Did I mention I am a foster mom?!

Wow, we recently welcomed 3 foster girls to our home and our lives have sure been busy and exciting!  Boo just turned 18 months old,  and the other girls are 15.5mths, 19.5mths, and 2.5 years old so you can imagine that I have been quite busy lately!  Dino really enjoys having the girls here, he likes to come up with little activities to do with the girls, his favourites are reading them books, playing hide and seek with seashells and letting them play with his lid collection.  Unfortunately I cannot put up pictures of the foster girls but I do all the activities with the girls that I do with Boo.  I have always had a schedule for Dino and Boo, and have continued this schedule with the girls as well.  It is going really well and the girls already know the schedule and are coping very well with it.  I am going to be posting a copy of this schedule as soon as I have the time because it works really well for me and I would like to share it with others.  I am also trying to plan Dino's 8th birthday party which is coming up on March 12th, he will be inviting some of his friends over for cake and ice cream so if anyone has any ideas for his party, like games or activities I would really appreciate it!  We always have a pinata at his party, and play spin the bottle to open his presents but besides that I don't have any good ideas for his age group.  Boo had her 18 month vaccine yesterday and did really well, she cried for maybe 20 seconds but after a cuddle with mama she was happy again!  I also took away her soother not only in the daytime but at night as well, she isn't too happy about this but it is getting easier for her each day. 

Here are a few pictures of activities I have been doing with Boo and the other girls in Tot School the last little while:

We have been going outside a lot, I brought out Boo's little slide and she loves it.  We practice taking turns with the other girls and this is going really well!

One day we took the bubbles out and I blew bubbles for the girls to catch, they really liked this.  I even let them take off their mittens and pop a few bubbles with their fingers since it wasn't too cold out.

We have been doing a lot of gross motor indoors with the push toys and ride on toys.  Boo is becoming an acrobat while mama is trying to teach her to be careful.

The girls really like these toys especially when Dino chases them around the house!

We recently bought this shopping cart from Walmart and the girls enjoy pushing their dolls and stuffed animals around in it and filling it up with toys!

Each day before supper Grandmaman comes upstairs and dances with the girls, we made some dancing ribbons by tying different colored ribbons to plastic shower curtain holders.

We did a couple of activities with our paper towel holder, this was one of them and the other was using plastic shower curtain holders.  We also practiced taking turns with this activity.

I have to show you Boo's new pyjamas, they are a little large for her but so cute and she loves wearing them!

This is my favourite picture of the week, Dino and Boo cuddling together on the couch watching a show on wild animals.  This was a very special moment for Dino because it is rare that Boo will cuddle with him for a long time like this!

For some more great Tot school ideas go to 1+1+1=1.  For some great home school ideas please go here, this is the homeschool creations site.

Happy Valentines Day!

Dino enjoyed making these Valentine heart crayons.

He peeled all of the paper off the crayons, broke them up into pieces and put them in the heart shaped tray.

We put them in the oven until they were melted, then let them cool off and this was the result!

Boo enjoyed coloring with them!

We made a Valentines Day sensory bottle using baby oil, water, sparkles and sequence.  I glued the lid on with a hot glue gun....I hope it holds!

Boo and I rolled it to each other.

She pushed it around a lot and even kicked it with her foot!

Boo did some stamping with Valentine stamps I picked up from the dollar store.

This is our Valentine Sensory Bin!

Boo first checked out the texture of the rice and then dug around for the little heart jewels.

She liked filling up the little heart containers and dumping them out on the floor.  She hasn't quite got the hang of trying to keep the rice in the container yet, but that's okay because cleaning up is part of the learning experience too!

I hope the kids sleep well tonight because as you can see they had a lot of chocolate and candy!

Boo really likes chocolate, she just has to learn not to put so much in her mouth at one time!

My wonderful husband gave me some beautiful Valentine flowers!

He always knows how to make my day special!

Our little man Dino made us a card and a Valentine craft at school, he is so sweet.  Moments like this are what makes life worth living for!!!!  Thank you to my wonderful family for making the day so special!

I hope everyone else had a great Valentines Day too!

Tot School Boo 17.5 months

Here are some things we did at Tot School last week:

Boo enjoyed coloring with chalk on construction paper!

I gave Boo her cat bank and her change to put in it.

She concentrated hard on this activity and was able to do it easily, although she had so much change that she got bored before she put it all in!

This was one of our tot tray activities, Boo had fun dumping and pouring the jewels into the cup and container.  It was cute when she would put a jewel into the toilet paper roll and then lift it up and look in the tube wondering where the jewel went!  Eventually she understood that because the tube had no bottom, the jewel falls through.

She played with this activity for a long time.

I loved it when she put some jewels into the cup and pretended to drink it, she even made an ahhhhh sound afterwards!

Tot School Learning Binder (Shapes)

I have decided to start a learning binder with Boo and since it is close to Valentines Day, I have decided to start with a heart page.  I found a scrapbooking album and some scrapbooking paper and as we start learning more shapes, we will make a page for each shape using different materials.

Boo really enjoyed making her heart page, we used peelable heart stickers and heart stamps.

She enjoyed peeling off the paper from the backs of the heart stickers.

She also enjoyed stamping, but I think I will have to add some better ink to them because you have to push rather hard for them to show up well.

Voila!  This is the finished product of our first shape page which I placed in the scrapbooking album in a clear sheet protector.  I am also going to make a heart label for the page, as well as a shape title page for the front of the scrapbook!

I am really excited with this idea and can't wait to go onto the next shape, but I will wait until after Valentine's Day so Boo has the chance to really get to know the heart shape well!  She often points to this book on the shelf, so I take it down for her and I ask her to find a heart and she points to the hearts on the page.  I hope she will be able to say the word heart soon, but isn't able to yet.

For more great tot school ideas please go see the 1+1+1=1 blog.

For some great Valentines Day ideas please go to homeschool creations.

Tot School Valentine Fun!

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Boo and I don't do Valentines Day activities every day but we have been doing some off and on during the past couple of days, here are some of the things we have been doing........

I hole punched some foam hearts for Boo to string onto a pipe cleaner.

She wasn't able to do it because the pipe cleaner wasn't sturdy enough for her.

I tried to help her by holding the pipe cleaner straight but she insisted on being miss independent!

She tried for a long time, I was surprised to see how much patience she had during this activity.

Eventually she was able to do it all on her own!

Next I gave Boo some of the same foam hearts but without the holes, some white glue and a paintbrush.

I showed her how to spread the glue on the paper with the paintbrush and push the hearts into the glue to make a collage.

Boo really enjoyed this activity, especially gluing over the hearts after they were already placed!

She also liked pushing the hearts into place.

She asked for more glue a lot by pointing at the glue bottle and saying ahh ahh.

I think she liked the glue more than anything in this activity!

Boo didn't like the feeling of the glue on her hands too much though.

Wow! What a beautiful Valentines Day Collage....now time to wash the hands.

After washing her hands, Boo enjoyed a yummy Valentines Day snack!

Red Jello

 

I will be doing a lot more Valentines Day activities with Boo and some with Dino also, so please check back soon for more fun with Boo and Dino!