Tiny Tot School: Hanukkah

Maddie is 14 months old.

Tray #1 - Felt Menorah

I created a felt menorah for Maddie to explore this week. We practiced counting, one to one correspondence, and it was a sensory experience as well. She never really put the candles on the menorah, she much preferred to take them out of the basket and put them back in. :)

Tray #2 - Blue Candles, Floral Foam

Similar to our golf tee/floral foam activity. Maddie worked on finger strength and fine motor skills as she pushed candles into the foam and pulled them out. She enjoyed this activity a lot, and would do it over and over again each day.

Tray #3 - Yellow Button Pushing

For this activity, Maddie pushed yellow "gelt" through a buttonhole in an old Parmesan cheese container. She LOVED this, easily her favorite activity this week. She quickly figured out that, once there were several buttons in it, the container made a great rattling noise! She would put them all in, shake it around, and hand it to me to open and get the buttons out.

Christmas Baby

Oh, how I love Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. The decorations and music, especially. I tried to convince Maddie to take a few pictures with the tree... and she semi-obliged me. :)

Visiting Santa? Nope. Not her thing. Not at all! (Not that I blame her... but it's so funny!)

Thanksgiving 2015 and Temple Square

We stayed home this year, and had a few family members over to our house. It was the first Thanksgiving that I have hosted, and it was a lot of fun! All the food was delicious, and the company was even better. :)

And just for fun, Thanksgiving 2014 and 2015.

After Thanksgiving, we headed up to the Temple Square Christmas lights with all of the Saunders family. It was so fun to see everyone and to be able to hang out for a bit, even though it was cold and snowy! Maddie wore her "purple people eater" suit, AKA the "pink bunny suit" and was toastier than the rest of us put together, I think! :)

Tiny Tot School: Pink

Maddie is 14 months.

We had lots of fun with the color pink this week! No surprise there, Maddie is no stranger to this color. :) We tried some different activities too - some went over well, some not as much. That's okay, we are figuring this out as we go.

Sensory - Jello

Okay, so the Jello turned out red instead of pink, but that's okay. Maddie LOVED this. It took about 10 minutes the first day for her to warm up to it, but then she went to town every day. She would stick her hands in and just squeeze the life out of the Jello in order to feel it squish through her fingers. She also enjoyed picking it up and tearing it apart. I used the Jiggler recipe, but in hindsight, for sensory play, the regular recipe would probably be better.


Tray #1 - Pouring water

I thought maybe we could try a pouring tray, but I think Maddie is still too young for that. She just wanted to play with the lid on the teapot. Most of the week, I would pour a tiny bit into her cup and she would drink it - she loved that. We turned it into more of a grace & courtesy lesson than a pouring activity. We worked on the signs and oral language of "please" and "thank you." On Friday though, she surprised me by trying to pour the water from the pot into the cup! She did a decent job and was so proud of herself too.


Tray #2 - Pink pasta shells and egg carton

I painted some pasta shells pink (couldn't get the right color food coloring on them) and set them out with half an egg carton. Maddie only gets one to one correspondence about 50% of the time, so I want to do lots of these activities with her to really cement the idea in her head. She, however, does not care about what I want (haha!) so she never once used the tray as I had intended. Which is fine, but just so funny! She loved playing with the shells and putting them in and out of the basket. She also enjoyed opening and closing the egg carton all week.

Tray #3 - Pink stickers on paper

Since she loved stickers so much, I decided to do another sticker tray with her. This time, Maddie would point to the sticker she wanted and I would start it, then let her finish peeling it off and put it on the paper. She did SO much better with this activity this time around. It's amazing what 6 weeks or so of development will do!


Art - Coloring with pink marker

Maddie really impressed me this week! She knew which way to turn the marker in order to draw with it, and she was able to color quite a bit! She doesn't have the right hold down, but that's just a matter of age and development. She loved coloring her pink pig picture.


