at first. Now that he does it is topping the list of his favorites! Find this and our other favorite Tot apps here!

Life School

We caught our own pet!

Now before you go lecturing me about how you can’t keep wild mice as pets, don’t worry, she has already left us. But for a few fun days we had a pet mouse who was oh-so-cute. Those are words I never thought I would ever say.

Pac saw Miss Mouse running around the school room the other day. Daddy bravely caught her in a jar. Instead of disposing of her right then and there he made the mistake of taking a peek at her. He thought she was cute. Then he made the bigger mistake of showing her to me, and I thought she was cute. Of course that led to the boys begging to keep her.

Daddy drug the old lizard cage out of the basement and they set up house for her. We gave her some bread and cheese, watched her drink out of her water dish and bury herself in the construction paper bedding the boys prepared for her. Karsh loved watching the little mouse do her thing for a few days.

Then, her final moments came. She got cold in the schoolroom the other night and she kicked the bucket on her own. Probably for the best since she was scheduled for a little tour of the toilet soon anyhow.

She was fun while she lasted, although I don’t think I will be hoping to find a new pet mouse anytime soon.

Tiny Tot school

Hard to believe in just 4 months this little cutie will be the Tot School TOT in our house! She has begun to hang out with us more and enjoys sitting in her Bumbo and exploring different things we have. She really enjoyed exploring the stacking cups for a long time this past week. She is almost 8 months old now, where has the time gone?

Mommy’s Favorite

Could you just eat him up?

Yeah, me too. Oh how I love my crazy Krash.

Remember to check out our What We Love page if you need Christmas gift ideas!

• 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 (this is still linked to the old website for now)!!! 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?

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 here with this info. Just put your blog name and then the age like this (6/06). I will add it to the webpage!

I simply must know…

How many of you actually have a detailed homeschooling schedule AND stick to it on a regular basis.

Here’s the deal. I make great schedules, I think through them, even pray about them, color code them, hang them up and even follow them ~ for awhile. Then the schedule becomes another in the stack of failures and we wing-it for awhile until I decide it’s time to try again.

I have done this since the very beginning of our homeschooling days and have still not had long term success to this day. Obviously I am contemplating our next perfect daily routine to begin when we return home in January, and obviously I think it will certainly work this time…ha. I do want it to work though. I want to stick to it, I want it to last. I do know myself however, and I am not the best at this. So, I beg of you to please share with me in the comments.

Here’s what I’d love to know…

1. Do you have a schedule that you follow, no schedule at all, or are you a schedule drop-out like me?
2. If you DO have a schedule that you follow, please tell me (any of the following that you are willing to take the time to share)…
1. how many kids you have and their age range
2. what hours you schedule for during the day
3. how often you actually adhere to the schedule
4. why you feel it is best to stick to it
5. what is hard for you about sticking to it
6. when you bend the schedule
3. If you are a schedule drop-out, please tell me…
1. do you think you work better with or without a schedule and why?
2. are you planning on trying again in January like I am?
4. If you don’t have a set schedule and usually wing-it but still have a successful homeschooling day, please tell me…
1. why do you think you function better this way?
2. do you think your kids do better this way?
3. do you get everything done each day that you’d like to get done?

Please feel free to share as little or as much as you’d like, I am hoping to gain wisdom and direction from some of you! There are many of you who I wish I could peek in on for a day just to see how you do it all. I know some of you feel that way about me, but guess what? I am no different than you! A few moms I would really love a peek at are the ones with more kiddos than me including (but not limited to) Carissa, Jill, Jolanthe, Erica, Erin, Jenn, Kimberly, Michelle.

Please, please let me learn from you…

Thank You ;-)

Geo Shape Sorter Giveaway!

Head on over to try to win one of our new favorite Tot School Tools!  The giveaway ends on Sunday… hurry, hurry!

Raising Rock Stars ~ CHRISTmas…Candy Canes

We based our entire family night on Candy Canes! We began by reading the book, J Is for Jesus, which teaches about the symbolism of the candy cane.

After Daddy read the book, I had small pipe cleaner candy canes for the boys. If they could recall something the book said about the candy cane, they got to add a candy cane to our tree. Of course this was WAY over Krash’s ability level, so Daddy whispered the answers to him…

…and he excitedly hung up his candy canes!

Afterward I had one of the items I had made for the Christmas Tot Pack, Candy Cane ABCs. We put them in order all together, in the shape of a candy cane (J is for Jesus) on the floor. Krash led us all in running around them while singing our ABCs! ~the ABCs are meant to be cut apart for matching upper/lower case, but we just didn’t cut them yet!

Then it was to the table to color our book about the symbolism of the Candy cane.

Krash was SUPER proud of the page he colored and told me to make sure I saw the ABCs he colored.

Finally, we made a patterned candy cane, Pac glued the green, Krash the white-it was a good lesson in turn-taking!

We hung it up as a J is for Jesus!

We then told the boys it was time for bed, Pac even went up to get his jammies on. When he came back down to give us a kiss, we surprised the boys with a special present! In the box were 2 candy canes, 2 candy cane flavored Hershey Kisses and a new Curious George Christmas movie! We let them stay up late and each eat their mini candy canes and Kisses while we all watched George together. When Pac hugged me goodnight, he kept telling me thank you and that it was one of the best nights ever! It was a really fun family night (although Ladybug was missing since she went to bed early). I am SO thankful for these family times together!

The boys also have a Christmas verse for the next couple of weeks!

Resources used this week:

• Christmas Tot Pack (Candy Cane ABCs, and pattern Candy Cane are here)
• Christian Preschool Printables Candy Cane Mini Book (I enlarged ours using Photoshop)
• Christmas Books (from our theme bookstore)
• Bible Memory Verses
• Songs for Saplings CD

Visit the Raising Rock Stars Webpage to download your own notebook pages and to see links to previous Rock Stars posts! Please read there or here before you add your link.