Week 5: Books 2015 Plan and How it Went

*All of the daily ideas I’m using come from Pinterest and you can find them on my Pinterest Boards.  The weekly ideas are my own and can also be found on my Pinterest Boards.* P.s. If you are wondering why certain words are bolded certain day, it’s because each day of the week that is our daily theme that relates to our weekly theme.  I hope that makes sense. :)

Books

Monday: We’re planning to go to the library for the half hour reading, playing learning activity.  We’ll also pick up our books while there for the week if they have come in.  I think all, but one will be there.  The ones I have reserved are all on Pinterest.  The Three Dinosaurs (135 Book Recommendations for your Toddler), I’ll Love You Forever, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Goldilocks and Three Bears by Buehner (This one is not listed on Pinterest, but since we’re doing an activity with this book later in the week, I thought we should read it as well).

 It doesn't have the porridge, but I figure we can use bowls and spoons and pretend.

How it Went:

The library went better this week.  He had fun!  He couldn’t sit still for the book reading parts, but danced to all the songs.  He’s starting to better understand how to act around other kids and how to stay put. :)  We learned about Space!  They had some fun songs about space that I have copies for Space week. :)  We checked out the books mentioned above.  I’m saving Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Are you My Mother?, and A Very Hungry Caterpillar for (the last 2 I found!) for the day when we do the activities regarding them.  I read him the books ABC, Clip-Clop, and Love You Forever.  He liked the ABC book, but the other two weren’t quite entertaining enough for him.  It could have been that it was nap time.  We’ll try Three Little Dinosaurs later.

Tuesday:  We didn’t sing We’re going on a Bear Hunt last week, so we’ll sing it this week.  Since last week was music week and we have The Little Drummer book still, we’ll probably just use that song/book as well.  Lijah loves to look at the pictures while I sing it to him.  Whoever came up with that idea is brilliant (Pictures and a song with the words)!

How it Went:

We didn’t do anything because I had surgery.  I’m getting an implant and my post failed due to infection.  Since I’m pregnant we’ll try the post again later.

Wednesday:  So I’m thinking I’m going to copy the idea of reading a book and making a craft, but just use a book we already have instead of the specific ones she mentioned.  My little guy might have a hard time with most of those art projects, so we’ll do something a little more basic maybe a coloring page. I’m planning to read one of our horse or farm books and let him color a pic of a horse.  We’ve found tons of horse color pages by just typing in free horse coloring pages in Google.

How it Went:

We did the coloring page as well as read/sang The Little Drummer Boy.  Hopefully tomorrow we’ll sing We’re going on a bear hunt.  We haven’t been as active with our learning system because we’ve had cousins over and my little guy just wants to play with his cousins. :)  We all did the coloring page today!  All the kids loved it and got creative with how to color and some add-ons!  We even had a unicorn/pegicorn.

Thursday:  If I have the book Are you my Mother, I found a fabulous printable book, that’s what we’ll use.  So, we’ll make a book as our activity.  Another time I would love to try the book printables from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  The book printable is from the Pin Level One Toddlers and Preschoolers.  The matching one I like also and might print that out as well because it’s real animals.

How it Went:  

I highly suggest that you do not print it at a FedEx place if you decide to print the book.  It was EXPENSIVE!  I printed 19 pgs and it was $25!  Another place that for some reason wasn’t able to print it for me, it was 66 cents a page and it was $1.24 a page and the FedEx place.  We printed Are You my Mother.

Friday: I think if I can find my Very Hungry Caterpillar book then that’s the sensory bin we’ll do.  

How it Went: 

Yah, we didn’t do the sensory bin.  This week was thrown off because we just really like our cousins and all we wanted to do was play with them instead of learn.  Although we do learn by play.  I think he learned some important social lessons this week, just not the stuff we planned.  Well, we still have Saturday.

Saturday:  I like the fruit leather books, but I think we’ll do a sandwich book instead for our food.

How it Went:  
Again, we struggled, we got a lot of things done, but not learning about books.  I’m planning to implement some of these awesome activities next week.  I did a lot of preparation for them.  I printed out the Are You My Mother? booklet and some coloring pages etc.  My husband also fed him all 3 meals, so we didn’t get to do our food sandwich, maybe tomorrow.

