Last Week

Last week was a busy week, so we didn't do many planned activities. I ran a lot of errands with the boys and just tried to play and have fun with them when I had free time. I also couldn't find my camera battery, so I don't have a single picture from last week. I decided that Sawyer needs to learn to do more things by himself like dress himself, take care of his potty needs, etc. I know he could do these things, but he would rather me do them for him. At first he was not happy when I told him he had to dress himself. All last week I just laid his clothes out for him. I gave him lots of encouragement even when everything was on backwards and by the end of the week he was doing it all by himself. Now he won't let me help him if I try. He is so proud of himself.
He is also getting better about bringing all of his dishes to the sink after a meal and cleaning up his messes on his own. He is becoming such a big boy.
Jax used the potty for the first time last weekend. He was so proud of himself! He wants to do everything big brother does including wearing the same clothes. It is so cute. I don't want him to grow up too fast, though.
This week we are talking about the five senses and I have lots of stuff planned. I also found my camera battery, so I should do much better this week with posting.

Tot School: Week of May 18-24

Sawyer is currently 38 months
Jax is currently 20 months
We were a little off with our tot school this week. I kept my friend's kids every morning last week, so we didn't do all of the activities I had planned. We did however spend lots of time in her great back yard.
They had fun playing in the sand,

jumping on the trampoline,

picking peaches,

and watching roly polys.

We continued to learn about community helpers. One of the helpers we talked about was postal workers. I made mail bags for the boys. We also talked about how to address an envelope. Jax had fun coloring the envelopes.

We also talked about firemen. I knew this would be the most exciting for the boys. They love fire trucks! I had planned to take them to the fire station for a tour, but we didn't have a chance to last week.

I let them paint with red, yellow, and orange paint. I just put streaks of each color of a pice of paper.

Then I covered it with saran wrap and let them squish it around. This was their favorite part.

Then I quickly pulled the saran wrap from the paint. It was supposed to look like fire. I guess it did in a way. I probably didn't do the activity quite right. Oh well, they loved it anyway.

I also made this fire truck out of a diaper box one evening. It was not as cute as this one. I am not very crafty, but thankfully my kids don't mind. They had fun pushing it around, riding (sitting) in it, and putting their toys in it. They have been very busy putting out pretend fires this week.

When we were home they chose to do these activities: putting craft sticks in a water bottle,

building towers out of blocks,

playing with trucks and play-doh,


and playing with alphabet magnets.

These are my favorite pics of the week.

Sawyer catching some air on the water slide.

Jax loved hanging out at the bottom of the slide.
You can visit this site to see what other moms did in tot school this week.

Gone Postal

We are continuing to learn about community helpers this week. Today we talked about postal workers. When I asked Sawyer who brings us the mail he exclaimed, "God!" Usually that's a great answer, but it's not exactly what I was looking for.

I helped the boys make mail bags today. I just stapled construction paper together. Then I stapled on a piece of yarn for the strap. Sawyer wasn't interested in coloring on the bag, so I let him use stamps. Jax was happy to decorate using markers. He colored both sides.

Then I gave them some envelopes to decorate. I asked Sawyer who he wanted to send mail to and then I wrote on the envelopes for him.

They filled their mail bags with post cards, envelopes, and old junk mail. Then they delivered it to people's houses ( well, they really just left it all over the house for me to pick up later).

I think these are the cutest little mailmen I have ever seen.

Tot School : Community Helpers Theme

Sawyer-37 months
Jax-19 months
This is my first official tot school post. I have been getting great ideas from this site and others for a few weeks now and thought I would join in on the fun. My blog could use some work which I will get to as soon as I find the time and figure out what I am doing.
I started a community helpers theme this week with the boys. We learned about doctors, nurses, librarians, and teachers this week. I changed out a few of their tot buckets.

In one bucket I put medicine measuring cups, spoons, and syringes. They had a blast playing in the water with these toys. This would be great for a water table. Unfortunately are house is in the market so lots of our stuff is in storage.

We did a couple of table activities using medical supplies which you can find here and here.
One of our buckets had a toy doctors kit and a bag with pictures of each object. I had the boys close their eyes and reach into the doctor's kit to feel for each object and match it with the picture.

I saw on someone else's blog that they put the trays on their fire place. I tried it one day and it worked really well. I just brought them in for a little while and then moved them back to Sawyer's room.

Jax chose to scoop and pour beans.

They both played with Mr. Potato Head quite a bit this week.

The boys were constantly getting into these cd cases, so I decided to cut out colored shapes to put inside. I put different sized shapes so Sawyer could put them in order from biggest to smallest and Jax just had fun matching the colors and putting them in the cases.

Sawyer liked these body part puzzles I got at Wal-Mart.

They also decorated book marks when we talked about librarians. We played library too. I made them each their own library card and practiced checking out books from our book shelf.


We talked about teachers and visited daddy's school on Friday. He is a teacher and we visited one of his math classes and then had lunch with him. We are so proud of how hard he works.
Check out this blog to see what others did in tot school this week.

Doctors help us

On Tuesday we continued to learn about community helpers who help us when we are sick. I played a little game with the boys, then let them explore our medical toys and play doctor.
They loved putting band-aids all over their hurt patients. Jax examined his baby's ears.


Next, I let them make collages out of medical supplies like cotton balls, bandages, q-tips, tongue depressors (craft sticks), and band-aids. We talked about how all of these objects are used and then they glued them to construction paper. I also let them use a few stickers since my kids always get stickers when they visit the doctor.
Jax will be such a good daddy one day. He would not put his sick baby down all morning.

Ouch!

I started a community helpers unit today with the boys. They are really into dressing up and playing pretend, so I thought it would be good to talk about different careers and the people in our community. Today we talked about people who help you when you are sick or hurt like doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, and pharmacists. We did this easy little craft.

First, I traced the boys arms onto construction paper. I told them to draw "owies" on the arm. Jax thought he was supposed to draw on his own arm.
Then I had Sawyer make up a story about what happened to his arm. Next, they put different colored and sized band-aids.

Weekly Activities: No Theme

We enjoyed hanging out with our family this week. I didn't plan many activities this week, but we did manage to get in one or two days of tot school this week. I don't have as many pictures as usual, but I will share what I have. We are going out of town tomorrow, so I don't have anything planned for next week either.

One day I took the boys to play at Doogoland. They enjoyed lots of pretend play. We also did several name activities this week.

I made a new discovery bottle. I just put rice and different small objects for the boys to find in a plastic bottle.



One morning Jax spent time transferring beans with a spoon while Sawyer put toothpicks into a spice container. Then they switched.


They also had fun playing with their band in a box. This is always a favorite at our house.