tot school - seeds, flowers & plants - age 3 1/2

This past week, we learned all about seeds, plants and flowers in tot school. On many occasions, Ethan and I have tried to grow plants or flowers. After six months and no sprouts, I get the clue. Ethan, on the other hand, sticks with optimism. Above his toy kitchen in front of our window sit a few pots -- none of which are actually actively growing anything -- and each day he checks to see if today is the day they start sprouting. I may have a black thumb but figured maybe I could learn a thing or two with Ethan. He's been increasingly interested in plants -- how seeds grow into something so big, how grass drinks -- that it seemed like a fitting week to transition to after weather week last week.

GARDENING SENSORY BIN

I filled a tub with some potting soil, some cheap dollar store seed packets, a little shovel, some gardening gloves, fake flowers and some dollar store pots. Ethan got to pretend to garden, pot some plants and "grow" some seeds into beautiful flowers. He had a lot of fun with this tray often throughout the week and could sit and play with it for hours! By the end of the week, he placed some puts full of artificial flowers near the windows and told me they're our new tot school garden plants.

GROWING A CARROT TOP

Learning about plants gave us lots of fun opportunities to do some cool experiments. This one I was totally skeptical about, so it was interesting to see it truly worked! We cut the tops off some carrots and Ethan got to soak some cottonballs with water. One of our carrot tops didn't make it, but the other continued to grow tall, bright and green by the end of the week! We'll probably keep this one going just to see how big it will grow.

LIMA BEAN GREENHOUSE

I'm pretty sure everyone remembers growing lima beans at some point in their school career. This is the second time we had done this -- the first time being when Ethan was about a year old and it didn't really pan out. Good thing he didn't remember. For this one, Ethan decorated a little greenhouse. He kept the design simple, just writing his name on the top. He dampened the cottonballs and added them to the ziplock bag with the lima beans. We attached the ziplock bag to the greenhouse and taped it to the window. So far no sprouts, but we're not giving up hope yet.

COLORING CELERY

We had been talking about how roots are much like straws, and they drink up the water when the plants are thirsty. This was the perfect activity to show Ethan exactly how that worked. We added food coloring to the different jars of water and let the celery drink it up.

ORDER CARDS

I printed both sets of these cards from Homeschool Creations. Ethan got to put them in order as we learned about how a seed sprouts and the different parts of a flower. He really enjoyed doing this tray, especially seeing how the seeds sprout.

SEED SORTING

I had gotten a bunch of cheap seed packets and let Ethan sort them into different groups. At first he sorted them into different piles and then he started sorting them in different ways (by color, size, shape). I included some tweezers for fine motor practice as well, which he loved using.

CIRCLE THE CORRECT LETTER

For this one, I made some printables with different plant related words and Ethan got to circle the letter each word started with. He really enjoyed this one!

LIMA BEAN PATTERN RECOGNITION

I had glued some lima beans to a piece of paper and Ethan got to recreate the patterns of the beans. He had fun with this one, sometime creating the pattern under, sometimes over, sometimes on top of -- and sometimes adding to the pattern in his own way.

SEED PACKETS

This was Ethan's favorite activity of the week! I glued some different seeds onto paper and made little seed "packets." Ethan got to practice his letter writing by writing the names of each fruit or vegetable underneath where I had written it. He also got to draw a picture of each fruit or vegetable too. His favorite part about this tray was being able to see what fruits and vegetables each tiny little seed turned out to be!

NUMBER WRITING PRACTICE

We do a lot of letter and word writing, but I wanted to start introducing number writing, too. Ethan had other plans -- this tray got no use this week!

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miles down the line

"I still can't decide what instrument I want to play in the marching band when I'm big. Or what I want to be for Halloween. Or when I grow up."

Each morning upon waking, Ethan stumbles down the hallway. He is quick to slip out of his bed and turn his light on, seemingly disappointed in himself for having fallen asleep. He possesses the same sleep is a waste of time mindset that I have, although my own mind has admittedly started welcoming rest a little more the older I get. Life. It's funny that way.

