Tot School Tuesday: Princess starts learning stuff

Sierra is finally at an age where she will do a semi-directed activity for a bit of time without me literally standing over her.  She's also stopped eating the tips off of markers and mostly stopped eating crayons.  She just LOVES to do whatever her brothers are doing and I've been long waiting this time in her little life when she would be old enough to do some fun activities.

This was Colton's activity but we have two boards so he shared.  She can't actually get the rubberbands on yet but she loves to try.

Now school in our home is pretty laid back until 1st grade.  Even then it's probably still more relaxed in it's pace than, well, anywhere else.  So Sierra isn't being grilled on her colors, letters, or numbers.  I'm just giving her her own little tot trays to keep her busy while I work with Kayd.  Each week she'll have three new activities in her bins (new over last weeks anyway lol).  I also print off extra copies of whatever I've printed out for the two younger boys in case she feels like joining in with that too.  She also has puzzles along with crayons and coloring books in drawers in the living room at all times (we school in the living room).

This week for her tot trays she gets to enjoy:

An empty cinnamon container that I washed out and some pipe cleaner pieces.  This is a great fine motor activity for her.  She got really frustrated that she couldn't get the pieces back out on her own though.  Even the boys wanted to play with this one.

Her stacking cups.  These cups stack, nest, and can be snapped together to make rolling ball shapes (and yeah there are 7 of them missing but I'll find em eventually lol).  They have the little holes there in the top (bottom?) so I put the jar of pom poms in with them so she could put them through the holes. 

And in the third bin I put her color wonder markers and paper.  I love this stuff.  She can color with markers like her brothers without coloring all over everything.  It's worth the cost to me.  I've got enough pen, pencil, and marker on my walls to last a lifetime.

I got these bins at walmart and I love that the lids lock on and she cannot currently remove them herself.  This makes it easier to store them in the living room on the bookshelf where I had been reserving space.  I also have room to add two more shallow bins or one more deep bin as time goes on and I need to give her more to keep her occupied.

Tune in next week to see what else our little princess tot gets to enjoy at "school".

PS. I JUST noticed how colorful she looks.  She and Colton had done their do a dot pages with bingo markers before I snapped these pics.  Those things have a great range of splatter when you bang them down hard enough. lol  And never fear, it all came off in her bath last night.