Tillery Tot School- Letter L

Last week we learned about the letter "L"! We focused on lions, leaves, and ladybugs mostly. Here's a look at our Tot School board:

I have a few books about ladybugs so we read plenty of those.
Seth liked The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.

We made ladybugs using construction paper.

We made a lion using a paper plate, some construction paper, and noodles.

I made a special lunch for Seth.
He seems to eat a lot better when his food is made into
something related to what we are learning about.

His first glance at his lion sandwich was so humorous to me.
I am not too sure he knew what it was at first.
But he did eat really well after we talked about it being a lion.

I found these number window clings at Mighty Dollar recently.

So we practiced our counting using them on the front door.

We played in the leaves.

Then we brought a few inside to hang on our board and to also use for some leaf rubbings.

We also made lobsters by tracing our hands and one foot.

The hands are the claws and the foot is the body.

(I would have also liked to have watched The Lion King,
but we just couldn't find a copy and we weren't willing to pay $24.99 for it.
So hopefully we can watch it as soon as we can borrow it or get a cheaper copy.)

This week we are learning about the letter "R"!

"Give Thanks" Board

When our office went from one look to another last year before transforming into Seth's big boy room, our cute bulletin board got stashed in the basement until I could come up with another use for it. Well it has a new home and for this month it has a new purpose. Our big hallway has been turned into an office area. So on one of the walls I hung the frame I love so dearly. Because turquoise wasn't jiving too well in the hallway, I spray painted the frame brown and replaced the fabric covered cork with chicken wire. Most of the time it serves as a message board, but for this month I thought it would be fun for it to be a "Give Thanks" board.

I found a leaf template that I liked and printed it out.

Then using some fall colored paper, I traced and cut out enough leaves for each day of the month. I attached all of the leaves along with a "Give Thanks" sign using mini clothespins. Each night we each say something we are thankful for and add it to one leaf. At the end of the month I am going to put all the leaves in an envelope and add it to our memory box.
Hopefully our "Give Thanks" board can become a tradition. I just think it will be so neat to look back on all the things we were thankful for each year.

Tillery Tot School- Letter I

Last week we learned all about the letter "I." We focused mainly on just a few "I" words like inchworm, iguana, insects, and ice cream. Here's the Tot School board:

A few people have mentioned to me that they have noticed all the Beanie Babies hanging on our boards that correspond with the letter that we are studying. Yes, I do have a lot of them. During my classroom teaching days, I bought a huge bag of used Beanie Babies from a lady to use with the Beanie Babies Reading Strategies. I almost sold them all on Ebay a couple of years ago. Now I am glad I kept them because they really come in handy each week. We have two baskets full of them under Seth's bed. We pull them out each week and find the ones that start with the letter we are studying and then display them on our board.

Note: We didn't have one specific Bible verse this week.

Here are some of the "I" activities:
We played with insect stickers. Seth loves stickers of any kind!

We made an iguana out of the letter I.

We went to Chaney's Dairy Barn one evening to have some ice cream.
Seth even told the girl working behind the counter what letter we were studying!

One day for lunch I made a grilled cheese sandwich in the waffle maker.
Then I made it look like an ice cream cone and added sliced bananas and a grape to look like the ice cream and a cherry on top.

Seth loved it and ate every single bite of it!

I picked up this shape sticker book at Mighty Dollar (last week) and Seth did an amazing job matching up the shape and color sticker that matched each dot on the page.

One of my favorite activities of the week was ice cube painting.

I found the idea and template for the ice cream cone here.

I turned on the flip video while we were working. Here's an unedited peek into our learning:



This is what happens when you try to lick an ice cube that has blue food coloring in it. Luckily it washed off pretty easily.

We worked some more on our numbers by reading and working with our new
Lift-the-flap Counting Book from Usborne Books.

We also read (and by read I mean we mostly looked at the pictures since this book was a little too complicated for him but it was one I already had) Inchworm and a Half.

Then we made an "I is for Inchworm" craft.

I found some foam insect pieces the other day (also Mighty Dollar).

We made an insect picture using them.

The most repeated activity of the week was picking up plastic insects with tongs and placing them in an ice cube tray. We read an interactive Insect book first and then Seth did this activity almost every day because he loved it so much.

It was a super fun week!

This week we are focusing on the letter "L"!

Thanksgiving/OCC Packaging Party

Our friends Lara and Lylah invited us to join them for a Thanksgiving Celebration today. We had so much fun making crafts, eating special treats, and spending time with friends. Here are some of the highlights from the party.

First, we made these adorable turkey hats.

Aren't these kids just so adorable?

Next, we ate our Thanksgiving themed snacks.
We had turkey cookies, pumpkin muffins,

fruit cornucopias, and...popcorn that was inside a paper bag turkey!
Lara made this paper bag turkey using one large paper bag and two lunch sized paper bags for the legs. She cut it open to reveal the popcorn surprise inside.

One reason we had our Thanksgiving party so early in the month was because of Operation Christmas Child. We decided it would be fun to incorporate a packaging party into the festivities since the collection week starts the 14th. So just like previous years, we filled our boxes with lots of goodies. (We will do a few more things with our boxes as a family in the next few days and then drop off our boxes.)Next up was a "Find the Feathers" game. The kids covered their eyes and then went to find feathers hidden in another room. They thought this was so fun!
Then we made Mayflower boats.
These are our new friends Emily and Bella.
Bella is Lylah's cousin and she is just adorable.Our last craft of the day was finger painting Indian corn. It was such a fun morning. We love parties and can't wait until the next one!

Silas: 3 Months Old

Silas is 3 months old today! He is growing so fast these days. He is almost too big for his 0-3 month clothes and he took his first vitamin drop this evening. He is such a content little fella and he just smiles and smiles if you look at him. He is a great sleeper. He can sleep between five and six hours at night before waking up to eat.

He loves watching his big brother and is starting to show interest in toys.

He still loves to bounce in the bouncy chair, but has decided that he hates the swing. He also makes some pretty funny faces.

About a month ago we lost our only pacifier. Since Silas didn't take it very often, we just didn't replace it. He doesn't seem to mind. He is so laid back and easy going. We are so thankful that Silas is part of our family.
We love our sweet baby boy!