Closed Captioning! Toddler Time Thursday!

We got this great tip from my teacher friend who is getting her masters in reading! It is so simple, turn on your TV's closed captioning when your child is watching a show! We started right away, it is just another great way to show her the words and letters, and get her ready for reading!

Dancing Feet! stART Project

This week for our stART project we read the book Dancing Feet! by Lindsey Craig. It's a really cute book and Molly loved the question and answer from page to page.

For our art project we decided to use our own "Dancing Feet" and paint using our feet.

I put washable paint on paper plates, and had Molly step in the paint and then walk across the paper. Of course, she LOVED this, since it involved painting and being messy. :)

Ta Da! Molly's dancing feet made a fun painting!

For more great stART (a story + art = a great start) projects, head over to A Mommy's Adventures.

Toddler Time Thursday - Card Book

I saw the great idea over at A Mommy's Adventures a long time ago, and loved it. We have been making "Card Books," ever since. Molly has a book of her 2 year birthday cards, and a book of Christmas cards. After being in the hospital, she had so many cards we ended up making 2 books!

Molly LOVES reading through these books, and looking at all the great pictures in the cards. She always wants us to read them to her and tell her who sent them. I think this is such a great way to enjoy the cards for along time.

Painting White Crayon - Toddler Time Thursday!

I can hardly believe Molly is home painting!

Molly always enjoys painting. This week I wrote on the paper with white crayon first, and then Molly painted over it to see what hidden pictures showed up. She LOVED this, it really got her to focus on painting the whole page. And she couldn't stop laughing at some of the hidden pictures I drew on the page, I have to admit, it is SO great to hear her laughing again. This is such a fun and easy craft we will definitely be doing again soon.

SLOWLY Organizing!

Over the past few weeks I have been working on my house (and life, hee hee) to get more organized! I am getting there very slowly but surely. Each day I am doing one thing to make things more organized and run smoother.

One of my favorite things from this week is in the hair drawer in the bathroom. I put all Molly's hairbands in an ice cube tray. It is so nice to have them all sorted kind of by color like this so I don't have to dig through the bowl looking for a pink one! I actually used two trays and stacked them in a drawer in the bathroom. LOVE how it is working out!

Sunshine Craft - Toddler Time Thursday

Today me and Molly made this handprint sunshine. She loves finger painting, so any handprint painting craft is always a big hit.

I just cut out a yellow circle and read mouth. Then I had Molly glue the mouth on and put on the sticky googly eyes I splurged and bought this week. :) On the blue paper, we made yellow handprints in a circle. After it dried, we just glued the face one.

Easy Peasy. :) Now we have a sunny spring picture to display

Toddler Time Thursday! Word World Tot Pack

This week we enjoyed a Word World Theme. If you don't know what Word World is, it is a really cute PBS show that teaches kids to "Build A Word." We didn't do as much as usual this week with our theme since we were bringing home the new baby and getting adjusted to our new family of 4, but Molly REALLY enjoyed playing the great Word World games and coloring the printables from PBSkids.org. Duck was definitely a favorite.

We also used the Word World Tot Book that Carisa from 1+1+1=1 has created on her great blog and website. The pictures below are using the pack we made for this week.Our version of the Tot Pack this week.

Molly working on her ABC's. This was tricky this week for her.

Matching is always on of her FAVORITES.

Coloring the pictures was fun, and she really enjoyed correcting me on the correct color of all the characters.

And of course... Molly LOVED watching the show on TV....

We had a great week of working with Molly. It's been a lot of fun seeing her play with her little sister, and help us take care of her. Molly is also feeling very spoiled and has enjoyed every minute of having her daddy home to help this week.

Toddler Time Thursday! Deanna's Playhouse

Today was one of those days when I had no motivation to be creative. We had nothing planned at all (which never happens) and it was so unbelievably cold outside, I knew I had to come up with something fun indoors. Well, since painting wasn't happening and I could hardly think about playing dress up all day, I had to think fast...

Then I remember I had a free coupon for Deanna's Playhouse in Holland, Michigan that expired on Saturday. So we got dressed and headed on our way. Burr, I think it took the entire 20 minute drive for my car to warm up, but it was worth it.

This was our first time here, and there we a few things that I loved about it!
-It is all open, with nook type play areas around the perimeter, so I could always see Molly no matter where she was playing.
-There was a preschool field trip there, so she had lots of kids to play with, which she really needs to practice. :)
-They had a place for us to eat our own packed lunch, so nice for this frugal momma
-Also, bonus! If you signed up for there e-mail mailing you got a certificate for another free visit!

