amely's first painting .

this summer has been lax on the educational/crafty/creative activities around these parts. it's either been raining something fierce (and chilly) or disgustingly hot. two types of days that warrant playing inside (either cuddlin' up or sittin' under a fan). besides, we've been from here to there and there to here more than normal and mostly just soaking up our "vacation" time.

it's time, though, to get back into routine - and now that the house is in order (thanks to some cheapy purchases to organize the kids' closet and babysitter dan to keep the kids out of my hair) and things are organized enough to get to, we're trying to get back in the swing of things.

i pulled out some paints the other day, made a pallet out of a floppy plastic cutting board, covered the little table and threw down some paint brushes. after taking off the kids shirts (i hate laundry), i let them go.

amely had never painted before (that's why there's more pictures of her than samil, sorry kid). she preferred to use her hands instead of the brush and to paint her belly rather than the paper. oh well. samil used some letter stamps to make his name which he used like twice before switching back to the brushes.

the stamps are made out of cardboard and yarn. i made a chain with the yarn and hot glued it to the cardboard in the shape of letters. make sure you make your letters in reverse, though, because they are mirror images.

amely prefers finger painting.

and painting herself.

samil loves to paint! (you can kind of see his name on this one)these are the stamps we used.

yay! paint!

Rainbow Tot School

It's been a long time since i posted a tot-school. We've been running around a lot since it's summer, but we do throw some "school" in when we get the chance.

We've been working on the letter "R". Here's Samil using his letter blocks to trace an R.
I made this file folder from materials I got from Confessions of a Homeschooler and Homegrown Hearts
There are rainbow patterning, a puzzle and a size sorter. I also printed out this dot-page, which we used with magnetic bingo dots.


We also did some painting and coloring, but mostly we're just un-planned over here for awhile. The next theme, as soon as I get the printer to work right, is Noah's Ark.

Check out Carissa's blog to see more tot-school posts.

tot school.

it's been ages since i've been able to update about what we've been doing for school around these parts... and it's not because i've been internet-less.

with the move and the re-adjusting to mom working outside of the house, we've been kind of lax. that, and i haven't unpacked all of our boxes with school stuff. which is bad on two fronts... because school stuff is samil's stuff AND all the stuff i use to prepare my actual work classes. oops.

so this past week, i finally got some stuff out and we got back into a very non-organized school-y type play. we colored with pastel crayons, markers and crayons. we practiced small motor skills by making sticker collages and putting marbles into a tube.

while i'm in the states i'm going to try to pick up some stuff for the summer if i can and get back into the swing of things a.s.a.p. paint chips and foam shapes and maybe some sorting trays.

and i promise you, blog readers, some pictures now that the camera is back in working order.

St. Patrick's Day Tot School

samil has been in love with his letter blocks this week. he's built towers, roads for his cars to drive on, thrown them at amely, and used this spatula to transfer them from the playmat to their home in an old used wipes box.

just a note: we use wipes boxes for EVERYTHING. all of the kids stuff is stored in old wipes boxes. plastics are expensive here, and this cheap (almost free) alternative makes it easy for me to organize on our budget.



the only day (besides the block photo from monday) that i was able to take pictures was st. patrick's day! (the camera somehow got packed in our neighbor's moving boxes after some water play with their daughter) we did a lot of activities - especially because amely decided to sleep in until almost 10am and samil and i were able to play together for almost two hours!

i've seen this sticker activity all over the place - but i got the shamrock idea at ramblings and adventures of a SAHM. i thought it was cool, samil... well, not so much. he put three of the stars on the lines, and then decided to fill the shamrock up with stickers. we had read a book the night before that had a sticker chart on the front cover page. when i pulled out the stars, he ran and grabbed the book and filled in the spaces that were empty.

i wanted to make a paper-bag puppet with samil from a pattern i had in my teaching box (from when i actually taught in a classroom) but it was missing a ton of pieces. i free handed what was missing and cut it all out. added some cotton to the mix (for his beard, of course).

samil loved this. but didn't want to color in the white pieces.

we mixed blue and yellow food coloring/water to make green.
yes, that's a snot-sucker from the hospital in his hand. i don't know why but we have like 6 of them in the house. i think that when amely was in ICU, i absent-mindedly put hers into my purse each time we were allowed to visit.
samil loves doing this - but we're having some issues with listening and samil keeps trying to drink the water every time we do this activity. our water is not potable and he needs to learn not to drink it. (and it's not just with transferring activities, he does it in the bathtub, too)

he also decided it would be more fun to put on the lid and shake the colors up.

i cut out these yellow circles a few weeks ago, attached some paperclips and sent samil looking for them with his magnet wand. he.loves.it. and he's extended the activity to collecting and THEN taking off the clips and sorting the coins from the clips.

we practiced counting shamrocks. still not a big hit.

patterning his shamrocks and "gold coins" was way more interesting for him.

we also played with some moon sand that my aunt had sent us awhile back. i completely forgot about it - it was hidden in the closet so samil couldn't get to it. i threw it in a tub and let him go - completely forgetting he had a glass of water there. i freaked out. for like 10 minutes. before i realized that it was moon sand and doesn't get wet. oops.

we have two tot-schoolish playdates next week that we're really excited for!
check out carisa's blog to see more totschool fun!

tot school - oops!

we had big plans here for tot-school this week.
the weather had some other plans.

last weekend, the temperatures dropped from 95 to 50 overnight.
and left everyone on the island - seriously, everyone is sick - with a nasty, nasty cold.

so instead of the plans, we had a lot of this:

we didn't really use a humidifier since it's already humid here. but i have no pictures of our contraption.
we boiled some secret herbs in water, added some "menthol" cream and put the kids under a "tent" to get the vapors up their noses.
samil learned all about those herbs, since they were cut from a neighbors yard.
science field trip?

