Summer Days

I have decided that this is our last official summer of Tot School. Raccoon starts preschool twice a week on September 3rd here in the States. Next year we'll be overseas again and starting to homeschool kindergarten, if all goes according to plan. Robin will be starting Tot School at about that time, which is odd to think about now since she's currently 6 months old. At that point she'll be a little shy of two years old. As Gretchen Rubin says, "The days are long but the years are short."

So here's to Tot School and Raccoon's last official post (the pictures are all mixed up time-wise, viva la summer loca!).

Arts & Crafts

My mom gave me these pumpkin sheets when Raccoon 

randomly announced in July that he wanted to make a pumpkin.

He actually wanted to carve one, but was persuaded to do it this way instead.

Thanks to Grama, Raccoon has done many large paintings
this summer, which I have hanging all over the house.

See the tongues sticking out? It's a family thing. Perhaps painting is as well, 

since my mother's father was a painter, among other things. This is the 

beginning of one of my favorites, which I have hanging in my bedroom.

When I see pictures like this, I imagine him as a teen,
long and lean, with his curly hair and gorgeous lashes.


Outside Play

Our wading pool, a yard sale find.

Which became our sandbox, thanks to my mom's inspiration and contributions.

Enjoying play time with his cousins.

 

A lake about 10 minutes from our house. Raccoon calls it the beach.

Mommy and me moments

 

Pensive ladies on shore



Raccoon loves horseback riding, just like his mommy.

 

Raccoon has always enjoyed bouncy houses, but now he gets to play on them
every week at church. This one, however, was outside at the 4th of July festival.



The way life should be.

 
A perfect summer day, jumping on the trampoline in the sprinkler with Daddy and his best buddy, C.

It wouldn't be tot school without a little dress-up.

 River swimming - it's cold!

Building

 

Caleb gathered up a stack of thngs from his playroom 

and informed me that he wanted to make a horse.  

  

I followed his instructions and this is what we built. There 

weren't any spare parts, much to my surprise. It even had 4 legs.

Family

Raccoon's middle name means warrior and he certainly lives up to it with his 

interest in weapons of any kind. His cousin is now his hero for having the 

biggest Nerf gun he's ever seen, and letting him shoot off several rounds.

Grama and Grampa, 4th of July 2013

I think Robin looks so much like my mom.



We are definitely a hat family.

Robin

I like this picture because she glows like the angel she is.

Strawberries to celebrate a long-time friend and SB's turtle,
which has now been chewed on by all three of my babies.

Joy.

 

Teeth!

Robin's first baby doll, a gift from Grandma Millie (90 years old) at church.

We're Back!

Little by little, Raccoon and I will be starting up some Tot School activities again. This morning we worked on the letter C from my mom's preschool alphabet book. It felt good to be active again. The last few weeks Raccoon has spent most of his play time dressing up in his various costumes.

 

Builder

 

 

I came across a bag of animal masks that my mom sent us awhile ago.

Raccoon enjoyed trying them all on and running to see himself in our living room mirror.

 

 

Knight and ninja are his all-time favorite costumes. He got some new knight armor for Christmas since the cardboard set I made him is wearing out from so much use. If anyone knows where I could get real metal armor made for a child, Raccoon would love it!

Robin's first dress-up with big brother - Spiderman and an elf. This smile for the camera is a huge success for Raccoon since he still often runs the other way.

Robin is three weeks old and doing her own early learning program (How Smart Is Your Baby: Develop and Nurture Your Newborn's Full Potential). Right now this consists of stimulating her different reflexes and a series of passive movements. She still spends more time asleep than awake (miracle of miracles!!!) so we're off to a slow start with her as well, which is just fine.

Weekly Review - Sensory & Spooky

Raccoon is 35 months

I wasn't going to do anything special for Tot School this week since our printer was broken again, but one day Raccoon got out his notebook, lined his pencils up carefully, and told all of his stuffed friends, "I can't play, I'm going to do homework." I decided to reconsider and instead of focusing on landforms, I switched to a week of sensory play.

It was a good reason to finally get around to organizing the different materials I have for sensory bins. I keep one bin of just plain rice (the one he's playing with below), and I sorted our other things (pistachio shells, rocks, beads, salt, etc) into some miscellaneous plastic containers. I have a slotted metal ladle that is perfect for this because the rice falls through but it catches everything else, saving me a lot of time. This kind of play holds Raccoon's attention the longest (15 - 30 min) out of any of the activities we do.

