Tot School: Groundhog Day

Sweet P is 21 months old

I actually made a lesson plan this week! I'm quite proud of my organization this week, even if we didn't stick to it exactly as it was laid out. Sweet P got sick on Wednesday so we've been spending lots of time at home playing and learning.

This week we focused on Groundhog day for the first part of the week (until Feb 2), then we transitioned to Valentine's Day! And we'll stay on V-day through this week. Here's what we did this week:

Monday:

Playdate at a friend's house in the morning

Library with daddy for 2 hours in the afternoon!

Started talking about Groundhog Day and discovered Starfall!

Tuesday:

I made the Pop Up Groundhog before she woke up and gave it to her after breakfast. Read more about it here.

Then she colored the groundhog from ABC Teach that we later made into a TP roll groundhog.

After naptime and lunch (notice the bib), she worked on the letter G is for Groundhog, putting beans in the circles. She's not really into this, yet, but she loved playing with the beans! She did this while Skyping with Gammie!

After our Skype session we worked on a few different puzzles. Auntie Kannon gave Sweet P Melissa & Doug Beginner Pattern Blocks for Christmas and they are such a great learning tool. They teach shapes, colors and gross motor skills. It comes with 5 puzzles that you can flip over so there are really 10 of them!

She also received this puzzle for Christmas (it was from the $1 spot at Target during the back to school months) and I hadn't gotten out, yet because I thought it was too hard. While some of the pieces are hard for her, she does a really good job, especially when she knows where the letter goes. It's been a great way to teach her more of her letters and what starts with those letters. And the examples are fun things to teach her.

Wednesday:

Wednesday was a snow day for mommy (even though I don't teach until 8pm) and the Farmer didn't have to go in until 1pm so we had a great morning playing together and making a Groundhog pancake. I let her stir in all the ingredients.

I have silicone cookie cutters that are for pancakes and eggs and one is in the shape of a teddy bear so I used that since it looked enough like a groundhog to me! I decorated his face with yogurt and raisins. Yum! She gobbled him right up.

After breakfast we colored a Happy Ground Hog Day picture and Skyped with Gammie (can you tell we just got Skype?) since she was home from work because of an ice storm in Texas! (and all over the US just about!)

We sang about Groundhog Day that we found at ABC Teach.

Then we learned about Groundhog Day on Starfall. When I first heard about Starfall I was skeptical because I didn't want her to use a computer or even sit in front of one, but I have to say it is a pretty cool program! She sat in my lap and she repeated the words when I clicked on them. We've also read a few shorts books where I'll read it once through, then say the words one at time and point to them and she repeats them back to me reading the book to me! We'll see how long that lasts!

We finished up our TP Groundhog, too. I cut out the pieces and she helped me glue them to the TP roll. Then we had a 2 second puppet show with the TP Groundhog and the Pop Up Groundhog.

We stayed in our jammies most of the day, can you tell?! But then we made a trip to Hobby Lobby and the $ store to pick up some goodies for our Valentine sensory bucket.

After we got home from running errands, she had a snack and sorted puffs into a egg carton.

Thursday:

We got this coloring page last week at the Healthy Living Expo. She colored it several times throughout the day and it's full of color now! I'm going to laminate it and use it as her placemat. There's an onion (or maybe a bulb of garlic), a potato and a carrot.

We went back to the library and grocery shopping Thursday morning after breakfast. We picked up 15 books and our library now has self checkout! Too cool! We got several books about snow and a few about Valentine's Day.

After naptime, we FINALLY made homemade clay. I've been wanting to do this with her FOREVER and did it on Thursday. We had a lot of fun smashing, rolling and using cookie cutters to make hearts, stars, crosses and a P! I'll have the recipe and directions in another post this week.

When daddy got home we were in the basement and the bowl the dough had been in was on the counter. He came downstairs and said, "That sugar cookie dough sure is salty." And we laughed and laughed. She watched a few minutes of a movie and played with an foam alphabet puzzle while we were down there.

Friday:

While I went to workout, Sweet P and the Farmer played with her Pattern Blocks again and she stacked them in the box they come in.

Gammie was home from work again so we talked to her at breakfast, lunch and dinner! And more coloring of the veggie page. We also got to Skype with Auntie Rosita on Friday!