Week 4: Music Plan and How it Went

*All of the daily ideas I’m using come from Pinterest and you can find them on my Pinterest Boards.  The weekly ideas are my own and can also be found on my Pinterest Boards.* P.s. If you are wondering why certain words are bolded certain day, it’s because each day of the week that is our daily theme that relates to our weekly theme.  I hope that makes sense. :)

Music

*We may sing a few songs I grew up singing this week like “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” “Down By the Bay,” and “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar.”

Monday:  We’re planning to go to the library and stay for the hour long fun learning session they have.  We’re also going to pick up some books we found on Pinterest.  They are called Tuba Lessons by T.C. Barlett, The Little Drummer Boy, and I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello.  You can find these books and more books about music on my Pinterest Board titled Week 4: Music 2015.

How it Went:

We actually made it to the library and got all of our books for the week the day we planned too!  The library learning session is only a half an hour.  We learned about cats today.  I think the more often I bring him the more comfortable he’ll become.  He just kept kind of staring around, not really sure what to do.  He did get involved a couple times though.

We also read all of the books we got from the library today.  We also added a Valentine’s Day book since it’s coming up.  Tuba lessons is just pictures other than the first and last page.  My son liked it.  I Know a Shy Fellow… was a little long for my little guy to pay attention to.  He got a little bored with The Little Drummer Boy also.  That was my favorite one though.  You can sing it or say it.  The Valentine’s book was too long for him also, but I abbreviated it.  We’ll try reading them again when it isn’t so close to bedtime.  Maybe his attention span will be longer.

Tuesday: We will listen to a couple different types of music, so he can hear the difference.  I’m thinking, maybe 4, so we don’t over do it.  Probably Rock (Oldies), Country, Classic, Pop, and we may throw in some church songs as well.  

How it Went:

We listened to all 4 of the types of music mentioned above.  We did 3 to 4 songs of each and didn’t listen to the entire song.  It was more to give him a taste of what types of music are available.  He got a little bored with it, but was dancing to some also.  For the classical music, we used his munchin toy called Mozart Magic Cube.  I bought it of a facebook yard sale site.  That’s also what we will use on Thursday for Musical Hide and Seek.  We also may play a little bit of Rock Band tonight, so he gets more of a taste of playing instruments.  We didn’t end up playing, he was a little grumpy from not getting a long enough nap.

Wednesday:  I think we’ll make the pinterest idea of maracas with an Easter egg, if I can find one.  Currently mine are at my sister’s house in storage, but that sounds like a easy and fun craft idea.

 Our "maraca" with Sprinkles

How it Went:

So, we didn’t do this Wednesday.  I was gone all day and then we didn’t have much time.  We did this Friday, so I’ll talk about it then.

Thursday:  We’re going to play Musical Hide and Go Seek. My son loves the activity Hide and Seek, so we’ll see how he does with this version.  This idea is found on Four Music Games for Toddlers and Preschoolers.  If you have a toy that makes music, hide it and then the kid(s) try to find it before the music stops.  I have a square music toy that plays many different classical music instruments.  That’s what we’re going to use.  I’ll post a picture at the end of this next week.  We also may use the sensory music pin or adapt it from this same pin.

 In the Cupboard was too hard to find

This is the name and brand if you are interested in this toy

How it Went:

We didn’t play this for very long, but he did like.  He didn’t like as much when I made it a little harder.  The only issue we had was that the music wouldn’t stay on long enough for him to find it if I hid it well.  He still enjoyed it and would look for it.  He would dance on his way to finding the musical toy. :)  We also played Rock Band last night.  My little guy had a fun time listening and dancing!  He is too young to participate, but was still able to enjoy through dance!

Friday:  I don’t have tickets to go to an orchestra or concert of any sort, so field trip is out for the week.  We will be doing a sensory bin.  I will use the idea mentioned on Thursday or the pin called sound basket.  I’m leaning towards the sound basket because it’s easier to put together and seems more age appropriate for my little guy.

