Getting prepared!

Getting Prepared!
(March 2010)


Well we are heading out to Disney World in 4 days, and Jacob has started getting excited (at least as excited as you can get for not understanding much about what we are doing!). We have had to explain things to him in "Toddler Terms" which means that since he watches "Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse" on the Disney Channel, we have been telling him that we are going to go see Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, and Pluto at the Clubhouse! In fact we told him that we were going to go swimming at "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" and that we needed to try on last years swim gear and he was all for it, in fact he is sooooo for it that he has been wearing his swim suit for the past three days. The first day it was nice out so it was just like shorts and shirt, the second and third days however have been chilly, but no fear, we just put them on overtop of his clothes!

He wore that outfit to our playgroup, to Target, the grocery store, and of course the following day while we decorated Easter eggs! Gotta love those Toddlers! I wish I could throw fashion out the window and go out in public thinking that my bright orange and blue swim trunks were THE BOMB!!!

Wish us luck in Disney, we are heading out with a 2.5 year old and a 7 month old!! But hey if you can't find something for kids to do in Disney, you probably shouldn't have kids...right???

St. Patricks Day Crafts!!

St. Patricks Day Crafts!!!
(March 2010)

This week I decided to still work on teaching Jacob his colors, but to try and incorporate some St. Patty's day crafts in the mix! Here is what we worked on!

We got this free printable from freekidscrafts.com and we used more of our fruit ring cereal to work on our colors and to make the rainbow at the pot of gold for St. Patricks Day. This craft had to be done over two days though, because the reality of the situation is that Jacob is only 2.5 and he has the attention span of a .....well.....2.5 year old!!! So he didn't want to finish it all in one sitting. It got done eventually and we talked about the colors as we glued them!

We got this idea from here, and this blog is great and has tons of ideas! Jacob loved doing the suncatchers for Valentines Day so this one was a no brainer for this week! I just found an image online of a cauldron and cut it to work for this suncatcher!! 

Learning my colors is YUMMY!!!

Learning my colors is YUMMY!!!
(March 2010)

We are still working on our colors this week, but I decided that learning can be YUMMY too!!! What better way to work on our colors and shapes then by using fruit ring cereal!!! Here are a few things that we worked on today!

I got this idea from KidsSoup.com it is a great website for ideas and crafts/lessons for teaching pre-school aged children. Jacob loved it because for every fruit ring he glued he got to eat two or three! We talked about each color as we glued it onto the butterfly!

This next craft we did was more about shapes than colors, but could be used for colors as well. I got an image and printed it twice, once in black and white and once in color. I then cut out the shapes from the colored one and Jacob got to find the shapes in the image and then glue them down. The only problem I had with this craft is that Jacob is very particular and if he couldn't get the shape glues EXACTLY where it needed to be he would throw a fit....oh well!! He will learn!

My favorite color is GREEEEENNNNN!!!

My favorite color is GREEEEEENNNNN!!!
(March 2010)

Now that I have started focusing on Jacob's schooling/learning I have been finding some great blogs and websites that offer free or for a very cheap yearly price lesson plans, printables, songs, crafts, etc....

I have been working with Jacob on his colors and we are finding it a little difficult, probably because he is only 2.5 years old. He knows all of the words that are colors, but what usually happens is that when you ask him "What color is this??" he ALWAYS responds GREEEENNNN, when you say no then he says YEEELLLOOWW, then red, then blue, brown....etc.....

However if you ask him to "go get the red ball" he will get the red ball....hhhhmmmm...interesting...

Here are some of the lessons we are doing to help Jacob get his colors down.

 

Magformers Multi Colored Magnetic 3d Building Set 30 Pieces

These Magformers are pretty cool for a number of reasons, first they are magnetic and Jacob is going through a phase right now where he loves magnets. They are also triangles and squares and come in expander sets with other shapes too. So as we are working with our colors we are also talking about shapes. These magnetic shapes stack up small enough to take with you and we had a very nice sit down lunch in a restaurant the other day and kept a 2.5 year old entertained the WHOLE TIME! Which you know is a feat of itself! Some of the games I have been playing with these blocks are:
1) stack them up according to shape
2) stack them up according to color
3) As I am building something with them I ask Jacob to give me a specific shape/color.

This is a quick thing that I started doing after reading this post at Tired, Need Sleep. Now hers are obviously cooler than mine, but my guy is a little younger and I am still working at a basic level with color recognition. I would ask Jacob to show me where "yellow" is and if he did that correctly he would get the yellow sticky foam circle to put on the caterpillar. Again I worked with colors and shapes with this craft!

Lastly this week we worked on our fine motor skills as well as matching and colors. I got this idea online (can't remember where), but you take a simple $1.99 pack of 50 clothes pins and some markers and a paper plate and you make a color wheel. Jacob simple would match the clothes pin to the same color and if I was around when he did it I would reinforce what color it was when he did it. I also worked with him and asked him to give me a specific clothes pin and I would attach it to the plate.

I have more color projects/lessons that we will be doing this week and some of them even involve St. Patricks Day!