Playdough - Christmas

I made a Christmas-y playdough to use throughout the month this month. I colored it green and added green glitter. Maddie really enjoyed this as well - she is getting really interested in sensory activities! she loved smooshing and squeezing the playdough and breaking off chunks.

Tiny Tot School: Green

Maddie is 13 months.

Since I didn't get my act together last week until Wednesday, we did the color green both last week and this week.

Sensory - Green bubble wrap

Maddie had never really experienced bubble wrap before this. I knew she wouldn't quite have the finger strength to pop the bubbles, and she didn't... but if she balled it up and squeezed with her whole hand, she was able to get a few pops. She loved it for the first couple of days... and then totally lost interest.

Tray #1 - Green foam and golf tees

The idea of the activity was for Maddie to push the tees into the foam. It took several days of playing with this activity for her to understand how to do so. She really only "got" it the last day. However, she came up with lots of ways to play with it the rest of the time! Her favorite was pulling them OUT of the foam after I pushed them in. She also got really interested in using her fingernail to scrape the foam, turning it into more of a sensory activity.

Tray #2 - Green ribbon pulling

I rolled up some green ribbon and placed it in a Parmesan cheese container. Maddie would pull on it and get the ribbon out of the container. It took a few tries to figure out that she had to stabilize the container in order to get all the ribbon out. She would then wrap the ribbon around her like a scarf and make the funniest face. I can only assume it was an "I'm so pretty!" face.

Tray #3 - Alphabet Puzzle

I bought this puzzle because I knew Maddie would really like the little knobs on each piece. And, it can't hurt to get a little alphabet exposure, right?? :) She did really well taking the pieces out. I would name each letter as she took it out. She was never interested in putting them back in though, but she would observe each piece for quite some time as she took them out. I tried to emphasize M for Maddie, but she isn't quite there yet.

Snow Day!!

On Monday (11-16), we had our very first snow of the season! I always think that the first snow is a magical one. It was Maddie's second time getting to see snow, and she loved it this time!!

Last year looked something like this:

This year she was enthralled!! She loved trying to look up at the sky while the snow was falling, and when I put her down into it she got so excited. She laughed, giggled, and made the cutest faces. It's so much fun to be little and play in the snow! Dad even got in on the snow action. :)

 

30 Days of Gratitude: Day 1-5

I know it's cheesy, but I am going to post something I am thankful for every day this month. It's always a good reminder of how much I really have been blessed with, even when sometimes I don't feel that way.

November 1: Family

I am so, so grateful for my family. I don't know what I would do without them. I am very grateful that, for now, I live so close to so many of my family. It's wonderful to be able to see everyone so much more often than when we lived in Arizona. I have been blessed with a wonderful in-law family as well - I just consider them my family, not my in-laws, now! It's been so nice to have so much support when I needed it, and for Maddie to have so many people who love and care for her.


November 2:

Today I am extremely grateful for running water, electricity, and washing machines. I woke up to Maddie throwing up all over her bed, and I am very grateful that I didn't have to wash all that laundry by hand!! I am blessed to have a washer/dryer in my apartment, that work and that I don't have to share with anyone else. We can have clean clothes and linens anytime we want! It really is a blessing.

November 3:

I am so grateful to have great friends who can watch Maddie while I work. I know she is in good hands, and I don't even have to worry at all and can focus on my job. SUCH a blessing.

November 4:

Today I am grateful for modern medicine. Without it, I may have never been able to conceive my daughter, or keep her pregnancy. She may not have even lived to be one without the technology and medicines we have now. I am beyond grateful that I get to have the experience of being a mom. I am so glad that I found doctors who could help James and I, and then Maddie. So glad!

November 5:

I am soooooooo grateful for my wonderful husband! Today marks 4 years of marriage, and we've known each other a little over 5 years. I know that's short in the grand scheme of things, but I really don't know what I would do without him!! He's my rock, and for that I am extremely grateful.

Tiny Tot School - Yellow

Maddie is 13 months.