That afternoon, we painted our clay pieces. Well, Sweet P painted the wax paper and her hands.

I gave her a quick bath afterward and then we opened 2 packages from Gammie and Auntie Rosita. Gammie's had a fun I Spy Hearts book and Auntie Rosita's had new plates! Sweet P LOVES the plates and was putting cotton balls on them. Then she decided it was time to feed her baby. This might have been the cutest thing EVER. She brought a plate into the kitchen and put it on the table, then she went and got her baby and put her in her seat. She put on the safety belt and tray, then said, "Bib!" and ran to get a bib out of the cabinet. She asked me to help her put the bib on, then she fed her baby! I gave her a few unpainted clay pieces and she pretended to give them to her baby. It was so DANG cute!

Saturday:

I fixed up her Valentine sensory bucket and she went to town! A grumpy and mean lady at the $ store said to me when I picked up a package of V-day erasers to show Sweet P, "Oh those will be great. Put them in her mouth, chew them up and swallow them." I was in such shock I simply said, "She doesn't put things in her mouth." Too bad, I spent most of yesterday telling her to take the red sparkle hearts out of her mouth. Go figure. But hey, it wasn't the erasers! I also have a February tile in the there from a perpetual calendar and listening to her say February is too cute!

Then, she dumped out all the contents of the bin and made it her baby's bed.

We read lots of books this week, but I took the first 1/2 back to the library and can't for the life of me remember what they were about!

Whew! That was our week. How was yours?!

Next week's theme: Valentine's Day!

Foto Friday

Whew. We've been home since Monday, but since Sweet P develops a cold almost every time we travel, we've been quarantined while we (yes, we) get well. I got whatever she has once we got home. While we recoup, enjoy this foto for Foto Friday. And as usual, I don't really know what I did. We have an old version of PhotoShop so I just toy around with gaussian blue, contrast, colors, ya know, the easy stuff.

And here in Iowa, fall is definitely upon us. Sweet P just loves that muhmuh (pumpkin), when we come downstairs in the morning she can't help but point and smile at it. Pumpkin and squash courtesy of our farm.

Before

After

MIA

The Farmer and I have been battling a strange bug lately, so posting has been sparse as we recover. This bug has not only been a damper on our physical life, but our mental as well! We hope to be back up and running (literally) in the next few days. For now, just enjoy this pic of my sweet girl, who was trying so hard to eat that yogurt with a spoon.

Health Challenge Tip #8

#8: Get some sleep.

Turn off the computer and go to bed, for pete's sake. Yes. I'm talking to you. And to myself, for that matter. Remember in February when I did the Sleep Challenge? Yeah, about that. I didn't do so well then, and I'm not doing all that well now! But...

Starting yesterday, I decided to make a schedule. I figured if my day was written out for me, I'd be more likely to stick to it. So far, so good. I went to bed at 10pm last night. Got up at 6am. 8 hours.

Don't pretend you didn't know sleep was good for you. Why do you think babies do it so much? It's important for your body to shut down and rest for several (7 or more) hours so you have the energy you need to run around after your kids (or run around after your coworkers). Sleep is pretty much just as important as food and water. So get some!

Remember when your baby was born, everyone said, "Nap when your baby naps!" And you thought, yeah, yeah, I need to clean the house. Turns out they were right! Did you know that sleeping even helps you lose the baby weight? Yep. It's true. Women who sleep for at least 7 hours a night are more likely to lose weight than those who don't! If you think it's impossible to get sleep with a newborn...again, nap when your baby naps! (I didn't do this as much as I should have when Sweet P was born. Kicking myself for that now.)

Sleep is just about the easiest thing you can do to get healthy. Getting enough sleep also helps keep sickness at bay (think about how bleeechhh you feel after a bad night of sleep). So when you tell your kiddos how important sleep is so they'll go to bed, remember that it applies to you too! And get some sleep!

Home again, home again

jiggity jog.

Remember that rhyme?

Anyway, we're home and helloooo July! Don't you always feel like you need a vacation after your vacation? Especially when you come home sick without a voice? Yeah. Me, too.

I'm always a bit discombobulated for the first couple of days, so excuse me as we get our life back in order.

A few things from our trip:

We visited 3 states.

We drove through 7 states.

Went to a wedding.

Went to a bridal shower.

Wanted to spend the whole vacay swimming.