Aren't these giant tinker toys awesome!!!

Tool sets are always a favorite of Molly's. She plays with her tool box at home everyday, so she was thrilled to play on an actual tool bench!!!

We had so much fun, and played forever. I am exhausted, I'm sure we will both be sleeping good tonight! This was so great for Molly to get to play with other kids all morning, it really makes me want to find more moms and kids to start play dates with. I never realized how hard that would be, I guess I just need to get more social. :)

Loving Games!!!

(Playing Hullabaloo, I couldn't get her to look up for a picture, she was to into the game)

Anyone who knows us, knows that my family LOVES games. I have a problem, you should see my game cupboardS, yup, way to many games. So when Molly got some of her own games for Christmas, I was very excited to start her playing.

Cranium is an all time favorite in this house, so when Molly got Hullabaloo (a cranium brand game) I was super excited. She LOVES it. She is doing really good at following the directions it says and finding the right piece to stand on. Her favorite part is the "Funny Dance" you do at the end. :) It's a lot of fun right now, but there are harder levels and more that she will be able to grow into.

So also got Don't Break The Ice, which is fantastic. I really underestimated her on this one, I figured that she would just enjoy knocking the ice down. But, she actually can play the game the right way. It's great for working on taking turns and she even knows to try not to let the bear fall. The only thing is she likes to call it "Ice Hockey." :)

Toddler Time Thursday!

I saw this great craft idea over at Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie, and knew I had to try it with Molly. She is always, always, always, asking when she can paint! It is so fun and simple. Head over and see. All you need is contact paper, cardstock, foam brush or sponge and paint. (they used glitter too which would be so adorable, but... I was to pregnant and lazy to go searching through boxes in the basement for my glitter, hee hee)

Molly loved painting the blue ALL over the page, and was really excited when I peeled off the contact paper and she had a "snowman" picture. Only one snowflake I didn't quite get all the way stuck down, but it turned out so cute, we will definitely be making some more of these.

stART - Silver Bells

This Thursday for our stART project, I choose one of Molly's favorite library books from the week. She is very into books that are also songs right now, so she loved reading Silver Bells. The pictures are fun and she loved singing along.
For the craft project, we made bow wreaths. Almost ever picture in the book there is a wreath, so I thought it would be fun to make a few to decorate the house.

All I did was cut the center out of a paper plate, and then let Molly stick Christmas bows all the way around it.
For the finished wreaths, I just added a piece of magnet to the back so that we could hang them on the fridge.
For more great stART books and stories, head over to A Mommy's Adventures.

Toddler Time Thursday! stART Project

Over at A Mommy's Adventures they do a weekly project link that I've been so excited to join. A Story + Art = A Great stART. You combine a story you read with a fun art project.

This week we read, Clifford's The Big Leaf Pile. ( I can't for the life of me figure out how to add underline on here?) Molly loves this Clifford book, and the leaves in our backyard are piling up so this was the perfect week to focus on it.

After we read the book, we headed outside to gather up a bag of leaves, which as you can see are not hard to find in our yard.

Then I traced a picture of a tree onto white paper and Molly got busy coloring it brown.

And then we simply glued our leaves to the top of the tree. This went really well, we have been working on gluing. She always wants to glue something on, and then take it back off. But we managed to keep the leaves on the tree today. :)

And Ta Da! Here is the tree Molly made.

To celebrate we decided to play in a pile of leaves just like Clifford.

I know it may not be the most creative art project, but we had a blast making it. For some great creative stART projects, head over to A Mommy's Adventures.

Toddler Time Thursday!

As soon as I read about this great idea over at Funny Days with Mommy and Maddie, I immediately new I had to copy it! This is SO cute, and such a great way to make paper dolls work for toddlers, just some contact paper and magnets! I headed out to the dollar store and found this cute like metal tray and got to work. Head over and see how she made these.

Molly LOVES playing with these. She is always asking to, "Play Paper Dolls Now Please!" She really surprised me with how good she could do them on her own. I thought she would need more help to line up the clothes and hats where they are supposed to go, but she loves doing it on her own.
For the most part, she keeps everything on the tray. Except when she decided to try the little paper doll costumes on her stuffed animal dogs. :)

Toddler Time Thursday - Spider Craft

We've been working on getting out all of the Halloween and Fall decorations today, so for craft time I decided to break out the paint and let Molly make some decorations.

