Tot Tuesday

My soon-to-be three year old has surprised me this week in many ways. One way is that he decided he was ready to wear underwear and go on the potty. Once he put those pants on, he was done with diapers. (even though some of us wanted them when we went to the zoo:) He conquered the potty training all by himself. I am not saying that he hasn't had accidents but he hasn't once asked to go back to wearing a diaper. Go, Riley!

The next surprise is his climbing this playground wall. He didn't think twice and he just conquered it. He slipped a few times but he made it to the top. I went to his side to help him but I didn't have to help. He did it on his own. My two year old is growing right before my eyes. I cannot believe it. In some ways, I am sad because he is my baby. But in other ways, I am proud of the strong boy he is becoming. Have an awesome day.

Salvador Dali Experience

Recently, we were given the opportunity to visit the Dali Museum for Homeschool Day. It was the perfect time to learn about one of the artists that my husband loves - Salvador Dali. He was a surrealist with some interesting ideas and paintings. This was definitely out of my comfort zone as I love the Impressionists. But it was a great experience for us:)

We started by our Dali experience by reading all about him. Then I allowed the kids to choose the art projects that they wanted to try. Kaleb decided to do the animal sculpture with the long legs. It was supposed to made from air-hardening clay but I found our clay had hardened:(  So I improvised - we used play dough.

I gave them each half a container of green and half of blue play dough to work with. We found some chopsticks and dowels for the legs as well as wood shapes for scutes and tails. They also used googly eyes for fun.

Kaleb was very pleased with his creation. I love his toothless grin at the moment.

J wanted to work on the collage of pictures from magazines. This was fun to watch. I kept reminding them that they were to choose items that didn't go together.

J's picture had some interesting concepts - Kaleb thought the toilet dog was just great! J loved her eye/nose shoe.

Kaleb made two pictures - this was his second. He wanted a toilet dog as well and he put mustaches on each of the people to remind him of the true Dali.

The next project was one that I choose - Dali's Mustaches. I had them draw a face and add a pipe cleaner mustache in any silly design that they wanted.

You can't tell from the picture but Kaleb's mustache (on right) is in the shape of a heart. Love these!

The museum had a bunch of activities for us when we arrived. One of the activities was create your own Dali mustache. I had a hard time getting this picture because we were laughing so hard. We spent all morning at the museum and had a great time. They had listening devices for each of the kids and a great "Mustache Tour" for them to listen to.

I was a little disappointed because some of the gardens were closed off due to Hurricane Irma. Maybe next time:( But we did get a cute picture in front of the Dali mustache! Not too bad for our adventure. See you soon.


Links

The Pinterested Parent - has a cute and easy project for a melting paper clock.

Artsy Crafty Mom - has list of ten projects for Dali.

Little Yeti - has a cute project of a long legged elephant.

Elementary Art Fun - has another long legged elephant art project.

Use Your Colored Pencils - has a great project that uses Dali's mustache. These are so cute!

Letter W Interactive Notebook with free printable

I am finally at the letter W in my Interactive Notebook series. Only a few more letters left - Yay! Here are a few pages that are included in my download.

I always have a letter puzzle page. These work well when you laminate the pieces and add small magnets to the back. The magnets prevent the puzzle from slipping. You could also add small pieces of velcro to the puzzle and add it to the notebook.

The letter sort is collecting watermelons in wagons. I would add envelopes to the back of the wagons so the child can slide them into the pockets when working the sort.

I like to add a math game to each notebook. This time I added doubles in addition. Having a child know their doubles makes other addition so much easier. I made addition puzzles with whales. Enjoy the download.

Download Letter W Interactive Notebook HERE.

Riley's Rhymes - Itsy Bitsy Spider

A new unit is ready for Riley's Rhymes - Itsy Bitsy Spider. It is the month of October and it seemed like a good time to pull out our spider rhyme. If you haven't heard of Riley's Rhymes - it is a gentle tot school with a focus on nursery rhymes and songs while learning about shapes and colors. I want you to know that I am not pushing "school" on my tot. He asked me to do school and this is what I came up with ;)

Today, I am offering the spider min unit download.

Here is my visual schedule for Itsy Bitsy Spider. I an a visual learner and I love the picture schedule. If you notice, there is only one activity planned for each day. I didn't want to overwhelm Riley so I only planned for one a day. Riley usually wants to do more so I have other activities in his basket. I place each activity into a ziplock bag with all of the items needed to complete it. So it is just grab and go. After we read the book based on the rhyme, Riley will choose a bag and we will work the activity.

In my unit, I have included 2 part spider puzzles to reinforce color recognition. I laminated these and placed magnets on the back.

Another activity in my download are spider number cards. I am only focusing on counting, not so much as number recognition. But, if I know Riley, he will want to match the colors of the pompoms to the colors of the spiders. We will be using our pom pom magnets with these cards. These are just a few activities included in the download. There are also shape two part puzzles and a shape game as well as the coloring page for the bag book. Enjoy.

Download Itsy Bitsy Spider Mini Pack HERE.

Happy Birthday Kaleb!

Happy birthday to my Kaleb! He is my toothless, lego loving, dirt catching boy. I love him dearly:)

Tot Tuesday

Okay, so I am not totally proud of this one but I thought I would share it anyway. When my older were young and when I was teaching in the classroom, my kids loved the Captain Underpants book series. I wasn't totally thrilled with them but they were reading.

So, now there is a movie which we had to own because I have kids who still love Captain Underpants. And apparently, my tot does too. I caught him running around the house with a ring saying "I hypnotize you!"

He is hypnotizing me with his ring - haha!

I love that silly boy! Have an awesome day.....and for those you know....Tra La La!

A Year of Adventures

For the past few year, we were uncertain of where we were  going to live and what we were going to do. We were unsure of a lot of things and because of that uncertainty, we mainly just homeschooled day to day. We took a few trip but not many. We weren't part of any homeschool group because when we lived overseas, homeschooling was nil. I was used to doing it alone.

This year, I wanted it to be different. I told my children that we were going to have a year of adventures. A school year of field trips and nature walks, plays and experiences. So, to ensure that would happen, we joined a homeschool group. This year was definitely off to new start. As long as I have homeschooled, we have never been part of a group. This was going to be new for me as well as my children.

So, a year of adventures and my new homeschool group was going to help me achieve that. One thing that was super difficult was the urge NOT to sign up for everything. I still want to have a solid teaching year. Not ever being part of such group, fighting that urge was extremely hard. I wanted my children to see plays, go to the fire station, join the reading discussion groups, go on nature hikes, do art in the park.....the possibilities were endless with my homeschool group. So, I had to calm down and choose the adventures that we wouldn't normally go on.

So, here we are....in our Year of Adventures. It should be fun. It will definitely be challenging (for me). But it will be an experience that (hopefully) my children won't forget:) Our school year started with an adventure - Hurricane Irma. Not sure that counts though, at least for the kids. So, I hope you will join us and maybe, just maybe, this will encourage you to have your own year of adventures as well. See you soon.