Dyeing Eggs

 Rachel and I dyed eggs again this year and managed not to have any accidents with the dye.  Last time we used food coloring for a craft it got spilled all over the kitchen cabinets.  It was a pain the clean up and the inside of one of the cabinet doors still has some subtle red streaks.  I got smart this time and we did it outside.  I hard boiled 6 eggs for Rachel.  She would have done more, but you never know what will hold a toddler's attention and for how long.  I loved the idea we saw last year of using a whisk to dip the eggs.  It really seems to help prevent mess.  We only dripped a little on her plastic table which wiped right off.  As a mentioned we used food coloring again this year.  I seriously contemplated making natural dyes from food, but decided that for the amount of eggs we were dyeing it wasn't worth the extra cost or time.  Plus Rachel still struggles with leaving the eggs in the dye for any length of time, and it seemed like with natural dyes the eggs have to sit in them.

 Rachel was very proud of her eggs when they were done.

Little Lessons and Life

As summer vacation nears an end Rachel and I decided to resume tot school with a month of activities revolving around pond animals.  I found a blog with lap book printables geared toward toddlers.  In case you don't know a lap book is basically a file folder with activities glued inside.  Rachel's pond lap book includes a pocket with letters to spell her name which we use to sing, "there was a girl who had a name.." (the BINGO song), a counting mini book, a who lives in ponds mini book, and a coloring directions worksheet.  Each day we do tot school we start with her lap book.  Then we do a craft or coloring activity followed by either a bible story or other story about pond animals.  Rachel knows the routine, and if I try to change up the routine she lets me know that it isn't right.  Rachel loves routines and schedules.  When I ask her if she wants to do tot school she yells out, "tot school" and runs to her table to start.  I love that she is developing a love for learning.

Rachel is also learning to use the potty.  She has been super easy to potty train and has given me unrealistic expectations regarding how easy it is.  Rachel had been interested in the potty for months, so we finally headed to the store for a potty seat to fit on our toilet.  We soon noticed that while she really liked it her success was limited by her petite size.  Even with a stool she was just too short to reach the potty or the sink.  I broke down and bought her froggy potty chair which she loves and made a sink extension from an old lotion bottle (yet another great idea from pinterest).  About every 30 minutes she sits on her potty and goes.  At this point she primarily relies on me to remind her to go before it is too late.  In fact, the little stinker loves her potty so much that if she doesn't like what is for lunch and dinner she will claim she has to go potty and go sit down on it with a book.  There is now a rule of no books when you go potty during meal time.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:

 

From Life with the Bjorks

We took Grandma and Grandpa to Fairytale Town when they visited.

From Life with the Bjorks

We had a tea party and she helped all the dolls by eating their cookies and drinking their water.

From Life with the Bjorks

Isn't she adorable!  As you can see we are still battling a rash that appears to be caused by the heat.  Only a month or so more until it should start cooling down.

God Made Families

This week and last week we learned that God made our family, God wants us to serve our family, and who is in our family. We used the story of David serving his family by caring for the family sheep and bringing his brother's food on the battle field from 1 Samuel 17:12-19. We did some fun activities from our Toddlerific curriculum and pinterest. Rachel liked turning the paper plate story wheel from our curriculum and was really gentle with it. I am surprised it is still in one piece. We colored a "Daddy, Daddy Who Do You See" mini book from playingwithwords365.com with our little friend who spent the day with us last Friday. It was fun to have her join in Tot school for the day. We also read some board books with family pictures I made Rachel for Christmas. They are a fun way to teach her about family members she does not see very often as well as a baby safe way to look through family memories. In addition to all our family books, we played find the family members with large face cut outs I colored that were hidden in the living room and pulled puzzle pieces out of beans with family pictures glued on the back. I have to talk more about the puzzle because it turned out so cute and was fun to make. I saw an idea on pinterest to glue family pictures inside each puzzle cut out. I couldn't wait to do this for Rachel, but I did not want her to have to just rely on matching the shape of a puzzle piece by covering up the picture or color. She is little and still learning about matching. I wanted the puzzles to be doable for her so I glued the picture on the back of the piece. On a side note, after meeting Grandma and Grandpa's dog over Easter Rachel calls the picture of Grandma and Grandpa "Howie" (the dogs name). I think it is cute, but I'm not sure Grandma agrees with me. Rachel is also working on how to label herself. She has learned she is not "Ila" or "baby" (well she is, but she is more than that). She can't say "Rachel" and doesn't seem to really understand pronouns yet, so we have been practicing pointing to herself when she sees a picture of herself and is asked "Who's that?" I also provide the pronoun label when she points to herself or if I point to her so she is hearing the correct label. There is the speech therapist in me sneaking out during play time. I still have a couple more activities for this week including a family tree to glue family pictures on and a my neighborhood mini book to color. We will see what we get to in the next couple days.

From Life with the Bjorks

Rachel is enjoying her story wheel. Check out the fabulous puzzle in the background. In case you couldn't tell I am pretty proud of it.

From Life with the Bjorks

Just a cute picture of Rachel and Brian I had to include for your enjoyment.

Fuzzy Fur Painting

From Life with the Bjorks

Earlier in the week we painted a sheep with "snow paint" to go with our lesson about the lost sheep from Matthew 18. I found the recipe at momendeavors.com via pinterest. This paint worked great for painting fluffy sheep. It gives to picture texture and dries a little bit velvety.

