Tillery Tot School- Letter Y

This week we learned about the letter "Y"! We focused on a few words in particular this week like yarn and yak since there aren't a lot of words that start with "Y". We also did lots of activities that involved the color yellow.
Here's a look at our Tot Board:

We started the week off by using our yellow paint pen to fill in our uppercase and lowercase 'Y." We really focused on staying inside the letter and Seth did amazingly well since he usually just likes to scribble all over it.

We made a yellow collage with some stickers and art supplies.

We played with yellow Playdough and even got to use our "Y" cookie cutter.

We looked online at some pictures of yaks. We watched this video and then we made two different yaks using printouts and a toilet paper tube.

While we were playing with shaving cream we practiced making the letter "Y."

We made a yarn covered "Y."

We also went on a yellow hunt using these items.

I hid them around the living room and Seth had to find them... and put them in his yellow bag. We did this several times and he kept begging for more.

Throughout the week we also practiced lacing with these Melissa and Doug lacing cards we received from Granna and Papa.

We practiced 1:1 correspondence by using our large dice and placing the candy on the dots. After he counted the candy he got to eat it.

Here's a video of Seth in action.

We also did some letter hammering by using an egg carton and a small hammer. I just wrote the letters we have learned so far on the bottom and Seth got to pound the letters when I called them out.

When we were done hammering Seth asked for the dropper. I didn't know what in the world he was talking about at first until he told me he wanted to put "water inside." So we got out the eye dropper and a small bowlful of water and we practiced some fine motor skills by transferring water back and forth.

Now that we've made it through all the letters in Seth's first and last name we are going to make our way through the rest of the alphabet. So this week we will start at the beginning and focus on the letter "A." It should be lots of fun!

Playing with Shaving Cream

Tonight we played with shaving cream for the first time.

It went a little something like this...

The end.

Tot School- Winter Fun

Our Tot School has been very relaxed around here lately. We have returned to Toddler Time at the library and we have enjoyed a few play dates with friends, but we haven't been focusing on a letter of the week for almost a couple months now. When we do take some time for crafts it has mostly been Winter themed. Here's a look at some of our fun...

We played with some winter themed foam stickers.

We played with snowflake stamps (a set of 6 from Mighty Dollar).

I put the items from our Winter Celebration sensory bin into a smaller container
and Seth has been having fun playing with it almost everyday.
I found fake ice cubes at Hobby Lobby and they have been the biggest hit.
I am always amazed at what things become the most played with items.

We took an empty Pringles can

and turned it into a snowman.

We filled a plastic storage bag with shaving cream...

squished it all around...

and made it into snowman by gluing eyes and a nose onto it.

We also used an empty toilet paper tube to make a snowman. We dipped the end of it in paint and it made three perfect circles for a body. We added a hat, eyes, nose, and mouth. Then we used a Q-tip to paint snow.

Next week we will resume our letter of the week Tot School. We will be learning about the letter "Y" (the last letter of our last name in case you were wondering where all these random letters are coming from). Then we will make our way through the rest of the alphabet.

Snow

A couple of days ago snow started to fall.

By yesterday afternoon we had enough snow to actually play in it.

We made a very pathetic looking snowman and threw a few snowballs.
After just a few minutes we were cold and it was time to go inside and warm up.
All the snow melted away today, but we had fun while it was here!

Tantrums: A New Realm of Parenting

This train table was the cause of Seth's first full blown tantrum.

