Under the sea tot school

Lovebug is 31 months old

This week was a busy one for Love Bug and I. There was a lot going on this week and I was certainly tempted to just give up and try again next week. I knew if I did, the next week would be "too busy" as well, and we would never get to Tot school. I always have a good reason to not make time for it. The key is that I am *making time* to spend quality one-on-one time with Love Bug.

We had a great time working on our Under the Sea Tot School courtesy of Carissa over at 1+1+1=1, and our get-together day was a success!

Love Bug is still swaying between left and right handedness. Of our eight kids, four are left, three are right, and Love Bug is undecided. I'm a lefty, my husband right handed, and we don't push either way with our kids.

This week Love Bug worked on her ocean sensory box. I added to it and put it in a larger box for our get together day.

She loves to use tweezers.

Magnet fishing game. This was actually great practice for Love Bug both in patience and holding still. She would get the magnet swinging too far and would have to wait for it to slow down and stop and then try to get it just over the tack on the blocks.

 Ocean in a bottle!! I made some of these for a party that I did for a friends daughter. My kids all wanted one, so I made one for our family too.

 Playdough

 Love Bug is not very comfortable with scissors. I think it has a lot to do with her not deciding on which hand to use with them.

 She also did a bit of exploring on her own. Can I just say that red powered koolaid makes a kitchen look like a crime scene?

 Love Bug's older brother Jedi had a birthday recently, and she helped make his cake. I think that "licking" is a learned skill. This was a great time to practice. Maybe next time she eats an ice cream cone she'll be more proficient at it ;)

 Our lesson plan came from 1+1+1=1. Carissa has lots of great ideas and free printables.

Do a dot crab and whale

Pre writing page

I helped Love Bug figure out the first sound from each picture and she put the "clippy" on the letter.

Magnet dot "J". She did this several times and was very careful to get them right on the circles.

Loved it so much she put them on her whale and crab. Can you guess her favorite color??

Playdough is by far Love Bug's favorite thing to do. I never let her older sibs play with playdough because it was such a nightmare to clean up. After making my own using a great recipe (check out this post), I have loved playing playdough with her.

She decided to make turtles.

My turtle in the right corner, her turtles on the left upper :) She told me mine looked like an elf. ??

Tots together day!!

This was our first one, and not having spend a lot of time playing with the other kids in our group, I wasn't sure where their interest and attention levels lie.

I planned a lot of things and then went with the flow.

We made "O" Octopus pictures

Starfish stampers- which came from this great idea. She made rollers, but her kids seem to be older.

I used one of our blocks and the bubble wrap just taped on. Both the paint and the tape came off just fine, the block was unscathed.

Working on our three-part cards. We're only up to two parts...

The stand is from Target $1 zone. If you're happens to still have them there, snag one up. The back side has a white board and more pockets.

While we would have loved to head to our local aquarium, it's a bit pricey and we'll just wait until half price days roll around this fall. Instead, we headed to our local aquarium store, where the kids were more than thrilled to see all the fishes that are for sale.

They even got to feed the big fish in the koi pond.

Fun week!!