Tot School Tuesday:

I'm running a week or so behind on blogging.  I am aware.  But life has been crazy busy.  My second born monkey turned 5 this past Friday and five in our house means a big, huge party.  I didn't have much time or energy to even think about blogging.  No worries though because I will certainly post all about the party and the crafts we made for it.

But today is Tuesday and so I will share a few things that our tot Princess has been up to lately.

 The do a dot markers are one of her favorite things to do.  I found these bingo markers at the dollar store and stocked up.  I put a towel bib on her because as we saw the last time I posted a tot school post she can sure make those things splatter.

 I put some pegs and peg bases (transportation shapes) in one of her bins.  She spent most of the time though trying to put the lid back on by herself.

 Not to be outdone by her brothers (regardless of the fact that writing is actually age appropriate for them and not for her) she had to have her own writing page.

 Then she played with her chunky shape puzzle.  I love these.  She has this shape one and a zoo animal one.  I love that the pieces are actually thick enough to play with standing up as well as in the puzzle.  

 Then we got out her lacing beads.  She didn't so much get the lacing part but she had a blast dumping the beads out into the bin from the jar they were in. 

And of course we read a book together.  She loves to read.  (We have actually read several books together in the past couple of weeks this was just the only one I snapped a pic of.)

 Stealing and eating a brothers apple.  She's such a doll.

 She LOVES to color, I don't think a single day goes by that she does not color.  She is very diligent about it and we actually found that she can make very nice circles.  Not bad for 22 months old.

 She also enjoys dumping the crayons out once in a while.  She's usually pretty good about helping clean them up though too.

 Playing with her new little shape and letter computer from Grandpa Richard.  Her favorite feature is the "space bar" which makes it play music that she bobs around to.

And she plays dress up.  My little Iron Girl.  She's so cute.

And those are just a few of the things that my little tot Sierra has been up to for the past two or so weeks.  There will most likely not be a tot post next week as my camera is broken.  Again.  So until I get it fixed or replaced the blog will be sorely lacking in picture posts.

I'm linking this post up with the tot school link up at Confessions of a Homeschooler so head over and check out the other great tot activities in blog land.  I'm also linking up with the Tot School linky party over at the fabulous 1+1+1=1 blog so go over there to see even more great tot school blog posts!  I actually got the inspiration to start tot school with Sierra from both of those blogs.

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.