Sound Sensory Bin with tools for music making

Sound Sensory Bin from a different angle

How it Went:

He loved the “maraca” we made.  I couldn’t get an egg because they were packed and not even where we live.  My mom had some, but they were also buried under all of the our stuff.  So, we used breast milk storage bottles.  I put sprinkles inside and he just loved shaking it!  Maybe we’ll use eggs in April for an Easter activity.

He also really liked the sound basket. I showed him how to do it first instead of letting him figure it out.  I probably should have let him, but it was fun!  I also put a bouncy ball that lights up in the basket for an added sensory experience.

Saturday:  I found a ton of good food ideas that you can look at on my board Music Weekly Theme Ideas 2015, but we choose veggies in the shape of a music note because that was the easiest gluten free one.  I have thought about using carrots, celery, and grapes to make music notes.  That’s probably what we’ll do, I’ll post pics.

My imperfect music notes :)

How it Went: It was fine, quick and easy.  I didn’t try to be too intense and they don’t look perfect, but you get the general idea. 

This week in general went really well.  He had fun and learned a lot.  He loved the book Little Drummer Boy the best out of the three music books we got.  He also liked Tuba Lessons.  When he's a little older, I want to get books with just pictures where he can tell me the story of what he thinks is happening.  I think we'll have to wait until is language skills are a little better though.

Week 3: Horses Plan and How It Went

*All of the daily ideas I’m using come from Pinterest and you can find them on my Pinterest Boards.  The weekly ideas are my own and can also be found on my Pinterest Boards.* P.s. If you are wondering why certain words are bolded certain day, it’s because each day of the week that is our daily theme that relates to our weekly theme.  I hope that makes sense. :)

So I’ve been think about changing up my daily schedule.  I haven’t decided how, but after finding a bazillion fun ideas for sensory, I’m going to start adding sensory to each week or trying to at least.  Just a side note.

Horses

Monday:  I’m planning to take Lijah to the library Monday to go the the 1hr class they have in the Weber County Libraries in Utah.  They usually focus on a letter and then a concept, ie. C is the letter and they learn about colors.  This is just another way you could use for your weekly themes.  For us, this wouldn’t work, but it may for some of you if you can find out all the weekly themes of your library.  I don’t know if ours gives out the information.  Anyway, while there, I plan to pick up some books about horses which I plan to reserve today, so hopefully they’ll be there by Monday.  The books I’ve reserved are Horseplay!, Clip-Clop, and Horses: Trotting! Prancing! Racing!

How it Went:

So this week our books were ready to pick up on Monday, but unfortunately we weren’t ready.  My son has the stomach bug and is just getting over it today (Tuesday), so we haven’t read the books or picked them up, hopefully Wednesday!  We had to improvise since he’s been sick.  My mom downloaded a horse petting game that my son really liked.  We also watched his favorite horse show Spirit.  If you have children that love horses, I highly recommend it!  I like it and I’m not obsessed with horses like my son.  Sometimes plans have to adapt due to sickness, etc.  Story of the life of any mother. :)

Tuesday:  I found 2 songs that I like on my Horses Weekly Planning Ideas that I will add to my Week 3:  Horses Board.  One is on the pin 3 knee bopping rhymes for babies about ponies and is to the tune April Showers from Disney’s Bambi.   I don’t know about you, but I needed a quick refreshers course of this song.  I just looked it up on Youtube.  The other song I liked is from the pin Wild West/Rodeo Preschool Theme sung to I’m a Little Tea Pot.  You can also do the other idea I’ll add on here, She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain.  If we get ambitious, we’ll do 3 songs.  He likes me to sing them at least 3 times each usually, so we’ll see how we feel.

How it Went:

We definitely we’re not feeling ambitious since he’s still getting over his sickness.  I sang both of the songs to him 3 times, but he is grumpy from lack of food and normal amounts of liquid (who wouldn’t be, right?), so he didn’t love them.  I’ll try again with them later  this week and we’ll see if he likes them.  

Wednesday:  Our plan is to do the art activity horse mask coloring page.  Lately Lijah has loved wearing this little cowboy hat that we have, so I think he’ll like the mask.  If not, when he’s older and if he still likes horses, I think he’ll like it.  I think I’ll color one too that I can have my mom laminate so it will stay nice and he and his future siblings can play with.  We’ll probably at it to our dress up box.

