Twin Tot School #20...

Will and Wesley are 36 months old.

This is the first time in several week that I have set out their trays as we have been taking a break from schooling and have been so busy! It felt so good to be getting back to our normal routine. It's also pretty neat because I can see how far Will and Wesley have come since we first started Tot School. Their attention span has greatly improved (especially for Will, Wesley was always fairly good at concentrating on one task). I've been working hard at making some new things for Tot School and am looking forward to working on them soon.

Although we've had this toy since Christmas, this is really the first time the boys worked on screwing the different pieces together (although you can see that Wesley was also using his car as a hammer):

This Melissa and Doug spelling puzzle is probably both of their top two toys right now (if you don't count any and all things Lightning McQueen!). It is really helping them with their letters too although they are all lower case and we have really only worked on the upper case.

This was just a quick thing I pulled together for them to practice using a dropper with colored water:

I love this picture of Jackson and Will working so sweetly together:

It was also fun to do on a paper towel:

I printed this shape wheel from Carissa's blog. You're supposed to use clothes pins with the shapes on them but I haven't gotten around to making those yet :)

I had a VERY rare minute alone with Will and wanted to see what shapes he knew. So we used Ashton's little Barbie dog he was playing with. I'd say, "Take the doggie to the octagon" and he'd do it. He loved using the dog and I loved how many shapes he knew!

Topping mine and the boys list of their favorite tot toys are definitely Automoblox minis. They got this set for Christmas and they are awesome. They can make tons of different combinations of cars and there's actually enough for both of them to be happy!

Then they spend the rest of the day driving them around and around the school table :)

That was our week as we begin to get back in our normal routine. Head over to Carissa's blog to see what other things are happening in Tot School.

Crazy Hair Days...

My kids went to a local VBS, and of course they had to have dress up days (not my favorite) but the kids were excited. We tried our best to empty Ashton''s hair bow container!

I was expecting her to get tired of them and none to return home, but she was happy for the time being.

Jackson used this as an excuse to sport the haircut he wishes he could have everyday:

My dear migraine suffering carpool friend did a pretty great job on her kids- even giving one a real mohawk!!! (It was later just turned into a short summer style.)

Ladies and gentlemen may I present the award winning "Best Crazy Hair" out of like 700 kids!!!

Ahhhh, crazy hair. Good times, good times....

Twin Tot School #19...

Will and Wesley are 34 months old.

We have been so unbelievably busy since summer started there hasn't been much school of any kind. However, it was fun hanging out with just the twins while the big kids were at summer camp. We went shopping and found a really cheap Cars game. Since they are currently obsessed with that movie we had to have it. Here they are playing their first board game:

To be honest it didn't last too long, but it will eventually be great for teaching numbers and colors.

We are loving our magnetic pom poms! They are pompoms I hot glued small round magnets to the back of. I got the idea from this great blog. There are tons of free printables to use with them.

Plus, it's easy to make enough for 2 tots to do at once-score!

They still like their Mickey Mouse color matching though it is really easy for them now. I've been meaning to make one with secondary colors....

We also played Hullabaloo for the first time. Wesley really got it. Will loved running from space to space!

But mostly our time is devoted to this:
However, it's not going so well as you can see by this picture where Wesley was begging me to put a diaper on him :(
So, there will be a lot more potty training in our future and hopefully more Tot Schooling thrown in along the way. Check out what lots other tots are doing at Carissa's blog!

Fact Practice...

We are drilling some major addition and multiplication facts around here this summer. I found this idea to make it a little more fun on one of my new favorite blogs, Confessions of a Homeschooler. I had them start at the top of the stairs. Then I held up a flashcard (addition for A and multiplication for J) and if they got it right they could move down a step. First one to the bottom wins. As you can see here Jackson was ahead, but Ashton actually ended up winning:

This was a little more fun than regular drill. I was pleased to discover that they knew their facts better than I thought they did, but we have lots more fun drills coming!

Fun in the Box #16...

