Saturday, March 31, 2012

Week 2 Theme: Bees bzzz bzzzz

Week twos theme started off pretty spontaneous with a trip to Bush Park on Monday.We introduced the baby bumble bee song and looked at a few bumble bee pictures online. Both B and W took a liking to the song and Bear loves the extra "ouch and yucky" add ins. He will clap his hands and say "uck" which is my cue to start singing :)

Tuesday: We started this project. Our version of it at least, we skipped the masking tape and used dot art paint instead. I wanted it to be a bit more personalized and less precise being that a 21 month old was making it. 


He liked hiding the dot paint in the toilet paper tube




Wednesday: We watched a youtube video (can't find it now sorry no link) on how bumble bees drink nectar from flower to flower. I decided to make my own "nectar drinking hopscotch" outside.

I drew three flowers in sidewalk chalk and placed a sippy cup in each of them. B had to run and jump to each of them and drink from the cup when he "landed". Not sure if he totally got the concept but he had so much fun running around drinking from all his cups. 
drinking with water "nectar"

Then we counted the cups. He is really starting to understand it better. 

Thursday: We finished up our bee art project. He is becoming a big fan of gluing.
please note his yellow and black outfit to go with the theme



I didn't have wax paper for the wings so I cut some clear contact paper and stuck two pieces together to make the wings. 

The finished product. Yes I did make the face myself. Cute right?  Friday we took a break and went to a nursery and did some research about vegetable gardening. I am super excited and really scared. I am not in any way a gardener and have never really had much of an interest but I think B would love it and so many people around here claim that it's super easy and fun. So when in Rome? I might as well try, wish me luck. 

Thursday, March 29, 2012

baby step to a big dream




This is one of the first times E ever painted and the results were more like body paint than finger paint. But none the less it was one of my favorite memories. I have always loved art and being able to explore that with children is one of my dreams. It led me to leave my job in Portland a few years back move back to California and work as a preschool art teacher at a non profit school when I was pregnant with Bear. That was the best job I had ever had (now it comes in second to being a SAHM) I learned so much about kids and I had such an incredible time I never wanted to leave. 
Fast forward to a year later and now with two babies, a move back to Oregon, and now staying home full time I get to expose my own children to art but I there was part of me that still missed the "classroom". Kids first reactions to texture and new things and seeing their mind take off is such a special experience.
 So what do you do when working outside the home isn't really an option? You bring the classroom to you. 
I am starting a baby and toddler art group in my area and I cannot be more excited! I always dreamed of having a kids art studio and I feel like this is a great step to maybe getting there one day. In the mean time I am so thrilled to be meeting new people and being a part of some really special memories and some really messy babies. 
My website is up and running. I will be posting  the schedule to the classes soon. Check us out at babyartgroup.com


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Brothers

Bear so proud that he changed Wolf's diaper


"hey wait I was playing with that!!?"

These two little boys are starting to enjoy each others company. Bear is working on "sharing" or at least not taking  little brother toys out of his hands and running off and Wolf is working on getting those knees underneath him on order to retrieve the toys that are sometimes taken away :). Wolf is totally in love with his big brother and beams when he sees him and Bear is quick to return the affection with kisses that are often not too gentle.  They also enjoy post nap time conversations with each other from their cribs and it is melts my heart to hear them laughing together. 
Oh yes the thought of  these two boys one day running around playing together is so exciting but also pretty scary. What kind of trouble will they get into together? My biggest prayer is that they will remain close and be best friends forever.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Field trip to Bush Park








Yesterday was gorgeous so we decided to take a field trip to Bush Park to see if we could find some bees. (to look at from afar... I think I should have thought about my fear of bees before planning this theme. The real thing I want to teach them is they are scary and it really hurts when they sting) but that's another lesson all together. We mainly spent our time on the playground where we made a few new friends and Bear tried to play with the big kids. He became quite attached to the play car/train set up. Once on he pretty much collected dirt and rocks into piles and observed the rest of the kids. He took a few tumble before mastering getting off the ramp of the crocked house. It was so hard to watch him want to do it on his own but I know that it is the best way to learn but of coarse mama was near by.  We did go for a walk to look for bees after all and were successful but it was short lived because Bear saw a little boy getting off his tricycle and thought it was his turn so he ran over and tried to climb on.:) It just so happens that a tricycle is what I was thinking this almost 2 year old needed for his birthday but shhhh... don't tell him. 
As always Wolf loved it too. He slept on mama most of the time and did not peek his eyes open until right before getting in the car. 
We had a great time and came home just in time for nap time. 

