Tot School - Pizza Game

"Bubby" is 39 months old.

Bubby got a game called "Noodleboro Learning to Listen Pizza Palace Game" for Christmas. He has really liked to play this game, and we've made it a part of Tot School. It has a couple of little pizzas in little delivery boxes, and two boxes of "toppings." The object is to listen to the other player's order, and then make a pizza according to directions.

We don't always end up playing by the rules, but it is fun to take turns ordering and making pizzas. The game came with a music/story CD and a storybook, and those have been a lot of fun too.


I have searched it out, and this game is not being produced anymore, but it is not hard to find available for purchase online.

I can't get a good picture of this, but we have been using a balloon to work on a lot of gross motor skills. We play basic balloon volleyball, balloon catch, etc. Basic easy stuff, but I can't get a picture of course, since I'm one of the players.

My daughter taught me a new trick. Before you blow up a balloon, drop one marble inside. Then blow up and tie as usual. The marble will bounce around inside and generally cause the balloon to act haywire. It is good for a laugh, and it does give us a case of the giggles. It makes the balloon's life a lot shorter, though.

We've needed to play a lot inside because the weather has been so cold. Here in Oklahoma, we do know what snow is. It snows pretty much every year...a little. We rarely get a nice snowfall like the one this week. It has been so much fun to do all the usual "snow things" like make snowmen, snow forts, snow angels, and snow ice cream. It hasn't been all wonderful. The ice that came before the snow wreaked havoc, but still we are thankful for such a pretty snow!
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Tot School - Color matching and sorting

Bubby is 35 months old.

Sorry I am behind on Tot School. These pics are from a few weeks ago, but representative of what we have been doing this past week.







I made Bubby some color matching cards. I got them from the ChildCareLand website. This was originally meant to be an emergent reader book, but I made the pages into cards to better suit this activity. Each card has a different colored car, and I painted a clothespin to match the color of the car. He clips each clothespin to it's matching card.
This is an activity in which I get him started, and then he can work on it while I'm helping the older kids with their schoolwork. Tot School works better if I will sit with him, and let the big kids come to me for help. The way he sees it, Mom's presence is the same as Mom's attention.

Bubby has also been helping me with laundry chores. I've found that for sorting, it is better to give him one color and have him pull everything that is that color to put in a pile. His favorite is to sort out all the jeans. It is challenging for him to lift some of that stuff out of the deep hamper, but he likes to show off his strength.

He also loads the washer and pours the detergent in after I have measured it out for him. He loves helping with this chore, and I'm not allowed to load the washer without him.

One funny thing: On the inside rim of the washer, there is a little sign with a picture showing that you should make sure all the items are all the way in the washer before closing the door. He has taken this to heart, and very meticulously will arrange each item until it is completely inside to his satisfaction. Great attention to detail!

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Tot School - Wonders of the Bathroom

(Bubby is 33 months old)

This is the most interesting thing Bubby has picked out on his own. He loves to have me open the lid to the toilet tank and tell him about how it works!
He has a book called What's Inside? Great Inventions which has an illustration of the inside of an old-fashioned toilet tank, and it explains how it works. I don't know how much he understands about it, but he certainly does like to see all the parts and compare them to the picture. You can see the book lying open in the photo above.

His older brother, now eight, loved the very same thing when he was two. In fact, that is how I potty trained him. His reward for "good work" was that I would lift the lid to the tank and tell him about everything inside before he flushed. I couldn't get little Bubby interested in the same thing while we were potty training, but now that we are almost to the end of that road, he is very interested.

Usually he will ask twice a day if he can look inside the tank. We go in the bathroom and I stay with him until he has seen enough. He asks for the names of the different parts (I don't know what everything in there is called, but I do my best) and we talk about what happens when you push the handle. Then at least once he needs to get down on the floor so he can see the water pipe coming from the floor and entering the tank.

I have never heard anyone else say that their kid was this interested in the workings of a toilet tank, although since both my boys have been so big on it, I am assuming there are other kids out there that like to see what is going on in that tank. One of the hidden mysteries of life!

Tot School: Gross Motor and etc.

Here are a couple of things we did this week to challenge those big muscles...

I decided to share some picture of the gross motor stuff we do with Bubby as we go through the day. So often, I think we moms picture "school" with our little ones as some table time. They need to work on gross motor skills, too! Here are a couple of things we did this week to challenge those big muscles:

We called this one "Magic Carpet Ride." We used to do something similar in the laundry basket, which you can see in the picture. The blanket makes it a little more challenging, and it also makes mom worry less about possibly scratching the hardwood flooring! If you try this at home, use gentle starts and stops, but it can really work a little one's trunk muscles trying to balance. No standing up!

If this looks a bit chilly, sorry. We had a warm day, and the house was pretty warm, too. He had an afternoon bath, and he likes to have his "nekky" time!