For Raccoon's 3rd birthday (this month!) my mom sent him a whole bunch of shells. We visited a friend awhile ago whose son had a shell collection and Raccoon was fascinated, so I asked my mom if she'd be willing to give us some of her extras. She sent two large containers, way to go, Mom!

Raccoon had a great time burying them in the "sand" (rice box), along with using them to dig and pour. It was nice to be able to pull out just my rice box and add the shells to it. If we ever make it to the beach, I hope to bring back some real sand to add to our sensory collection.

 

 

What would a sensory week be without some good old-fashioned water play! Raccoon watered all of the plants on the patio (and our dogs), then decided to water himself.

 

 

Raccoon loves to make what he calls "pancakes" out of play doh. I roll them out, then we stamp them together and make a great big pile. I thought I would make our play doh time a little more "educational," so I started stamping the letters beside the animals. Raccoon was not pleased and refused to play until I put the letters away. Ha ha and oh well. What you can't tell from the picture is that we're also listening/watching one of Andre Rieu's concerts on DVD. 

Later in the week I decided to add some spooky activities to our playtime. Since it's just him and me at home, we can indulge in his love of scary things without making it too terrifying. Sometimes I tell him stories about a little boy named Peter who has a friend named Pepe, a skeleton who is covered in red paint that others think is blood (Peter helps fix Pepe when the paint washes off). I saw the idea for a pasta skeleton and told Raccoon we were going to make Pepe. I felt excited that Raccoon was into an art activity involving fine motor skills and following directions. He glued on the pasta arms and legs, then I finished placing the rest because he was impatient to start painting with "blood."

Then we did handprints  - one for me and one for Grama.

 

At first I had to sit by with a napkin handy to wipe the paint off his hands, then Raccoon decided to become a scary skeleton and he painted himself.

 

The next day as soon as he got up we started working on his "scary house." He painted some "blood" on the outside, then sat down to make an egg carton bat to hang on the inside.

 

 

After we hung the bats inside, Raccoon's stuffed friends took turns going inside and screaming in terror. We may continue working on his house next week as all of the spooky activities were a big hit.

Weekly Review - Time Off

Raccoon is 35 months

This week I didn't have any plans for Tot School since I knew we'd be busier than normal. We had doctor appointmens for Raccoon and me (I'm 20 weeks pregnant), along with our first playgroup of the school year on Wednesday. Raccoon is now the oldest child at playgroup since all of the 4 year olds are doing various Pre-K programs.

It was nice to take some time off, but Raccoon wandered over to our bookshelf (where I keep our supplies) several times during the week and said he was going to do school. I think he'll be excited about having some new things to do next week.

A few things we did this week:

* I was browsing through this Tot School post when Raccoon wandered over. He saw the picture of Ladybug making monsters and decided that it was a great idea. He spent quite a while making new monster friends after I grabbed whatever I could find for pieces. He enjoys looking at pictures of other kids, so maybe I should browse the Tot School posts with him more often and he can tell me what looks fun. :)

* I noticed that Raccoon can put things in order by size/length and likes to do this on his own with his toys.

* He is into counting right now, thanks to Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever! and he has discovered a new interest in Busy Town. I loved Richard Scarry as a child, although we just had the books. Raccoon can count from 1 to 12, but for some reason he likes to start at the number 5. He doesn't quite have the concept of each object only gets one number, but it's fun to listen to him "counting" all of his stuff.

* He's done some exploring around the house this week with a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

* He loves maps and points them out wherever he sees them. He found a world map the other day and told me which continent he lives on. His love of maps grew out of his pirate obsession. He got a treasure map with a set of pirate things and wanted me to explain what all the symbols meant.

* When he scribbles, he tells me he's writing letters or making signs for his pretend museums. He "wrote" me his first note today and told me it said, "I love you very much." Awwwww.

* Now that he's growing out of babyhood and playing more on his own, I've been trying to add some extra cuddles into our day. One way we do this is to sit in the rocking chair together and I tell him stories about a little boy named Peter. He likes to help me make up the adventures and we send Peter to all sorts of exotic places. During our polar lands week, Peter spent a lot of time with penguins and polar bears.