Rachel enjoyed mixing the paint (equal parts white glue and shaving cream), spooning it onto her sheep, and spreading it around with her spoon. She prefers to paint with a paintbrush or a spoon over her fingers. This was an unexpected surprise. I figured a girl who loves to get her hands dirty while exploring her world would also love finger painting. "Snow paint" is a fun edition to our arsenal of craft ideas. We will be using it again and maybe even try to add some color to it.

I have to share that after two weeks of learning about how Jesus loves us like the shepherd loved his lost sheep Rachel now "baa"s like a pro. She enjoys imitating motions from all our bible stories. During play time she brings me her bible story books to reread the stories we have already read and even remember some of the motions from those stories. I love to watch her learn and am always surprised how easily she learns and recalls information. Working with special needs children I rarely see that and forget what is typical.

Jonah and the Whale

From Life with the Bjorks

From Life with the Bjorks

From Life with the Bjorks

This week we talked about Jonah, sang songs, tossed balloon faces into a whale and made the whale spit them out, made a big fish with fingerprint scales, colored several coloring pages, and played with whales in soapy water (this fit in nicely with the theme but was really done to get all the ink off her little fingers. This was a fun week because it lent itself to so many activities. Plus anything involving water play is always a big hit with Rachel.

It is neat to see how much Rachel is absorbing. She likes me to repeat the stories we have already done from her Baby Bible Storybook and will even copy some of the movements. This week she imitated folding her hands during prayer time. Seeing those little pudgy hands folded in prayer warmed my heart.

So besides learning about Jonah, what have we been up to? Well, Rachel finally got tall enough to climb on the dining room chairs, and as a result she also got another lesson in gravity and that we sit in chairs. That one seems to have stuck because now when she climbs on the chair she sits down.

We also went to Petco one day since it was too windy to play outside and we needed to get out of the house. For a toddler, Petco is as good as the zoo and my wallet likes it better than the zoo. Petco is full of fish, tarantulas, snakes, lizards, birds, rats, mice, guinea pigs, chinchillas, and the occasional dog with its owner. Rachel continues to increase her language skills and was able to share with me that some of the animals were sleeping and some were eating as well as saying hi to many of them. She also enjoyed running up and down the fish aisle from tank to tank and back again. This will be added to our list of free and fun activities.

Snakes, Sin, and a Storm

I am finally getting around to posting more about tot school. I decided I would post weekly but didn't actually follow through with that.

About 2 weeks ago we covered Adam and Eve. I made a mini book for the story. Our printer broke that week so I was forced to draw and color it myself. It may not have been the prettiest book, but it served its purpose. I made the book with removable magnetic pieces so we could play with them on a cookie sheet. We also colored a sand paper apple and did apple printing. Neither of the craft projects were that successful. Rachel has not yet developed the ability to apply enough pressure to her crayons to color on sandpaper and the apple pieces were a little to big for her hands. I did try to cut the apples up smaller, but then she thought they were for her to eat. Oh well, at least we still had fun.

From Life with the Bjorks

The following week we learned about Noah's Ark. We read On Noah's Ark by Jan Brett. This book is super cute and tells the story from the perspective from Noah's grandchild. Yes it is not totally biblically correct, but I figure at Rachel's age it is not a big deal. We also did a little indoor water play. We loaded animals into a boat (tupperware) and put them in our old baby tub. Then we made it rain by pouring water into the tub. After this Rachel jumped into the tub to splash around. This was probably her favorite part. For craft time we made a tissue paper rainbow, and colored an ark and glued animals on it. Rachel loves to color so the last craft was right up her alley. She also enjoyed smooshing the glue from the gluestick between her fingers.

From Life with the Bjorks

Up next: God promises Abraham and Sarah a baby

Tot School

Rachel and I just completed our first week of tot school and I am planning our second week. Tot school is an opportunity for me to introduce biblical truths in baby size bites. It is never too early or too late to start learning about God and how much he loves us all. In my opinion that is mush more important than other things I could be doing like letters, number, or seasonal themes because learning about God has eternal consequences. Don't get me wrong all those other things are important too, but they can wait until she is older.

Tot school makes me accountable to spend intentional time with Rachel because I plan it into our day. Time when she has my undivided attention - no laundry, no cell phone, no computer, no dishes, well, you get the point. It is all about her. With so much I have to do and all the distractions it is too easy to give Rachel only a potion of my attention and never stop to really focus on her.

From Life with the Bjorks

Our schedule is read our bible story, sing songs related to the story, do a sensory oriented/play activity or craft related to the story, and end with snack. We do the same story for a week because repetition is a key component to learning. The length of time we spend on each lesson is dependent on her interest.

This last week we learned about creation and took things God made out of a bean tub while singing about who made each one. Rachel does a great job of sitting in her chair for story and singing time. She loved playing with the beans and all the little toys in the beans. Next week we are going to talk about Adam and Eve and play with magnets from our story. I think we will also do apple printing and color a sandpaper apple (This is only if I make to Target to buy crayons. Brian laughed at me the other day when he learned I threw out all my crayons from when I quit working because I thought they were dirty. Lots of germy little hands had touched them.)

Valentine's Day Craft

I love craft projects and decided it was time Rachel and I tackle one together. I hope to instill my love of crafting in her. We decided to make a card for Brian. Rachel enjoyed picking up the paper and trying to put it in her mouth, but she did not enjoy having her hands restrained while I attempted to make the perfect print with her little hands. Her feet were much more cooperative than her wiggly hands.