Week 4-Feelings

Wow already week 4!  Monkey turned 17 months last week.

This week we will be working with this tot book however we don't fold the folder like she does.  We left it as is.  As usual I need to take pictures.  One of these days I will pull out all of the books and take pictures.  Right now all my spare time is going to planning tot school (mainly planning library books although I need to get back to printing for tot books soon!) and sewing and knitting.  I am sponsoring the Great Cloth Diaper Hunt again in November and am working on some knitted goodies and newborn fitted diapers.  I hope to post some knitted washcloths and dishcloths this week (I already have a bunch finished but want to have a nice grouping before I list them).  Don't forget to check out my site.

Monday: Wrap up of our ocean theme
Tuesday: Feelings
Wednesday: Mad
Thursday/Friday: Sad
Monday: Happy and Scared

Monday Week 4-Ocean wrap up

We're back to potty training again.  Monkey's rash is gone and we're done treating it again so we're back to pottying.  We started yesterday and had a ROUGH day!  He went back to going non-stop all day and we had to break him of that.  We had 12-15 accidents yesterday and caught two.

For those of you who don't know we started out introducing the potty at 9.5 months because he was very curious about the bathroom and the potty.  He was army crawling really well at that point and would follow us to the bathroom.  We got him a little potty and started putting him on it before his bath and while we were going.  He started holding it until he was put on the potty so I decided to see if he would do it at other points in the day and he did.  By the time he was 1 he was fully trained with less than 1 accident per week but by 14 months life got kind of crazy and and he reverted back to more accidents.  We kept at it though until he broke out with a terrible rash about a month and a half ago.  We had to stop because we had to treat it and almost as soon as it was better it broke out again.  He was diagnosed with a skin condition that many kids get when they're in diapers (cloth or disposable).  It's worse with synthetics so we have been using prefolds and wool to keep his diaper area "in-shape" so to speak.  We just finished our second treatment so I decided to move with full steam to try and get him trained so we hopefully won't have to treat it again.

Today was MUCH better.  We didn't really start in trainers (we use the Gerber ones at home during the day and our Monkey Bunns ones when we go out) until after nap time.  We had 2 accidents fairly quick.  After we had dinner though I took Monkey to the bathroom...nothing.  About 10 minutes later he ran to the bathroom door (we keep it shut because we don't have a potty lock or anything) and said and signed "potty, potty!"  I of course ran to the bathroom and he went!  He did that again about an hour later and then had an accident while I was running his bath water about 15 minutes later.  I'm proud of Monkey though-he did a really good job today!

On to the books we read!
Ocean Friends by Robert Lyn Nelson-this book has GORGEOUS pictures.  It's about a dolphin and the dolphin's friends.
Rainbow Fish Counting
Rainbow Fish Colors
Rainbow Fish ABCs (really short-several letters per page, no poem or anything.  Basically just the alphabet song)
Rainbow Fish and the Blue Whale-great to teach how to face your problems and talk them out peacefully
Curious George Goes Fishing
Fishes in the Ocean-not really about fish but great to teach counting (level 1 reader)
Turtle in the Sea (we read this before)
Ocean Counting: Odd Numbers
Peanut Butter and Jellyfishes: A Very Silly Alphabet Book
Commotion in the Ocean-poems about various ocean animals
First Words at the Aquarium (Curious George)
Shapes with Ocean Animals by Melanie Watt ISBN 1553378334

And the past week we've been reading
Clifford's Bedtime
The Going to Bed Book.

Wednesday week 3

We did a lot on Wednesday and the rest of the week was crazy-that's why I'm posting now instead of then!

We watched Signing Time #3: Everyday signs (boy, girl, various foods, etc)

We read:
Somewhere in the Ocean by Jennifer Ward (like Over in the Ocean-different words, more ocean animals)
Baby Beluga
Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?-not really about whales but talks about their size in comparison to other things and the Universe.
Senses at the Seashore-fun way to learn about senses-especially if you want to take a trip to the seashore!
Curious George Goes to the Beach
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson-Cute story about a snail that rides around the world on a whale and eventually saves his life
I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean-Another really cute story about a giant squid that thinks he's the biggest thing in the ocean until...you'll just have to read and see!
Alphatales letter E book again (see materials post for info)

We tried to make an aquarium but Monkey was more interested in pulling crayons out of the box and putting them back in.  He helped me color on a piece of paper.  I drew on the back of it and cut out several fish and an octopus.  I glued them to a piece of blue construction paper and put it on the fridge!

 While doing our art work we listened to a CD we checked out.  It was a Nemo c.d. called Ocean Favorites.

Tuesday Week 3

Introducing...LETTER BOXES!  Here's some action shots of our E letter box:

 

We watched Signing Time volume 4: Family, Feelings, Fun in the morning.  We also went to the library's story time where we learned about the letter "J" and jungles.

After naptime I brought Monkey upstairs and let him explore his "E" letter box.  I need to get upper and lower case letters done and laminated so I can put them in so he can have exposure to both.  I also wanted to add a few more things to it but didn't have the time to get stuff printed and laminated (or sewn-I want to make a felt eggplant).  So now for a break down of what's in the E box!

-Alphatales E book: The Enormous Elephant Show

-The eel picture found here (ocean animals ABCs)

-Excited (the one from the matching and from the feelings book)

-Exhausted  (the one from the feelings book)
-Ear (we're using it for our senses folder)
-Eye (we're using it for our senses folder)
-Foam E (see materials-it's from the mat)
-Eight (one is from the LDS file folder book I found from the "Noah's Numbers" game and the other is from here see the counting one)
-Monkey's "Green Elephant" that my cousins gave him when he was born (it's a Carter's brand)

We read:
Alphatales E book (right after we opened our box)
Over in the Ocean-this book was really fun, it was like the Jungle one we read before it's supposed to be sung/read to the tune of Over in the Meadow.  It was really fun.
Ocean Babies-this one was really fun to introduce the babies in the ocean
Octopus, Oyster, Hermit Crab, Snail: A poem About the Sea (we read this before)

And not related to our theme:
Diary of a Worm (we requested this one when we talked about worms but it FINALLY came through)-this one is great to learn about the lives of worms and what they do-written in diary form. Fun for kids!
Spot Loves His Grandma
Spot Loves His Daddy
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

We also looked at the tot book we made (for details see this post)

Before bed we read Plenty of Penguins (we got this one from the thrift store).  It's a beginning reader to teach about penguins.

Monday Week 3

On recommendation we decided to borrow Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD from the library.  It says on the package it's recommended for ages 2+ but Monkey LOVED it!  By the end he was saying a few of the letter sounds (his favorite is Buh since his first name starts with a "B").  He started saying "Buh" to his letter B when we worked on it (in week 1).  We will certainly be buying this one and soon!

Since it was Labor Day we had a day off with daddy but read a lot of books before bed.
Birthday Monsters
OppositesAll Around Me I See
Itsy Bitsy Spider
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear
I Love you, Sun, I Love You, Moon
What's Up Duck: A Book of Opposites
Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile
The Twin Princes
I recommend all these books-they were all really fun!

And our one book to introduce our theme!
Curious George at the Aquarium

We watched Finding Nemo on Sunday at my parents' house and Monkey had fun calling the "fishies" (yes he does know how to say fishies) "duckies".  He'll get it one of these days!