Spring!

Theme: Spring

Honey Pot is 2 years and 11 months old

Books

We have a couple of libraries very close to our new home! We went to the smaller of these, and it was quite nice. Looking forward to exploring the bigger one before our next unit. Apparently it’s pretty amazing. Since we are still learning our way around, we only borrowed three springy books this week, and combined them with three from our own collection. What a refreshing group of stories! Springtime, you were long overdue!

Do-A-Dot Art

We began our unit with this simple activity. The printables came from a great Spring Pack from 3 Dinosaurs. Honey Pot had no trouble with these, and seemed to really enjoy getting back into craft mode! She completed two of these. First a butterfly:

Then a blue flower.

Ta-da!

Sponge Prints

In my tot school stash I have a group of sponges in various shapes, purchased from the Dollar Tree. I thought we could create a pretty spring picture with these and hang it up all season long. I taped two pieces of cardstock together, and got out a few springy colors of paint. Then I showed Honey Pot where we should put the green rectangle stems.

Then I asked her to stamp some flowers on top of those stems. We used the circle sponge in addition to the flower sponge.

Love how this came out. And we have it hanging right above the kitchen sink.

Patterns

This is another printable from the 3 Dinosaurs Spring Pack. We haven’t done too much of this type of thing yet. Honey Pot had a bit of difficulty understanding which picture should come next. I'd say she got about half of them right by herself. But I think it was a successful introduction to this concept. 

Flower Path

Here is another printable we found in the 3 Dinosaurs pack. Honey Pot and I just loved this activity! First I asked her to follow the pink flowers with her finger.

Then she picked up a crayon, and followed the path again.

It’s hard to see here, but she actually did pretty great. This is great writing practice. We’ll definitely be doing more of these!

Button Flower Math

I found this neat idea on Pinterest, originating from a blog called Sixty Second Parent. I drew some flower stems on a piece of printer paper, and wrote the numbers 1-6 along them. Then I supplied Honey Pot with a bunch of buttons from my old scrap booking stash. I asked her to identify the numbers, one at a time, and place that many buttons atop the stems. She had fun with this!

Being silly!

She counted as she added each button. But with number six, she had to go back and make sure she had enough!

The final product. Great number review!

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We are back!

Greetings, friends!

Just a note to say that our tot school adventures are back in progress, and should be uploaded to the blog within a few days. Currently we are finishing up a unit on Spring. And we have some other exciting themes coming up, too! Stay tuned!

Unfortunately, a few weeks ago my computer had to be restored to its original settings, and I lost many pictures. Themes about Coloring Mixing, Easter and Moving To A New House were among them. I am so sad that I won't be able to share these activities with you!

As always, thanks for visiting with us!
Mom

Hot Air Balloon Birthday Party!

For Little M&M's 1st birthday, we decided to have a hot air balloon party! One of his favorite songs at the moment is a singalong from a book called Up, Up, Up! by Susan Reed. Here is a link to the book from the Barefoot Books website. If you click on "STEP INSIDE" you can hear that catchy tune! It's a classic in our house.

The Invitation

First I created a simple invitation in Photoshop using a hot air balloon coloring page I found through Google. I was lazy this year and just emailed the invite to everyone.

The Decorations

It's a hobby of mine to plan and prepare for a party. First I created a banner wall for above the food table. We had two parties. The first was actually a play date to celebrate Little M&M and three of his friends who were turning one at about the same time. So I included all of their pictures in hot air balloons. We took those down for the second party, and used Little M&M's as a cupcake topper! The orange and blue hot air balloons were 3D. I just cut out two of them for each hot air balloon, folded them in half and glued them together. So eye-catching, and I love how you can see them so well from afar this way!

We found some cloud balloons on Amazon. Aren't they cute?

You always have to feature a monthly photo display for a first birthday party! Inspired by this idea from Martha Stewart, I decided to use vellum paper. The cardboard frames were $1 for a pack of three at the Dollar Tree. I hung these on the window and they looked fantastic with the light shining through! This picture happened to be taken on a snowy day, but they looked even better in the sunshine.

And I wanted to include some hot air balloon reading material!

The Food

Here is our food table!

Water bottles with a custom label I made.

Hot air balloon fruit baskets!