How it Went:  

We did color the mask at like 7:30pm and my little guy’s bedtime is 8, so we haven’t yet worn or played with the mask.  I also haven’t colored the one that we’ll probably laminate and put in dress-ups.  I anticipated how long moving would take, but not moving in, not to mention the sickness we dealt with.  In other words, we’ll get to it eventually, I don’t feel as pressed for time since he’ll still love horses for a while.  At least I hope so.

Thursday:  At our house, we have many horses due to my son’s obsession. So this is the activity we chose.  One in particular needs cleaning, so we are going to cleaning that horse and talk about all the work it takes to up keep a horse.  I took an equestrian class in college and loved it, but how much work they are definitely discouraged me from wanting them for myself.  This pin is called Montessori Monday: Montessori inspired farm unit.

How it Went:

We didn’t do this activity, I had a doctors appointment that kind of threw a wrench in our day, so we’re planning to wash the horse Friday as well as do the field trip.

Friday: This is the day we can go on field trips, so if we find neighbors in our new neighborhood that have horses and will let us come see them, that’s what we’ll do (we are moving tomorrow).  If that doesn’t work out, Friday is going to be either field trip or sensory day.  I found so many awesome pins on sensory activities.  I’m getting super excited to make a sensory bin, basket/box, and my favorite way to sensory play so far is in ziplock bag with duct tape and painting tape!  Anyway, so our sensory activity if we can’t field trip will be from the pin Tot School for Twos Farm Fun: Horseplay.  It’s that picture that I’m planning to do!  I think my little guy will really like it!  I just need to go buy a sensory bin.  I have some I could use, but I want it to be shallow and sturdy.  p.s. The reason I’m planning this now instead of tomorrow is because we’re moving tomorrow and I know I won’t have time.

How it Went:

We washed his horse as a sensory idea. He didn’t do a lot of washing of the horse.  We just washed the horse in his high chair with a little water, a tiny bit of liquid soap, and a washcloth.  He loved washing his tray, playing with the water, and making bubbles with the soap.  He learned about cleaning plus was able to play.  It could probably have kept him busy for 15 minutes to a half hour if you are looking for a time occupier while making dinner.  We also talked about washing the horse’s body parts like we do when we wash his body.  I was planning to use a toothbrush, but since we moved, I’m not sure where everything thing is, so we didn’t end up using a toothbrush and I don’t think he was ready for that fine of motor skills yet.  It worked out.

Saturday:  The food I’m planning to give him is simple and fun!  I’m going to do carrots and apples (from the pin with those pics) and then do the rice crispy treats(from the pin with that pic).  We may not do the licorice.  I’m not sure if my son can have it with his allergies, we’ll have to see!  This is also a learning day OR a learning day, so I may show him the pin with all the pictures of different kinds of horses.

How it Went:

So we didn’t end up doing our food activity.  Although he did eat apples and a rice crispy treat.  I just didn’t explain it.  We have read 2 of the books we reserved for horse week, the other is still on hold.  My son and I really liked Horses Trotting! Prancing! Racing!  The illustrations are cute too!  We didn’t really like Horseplay!  We’ll see if we like the other one when we finally get it.

Overall, this week was a little bit of failure between moving and sickness, we didn’t do as much as I would have liked.  Good think there is always next year.  Unless of course he’s no longer into horses.

Week 2: Colors and Shapes Plan and How it Went

Keep in mind, that all of these ideas are on this same Pinterest Board.  Every activity, song, book, food, I've found on Pinterest and pinned them to this same Board.  All Sources are from Pinterest.  The only thing I came up with on my own (generally) are Field trip ideas  and The weekly or monthly plans, but the everyday ideas are from Pinterest. Again, *All of the daily ideas I’m using come from Pinterest and you can find them on my Pinterest Boards.  The weekly ideas are my own and can also be found on my Pinterest Boards.*

Since my little one is only 19 months, I'm trying to make this uncomplicated and basic.  SO, instead of following our daily themes (Mon- library/books/reading, Tues-Music/Dancing, Wed-Art, Thurs-Games and Activities, Fri-Field trip or learning, and Sat-Food), we're going to follow it a bit more loosely.  I've decided to do one shape and one color each day. I'm only choosing 6 colors and 6 shapes.  This may be ambition since I don't know how many colors or shapes he recognizes.  We'll go over the other colors and maybe other basic shapes once we get these ones down.  We will be singing individual songs for each color each day.

