Potty Learning: Days 1 & 2

Well we started potty learning with Sunshine last night since Santa was kind enough to bring her some training undies! We took of her diaper, put on the training undies, set up her seat reducer, and armed myself with a jar of M&Ms for successes. Last night was unsuccessful; she would sit on the potty, but nothing happened. At one point she jumped up and yelled, "I need to go potty!!!" and ran into the bathroom only to leave a puddle on the floor. At least she made it to the bathroom! ;) Today we tried again and ended up with drips and drops here and there as well as a big puddle in the hallway. After nap she woke up dry and asked to go on the potty. She ripped off her diaper and ran to the bathroom. I followed her in and she has left a small puddle. I reminded her that pee goes in the potty and not on the floor. She sat on her seat and finished going! YAY! We did the pee-pee dance, ate an M&M, and called daddy at work to tell him the good news! Then she went running back in the bathroom yelling she had to go again! This time she pooped on the floor! DOH! Again we talked about how it goes in the potty not on the floor. I think we are off to a good start and I know for sure she is getting the concept. So here's keeping my fingers crossed (and toes too!) that this goes easily!!! Wish us luck!

Tot School: December 20-24, 2009

Sunshine is 29 months old.

I would hardly call this week a true "tot school" week since we really only had 4 days to engage in activities due to Christmas quickly approaching.

We started our week off by creating gift bags for her peers at school. We put a variety of candies in small Christmas themed zip lock-type bags and I wrote Love, K... on each bag. I separated out all the goodies into piles and Sunshine placed each item in the bags. We talked about the colors of the wrappers the goodies were in.



Then we took some time to play some music. This key board belongs to my dad, but she loves to bang out some tunes, especially using the accompaniment piece that is part of the keyboard. She is a true rock star at heart!


I mentioned earlier that we put together goodie bags for Sunshine's peers and of course we could not leave our her two teachers and the two center directors of the childcare center. We spent one evening making strawberry and cherry bark candy. It was the first time either of us had done this, but it came out sooo YUMMY! (I have another post to follow with more details!)


Santa came to visit Sunshine's school this week too! They asked that each parent bring in a wrapped gift with their child name on it from Santa. Parents were invited to go to the party and both daddy and I were able to join in on the festivities. I am so thankful I have a job that is flexible enough to allow me to take an hour off here and there as I need it to do these things. Here is Sunshine receiving her gift from Santa.


Sunshine enjoyed playing with this nativity set that I printed off of Christa in Preschool Printables. Sunshine really loved this. We talked about baby Jesus Mary, Joseph, the Shepard, the wise men, and the star.


Favorite image from this week:


To see what other tot parents have done with their kiddos this past week, visit 1+1+1=1.

Tot School: December 13-19, 2009

Sunshine is 29 months.

We started our week of with play dough! Who doesn't LOVE play dough? Sunshine thought it was fun to stuff it all into the roller and then figure out ways to get it out, including her fingers and the back end of a paint brush!


Then we started working on her alphabet book again. I remembered that we have been slacking on it and haven't worked on it since the SUMMER! Eek! We stopped at letter C so here she is working on letter D. We used a poof to paint the letter D black and we are going to turn it into a Dog for her book.


Then we did some sorting with beads. First I gave her three different colored beads in a bowl and asked her to sort them by color. She did it in a snap! I figured I'd then challenge her a bit and add three more colors. She had no trouble with the six at all! As a matter of fact she was trying to add some humor to it all and would take a color, put it in the wrong cup, look at me, say, "Not there!" with a big silly grin on her face, and then put it in the right spot! WOW! What a smarty pants!




Then we played with the zoo animals Sunshine received as part of the Pay It Forward activity we are taking part in. (I still need one more mommy who wants to PLAY! If you want to please leave me a comment about it from this post!) Here she is lining them all up. She is very into lining up and stacking things these days!


I also picked up somewhere along my Christmas shopping travels a stuffed fish and a fuzzy tree that can be colored. Sunshine insisted on coloring both this week.




Favorite picture from the week:

Baby Jesus

We have been talking about baby Jesus and all of the nativity scenes that people have outside their homes this time of year. I am still unsure exactly how to explain to Sunshine who baby Jesus is with out talking "above" her. Anyways, each night when I bring her home from school, she asks where baby Jesus is as we drive by all the lit homes with their pretty lights so we drive around trying to locate as many baby Jesus' as we can find! She gets so excited each time we find one! "Y'ook momma! I see baby Jesus!"

