Tot School - Week 1

D is 19 months old

I came across Tot School as I was looking for activities for D last week and have decided to join in the fun. Last week's theme was winter. We focused on snow and penguins, though D still doesn't really understand that snow is cold. Darn South Florida winters! Actually I would love to be able to play in the snow with her, but for D "snow" was packing peanuts.

She enjoyed finding things in the snow, some snowflake matching cards and her Little Einsteins friends. And enjoyed putting them back in, until show found a better game to play.  She thought it was far more fun to get in with the snow than just use her hands to search through it.

D made her snow picture.  (See my previous post.)

D then made a penguin puppet.  She liked coloring the bag and gluing the penguin parts to the bag. 

D has started making me crazy by tilting her head and saying "cheese" every time she sees me trying to take a picture.  

And of course we finished this project by pulling the pieces off again.  I think the only part left today is the head (which I helped her glue on).

We wrapped up our "learning" about snow with our Muffin Tin Meal.

Real World

I am one of those moms who believes that kids are meant to get messy. When I taught Early Childhood, the parents knew that their kids would get messy in my class because I knew that they were being productive and having a good time too. For some reason with D, I am okay with finger-painting, and even when she spills all of the "snow" out of the bucket. But, I have been hesitant to give her yogurt since she started insisting on using a spoon by herself. Now I do give her a spoon for ice cream or macaroni and cheese and other things that won't make a big mess if they fall off. This week she had some yogurt on her own. I think it was a learning experience for both of us!

Check out 1+1+1=1 to see what other people were doing this week.

Muffin Tin Monday - Winter

It's Muffin Tin Monday again!

This week's theme on the MTM site is orange.  I decided to stray from their theme this week for 2 reasons. The first, we have been learning about winter and cold for the past week, and I thought a MTM would be a good way to end it.  Second, I couldn't think of anything orange in the house, besides one or 2 oranges I have sitting in the fruit bowl.  As you will see, even our carrots are yellow!

This was a tough meal to actually fit in the muffin tin.

D had an edible snowflake with cinnamon and sugar.

Cream cheese penguins.  I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com quite some time ago, and have been looking for a reason (and the time to make them).

D also had two edible snowmen.  The first is just cream cheese on bread that I used a snowman cookie cutter on.  The second was a snowman on a stick.  I know D will love to make this when she gets bigger, but for right now, I made and she loved eating it!  I made it using a dried cherry that I cut up, instead of chocolate chips.

The lower left has some "snowballs" (Gorilla Munch cereal).

D really enjoyed this lunch.  The snowman on a stick was hard to resist and D grabbed that right away.

She loved bananas and apples and the penguins.  The rest she played with more than she ate.  That is until she broke enough of the snowflake off to find the star from the middle.  This is the one shape that she will recognize and say!  And was thrilled to have a star to eat.