Tot School {The Snowy Day}

Let's be honest.  We didn't do that much school this week, which I kind of expected.

The last two weeks were really good with school, so I figured she might not love this week as much.

She enjoyed the activities, but it just wasn't as interesting with out her mitten and animals.  

Sometimes I would just catch a glimpse of her and wonder where my baby went.  

One my favorites parts of the week was just seeing her be a little mama.

She would cuddle up with her stuffed animals and babies to read them books

This week we read The Snowy Day, worked on some great printable sheets, made tracks in playdough, made tracks in the real snow, worked on colors and shapes, and just enjoyed a lot of cuddling and reading together.  One of the things that I'm learning to love about being home with my girl is that cuddle days are ok and sometimes even better the busy day.

{Addi is 31 months old}

1+1+1 Link-Up & FIAR

Tot School {The Mitten + Valentine's}

Last week Addi loved Mitten week so much that we continued, but added more books for expand on it.  

We found some books that we're about love and Valentine's Day that included woodland creatures. 

Each week I do a calendar time including the weather, ZooPhonics card, and a weekly song.  

I found the cutest mitten song to the Farmer and the Dell.  

Addi put the animals in the mitten for each verse of the song.

Addi has been obsessed with putting money in her piggy bank lately, so we give her all our change.  

On her own she has started to line them up, count them, then deposit them into her bank.

This girl hasn't been able to get enough books lately, so we just run with it.  

If we do no other "learning activities" other then read the mountain of books {after Disney Junior} I'm ok with it. Yes, she watches cartoons in the morning.  More then I would probably want to admit, but this mama doesn't really function before 9:30AM.

Sometimes I grab the school bag and Addi tells me she doesn't want to do school, but then five minutes late she comes to me begging to do school.  I don't want to ever push learning activities on her.  Just develop a love of learning.  The last few weeks I really seen a huge difference that if I let her do something on her own, she gains so much more confidence and understand.  That includes initiating school when she's ready.  Also, I don't do school with her two or three days a week.

In honor of Valentines day we did a few heart activities and read Valentines books.  

So far she has loves Clifford Valentine and Max & Ruby the best.  

It's fun to see her actually grasp something from the book on her own.  

After we did all the Valentine's activities, we went to tell her grandparents Happy Valentine's day.

On her own she went to get each of them one of her sheets to give them. It was so cute! 

Then she only wanted one Valentine:  Daddy! 

This week I read a post about what another families reading time looked like, it was liberating! 

I don't want to sit there with my two year old and expect her to listen to ten books on end.

Yes, she loves certain books and will "read" them with me, but I want to read her longer books too.

Now I'm ok with her playing with play dough or lacing cards, she's still hearing me reading to her.

She is still hearing stories and learning more concepts and language skills.  

Sometimes she stops what she's doing to listen, other times she just quietly plays and listens.

No more struggle to keep her hands and feet still to listen to longer books. 

{Addi is 31 months old}

1+1+1 Link-Up & BFIAR

Tot School {The Mitten}

The last few months I've been reading all about literature based curriculums. 

There are dozens of great blogs highlighting their journey through literature based learning,

 but my favorites so far are Homeschool Creations, Delightful Learning and Homeschool Share.

This year I'm just working through some of the activities and packets that I have found online.

However next year I want to start doing more preschool, so the plan is to do Before Five in a Row.

This week we worked on The Mitten by Jan Brett.

A friend let us borrow her white mitten and improvised animals.

Addi loved this! She asked to read the book a million times in a row.

Then she took the book and animals to get her cousin involved.

It was the cutest thing watching them study the animals, learn their names, and take turns filling the mitten. 

Each day we worked on a few printables, which is fun to see her so proud of her accomplishments.

We had some sparkly white playdough, so we used her little animals to print and make tracks.

I have a confession to make: Addi got this awesome reusable sticker pad for her birthday...

seven months ago! And I just now opened them for her to play with.

Yep, I have a little bit of sticker-phobia.  I kept picturing tangled sticker clings and tears.

Now I'm glad I waited a little while because she loved dressing up the little girls.

We printed out two little pictures of all the animals, so she would find the matches.
Then she would take the figures and match them up.
One night we were a little stir crazy, so we headed to Goodwill.
We may have got my new favorite book and Hedgie Loves to Read.
It's another book by Jan Brett, so it was a prefect little book to go along with our mitten week.

 Through out all our learning time she had this little puppy {Zeke} wrapped in a blanket and on her lap. 

It was the cutest thing and it just reminds me of why I want to homeschool.

Not only to teach my daughter the fundamentals of learning, but also to teach her the love of a relationship with her heavenly Father and the deep sense of compassion.

Watching her love of learning makes me so excited to be bless to teach her! 

{Addi is 31 months old}

1+1+1=1 Link Up & FIAR