Why just do math worksheets when you can make it a little more fun. I save every milk cap that enters this house (which is a lot because we are a milk drinking, cereal eating family of 6). There are so many things you can do with them. For this workbox I wrote the numbers 1-9 twice and placed them in a bucket. Jackson was working on 3 digit subtraction so I took a piece of notebook paper and went ahead and drew the problems with blanks. By doing this he knew how many he had to do, how many digits, and it lined them up for him. Notice the paper is turned sideways. This is a great trick I learned teaching 4th grade. The lines on the notebook paper act as guides to help them keep their numbers lined up. That alone eliminates most mistakes kids make when writing their own problems.

Jackson had to draw out 6 caps which became his problems.

I recommend telling them they have to write the numbers down as they draw them for the top but allow them to rearrange the lower numbers to make sure the bottom number is smaller than the top (another important skill!).

This is also obviously great for addition as well. We'll probably soon use it for multiplication too since that is our summer focus!

Fun in the Box #15...

I was looking for a better way to have the kids practice their spelling words. I adapted an idea Jackson's 1st grade teacher used- spelling tic-tac-toe. I made a grid with 5 rows and 5 columns then filled them with every fun study-your-spelling-words activities I could think of. Some examples are: rainbow write your words (write in different colors), write silly sentences using your words, spell words using letter magnets, play Spell City, ABC order, etc. They get to choose what activities to do, but it has to result in a tic-tac-toe with 5 across, down or diagonal. They color in the box when they completed it. I tried to mix up types of activities they would have to do to get a tic-tac-toe like writing, moving, art or computer. That way they get a good mix of fun, serious, quick and longer. They loved it. It was way more fun than the traditional ABC Monday, 3 times each Tues., etc. Most importantly, any time you give your kids choice they buy into the activity much more. When they feel in charge they are much more into it which equals less fussing by mom! This is also a perfect workbox activity.

One choice was an activity I got on the A-Z Reading website when they had a free trial :)

They reach into the bag. They have to do whatever the cards they draw tell them to like "write a sentence with your word about a funny monkey" or "write a sentence with your word about a lollipop eating hippo". You wouldn't believe how much they enjoyed this, especially Ashton. You could easily type up some silly directions like this. For some reason drawing something out of a bag makes it more fun as well. I wonder if it would work for chores?

The only change I'm considering making is maybe going from 5 across to 4 or maybe even 3. That would give us Friday free for testing and maybe Monday for an introduction lesson.

I hope you can use this for spelling fun. I;m trying to think of how it can be adapted to some other subjects, hmmmm.........

Crafting It Old School...

The kids had both just finished reading books they had been working on. In my ongoing quest to brainwash them that reading is fun (because it haunts me that I have sadly failed in that area!) I wanted a project they could do to present their books. We had just bought shoes. I always hesitate to throw them out trying my best to come up with something they could be used for. Then the idea of a diorama hit me. How many dioramas did I make in my day? I loved every one of them. So, for this project we kicked it old school style with the classic diorama. They ate it up and worked on it for hours. I got a shower, quiet time, did some laundry came down and they were still working. Of course, it cost me a lot of paper, foam and pipe cleaners but what are they for anyway. Then Ashton tried the trick of secretly pushing it all into one of Jackson's workboxes when I told her to clean it up :)

I was truly amazed with their creativity. Making a 3-D project requires a little more engineering which Jackson enjoyed. He had just read The Boxcar Children and showed their campsite in the woods around the boxcar. As far as a reading assessment goes, this worked great. I saw that he had really read and retained lots of details from the book. Plus I got to throw in fun terms like setting and character when admiring it!

I loved the pipe cleaner tree trunk. The clothesline was a nice touch as well.

Ashton had read Junie B. Jones Aloha-ha. I thought it was clever that they put on a lid and handle.

She felt bad that hers wasn't quite as 3-D as Jackson's, but I thought it was good. People would've been a lot harder to make 3-D. She showed the scene with the inter tube in the store. Notice the quote she added (another good literary term).

They showed these to everyone. This is definitely a project we will repeat. I guess I have to go shoe shopping :)