Learning with Bella

Tot School - We're Back

2010-07-19T04:52:00.000-07:00

Bella is 33 months old.

It's been a long time since we linked up.

We've been really busy getting ready for baby due in August and Mama has just not felt like doing too much. Hopefully we can do a little more.

We sponge painted.

Played with our three bears dressing puzzle. Bella likes to act like the emotion she picks for the bears. In this picture, she is sleeping.

She absolutely loves to mark off the days on her calendar.

She has been enjoying dress up.

This little froggy had to jump on her trampoline.
She got to go bowling for the first time and LOVED it!

She helped Papa in the yard.

She also learned how to change the oil!

She has also moved up to the big girl class at gymnastics so we don't go down with her anymore.

She also has a love of swimming. With water wings on, she will kick her feet and swim all over the place. She will happily spend hours in the pool.

Hopefully I can motivate myself to do more planned activities with her.

Tot School

2009-11-11T10:01:00.001-08:00

Bella is 25 months old.

Smiles Changes Lives is an organization of dentists that does many things. The day after Halloween, they sponsered a candy drive to get kids to donate some of their candy to send to the troops. We took most of Bella's candy to donate. They had lots of activities to do while there. She got her face painted, made a 'tiara', got a balloon animal, painted, made a bracelet and more. As you can see, it was an exhausting day.

We found some pine cones on a walk so we made some squirrel feeders, which apparently scares our squirrels away.

We read "Go Away Big Green Monster" and practiced putting the pieces on to tell the story.

Then we colored our own pieces.

Cut them out and matched them to our body parts.

Then we glued it onto a green plate. (Okay so not EXACTLY like the book)

We read "Glad Monster, Sad Monster" and used the masks to talk about emotions.

On Saturday, we went to the zoo and watched the animals get their pumpkins that were donated.

Again, we were exhausted.

Our tot trays included:

*Flat marbles on a bath mat

*Monsters Inc. Memory

*Monster Tot Pack (we did this SOOOO many times and yet I can't find one picture of it being used)

Tot School

2009-11-05T07:33:00.001-08:00

Bella is 25 months old.

We had an outside birthday party.

We sorted leaves by color.
We did a counting game with a tree.

Of course we carved our pumpkins.

We used pumpkin head parts so she could make her own.

Trick or treating was definitely the big event.

She went as the world's first non-jumping frog. We're working on it!

Tot School

2009-10-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Bella is 24 months old.

We worked on putting tubes in order by height.

Travel Perfection works great for fine motor skills.

Fingerpainting green into our color book.
Making a paper plate apple.

Riding, and driving (scary thought), a tractor with Pepapa.

Putting together some concept puzzles she got for her birthday.

Enjoying our local Octoberfest games. (Papa did it so she had to as well!)

Enjoying mildly warm "hot chocolate".

Sitting in the tractor wheel.

Tot School

2009-10-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

Bella is 24 months old!!

We missed posting the last few weeks so we have a lot of catching up to do.

Of course Bella had her 2nd birthday!

Playing with the new name puzzle she got.

Painting her hands and feet to put on her closet door in her new room.

Playing with the Melissa & Doug See & Spell.
Of course she had to tell me where her sock was.

She loved her new foam alphabet letters for the bathtub. They hid in the bubbles and she would swish them around and tell me what letter she found. Then stick it on the wall.

We went letterboxing one weekend. If you don't know what that is, check out http://www.atlasquest.com/

Papa worked with her on playing Tball which she calls kicking?

Playing with our new dollhouse by making it a slide.

She loves her new Curious George and Cariboo games.

We painted pigs with pudding....

and tasted them too.

We glued cotton balls on sheep.

We glued pink cotton balls on our pink page.

We worked on cutting out our color words.

We glued orange tissue paper on our orange page.

We worked on lacing with our big beads.

Tot School

2009-09-24T12:03:00.001-07:00

Bella is 23 months old.

We found this travel version of connect 4 at Walmart in the dollar section. It was hard work to get the little disks in but she worked on it for a while.

We talked about feelings using the Tot book over at 1+1+1=1 blog.

Bella's favorite is to make the sad face and talk with a sad voice. She loved acting out the different emotions that were a part of the tot book.

We started a colors book. Bella already knows her colors but I thought she would like this and it worked on her fine motor.

We played on the computer with Papa.

We also used tongs to put the pompoms in the egg carton.

Getting ready for gymnastics. Apparently this outfit requires bunny ears.

Our first gymnastics class. Unfortunately I had class but Papa and Bella had a lot of fun.

Tot School

2009-08-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

Bella is 22 months old.

We put fruit loops on pipe cleaners.

But never did get more than one on at a time.

Then she decided that the baby should do it. Plastic hands are not good for lacing.She spent a lot of the week looking under the couch...

for her early birthday present.

We all went to the Omaha zoo and have way too many pictures of all the fun.

She was exhausted by the end of the trip so she passed out with her new fish.

We also worked on the Brown Bear tot book which she loves! We played outside in the kiddie pool too!

I didn't get nearly what I hoped to accomplished. Hopefully I will get a better balance between being back at work and doing things with her.

Tot School

2009-08-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

Bella is 22 months old.

Bella helped Papa build a wall in our house.

She wanted to help sweep.

She helped Papa measure and draw lines.

And she worked on walking on a "balance beam".

She loves to help put silverware away.

She sorted pegs by color and stacked them. And of course knocked them down!

She painted her Letter D that we then made into ducks.

She worked on her nesting farm animals. This is still really hard for her. She likes to put certain ones in certain places rather than try to get them all back in the cow.

She played outside with a bowl of water. Then the dogs decided to help drink it!
We also got out paintbrushes and painted letters and shapes on the deck with water.

I am so sad that this is my last week at home with Bella.
I am going to miss all the fun we've had during the day.

Pringle Can Pipe Cleaner Color Sort

2009-08-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

This is such a simple color sort/fine motor activity.

I just took an empty Pringles can and hole punched 8 holes in the lid. It took some muscle to get the hole punch onto the lid but worked fine once you push it through. Then I got out some pipe cleaners and she had fun poking them through the holes.

Then I got out some hole reinforcers and colored them different colors. I just stuck these on top of the holes on the lid. I got three pipe cleaners of each color. Then she puts the matching pipe cleaner through the correct colored hole.

The best part is that the pipe cleaners store inside the pringles can!

Tot School

2009-08-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

Bella is 22 months old

This was our first week of documented Tot School. I love this idea and hope to keep it up when school starts back up!

We went on a nature walk. We practiced being small...

and tall like the trees!

The biggest goal has been potty training which was a huge success but also explains the pantsless pictures.

We put circles on letter C's and made them into caterpillars.

We did a lot of fine motor and hand/eye coordination tasks.

This was a great creation. She loves it.

We also went swimming, played with chalk, played with our neighbor friend, and much more!