Pay It Forward

Some mommy bloggers out there are participating in a funny activity called Pay It Forwrd where we send out a package of goodies to a couple of other mommy bloggers and in turn they do the same and so on and so forth! Its a great bit of fun and I was lucky enough to recieve a package from April Flowers. She sent us 3 goodies and I can hardly wait us them!!! Here is what we received:






Thanks again April!!! Now it's my turn to Pay It Forward!!

Tot School: December 6-12, 2009

Sunshine is 29 months old.

This week was great! I am so proud of Sunshine this week! We started our week off with our first small snow fall! Sunshine was so excited to go play in the snow that we all suited up and went out to play. She tried to make snow balls and had some help making a snow angel as she doesn't quite get the concept of it. We also went to the park across the street from our house to run through the field of snow and play on the climbing structure. Sunshine and I went down the twisty slide together; its a good thing she was on my lap as we went so fast I landed on my butt on the ground. I just couldn't stop us! We both cracked up!!!






I made this game from MakingLearningFun.com and Sunshine loved it! We played with it MANY times this week!




I also made this one from the same website to work on matching skills for Sunshine. I was unsure how she was going to do with this one, but she BLEW ME AWAY!!! She has NO trouble competing this activiy. She did it over and over.


While doing the matching activity, Sunshine asked to MAKE a snowman! This is the VERY first time she has actually asked to make something purposeful. She has asked to color, use stickers, paint, etc but never asked to create something specific! I am so proud of her. I cut out the circles and had to guide her a bit when she glued the pieces down, but the rest of it she did all on her own (minus the face)!!! The green scribbles are his arms (again, her idea!).



I tried to hang him up for all to see and she FLIPPED out! She carried him around for the rest of the night and tried to take him to bed! LOL!

My favorite pics from the week:




To see what other tot parents have done with their kiddos this past week, visit 1+1+1=1.

Tot School: November 22-28, 2009

Sunshine is 28 months, 2 weeks.

I can hardly believe it that it has been an entire MONTH since I blogged our Tot School adventures. We have had a lot going on lately (car accident, holiday, dh is working 2nd shift, etc) so I haven't had much time to keep up with Tot School. My good friend Jill emailed me to make sure we are all ok and said she misses my posts so she has inspired me to get going again!!!


Sunshine pulled out her puzzles that she hasn't worked with in sometime. She had a great time naming them and finding where they belonged.


I found this great paper pumpkin at Michael's after Halloween and Sunshine insisted on buying it. I pulled out the paint that we have here at home and she had a great time painting away!!






I changed out the items in her sensory bucket from Halloween goodies to apples, pears, gords, and corn. She loves this bucket and could play with it for hours on end. She enjoys digging through it, scooping, pouring, and throwing it all over!! ;)














I have had this little Elmo sticker book for who knows how long now. Sunshine found it and insisted we did it together. She sat on my lap and did most of it by herself. I helped her with the color books as you had to match them to books with the color word and the Elmo Loves You page.


Sunshine has been obsessed with nutcrackers ever since we saw a huge display of them in the Christmas Tree Shop a few weeks ago. I found a little paint your own kit and she had a great time being creative with this using many colors.




This was all her on Saturday morning. She dug out her farm animals and lined them all up in a row. It was so cute and then we talked about their names and the sounds they make.


We made these turkeys in honor of Thanksgiving and to go along with Open Ended Art - see my seperate post on it here.

Books we have been reading:
1. A Number of Animals by Christopher Wormell
2. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
3. Panda Bear Panda Bear by Bill Martin Jr.

To see what other tot parents have done with their kiddos this past week, visit 1+1+1=1.

OEA: Non-Open Ended Art Week

I have been wanting to join up with the blog train for Open Ended Art for a while now and have finally gotten around to it!! It is hosted on the blog Mommy's Little Artist; for more information on what open-ended art truly is read her post here. This week was a free week and we were asked to share a craft that our children created. Sunshine and I created some turkeys with a little poem that I found on MakingLearningFun.com here. We made ours a little different as I did not have any brown paint nor the right colors to mix to make brown. Here are the pics of us creating our turkeys.



















Sadly I did not get any pictures of her adding their legs/feet, beaks, or eyes. Oh well!! We gave them to Grandma/Grandpa and Nunny/Papa on Thanksgiving.