I decided I would take the boys to story time at Barnes and Noble yesterday. The previous Friday we had gone to story time, but I had my mom with me so one of us could tend to Silas while the other sat by Seth. They had warm hot chocolate for the kids in these tiny kid-sized cups. The Snowy Day was read aloud and we even made a snowman craft. We had so much fun and it went so well I thought we would try it again this week. We didn't even notice the train table on the opposite side of the store.
I thought the story time started at 11:00 this week because that was the time printed in the SOKY Happenings magazine. We showed up at about 10:50 so that we could get inside and settled into a spot before the story began. When 11:00 rolled around and we were the only ones in the children's section, we decided we would take a look at some books and then just go home. As we were casually browsing around, Seth spotted the train table. Right about that time, Silas decided he was hungry. Seth played and played with the trains while I was able to feed Silas. It worked out perfectly really. Right at 11:30 an announcement came over the intercom that story time was about to begin. Excitedly, I tried to persuade Seth it was time to go listen to the story. He didn't want any part of it. He wanted to stay with the train and he made it very clear. Not wanting to make a scene in front of several other people that had shown up for story time, I tried to pull Seth over to the side and talk about how we had to leave the train and go listen to the story. Once the crying began I knew I was doomed. The crying soon escalated into a going-limp-fall-on-the-floor kind of tantrum. There was no negotiating. We had to get out of there and fast. I had Silas in his carrier in one hand and I literally had to drag Seth from the back of the store to the front. Once we got to the car the crying continued all the way home.
Dealing with a two year old can be very challenging. My firsts thoughts leaving the store were we are never going back to story time there ever again. Call me crazy, but after I had some time to think about what happened I knew we needed to try it again. Luckily our Barnes and Noble has a story time on Saturdays, too. So today Bryan joined us just in case the same thing happened again. We did A LOT of talking about story time and leaving the train when mommy and daddy said to leave it before we went. We even practiced saying bye, bye to the train before we went inside. We walked straight to the story area, listened to the story, and even made a snowflake. Afterward we played with the train. Seth even looked at some books instead of playing with the train the whole time. When we were ready to leave we told the train bye, bye and walked to the front of the store. Bryan took both boys out to the car while I bought a half-priced Christmas book. Seth did get upset for a second on the way to the car, but we were able to avoid any meltdowns this time.
So we have entered a new realm of parenting and it's definitely a learning process. Obviously we won't have an opportunity to have a redo with future tantrums, but I sure was thankful for one this first time.

The Orange Chair

On Saturday I spotted the orange chair I have been longing for. I was checking out at one of the local consignment shops and turned around and saw it. My heart fluttered just a bit because I was so giddy. The shop had already closed and I was the last customer, but I asked if I could go take a look at the chair. I was just praying the price was affordable. It had a $75.00 price tag. It was in excellent condition except for one small tear on the back of it, but it was still a lot of money for a chair.
Bryan stopped by to take a look at the chair yesterday on his lunch break. After some discussion last night, he went back today to purchase it for me. He was able to talk the owner of the shop down to $60.00.
This morning I posted our old chair on Craigslist. I got an email from an interested buyer within minutes and we sold our old chair tonight for $25.00.

So for $35.00, we went from this...

to this...

I think it was $35.00 well spent. I couldn't be happier.

Deja Vu

For the most part our boys are very different. Even with Silas just turning 5 months old, he already has a very different personality than Seth, and I have thought that they looked different since Silas was just a few weeks old. But sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like I am experiencing deja vu. Take for instance these similar photos...(Seth)

(Silas)

(Seth)

(Silas)

(Seth)

(Silas)

and most recently...

(Seth)

(Silas)

It's fun to see how similar our boys can be even when they seem so very different.

Winter Celebration

The first day of winter was a few days before Christmas. Not wanting to take away from Christmas, we waited to do our Winter Celebration until today. We invited our friends over to enjoy all things wintery with us.

We had yummy treats.
I made these little marshmallow snowmen.

We painted snowy pictures with rosemary branches
(because I didn't have any pine needles).

Using stuffed garbage bags, we made a snowman.
I found the hat, carrot, and eyes/buttons in
a "Build Your Own Snowman" set in the Target Dollar Bin.
It came in quite handy.

We made bird feeders using a paper plate, peanut butter, and birdseed.

Then we played with a snowy sensory bin.

We had snow (cotton balls) flying everywhere!

Our friends Lylah, Bella, and Eliza all went home

with their own handmade felt build-a-snowman set and a snowman necklace.

And thanks to my friend, Lara, everyone also got a delicious bag of snowy white cotton candy.

It was the perfect end to a fun morning.