Our favorite Super Bowl cheese ball, shaped like a hot air balloon instead of a football.

We made some deviled eggs as well, and I dyed them in blue and orange to match Little M&M's party colors.

The cupcakes with my custom toppers!

Our famous Oreo Cookie Pops, in Little M&M's party colors. Always a huge hit!

The Photo Op

I found this awesome idea on Pinterest. You can find the original with instructions here. Their's is incredible! We went a cheaper route. We used blue tablecloths (you can use a coupon at Party City and get a huge roll for about $8, with tons to spare for future parties) for the backdrop. The 3' balloon was $4 from Amazon. The laundry basket is the one we've been using for about a decade. And we used yarn that I had on hand instead of rope. Clouds cut out from printer paper. Ta-da!

It was a pretty ambitious photo op to do with small children, but we gave it a shot. The birthday boy was not too happy. Most pictures had him screaming, tipping over or climbing into Daddy's arms. Here is the only decent shot we got of him!

Little M&M and big sister Honey Pot!

And some friends and cousins enjoying a hot air balloon ride!

Goody Bags

I always like to put a little bit of thought and theme into our goody bags. I found cute sun-catcher crafts from the Dollar Tree, as well as some stickers. And using this fun website, I created custom coloring books. On the cover was a hot air balloon coloring page I found on Google. For our play date party, the inside featured one page of each friend. For our family party, it featured one page for each cousin. (See Honey Pot's as an example in the picture below!) They came out AMAZING, and we received so many compliments on them. 

Craft

As part of their present to Little M&M, my sister and her daughter did this fun hot air balloon craft! They used con-tact paper and stuck on little strips of tissue paper for the balloon. Isn't it sweet?? So cute in the window!

The Outfit

The boy needed a cute birthday outfit. We decided just to buy a hot air balloon patch, and iron it onto a white t-shirt. Super cute, and cheap! Here's the birthday boy!

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Hiatus!

Greetings, friends!

Mom's Tot School is going on a small hiatus while we move and settle into our new home. We have a few themes in progress right now, so be on the lookout for those once we resume blogging! Thank you so much for visiting our page!

The Letter L

Theme: The Letter L

Honey Pot is 2 years and 9 months old

Little M&M is 11 months old

Leap Frog Fridge Phonics

We started our theme this week by finding the L fridge magnet and listening to Scout’s song about the sound the letter L makes. Honey Pot seems to know this letter pretty well, so she had no trouble finding it!

L is for Ladybug Craft

I found this idea on Pinterest via The Iowa Farmer’s Wife. I just switched the colors around a bit to my liking. First I cut out the shapes out of construction paper for Honey Pot.

Then she started gluing the pieces together.

When she was all finished I had her count the spots on her ladybug, for some extra math practice!

Very cute!

L is for Lollipop – Playdough

Seeking Shade had a fun activity where they shaped their playdough into Popsicles and decorated them with beads. We decided to do the same for lollipops. First we did the usual cookie cutter cutout for the letter of the week.

I turned around to help Little M&M with something, and came back to this attempt:

Then we made some lollipops! I let Honey Pot use some of my scrapbooking supplies.

Then later we got out another color of playdough, and decorated our lollipops with buttons.

Don’t worry, she’s just pretending to eat it…

L is for Lemon Experiment

This is a popular experiment I keep seeing. It is also known as invisible ink. First I gathered our supplies.

Then asked Honey Pot to help me get the juice from the lemon.

We used Q-Tips for her to draw a picture with the lemon juice. I also drew a couple of things.

Once it had dried completely, we used a heat source to make our drawings magically appear. You need something super hot! We used our griddle…with extreme caution of course!

Ta da!

L is for Limbo

We concluded our L theme with a fun dance. We pulled up Limbo Rock on You Tube, and played it over and over. (Warning: song may stay in your head for up to one week.) And our dining room chairs seemed perfect for holding our limbo stick (a broken broom) at different levels. First I showed Honey Pot how to play the game (um, ouch) and then there was no stopping her!

We weren’t strict on the rules, since Honey Pot is only two and a half!

Even Little M&M joined in the fun!

The crab walk—genius!

Honey Pot wanted it even lower, so we suspended our limbo stick on a couple of low toys. She and Little M&M crawled under it.

It was so incredibly fun!