Raising Rock Stars: Noah's Ark

This week Sawyer's cubbies verse is "All your words are true.." Psalm 119:160. We read a story about Noah's ark and God sending a rainbow as a promise never to flood the earth again.

We made rainbows to help us remember the verse. I had lots of leftover skittles from Halloween, so I let the boys use these to make the rainbows. I had Sawyer sort the colors and then both boys glued them to their rainbows. I would have let Jax sort, but he kept eating them, so I had to take them away.

I put the Noah's Arc and animals on one of the tot trays. They loved this!

They also had fun with the Noah's Arc Tot Pack.

We made this a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think I shared it. Sawyer's verse was "Through Him all things were made.." so I had him look through a magazine to find pictures of things God made. He had a blast with this. Then he glued them to a poster and we hung it in his room.

He can't wait to learn a new verse each week, which makes me very happy! Go here to see more Raising Rock Stars posts.

Tot School: Food, Farms, and Turkeys

Sawyer-43 months
Jaxon- 25 months

Sawyer really enjoyed this farm tot book. This was the first complete tot book I printed out. I don't know why it took me so long to do one. Sawyer really loved it and Jax did some of the activities. I can't wait to do more.

We were out of town for a few days, so I didn't do much planning for this week. One day I didn't have any trays out and the boys asked for them. Sawyer wanted me to put play food on one of the trays. I wasn't sure what they would do with it, but I complied. Both boys ended up playing grocery store with the food.

We talked about the letter F and food this week. I also mixed in a few thanksgiving activities. They made this cornucopia. I wanted to put a link, but I can't remember where I found this. When I asked Sawyer what he was thankful for he said, "my brother named Jax, mommy and daddy, and my toys." The only thing Jax would say was "my brother".

Sawyer really enjoys coloring these days. For the longest time he didn't want to color at all or he would put a couple of marks ad say he was done. Now he colors really dark and uses just about every color in the box.

I got this cute indian corn idea from Ramblings from a Crazy Woman. She used paint to color the popcorn, but I decided to try food coloring, because I was afraid my kids might try to eat it. I am glad I did this!

Sawyer took his time putting the popcorn on his corn. Jax just wanted to eat the popcorn. I finally just got him a bowl to snack on while I finished his craft.

I thought they came out really cute.


We also made potato print turkeys. This craft was so fast and messy that I didn't get any pictures of the process, but here is Sawyer's finished turkey.


I drew leaves on a paper sack for the boys to paint. As I was looking for something for them to paint with Jax decided to finger paint, so that's what we did. I am going to cut them out and make this Thanksgiving garland. We made one last year, but there is no telling what happened to it in the move.
My Favorite Pictures from the week:
I don't think I will ever get tired of seeing my boys play together. Sawyer was playing 'This Little Piggy" with Jax's toes.


Go on over to Carissa's blog to see what other tots did in tot school this week.

Open Ended Art: Feathers

This weeks theme for open ended art over at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms is feathers. This was perfect for us since we are talking about the letter F this week. I decided that I would let the boys glue or paint with feathers, but I couldn't find my feathers. The boys were helping me look for them when Sawyer said, "Mommy, we could paint feathers." So I got out the paint and construction paper and that's what we did.

I drew feathers and let the boys paint them. I haven't cut them out yet, but will when they get up from their nap.

Then I had them make potato print turkeys. This wasn't very open-ended, but they had fun. They made the feathers with potatoes and then I helped them glue on a turkey.

The first one is Sawyer's and the second one is Jax's.

Tot School: Halloween

Jax:25 months
Sawyer: 43 months

This was a pretty random week of tot school. We had a really busy weekend and week. My husband was out of town, so I tried to just keep the boys busy, so I didn't do much planning. When we had free time we did tot school, but it wasn't extremely organized and neither is this post.

We made little spiders one day. I found these spray painted foam balls in my craft stuff and thought they would be great for making spiders. I helped the boys count 8 legs for each spider. Sawyer wanted his spider to have lots of eyes. I thought they turned out pretty cute.

Sawyer's friend, Aidyn had a birthday this week. Here he is making her a card. He drew an A and then covered it in butterflies and dragonflies.

Jax did some fishing with his Melissa and Doug magnetic puzzle.

They put this skeleton puzzle together. Then I told them to lie down and see who was the tallest.