He stumbles out of his bedroom and announces his awakening with a hasty slam of his bedroom door. That's essentially the sound of our alarm these days, the slamming of his bedroom door before the quick pitter-patter of little feet on the tile get closer and closer. He's always groggy still, his hair sticking up all over his head, and he's usually clutching whatever stuffed animal he could grab on his way out the door.

"Hi, baby! Good morning!" I usually meet him in the hallway, somewhere between his room and our room, sitting ourselves down on the tile for the formal good morning greetings and hugs. "I still can't decide what instrument I want to play in the marching band when I'm big. Or what I want to be for Halloween. Or when I grow up." It's the first thing he says on most mornings, the first words out of his mouth before he lets me know he's hungry or that he needs to use the bathroom. Lowering his cheek into my neck and letting his body fall into my lap for a hug, he sighs. "You have plenty of time to make those decisions, buddy." He thinks it over for a minute -- maybe the trumpet? Or the tuba. Yes, the tuba. Or maybe the drums? Santa Claus is a sweet gig, but Jordan Pundik is another choice. For when he grows up, of course. Halloween, maybe a robot? Or maybe a tortoise -- and then gets up to start his day.

Some days, these early morning declarations of uncertainty are the only time I'll hear about marching bands or Halloween or future careers. Usually, though, it's the first time of many. I see myself in him often but, really, our need to plan and prepare and know -- really, really know -- what's going on before it happens is one and the same. It's February and I'm already knee deep in guest list preparations and decorations for Ethan's fourth birthday party that isn't until June. I'm hardly a perfectionist, but there's something that feels really, really good about being prepared. About knowing what you're doing. About not having questions that jump into your mind like a pesky internet pop-up ad when you're trying to sleep. I don't do well with "the unknown" and it appears that my sweet boy has inherited that from me. I'm mostly undecided how I feel about that.

At almost-four, Ethan is a master negotiator. He's great at analyzing and planning and collecting. If it's cold outside, we must bring a blanket for his stuffed animal or Lego zookeeper. If it's hot out, how can his plush Smurf visit the park with us without a sun hat? He has such a busy, active mind and a poetic, creative soul and the closest I get to chilling out and relaxing is watching the way in which he exists in a world that has begun to feel more like an alternate universe to me otherwise.

He is so familiar in so many ways.

it was time.

I began this blog as a place to write. I had just learned that I was pregnant with Ethan and this was my place to document the rollercoaster that was my first pregnancy. The mother I was then and the mother I am now are both very different people. This happens, of course.

I found that over time, I was beginning to let the true purpose of this blog slip through my fingers. My need to write and accurately capture life was being overshadowed by my need to stay loyal to mommy blog guidelines and criteria. This pressure sort of built a wall of writer's block that I wanted to knock down. I felt the best way to do that was to subject my blog to a makeover! Huge thank you to Rebekah Louise Designs for capturing exactly what I had dreamed of and making it a reality for this little blog of mine.

I'm really excited about this new look and it's already been all sorts of inspiring, even in the few hours it's been up and live. There will be no real content change around here. Tot School posts and the like will still have a home here. I'll just be throwing in more from the heart stuff more often and taking this blog back to it's roots.

tot school - weather week - age 3 1/2

This week was weather week in tot school. Ethan had been asking a lot lately about the weather, about rain, about clouds and rainbows. Weather seemed like an obvious choice to focus on this week for that reason. It wound up being a really great week and Ethan was so invested in learning each day! I still let our tot school time be child led, which means we usually spend a substantial amount of time in tot school during a week seeing as how Ethan loves it so much. This week, we spent a couple of hours each day in tot school -- even more than usual -- and it seemed as if Ethan would never tire of the trays and activities! He was so proud and excited to share with family what he had learned this week.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

I made a few different printables to use in our laminating pouches. Ethan got to practice circling and underlining the ones that didn't belong. About midway through the week, he began spicing things up by making his own rules -- underlining what did belong, etc.