I saw this next one in a book as a recommendation for a before-bed activity. I can see why they would say that; I'm sure it's supposed to be calming to a toddler, having that sensory input. Alas, Bubby loved it so much that he wanted to be a "papoosie" again and again, and went a bit crazy. So I don't think it would work for us for bedtime...but, hey, maybe someone else can use it. As it turned out, it is still a fun game! We laid the blanket out on the bed, put him on one side, and helped him roll up and unroll himself. The first couple of times, we unrolled immediately after rolling up, so he wouldn't get scared of being rolled up. I think he will get to the point where he can unroll himself. I remember that my brother and I had fun with this game as older kids!

Now for some other learning. Peanut has a book called Spot What. It is like the I Spy series of books. It seems a little busy for a toddler, but Bubby really loves this book and when Peanut will let him, he likes to sit with her and look at the pictures. Here they are getting in a little book time together. Bubby is in a verbal stage and he is learning new words all the time, and Peanut is so good to spend time with him naming things. In about five years, she is going to be a great babysitter!

I'm not really sure how I can make this educational, but Bubby loves my little sewing box that goes with my sewing machine. He loves taking the little feet out and putting them back. He doesn't put them back in the right spot; that is a little too difficult right now. This is something I need to explore further, because this little box can keep him busy for 30 minutes at a time!

Tot School: Bath

Go here for my Weblink Wednesday post.

This was birthday week for Bubby, who turned two, and I guess I won't call him Baby Bubby anymore. He IS my baby, but he's getting to be such a little kid, I know he doesn't think of himself as a baby. *sniff, sniff*

I was busy, and didn't get a lot of school-y pictures, but I caught a couple, so I will share them. He gets a kick out of playing with this water toy. We got it from Discovery Toys, but that was years ago for the older kids, so I think they must not have it anymore. It is really fun, and we have gotten a lot of play out of it.



I'm finding that the hour that the big kids are in band is a great time for Bubby and I to hit the library. Here, he has found a puzzle to play with. It is fun to watch him as he figures out a new puzzle, you can just see the little wheels turning in there!


If you want to see his cake that I made, see this post.

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Tot School: Piano Guy

I sat Bubby on the piano bench the other day to see what would happen. He had fun. We talked about high and low, loud and soft, and he tried to sing high and low. When I brought out the camera, he was pretty much done. He just wanted to get his picture made. What a ham! But I did catch him in action just a bit:





And yes, it was very necessary to hold that sippy cup the whole time.

He does spend some time at the piano whenever I want to play. He sits in my lap and bangs while I try to play from my Sheet Music Magazines. He is finally learning that Mama gets to turn the pages and he is not welcome to do that! Otherwise, he is welcome to help Mama play and if the melody line is not very distinct, that's probably my fault anyway.

He also helped me in the kitchen. The dinner-fixing time at our house continues to be the time of day when he is grouchy, not satisfied and gets restless. I put him up in his high chair and let him mash the avocado for mama. He was very glad to help with this. He used a potato masher, and he did a very good job. The avocado in the center of the bowl was perfectly pureed!

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Tot School: Vacation

This past week we had a some fun as a family. We all went on a trip with my father-in-law to Branson, MO. This was a very special trip for us, and it went very well. My FIL really loves to go to Branson, specifically to Silver Dollar City.

Silver Dollar City has a lot of fun stuff for kids, and the older kids had a ball. For little Bubby, who is not quite two, it was interesting in other ways. He just happened to be tall enough to ride some of the kiddie rides, but he is too young still and he was nervous about them. So he sat out and found other things to occupy his time.

He did like riding the train with the whole group of us. He could sit snuggled up on Mama's lap and the train did not go too fast for him. I also let him sit in one of the nice "picture areas" and play in the mulch. It was damp and cool, and he had a good time. At home, he is happy playing in the dirt under the trees, so I guess this was close to that. I had to watch to make sure he didn't throw the mulch, but once he realized I wasn't going to let him throw, he had fun just picking it up and dropping it.



In the gift shop, they had one of those bins full of polished rocks. He absolutely loved that. I would highly recommend that to anyone next time they are at a museum or other souvenir shop. The rocks are cold and smooth and they usually have enough in a bin for a little kid to bury their hands in. He really liked all the colors as well.



Here are a couple of pictures from early in the week, when we hadn't started vacation yet. I took him to the library while the older kids were in band, and he had a good time. Our local library has a rather large children's area with a few play centers.


One last thing that is interesting, but you can't see it in the pictures: When he is really involved in something, his face just goes so serious. He looks very concerned, LOL. He is such a silly any other time, he is always smiling. I guess a lot of kids are like that, but it is interesting to me.

For more ideas, go visit Tot School at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School: Pots and Pans

This is our first week to participate in Tot School at 1+1+1=1. It is just a way to document the stuff we do with little Bubby in our day-to-day life that is focused on him. Bubby will be 23 months old in a few days.

This week we have just one picture. We played pots and pans this week. He had a great time. The activity came from the book, Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready. The goal was to have him put lids on the right size pans, and take them off again. He did that a few times, but he quickly learned that these pans make a lot of noise, especially when hit with plasitc hammer. It turned out to be a loud activity, but a lot of fun!