It rained all 6 days that we were in New Mexico.

The sun came out the day we left.

We went swimming twice.

I got sick on day 7.

The rain didn't ruin 4th of July (phew!).

Sweet P loves fireworks!

We drove through a rainstorm on the way home.

The Farmer wanted to get home for a soccer game.

He left our house key at his mom's house.

Luckily, our friend had a spare!

We got home safely.

The Farmer missed the game.

Pics and more stories to be posted soon...as well as Health Challenge Tip #1! Can you guess what it'll be? I bet Gammie can!

4 More

4 more days! (including this post)

Day 4 brought with it a nice little ice storm here in the midwest. Nice and ice do not go in the same sentence very well...even if they do rhyme. Needless to say this little family did not leave the house. Classes on all counts were cancelled so we stayed home snug as a bug. Unfortunately, somewhere in there Sweet P started to cough. And sniffle. And snuggle. All signs that she is under the weather (because she is definitely too busy to snuggle these days).

But the sickness didn't kick in until the afternoon and I made our recipe for lunch (because I was supposed to teach last night, but school was cancelled). I knew what I was making needed some sort of bread and because I didn't want to make naan again and didn't have soy flour to make pitas, I found a recipe for Whole Wheat Tortillas.

The Recipe(s):

Chickpeas with Onions, Spinach & Raisins (no joke, that's the name of the recipe)

Whole Wheat Tortillas

Carrot, Red Pepper & Celery Juice (I can't take credit for this because The Farmer made it, but it's going in here anyway)

The first recipe came from the "Almost Vegetarian" cookbook while the whole wheat tortillas came from the website above. The juice recipe is literally just those three items. Not much of a recipe.

For the directions on the tortillas, please visit the link. They are SO easy. We are never buying store whole wheat tortillas again for 2 reasons. 1) They are stupid expensive. 2) They taste like cardboard and glue (but we buy them anyway!). Anyway, I rolled the dough into a ball and let it rest for 15 minutes and then pulled it into 8 tiny balls, rolled them out and then cooked them on a griddle for 30 seconds on each side.

See. SO easy.

Chickpeas with Onions, Spinach, & Raisins

What you need:

1 tbsp olive oil (or as much as you think you need, I just drizzle and eyeball it)

1 large onion, chopped

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 medium fresh tomatoes or canned, peeled, seeded and chopped (I used canned since it's not tomato season)

2 c fresh baby spinach leaves, washed

2 c cooked chickpeas (again, I used a 15oz can)

1/2 c raisins

1 tbsp minced garlic (the recipe didn't call for this, but I put garlic in everything)

Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion and cinnamon, reduce the heat to medium, and saute, stirring often, until the onion is soft and limp (about 1o mins).

Add tomatoes and continue cooking about 5 mins. Stir in the spinach, chickpeas and raisins. Continue stirring until the spinach wilts and turns bright green, about 3 minutes.

Carrot, Red Pepper & Celery Juice

What you need:

8 carrots (real carrots, not baby carrots...quit eating those by the way, they are washed with chlorine)

4 baby red peppers

2 stalks of celery

Peel carrots, cut stem off red peppers and trim celery. Put ingredients into juicer. It does the rest.

The Results:

This recipe was SO easy that I was skeptical. While it was good, the canned toms and chickpeas tasted, well, canned. I think with cooked chickpeas and fresh tomatoes it could have been much better. That said, it was also similar to things we have on a regular basis so it wasn't as original as I had hope. It was, however, fast and still tasted good. This would be a great meal to make on a night when we didn't have much time. Even the tortillas didn't take long! And one more thing, if you're thinking "raisins and onions? and spinach? and chickpeas?" Trust me, it tastes better than you think.

The Grade:

Chickpeas mix: B+. Again, it tasted like something I'd made before and didn't taste as fresh as other things we've had.

Tortillas: A-. Because they aren't as good as some homemade tortillas we've had (how can I compete with white flour and lard!!!), but WAY better than the store bought ones.

Juice: A-. While it was good, the veggies weren't fresh from a garden (you could tell because they weren't very juicy) and I thought the red pepper made it smell funny.

What I'd do next time: Obviously use fresher produce. But for that I'll have to wait for this summer. I'll definitely be doing another Recipe Challenge then!

Tomorrow's post: Pumpkin Pancakes