Monday, March 26, 2012

week 1- things mommy learned and bloopers

Not totally liking the feel of paint all over his hands. 
I mentioned in the last few post that even in a week a learned a few tips on teaching Bear. I also provided a few blooper type pictures to show a real look at what our days looked like. 
The first thing I learned was find the right time that works for both of you. Bear is a morning person and at first I thought that this was a perfect time to do school. But between breakfast, feeding Wolf and diaper changes not to mention coffee. Squeezing teaching in between was way too much. Plus in the morning he is pretty happy playing quietly by himself while I cook breakfast and take care of baby. Why mess that up?
I found that the time between his first and second nap works for us. We are all dressed and ready for the day and it's the longest span of time that he is awake. 
The next thing I learned was make sure he is fed! Even if I think "it's only 15 min then I can start lunch" WRONG!!! This boys belly needs to be full and content before anything else happens. 
Third thing is obvious but I still needed to constantly remember to be patient. This is new to both of us and we are giving ourselves a big learning curve. They won't always get it but they are not suppose to. Lessons might not go smoothly so try later or just think "better luck tomorrow" and move on. Which takes me to the last thing. This one is super important ready... Have a sense of humor and have fun. If you aren't having fun chances are neither is your little one. When things don't go as planned take time to soften your heart and look at what's happening chances are it's going to be funny with a toddler around. 
So good luck and I hope you have a blast. Below are a few photos of our laughable moments of the week.

notice the crinkles on the circles? Bear smashed them all together and ran off

during our circle counting activity he decided that looking out the window was more fun

then he moved on to dancing to the music on brothers bouncer (he never does this) HAHA!!

His lady bug wanted to bounce. Funny enough when he did this he was actually able to  follow the directions better. What ever works :)

Brother was not happy being on his tummy anymore. Pause "school" and flip him over. 

He wanted to call someone in the middle of gluing dots. What is it with kids and phones?



Sunday, March 25, 2012

Peek- a- Boo


Be back tomorrow with a few things I learned about "schooling" this Bear

Saturday, March 24, 2012

belly laughs and yoga poses

Will you look at all those chins!!! This little boy is getting bigger by the day . He has discovered his feet and they have become his new favorite toy. He's mastering his yoga poses and he gets a teething toy all at the same time. He has really mastered rolling over and now spends a lot of time on his tummy. He is attempting to tuck his knees in under him and is already trying to scoot forward to try to reach all of brother Bear's toys.  This little Wolf sure is fun. Have a great weekend.  




Friday, March 23, 2012

Ladybug week

We started our first week of "school" with a ladybug theme.
 Day 1 was a quick introduction. We sang the ladybug ladybug nursery rhyme and looked at some pictures online of ladybugs. I quick explanation of the fact that they are red with black circles. And that was that. Pretty easy. Throughout the day I would sing the nursery rhyme to both the boys so that they would become familiar with it.
Day 2. Repeat day one and in addition this was messy art day, and red finger panting was part of the agenda. It was a simple craft. All we did was paint a paper plate red. (Red like a ladybug is what we were focusing on) This surprisingly took a lot of time. Bear was really loving it. I let it run it's full course which lasted about 20 min. I assumed he was done when he attempted to through his plate on the floor. :)

Day 3.  Repeat day one.Now to put the finishing touches on our ladybug. I pre cut six black circles. Three for me and three for him. The main focus here was to learn 1 to 1 correspondence. Meaning the ability to match one item to one number. (1 black circle means 1, 2 black circles means 2 ect.) I would pick up a circle and tell him to put "one" circle on the ladybug. Then pick up two circles and say "put  TWO circles on" then I would have him take some away "take all THREE circles off" and so on. 




This did not go over super easy. At first he was not into it at all. He finally sat back down and followed the instructions but was really only able to grasp the numbers one and two well. Which was a really great start and now I knew where to put more focus from here on out. 

From there we moved on to gluing the same circles on the ladybug. I pre cut and glued on the head myself but let him glue down the rest.
At first I was pre gluing the circles (the one above) but he really liked the idea of putting the glue on himself

Don't forget to cut two antennas

Here is the  finished product. I really tried to be hands off as far as placement of dots and antennas although I did tell him they went on its head.

Once we were done he wanted to continue gluing so I quickly cut a red oval out of construction paper and some black circles to continue the activity

He did a pretty good job gluing if I do say so myself

Day 4 was pretty uneventful as far as the theme went due to this

 Day 5 Okay nature red hunt take two. I asked B if he wanted to go for a walk and he said "no". He always likes going for walks so we got ready anyways and he started getting excited. We walked out with W in the Moby, my camera in hand and his red wagon. We were going to look for red things if it killed me (remember that perfection thing I suffer from again. HA!) Well we made it about a 100ft from the house when B turned back around and headed up the stairs and towards the door. Ummm... I guess he really meant it when he said he wasn't in the mood. 
"mom are you coming? Because I'm going inside there are a ton of trucks I still need to slam into each other"

Well both days of our walks didn't work but we tried and that's what counts..... right? 

Day 5 (cont) after our quick walk to the front of the house it was time for our ladybug snack
I got the idea here and I think it turned out cute despite not having everything needed. 

Two slices of apples, a few raisins and a little almond butter to stick them together and you've got yourself a ladybug :)

B ate it up. The workout from earlier must have really fatigued him . :)


Well that's it our first week of "school" day by day. It was fun and overall pretty easy. I learned a few things along the way that I will be sharing in a later post. I am feeling a lot more confident about my ability to do this and am really looking forward to next weeks theme. Bees