Sensory - "Lemonade" Sensory Bucket

In retrospect, this is a better July activity than November one... oops. Even though we were inside, poor Maddie's fingers were almost blue from the cold. I colored water yellow, added ice and some whole lemons, and a few scoopers and let her go to town. She LOVED this. Mostly because she liked to suck on the ice (don't worry, she was fully supervised the whole time). Also, pigtails are my new favorite look for her.

Tray #1 - Banana Peeling

I neglected to take a picture of this one, but I cut a banana into about 1 inch wide slices, and gave her about 3-4 at a time. I showed her how to take the peel off and then eat the banana. I didn't think she would get it, but I was wrong! She instantly understood and quite enjoyed the activity even! The snack is a great motivator. :)

Tray #2 - Yellow Poms in a Paint Pallet

The idea is to help her learn one to one correspondence. Surprisingly (again!) she actually understood the concept the first go around. She would carefully take each pom and place it in its assigned spot, then look at me, grin, and dump the pallet onto the floor, where she would carefully put each pom back in the yellow bowl. We counted the poms each time as well.

Tray #3 - Yellow Stickies on Yellow Paper

She enjoyed the blue sticker activity so much, I knew she would enjoy this one! Once I showed her how to peel off the Post-Its, she was in toddler heaven. She peeled them off and stuck them right to the paper. Funny girl - I stuck one to my forehead to be silly, and she gave me a dirty look, took it off my head, and put it on the paper. OCD much, child? ;)

Halloween 2015: Wonderland

This year, our family costume was based off Alice in Wonderland. James was the Mad Hatter, I was the Queen of Hearts, and Maddie was Alice. It was so much fun to put these together this year! This was also Maddie's first year trick-or-treating. Cousins came over and we all went around the neighborhood together. It was a blast!! We are so glad they were able to come with us. Maddie got the hang of trick or treating by the second door - she would reach in, choose the candy she wanted, and put it right into her pumpkin. So stinking cute! And funny how quickly she picked it up - I guess she was watching her cousins do it! :)

Tiny Tot School: Red

Maddie is 12 months old.

Maddie really enjoyed red week! I'm finding though, that with her age and the space we have, I need to take a little less Montessori approach, and I just pull out one activity at a time, rather than let her freely choose. She still enjoys the activities, and we play with each one until she decides she's ready to move on. It works better for us.

Sensory Basket - Red

Again, just filled with different red things around the house. Maddie REALLY loved the red box - she loved to open and close it. She's very into that these days.

Tray #1 - Open and Shut

I found red gift boxes at the dollar store and place a little shiny red heart in each box. Maddie opened the boxes and found the hearts. This was probably her favorite activity - surprise, surprise, haha. She collected the hearts and would put them from box to box. At first I was a little worried, because she would try to mouth them. By day 2, she realized that they weren't for eating and she would hold it up to her mouth, shake her head, and laugh. It was so cute!

Tray #2 - Red pipe cleaners in a container

I used a washed out Parmesan cheese container. Maddie didn't really understand how to do this one, even though I modeled it several times each day. She would try to put the middle of the pipe cleaner into the jar, which just didn't work. She would take them out if I put them in, but just couldn't figure out how to get them in. She loved to pretend the jar was a glass of water, though. This one may have to wait a few more months.

Tray #3 - Red popsicle stick transferring

By the end of the week, Maddie figured out how to transfer the sticks from jar to jar and would do it over and over again. Her very favorite way to play with it, though, was to take all the sticks out and then put them in one at a time while I counted them.

Art - Red Dot Marker

We continued our "God Made Everything" book this week with red ladybugs. No picture, I forgot!

Pumpkin Patch 2015

Within one week last month, we hit up the pumpkin patch 3 times. We went to Jaker's, a little local place right near our house. This is for sure my favorite patch around here! They had a huge corn pit, a little petting zoo, a hayride, and of course - lots of pumpkins! We also went to Cornbelly's with some people from James' work - we have lots of memories of that place, so it was fun to go back with our daughter!