STORM CLOUD CUTTING PRACTICE

Cutting is a big weakness for Ethan. He is always really, really excited about cutting and so determined but we have some trouble. If I can be totally honest, I was always a terrible cutter (I blame being a lefty!). I still can't cut on the lines. Maybe he just takes after his mom! Either way, he had some trouble cutting the lightning bolts along the dotted lines but tried his hardest and was super proud of himself when he finished.

CONNECT THE RAIN DROP LETTER WRITING PRACTICE

We have been focusing a lot lately on writing and Ethan is really interested in learning how to perfect his letters. Up until now, he's mastered full page letter writing but we've been trying to scale it down and learn how to write neatly and in some semblance of a line. For this one, he got to connect the raindrops to spell out his name. He really loved this one and it offered some critical thinking application as well! I had to draw more of these sheets throughout the week so he could continue the practice.

WARM AND COLD WEATHER ANIMALS, NOCTURNAL AND DIURNAL ANIMALS

We go to the zoo a lot and Ethan has begun to notice which animals thrive more in cold weather or warm weather as well as which become more active when the sun goes down. I found some salt and pepper shakers - 2 for $1 - at the dollar store and decided to make a fun little fine motor activity to classify these animals. Ethan got to sort the animals into cold weather or warm weather animals and then into diurnal or nocturnal animals. This was hands down his favorite tray of the week!

BLOWING IN THE WIND

I just had to throw a little Bob Dylan in there somewhere, of course. Anyway, the point of this tray was for Ethan to make a hypothesis (and learn the word hypothesis!) about what he thought his wind could blow. This was a total hit like I anticipated for it to be. Of course, by Friday, "the wind storm" had blown mashed potato flakes and rice all over our classroom. All in the name of learning, right?

RAINBOW WRITING: WEATHER WORDS

Ethan had been asking about rainbows and the first thing I remembered was rainbow writing, which I remember doing when I was in kindergarten. Mom brain is an interesting thing. You can't remember what you did ten minutes ago, but you can remember things dating back to kindergarten. Anyway, I wrote some weather words on card stock and Ethan got to trace them with each color of the rainbow. This made for some colorful and fun letter practice! This was probably his second to least favorite tray of the week, but he still really enjoyed it. The thrill just sort of rain off towards the end of the week. I think I overdid the weather words!

RAINDROP MATH

I am not a math person. My husband is an accountant who thinks math is fun. Opposites attract, or something. Though he's young, I've already noticed Ethan gravitate towards reading, writing, art and creative outlets and sort of stray away from the mathematical concepts (though you can enjoy both, I get it). This was another one of those times. After crying with frustrating when my initial model didn't work and requiring my husband's help at nearly midnight in assembling this, I was so sure Ethan would love it. He didn't. The moment I said "simple addition" and "plus" and "equals," he was out of there and onto the next tray. He did insist upon putting the balls through the tubes at least once, but that was it. I couldn't convince him to give this tray any use this week! The point of this tray was to add together the pingpong balls -- or raindrops -- and see what they added up to. I may pull this out later and see if his mind has changed at all.

CLOUD RECREATION

For this one, I made some cloud playdough (1 part conditioner to 2 parts corn starch) and we learned about the different types of clouds. Ethan got to use the cloud dough to recreate the clouds. He loved using his new knowledge of cloud types to try and identify them outside in the sky!

MAKING A RAINSTORM

This was such a fun experiment and so easy to do. Ethan absolutely loved it! I picked up some cheap shaving cream at the dollar store so that we could do this over and over again (and, believe me, we did). You fill a container with water, add some shaving cream clouds and then drop in the blue food coloring "rain." Eventually, the rain comes through the clouds and you watch a rainstorm take place! Ethan made the rain more of a drizzle and then decided a full-on rainstorm was the most fun!

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