We made these simple handprint spiders. I just used a sponge to rub black paint on her hand and four of her fingers, then helped her make two overlapping hand prints. After it dried, we glued these huge googly eyes on. :) Quick, easy, and fun!

Toddler Time Thursday!

For Molly's birthday, she got a playdoh set with scissors in it. She was so excited to have more playdoh, and I was SO excited to have some scissors for her to start practicing with.

This is a really hard skill, I really thought she would get frustrated with it, but she was really enjoying working on cutting the "hot dogs" I made out of playdoh. This is going to take a lot of practice, but I am so excited that she is getting to work on so many new skills.

ABC & 123 has a lot of great cutting activities, and pre-cutting activities on there site. Check them out, they have really helped give me ideas on how to work on fine motor skills.

Toddler Time Thursday!

My baby is not quite 2 years old yet, but let me tell you.... SHE THINKS SHE IS!!! She is really working on her independence (and mom's patience) right now.

As you can see, she is going through a stage where she refuses to wear anything in her hair, so she is constantly sporting the disheveled look. Which seems to bother me way more than it bothers her. :)

Also, she is getting really good at brushing her own teeth and washing her own hands in the sink. We have a stool by the counter and she loves being in control of this task. However... yesterday I was getting ready to go to the dentist. As I was doing my hair she was on the stool next to me and I hear... UH OH... mommy's toothbrush. Oh yes, sure enough, she dropped my toothbrush down the sink, that's right, down the sink just far enough not to be able to get out by any means except taking the pipes off. (our sink stopper is broken, cough cough, time to fix it husband, but that's a whole other ordeal) Whoopsies! Sorry dentist...

I have a feeling 2 is going to be a crazy year over here at our household. :) But I am definitely having a blast. :)

Toddler Time Thursday!

BIG GIRL BED!!!

Molly is ready for a big girl bed... now the problem is finding one that's quality and not going to break the bank.

After we went camping and she had to sleep on a pull out bed with a side railing, we definitely know she is ready to handle the switch to a big girl bed. This just seems like such a huge deal to me, I can't believe that my baby is so old.

I am having a really hard time finding anything. Do we get a twin bed right away with side rails? Or get a small toddler bed with her crib mattress first? Should I get one with built in side rails? AHHH, why is something like this so hard?

Toddler Time Thursday!

This week's ABC and 123 picnic table talk is about organizing. I am really enjoying checking out how everyone else is managing to organize their activities and supplies.

Here is what I've been working on to get our daily activities organized.

In my cupboards in the dinning room, I have set up the toys and activities that Molly needs to have one of us around to do. The way I have it set up:
-There are about 30 activities in manila envelopes all ready to go
-Each night I put six of the activities on 6 different trays for her to work on the next day
-After we've done the activities, the next night I switch about 3 of them, so she gets some repeats each day.
-The top shelf is extra supplies and activities that don't fit into the envelopes.

Then each day she gets to work on one tray activity at a time. The best part is, before she can move on to another tray, she has to put everything back onto the first tray, so she is learning to pick up before she gets something else out.

My husband is working on making me shelves in the cupboard, so that I can slide the trays onto the shelves, I am really excited at how nice that will work.

Toddler Time Thursday!

Toddler Time Thursday!

The toothpick activity was getting to easy for her last week, so this week we played with putting buttons onto pipe cleaners, which held her attention for along time.

Molly loved painting this week. The watercolors were a bit tricky for her, because she had to get her brush wet, then the paint wet, then brush the paper.

We had so much fun running and playing in the new water fountains in Holland, Michigan.

These are just some of her favorite things this week, we kept pretty busy at home, playing outside a lot and still working on a million puzzles and reading tons. Her favorite books this week are any of the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer.

Toddler Time Thursday!

This week we worked a lot on fine motor skills, and Molly is finally liking puzzles again, so we did a lot of those too. I didn't get to many pictures of her in action, but here are a few.

This was the first time Molly finished this puzzle all by herself!!! YEAH MOLLY!

She is getting really good and putting toothpicks into the shaker holes,
time to find a harder activity.

Molly's attention spam has really grown lately too. She has been spending a lot more time working on single activities and cleaning them up before moving on. I really think the tray system is helping with this and also gives her some control.