Monday- Red and Heart We don't have the books yet, but they are on hold.  The three books I chose are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? By Eric Carle, Shape by Shape written by Suse MacDonald, So Many Circles, So Many Squares.  I'm not sure who that is written by but it's on the same Pinterest Board as this one.  I will also use color books I already have.

How it Went:

We read two books, one just about colors and the other one was colors and shapes.  They were just books I already had.  One is called Slide and Seek Colors made by Priddy Books.  He loves this book and I do too!  The other book is okay, not my favorite but since our books aren’t at the library we reserved them at quite yet, it works for now.  It’s called Colors & Shapes (Baby’s First Library) made by YoYo Books.  I don’t love it because I think it’s kind of confusing have a colored page and trying to teach the colored object (a different color) in the middle of the page.  Also , the shapes are a little confusing, like glasses.  They have round parts, but not just round parts and it’s cartoon drawing.  Anyway, it works, but just not as clear as it could be.

Then we talked about red specifically and sang the song.  I like the song, not because of the words, but because it’s to a tune I can remember.  We sang it several times and he liked it.  I then showed the heart shape.  I am emphasing colors more than shapes for now because I feel like it’s more developmentally appropriate for him right now.  I’m not saying that all 18 month olds aren’t capable to understand shapes, but I’ve never really talked about or focused on them a lot and I have more with colors.  Plus I don’t feel like heart is a necessary shape to learn yet, it just went well with red. :)

Tuesday- Orange and Rectangle  We are going to sing songs about shapes today.  There is one that has several verses about shapes.

How it Went:

So I added the videos of the music we listened to about colors and shapes.  He loved both of the songs and we listened to them each at least 3 times.  Repetition for children is key to learning and remembering (for adults too! :))  We also tried to sing the orange song to the tune of 10 Little Indians, but maybe I just didn’t look up the right version to 10 Little Indians, but I couldn’t figure it out.  So that didn’t work out for us.  We’re going to get all of our library books today, so we’ll go over orange a little bit more today.  We also stopped by All a Dollar to get some supplies for this week.  I found little containers in the shape of a square, circle, rectangle, and triangle. So we’re using them for learning this week also!  It was 1 dollar for all 4, they’re just little, but helpful.  He tries to say the names of the colors and shapes.  We’ll see over the week if he learns them.  :)

Wednesday- Yellow and Circle  We are going to use a paper towel or toilet paper roll to paint circles.  Another thing I found that would be fun is to use other "stencils" is how she put it to make the same shape.  Like lids to juice or milk and whatever circle type thing you can find around your house that you don't care if it gets painted.  I'm combining two ideas here.

How it Went:

We ended up just using the toilet paper roll which was still a little complicated for little guy.  He didn’t understand not to squish it.  After making a few circles, he started finger painting.  I was worried he might try to put it in his mouth since the last time we painted, it was edible.  We had no issues with that. Also, it wasn’t a big mess. we used the paint lid to get the paint and wasted less paint that way.  the paint was from All a Dollar.  We only used yellow since today was about learning yellow.  Also just the circle, not the other shapes. So far this week he has tried to say the names of colors and shapes much better than usual.  We’re excited about that improvement.  We also read the books that we got from the library.  Lijah loves the Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? book because it has a blue horse.  I love because at the end of the book, you can ask your child to point to the colors.  It helps you to know how much they know. :)  Lijah got a little bored with the So Many Circles, So Many Squares.  I think it was my fault though.  We’ll try it again.  He also likes the Shape by Shape book.  It helps to identify shapes and it’s fun because it is a dinosaur and Lijah loves dinosaurs.  Lastly, we introduced the circle box today.  I’ll take some pictures so you can see and understand better what I’m talking about.  He loves to take the lids off and on.  I think he understands circles better than squares.  Today after we were talking about circles, he said ball triumphantly like he understood that a ball is a circle or round.