We talked about the letter P and pumpkins quite a bit. One night we had pepperoni pizza and named everything that we could think of that started with a p. They did pretty good with this.

Then when we finished we painted pumpkins.

It was a fun little open ended art project.

We also talked about the letter P in my 3 year old class. I set up this little produce stand. They had so much fun with this that I decided to make one at home. Jax helped me decorate the sign.

I gave them coins and set out fruit. They had fun shopping for produce.

For more tot school posts go here.

Open Ended Art: Pumpkins

The theme of open ended art this week at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms is pumpkins. This is our first time to participate. The only type of art the boys are into these days is open ended, so this is perfect for us.

I put out pumpkins, paint, pom poms, googly eyes, glue, and stickers. I told the boys to decorate the pumpkins however they wanted.

Sawyer put star stickers all over his pumpkin. He said he was making a roller coaster.

Jax had fun painting and putting googly eyes on his pumpkins.

Sawyer said this one was a "diniosaurus." Gotta love these little imaginations.

Here are the finished pumpkins. Beautiful!

Raising Rock Stars: God made the Great Lights

Last week I helped Sawyer memorize two verses for Cubbies. The first one was "He...made everything beautiful" Ecclesiastes 3:11

I helped the boys make an apple tree with apple prints. I wrote the verse on it and hung it in their bedroom. That way it reminded me to say it every time I saw it or I would ask Sawyer what it said. We have been talking a lot about all of the beautiful things God made.

The next verse or verses he learned was "Give thanks to the Lord...who made the great lights...sun...moon and stars..." Psalm 136:7-9 We made these fun puffy paint moons that I found on No Time For Flash cards.

The boys loved exploring and painting with this fun paint. I kept asking them "who made the moon?" Jax was so cute because he would yell "God!" at the top of his lungs.

Next, Jax painted some stars on a piece of poster board.

When everything was dry I cut out the moon and glued it the poster board. I wrote the Bible verse on the poster and hung it in the boys room. I put it down low, so they can constantly see it and feel the soft, puffy moon they made.

The next day we made suns. Sawyer was able to recite both verses for his teachers, so I think all of the review is really helping him remember.

Tot School: A is for Apples

Jax: 24 mos
Sawyer: 42 mos.
Learning Toys

The boys had fun with the lacing tools this week.

This chunky Melissa and Doug puzzle is one of Jax's favorites, but his big brother hogged it quite a bit this week.
Art and Alphabet Activities

We painted moons this week. I made the moon goop out of 1/2 cup of glue and 1 1/2 cups of shaving cream. We also made suns and stars. I will post more on this in my Raising Rock Stars post.

We talked about the letter A this week. I had the boys help me find things that started with the letter A. We found animals, apples, an alligator, airplanes, and an ant.

One day I gave the boys markers and paper to see what they would create. Sawyer wrote this and told me it was an A for his friend Aidyn. I was so proud of him. He is really trying hard to write his letters. It is great because I am not pushing him, he really wants to do it.

We made apple prints and made these cute Apple Print Trees.

When they were done stamping the A's I had them decorate this tree with apples. They loved this activity. I think they would have stamped all day, but I finally had to take the paint covered apples away. They were not real happy when I did this.


One day we made these apples. Sawyer drew a face on his apple and wrote his name at the bottom of the page. This was the first time he tried to write his name all by himself. He was upset because he said it didn't look right, but I told him how great it looked and how proud of him I am.


We made this yummy snack one day. I found the idea for these apple shakeups on the Totally Tots site. I told the boys to come to the table to cut apples and Jax ran and got this little plastic knife from his play food bucket. I had to help him, but he was actually able to cut with it.

Next they put the apples into plastic baggies. This was the hardest part, because they would not stop eating the apples. They love apples! Next, we put cinnamon and a little bit of sugar in the bags and they shook them up.

Sawyer gave the snack a thumbs up!
More Apples

I made and laminated this file folder game. We used raisins as seeds.

We also learned about apples in my class this week. Finding apples in the rice was a huge hit! I saw how big of a mess the rice made in my classroom so we used beans at home.


They also did this file folder game and apple sequencing game.

My Favorites

We took the boys to a pumpkin patch this weekend. They picked these halloween costumes out at Old Navy. I let them each choose the costume they wanted and I love them. They do too and would probably wear them everyday if I let them.

My sweet boys walking in the park.
Click here to see what went on in tot school this week.