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

This past week we really got back into the swing of things! We're still working on a winter theme, but starting in February, we'll get back into a more structured curriculum of letters, numbers, and shapes.

We're still trying to decide whether or not to send Nudgie to preschool this fall, but I know that if we don't, I'll probably still be prepared to work with her here at home!

Nudgie's trays this week included:

Her piggy bank pig. She loved putting the coins in over and over and then dumping them out. Every time she'd put them in, I'd say the color of the coin and she'd repeat it after me.

Her Candyland game. Here, we also repeated the name and color of the shapes. She's got "star" and "triangle" down pretty good. Now we're working on "square" and "oval"

Her Leap Frog letter recognition toy. She had more fun pushing the button to hear the alphabet song over and over rather than listen to the sound the letters make.

We also had her sensory bin available, but she didn't play with that too much. I also put out her Melissa & Doug cookie set. We didn't play with it during the week, but she did "make cookies" for daddy on Saturday while Nani and I were at ballet class. (Daddy didn't get any pictures though!)

I did catch her playing quietly with her dolls too.

She colored and played with her princess magnet doll.

She pulled out her Cheerios book again and used the little white pom-poms to fill in the spaces.

We learned about mittens. We colored and decorated a pair of mittens. And we played a mitten match game. (For the life of me, I can't find the file where I got this from, but please know that this is not my own creation!)

We learned about snowflakes!

The snowflake printable came from Musings of Me

We ended our week playing an Alphabet Bingo game with big sister! (I downloaded the game from Teach Mama)

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Hope everyone has a great week!

9 comments:

Mrs. Whary January 23, 2011 at 9:57 AM: Looks like a super fun week!!! THanks so much for linking to me :-)
Elle Belles Bows January 23, 2011 at 11:53 AM: Great week! I forgot about the Cheerios book. I bought them for my older nephews but will need to get one for Elle! Take care, Kerri
Mommy Sarah January 23, 2011 at 5:46 PM: New follower from the Tot school link up! Cute bog! I love your school room, looks like so much fun! :)
http://musingsofmysahmlife.blogspot.com/
Tracey M. January 23, 2011 at 6:15 PM: What a great week you had! I love all the activities. We just read one of those Cheerios books at the library. What a cutie pie!
Jen @ lil Mop Top January 23, 2011 at 8:37 PM: Looks like fun! Great idea to use pom poms for the Cheerios book. I will have to try that too!
kewkew January 23, 2011 at 11:00 PM: Hopping on over from Tot School.

What a great week you had. I have never seen that Cheerios book, it looks great. You have some really neat toys for your little girls. The Leap Frog toy looks familiar and so did the story about hearing the song over and over.
We did one week of snow and snowman, now this week we are going back to our letters, Ee this week.
silly eagle books January 24, 2011 at 7:45 AM: I love the idea of using pom poms to fill in the spaces of the cheerios book--we never got very far with that one because my daughter was more interested in having a snack than playing! I'll have to remember that for my second. ;)
Patricia January 24, 2011 at 1:45 PM: I love your boxes ideas. I would love if you link up to Boxes ideas Tuesday over my blog.
Patricia January 25, 2011 at 2:52 PM: Thanks for linking up:)))) I would love if you come over again.