Winter Stuff

We've done a few things this past week having to do with Winter. Nattie loves to cut and trace, and just about anything else... haha. Here are some of the fun things we did this week. The printouts I got were from www.itsybitsyprintables.com and www.thoughtsofme.blogspot.com The second site always has a lot of stuff that is super cute and fun that Natalie loves to do. I highly recommend going to both of these sites and checking them out. Anyways here are the pictures.

These were some cutting sheets. Nattie is learning how to cut so well. I'm so proud of her. Although she's a bit of a perfectionist. If she goes off the line at all she says "oops, sorry Mom". Haha. I think it's funny. I keep reminding her that it's okay to make mistakes. She's such a doll!
Here is some tracers that she did.

Trace the word then write it yourself. I had to write dots for some of the letters for her to trace because she doesn't know how to form all the letters yet. She keeps surprising me at how fast she is learning though.

This is our January sensory bucket. I'm going to find more stuff to add... if anyone has any suggestions I am open to them. Right now it has cotton balls, tongs, a magnifying glass, a couple measuring cups, a play spoon, and a tea canister. She'll have fun with the tongs and spoon putting the cotton balls into the canister. I'm trying to really stick to my budget from now on so my sensory bins will just be what I have around the house. I have a budget for it next month so maybe I'll get to go to the happiest place on earth... (Hobby Lobby)... there are actually a lot of happiest places on earth but that is one of them!

Doing snowman patterns. She's going back through making sure they are all correct.

Putting the hat on the correct snowman.

Nattie wanted to model how she was playing with the patterns. She's such a ham! We are going to have a great time this month! She's already learned so much this year and I can just see her little mind exploring and wanting more!

The girls have Comprehensive Curriculum books that I buy at Sam's Club for about 8 dollars a piece. They are each just about through with the grade level that they are in. Micah went to Sam's today to buy some things and he got them all the next grade level books. I'm super excited but not half as excited as the girls!! They started working in their books so that they could start on their new ones. They are going to have to wait though because it's going to take more than an hour to get their books done.. they are close but not that close.

My good friend at http://ourdayinschool.blogspot.com/ introduced me to the blog http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com and she has a ton of ideas for Sensory Bins. (I think she calls them sensory tubs but I like the word bin better, not that it really matters ;-) I thought it might be fun for Nattie our 3 year old so I decided to put one together. I didn't want to go out and buy anything, I just wanted to use what we had laying around the house so she could use it today. This is what I came up with:


I put plates, forks, and spoons in there because everyone knows that in December we eat. Well, at least at the Jones house that's what we do. I put in some ornaments from the tree and some keychains as well which she liked putting on the plates and then burying them in rice. I put the rice in there as "snow". I put the little stocking in there and then (not in this picture) I also added a pinecone. I thought that would be fun. She loved it! I honestly thought she'd get bored of it after a couple minutes but boy was I wrong. I think she played in it for a good hour and then stopped and cleaned up (she had to vacuum a little bit because she did get some rice on the floor, and yes I have my 3 year old vacuum... she loves it and she knows that if she makes a big mess she's the one that will be cleaning it not me, she has a little vacuum she uses and not the big heavy one Mommy uses.) Anyways...


I put another bin next to her sensory bin so she could measure and scoop rice and whatever else into it and then dump it back. She had a blast. Her favorite thing was to use the spoon to put rice into the dish she has in her hand.


Here she is after she put the rice on the plate with the spoon and now she is dumping into the play pan.


And then she'd dump it out and start again.

When she got the pinecone she had a blast with it. She wouldn't look at me directly for a picture of this however. This picture is one of my favorites though so I'm not complaining.

When my two older girls, Syssa and Mara, got home from school they loved playing with it too. They weren't has happy to clean up after themselves but after a few whines they did it. Thank you to the people who brought this idea into my life... I will be doing a new one every month now!