The Toy Box Years: Tot School

The Creators of the Toy Box Years

The creators of the Toy Box Years are my two beautiful daughters and wonderful, handsome soldier husband.

"Nani" (our oldest) is a 11 year old 6th grader who loves Taylor Swift, ballet, books, fashion designing and sewing. Ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and it changes daily to anything from "an artist" to "a teacher" to "a singer/dancer". Nani is also currently fighting a battle against brain cancer -- recently diagnosed in June 2016.

"Nudgie" (our youngest) is a very smiley, very happy, very giggly, very spirited 8 year old 3rd Grader who's favorite toys are anything that gives mommy an anxiety attack - ladders, stepstools, the climbing wall at the playground. Like her sister, she has a love of reading and coloring, loves gymnastics and still provides mommy lots of snuggle time!

"My Marine" is my high school sweetheart. We've been married over 20 years and met when we were 17. (You do the math....) His favorite toys are Blackhawk helicopters, the lawnmower, our steam cleaner, and microbrew beer bottles. My husband is also my hero in that he proudly serves his country as a Blackhawk crew chief (hence his favorite toy!). And need I say that there is nothing hotter than my man in uniform!

All About Me......

Once upon a time I had a career and worked in the corporate world. Once upon a time, I dreamed about leaving that all behind to follow my true calling -- being a wife and mommy.

The first part of my calling was fulfilled in 1995 when I married my Marine (now soldier) and my love. Little did I know that being a military wife would change me in so many ways and that because of that, I would have an extended family all over the world from Japan, to California, to North Carolina.

The second part of my calling took a little doing, but I finally achieved that dream in 2004 with the birth of our first child, followed 4 years later by her baby sister.

So now, when someone asks me what I do for a living - I simply smile and say proudly that I'm following my calling - I'm a mommy and a wife -- and I couldn't be HAPPIER -- I'm living in the Toy Box Years!!

(Nudgie is 27 months old) (To see what others are doing at Tot School, click on the "Tot School" above!)

We had another light week of Tot School this week. Since we were on fall break the previous week and stayed home to do lots of fun stuff, we had to get caught up with errands this past week! But we still managed to have some fun!

Nudgie went as Tinkerbell for Halloween. Didn't she just make the cutest fairy you've ever seen?!

We worked on the letter "C" this week. I found a bag of alphabet letter tiles at Michaels on clearance. I put some letter c's in a bowl and had Nudgie glue them on to a letter C worksheet. This was her first attempt at using a glue stick by herself. Not bad - but we still need some practice!

We colored more letter C worksheets using the marker board that daddy made. He drilled holes in a piece of wood and we glued the lids down into the holes. The markers pop out easily and no more missing lids! (We made two - one for each of the girls!)

We played with our shapes can. (This is our third attempt at this. Nudgie would press so hard that the lids would break!)

A favorite was this kite color matching file folder game. She played with this for quite awhile and was so proud of herself when she'd correctly match the colors.

And the beans were back for more sorting, counting and pouring activities. Nudgie surprised me when she started to count on her own. She'd put handfuls of beans into her cups, but she'd count each handful all by herself -- all the way to 10!

We pulled out the color pegs again this week too. But Nudgie wasn't as interested in matching colors as she was in seeing how high she could stack them. We did this over and over and over....and, well, you get the picture!

And finally we had fun recognizing numbers and counting using the flannel fabric numbers I made for her. (I still need to finish the rest of the numbers and work on the alphabet next!)

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Hope everyone has a great week!

8 comments:

Julia November 7, 2010 at 11:40 AM: What a great week! I love her costume, she is so adorable ♥
Stefanie November 7, 2010 at 4:58 PM: I wish I had some sewing skills. Cute numbers! She sure was an adorable fairy.
Elle Belles Bows November 7, 2010 at 6:36 PM: Great week! She was a beautiful fairy!! Kerri
Tracey M. November 7, 2010 at 8:23 PM: You are so cute - a "light week". That's a regular Tot School week for me!! It's hard to say what I like most out of all your activities because they were all so great. Especially because our little ones are so close in age. I just bought some beans last week, I want to do more sorting and pouring too. The color pegs are the best! I put that on my wish list. Oh, and I never heard of that idea with the markers - so smart!
Elizabeth November 7, 2010 at 9:36 PM: Your daughter is SO adorable!! :) I also wanted to say that the kite file folder game is a hit in my house too. Looks like you had a great week!
MaryAnne November 8, 2010 at 5:10 PM: Those stacking color pegs are really cool!

And I think Emma has that same Tinkerbell costume =)
Rachel November 9, 2010 at 3:17 PM: Looks like she had a blast! i love your bean bag numbers!
The Iowa Farmer's Wife November 9, 2010 at 9:04 PM: I LOVE the fabric numbers. I SO want to make them for my daughter, but I'm nervous. Your tot is too cute, love all her hair!