Thursday- Green and Square  Our plan is (if I can find enough wipe lids), to do a lift and find of shapes and colors.  This will take a little more prep, but I think in the long run it will be worth it.  I'll stick with the daily themes.  In other words a red heart, a green square, etc.

How it Went:

We actually switched Rectangle and Square accidently, so today we are doing green and rectangle.  We also forgot to sing our yellow song yesterday, so we sang it today along with our green song.  We also read the 3 library books again at least once.  He still likes the Brown Bear one best because of the blue horse, but I think it’s a little overwhelming for him to learn all of those colors at once.  I think next week after we move, we’ll find some bottles to fill with water and put colored objects in, but only one color at a time or do 6 color sensory bags to help him learn colors.  I honestly thought colors would be easier than shapes.  I really like the dinosaur book Shape by Shape, it’s helped him to identify a few shapes at least.  When we do colors, we don’t get any where.  We also aren’t doing today’s planned activity.  We did an informal colors hunt in our front room, we just looked for each of the 6 colors we’re learning about this week.  He still doesn’t know them, but I helped him identify some.

Friday- Blue and Diamond I'm planning to do Spray Snow, but that will depend on if I can find the Pin for this activity and if we still have snow by then.  I will also have to buy the bottles to put them in, but I can just buy them at All a Dollar I believe and need to go there anyway.  That's our field trip, going outside. :)

How it Went:  So instead of diamond we decided to do blue and triangle.  The reason being, I only have the triangle left of the shape containers we have and since we are moving tomorrow, I need to pack it tomorrow.  So we did do the spray snow idea.  Unforunately I packed all my food coloring stuff, not to mention the container I would have used to put the “snow” in.  I put “snow” because it was really more ice than snow.  Also since it was ice, we got some grass and other fun stuff inside it.  There were a few hiccups and I definitely want to try this again next year or maybe later when there is fresh snow.  Another hiccup, I only had a spray bottle (all of which will be pictures later and you could totally call it a pin fail due to moving circumstances, haha!).  For an older child that wouldn’t be a problem, but my little guy doesn’t know how to do that.  We used orange juice since we had no food coloring.  I wouldn’t recommend it.  On the snow, it looks yellow and we wanted to do blue because that’s what we are studying today.  Oh well.  On the upside, he had fun anyway and he also knows a color!  Only blue, but that is progress! :)

Saturday- Purple and Triangle  We're going to rainbow fruit skewers! :)  I'm hoping this will actually happen since we are moving that day.  Otherwise, we may do it next week or I'll just point out the colors of the things he eats normally to keep it simple and not stress.

That's the plan!  You can either do it with me this week or do it the following week and learn from mistakes.  Really you can do whatever whenever you want, but I do hope you find this helpful some how!

How it Went:  I didn’t have time to get all the beautiful fruits for fruit skewer, so I just told me the colors of the foods he ate at each meal.  He also can recognize a diamond because of the book Shape by Shape, but we didn’t sing the purple song.  We may do it next week.  We hardly focused at all on colors and shapes since we moved.  My advice is:  If you really want you toddler to learn something, especially if it is important to you, don’t choose to do it on a CRAZY BUSY week.  I think we’ll focus on colors and shapes again later, another week.  I’m not sure when yet.

Week 1:Body Parts Plan and How it Went

Week 1: Body Parts

Mon: Library, Books, and Learning

We couldn’t go to the library because we would be packing all day, so we went to the library on Saturday.  I learned it’s better to search for 2-3 books you want and reserve them then to try to look through them to see which would be good.  We read the 2 books we had help finding.  Lijah loves From Head to Toe by Eric Carle.  The other one we got is My Baby Brother Has Ten Tiny Toes by Laura Leuck.  I liked the illustrations better than the other one, but changed baby brother to baby sister.  The pages have too many words for his 19 month attention span.