amely had a little fever. so to prevent it spiking, we were dosing her with this (but the winasorb brand that is popular here that i couldn't find a picture of).
samil learned how much she needed and was pretty good at suctioning it out and giving it to her.
future doctor maybe?

and of course, with chest colds, the vicks in implied.
but i have to tell you - vaporub is used for e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. here. everything. people call it "MEN-TOLL"
headache? some menthol on the head. cut on your finger? menthol. cramps? menthol.
there are even some older people who eat the stuff. nasty.

samil decided it would be fun to use it as hairgel. bet dominicans never thought of that before!

this was the drug of choice for the kiddos. amalio and i had to take the nasty homeremedy crap (because he insisted... and despite the nastiness of it, it cleared us right up). this is pretty natural, too, and the kids are getting better.

samil learned how to say "medicine" this week.
and ask for it over and over again.
he also learned the value of playing by himself.
he spend a lot of time with his rice filled sensory bin. until he decided it would be fun to fill his little, itty-bitty, plastic goblets with rice and pass them out to my students...
spilling rice all over in the process.
at least he's a good host, right?

i hope everyone else had a more productive week! check out carisa's blog for more tot-school posts.

Tot School - Ireland

living in a homogenous society is a little hard sometimes.

and it's getting harder to blend cultures as samil gets bigger. obviously there are things that are givens - but the little things, the little gems of both worlds are going to need some work and dedication to make sure the kids get it.

we want samil and amely to know that they are not just dominican and not just american. and that their ancestors came from other places, too! last month we spent a lot of time working on the dominican side of things since it was independence month here. this month we're celebrating IRELAND!

we made shamrock suncatchers for our sliding glass doors. it was samil's first time working with contact paper and he like it. but he kept piling up all of the tissue paper on top of itself like he does with his stickers!

i saw this idea on several olympic tot school posts, where they printed the logo and and cut it apart. here, we traced our hands and then i made a template for samil to glue everything down. he liked this activity and next week we have a more elaborate claddagh planned that involves glitter and paint handprints.

we practiced counting with our shamrocks. samil's not really too into counting yet, but he did this activity twice this week on his own.

i cut out some "gold coins" and clipped them with a paperclip. then i hid them all over the house and gave samil a magnetic wand - he had to fill the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow, but decided his bike was a better place for them. he l.o.v.e.d. this activity and we did it over and over... and i'm sure we'll be doing it again next week.


we spent time in the park looking for four-leaf-clovers.
we also made some yellow, glittery playdough and made gold coins. it was for a treasure hunt, but samil decided the coins would be better if he poured water on them and they fell apart.

non-theme activities.
we did puzzles and colored in our "notebook". we practiced the letter A, but we never did get around to the A craft. Maybe next week.

I also saw this great idea on someone elses page and have wanted to get some nuts and bolts for awhile. i can't remember where i saw it, but if it's yours, let me know and i'll link back to you!

we went to the local hardware store and i picked out 5 nuts and bolts. samil put them in a bag and paid for them all by himself. i got the box at the supermarket and stuck some stickers on it. less that 3 US dollars! woo hoo!

great for small motor development!

check out carisa's blog for more tot school posts!

first ever tot school post.

i've been lurking on this blog carnival (is that what they're called? i'm so far behind on my internet lingo!) called tot school. it's mainly tons of really creative stay at home mamas who post what they're doing with their toddlers in their home.

i love it. i get tons of ideas for samil - and even for amely. and since one of my goals this year is to be more intentional with samil's (and amely's) education and stimulation (and to watch less tv) this tot school hits the spot.

and i've been wanting to post our activities for a while. like for the past two months since i found it and started stealing ideas :) but... the camera is broke. and the good part about tot school blogs are the PICTURES!

alas. this fancy new laptop of mine (hi dad! i love it!) has a webcam. and said webcam lets me take snapshots. horrible quality for printing, but will have to suffice until i get off my butt and take the camera to the shop.

we did a ton of things this week. we didn't really have a theme, but it is independence week here. in fact, today is independence day.

-- we dyed rice red and blue to make flags
-- painted a flag
-- read some spanish books about the padres de la patria
-- counted the banderas dominicanas (flags) in the
neighborhood

sara, our little neighbor, came down yesterday and we made bead necklaces. i thought that just taping the end of some string to make it hard would make it easier for samil to thread - but we've done no threading activities before and it was HARD for him. i'm going to buy some pipe cleaners and work on that. sara (who is 8 months older) LOVED IT and kept telling me her necklace was for her mommy because she's so amorosa y bonita (loving and pretty). in the end, though, she loved the necklace so much and decided to keep it for herself. HA! samil laced like 6 beads and lost interest.


i gave samil an eye dropper and some green water (green is his favorite color) and had him drop droplets on these tubtoys (you know, the things to stop slipping?) it took him awhile to figure it out, but he loved it! he played at it for like an hour!



i made this toy a few weeks ago. i just covered an old formula can with construction paper, and then put strips of different colors all around it. then i took seven clothespins (seven colors of paper!) and glued some construction paper strips to them. cut a hole in the lid the size of a clip and VOILA! color matching, small motor skill development, and FUN! i've taken it with us to the doctors and the supermarket and it keeps him pretty entertained.



we're working a lot on matching because mommy really wants to get into patterning soon (i love patterns, i'm a geek, i know!) my aunt (i think? maybe my mom) sent me these AWESOME handy manny flashcards a long time ago. they've got shapes and colors (and the colors are so cute, in the silhouette of the tools from the show!)he is getting way better at matching.

what a marathon post! next week will be shorter, i promise! click on carisa's blog to find out more and find blog's from other families in the tot school!