Preschool Tot Activities

Sissy: age 3 1/2 and Dash: age 5 1/2 (not their real names),

with occasional Tot School/Preschool Corner appearances by 10 year old Tornado

Our biggest excitement this week was attending Veggie Tales Live! at a (huge) local church. They were giddy before the show began.

And if you're wondering about Dash's "fancy" necklace (made even fancier while worn with his tie-dyed homeschool co-op t-shirt - it's like he's copying my style from 1994), that's an old Lion King necklace I had gotten at Disneyland in...well, 1994. Dash just immediately latched onto it when he saw it and has insisted on wearing it everywhere lately. I love his sincerity.

I think Sissy was the first person to start dancing in the aisles. Many soon followed.

There was no stopping her. She was rockin' out. She was feelin' it. I had this vision of her dancing on tables at a club when she's 20...

And I was actually proud of Dash because he (gasp) was dancing, too. He wasn't too cool or embarrassed.

It was a fun show!

Dash angrily declared in the car, "I didn't have a good time!"

Me: "You didn't?"

"I didn't have a good time because I didn't want to leave!"

On to school/play time...I wrote in my post Friday a little more about Dash's kindergarten homeschool life...here is more about some of his activities but focusing more on Sissy's side of things:

This was her first day (a few weeks ago) attending the homeschool program at a local (fabulous) arts academy. One day a week, she goes to art, music, and ballet back-to-back.

She also goes with me one morning a week to the baby/preschool room while I teach at Dash's homeschool co-op. She thinks of this as going to school, as well, because she gets to play with the other kids and also do little activities.

She wanted me to take a picture of her very special arrangement of toys she worked on. And I also love this picture because of how cute she looks in her panties, with her arms by her sides.

There were a couple of sidewalk chalk days. They enjoyed discovering what a nice effect the wet driveway had on the chalk. It made it almost like paint. I think I'll tell them to take water out with them next time it's dry - or hose down the pavement first.

They did some other painting...

using these finger stampers.

I love it when they come up with activities on their own. (Takes some pressure off of me!) They found these extra pigs I'd printed off accidentally and took it upon themselves to make their own art projects out of them. (That's Dash's glued to the white paper.)

She practiced name recognition (I deleted her names.) by using the stamp that my friend Annette from Live, Learn, Love made when Sissy and M were blog swap partners last summer. Here is her post about how to make your own personalized name stamp.

On the outside of the back door, they drew pictures...

using window markers.

Brother Tornado helped Sissy figure out how to play her Spot It! game. (You have to figure out which cards have "things in common.")

We did several workbook pages. She still struggles with her color and shape recognition. I'm afraid she struggles because I think she couldn't care less. I think she'd rather dance on tables.

This is a animal memory game made out of wood tiles. Sissy is matching up the pictures to the corresponding spots on the colored sheet that came with the game.

We had a couple of cooking projects this week. We made chocolate chip cookies one night (but were only able to make half a batch because we only had that much Earth Balance margarine - how sad is that?). We also made two batches of muffins for Papaw's birthday - Banana Oat Walnut and Pumpkin Carrot.

My darling, darling daughter has been giving me headaches lately. She is going through such a whiny/crying phase. She might fall apart over the smallest thing. If we try to discipline her, she comes unglued. She'll throw herself on the floor and kick and scream (and has bumped her head a couple of times doing this lately). She's such a typically pleasant, sweet girl. If things are going her way, you'd want to be with her all day. But if she doesn't understand why she's not getting her way, especially if she's tired, look out.

I know this phase is not unique so if anyone has any ideas on how to get through it (and overcome it!), I'm all ears!

Of course, she had to smile when she realized I was taking her picture.

She doesn't want to disappoint her public.

If you get stuck for ideas to teach or even simply occupy your baby, toddler, preschooler, and even kindergartener, check out the fine ladies' links at 1 + 1 + 1=1 and Homeschool Creations.