Tues: Music/Dance

We sang 3 songs that have to do with body parts.  Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes was one.  The other two I have on pinterest.  One is to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb.  It goes like this, “Lijah has a little nose, little nose, little nose.  Lijah has a little nose, it’s oh so nice to tickle.”  Then you move on to another body part. The picture is a mom’s finger, touching a babies nose.  The other one is a picture of jungle animals and it’s a song for the bath and says that on the pic.  The tune is at the bottom and not a familiar one, so unless I sing it a whole lot, I’ll need to keep looking it up.  It was fun though, but would have been better if I could remember the tune and words.  I think I’ll write the words on here…

Down in the jungle where nobody goes,

There’s a big fat elephant washing his toes,

With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,

That’s the way he washes his toes!

*

(chorus)

With a rub,  dub, rub-a dub-a-rub-a-dub,

Rub,  dub, rub-a-dub-a-rub-a-dub,

Rub,  dub, rub-a-dub-a-rub-a-dub,

That’s the way he washes his toes!

*

Down in the jungle where there’s nobody there,

There’s a great big lion washing his hair,

With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,

That’s the way he washes his hair!

(repeat chorus)

Down in the jungle, if you look in the trees,

There’s a cheeky monkey washing his knees,

With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,

That’s the way he washes his knees!

(repeat chorus)

Down in the jungle if you care to check,

There’s a very tall giraffe washing his neck,

With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,

That’s the way he washes his neck!

(repeat chorus)

Down at the river, if you look underneath,

There’s a great big crocodile brushing his teeth,

With a rub-a-dub here, and a rub-a-dub there,

That’s the way he brushes his teeth!

Wed: Art/Crafts/Coloring

We colored a couple pictures of a book I printed of body parts.  We didn’t finish, he doesn’t love coloring quite yet.  He likes it, but for short spurts and maybe 2 pics at most.  The pic to find a copy on Pinterest is a chubby baby hand and arm with the hand circled.  It’s a cartoon.  I did make a copy already though for our little girl!  We might finish it tomorrow or Friday or Saturday, we’ll see.

Thurs: Games/Activities

We were going to do a ziplock bag book that I found on Pinterest.  The pic to find it again looks just like that.  It even says, “make a book out of ziplock bags.”  I forgot to take and print pics of Lijah’s body parts, so we are going to do Head Shoulders Knees and Toes art activity on Pinterest.  It’s a color and then I’ll cut it type thing.  Just kidding the ziplock bag was going to be Friday.  I think the Head, Shoulders, Knees, activity we’ll save for Friday since we have a simple activity for tomorrow and it’s another packing day.  It’s called Body Race (also from Pinterest, but I’m not going to look it up, it’s pretty self-explanatory).  I’ll say to Lijah, Run to me and Touch my Knee (substitute whichever other body part).  Then give him a sticker and start over at the base. He really enjoyed this for about 5 minutes and then was done.  Something else I learned is you can do the same things over and over in short spurts and they have fun with it.

Fri: Fieldtrip/Learning

So as I mentioned earlier, no ziplock bags.  We’ll probably color the body and cut it up.  Cartoon body with dotted line twice to separate head, shoulders, knees, and toes.  That’s what we did and he loved it.  He starting to really like coloring in short spurts and wants to do it several times a day.

Sat: I’m going to make him a sandwich face. He liked it and I pointed everything out to him before I gave it to him to eat. :)

So that was our week! It went really well and was really simple so far.  Just printing and going to the library we’re prep.  Well and looking over the lesson a little for spiritual.  We keep singing the songs and reading the books throughout the week.  He has gotten better about identifying body parts and learned where his shoulders are.  Knees and Hips are still hard, but he’s got his head down pretty much perfect! :)  I think I’ll still work with him on body parts, just not so exclusively like this week.  It also seems like his language skills are improving immensely this week and I want to think it’s because of all of our time and work! ;)

*Things we didn’t do that I wanted to/planned to do*

Ziplock Bag Books:  Get as many pgs as I want and put two back to back.  Put the pics on scrapbook paper and print labels, ie. Foot.  Tape pgs together with double sided tape and then tape with duct tape (could staple for extra protection) or get a piece of fabric to sew together.  Then I can use it for body parts book or switch it out  as many times as I want.  IF I’m feeling really dedicated I could mod podge a board book with our pics and words.