Tot School--"Animals in the Winter"

**Joshua is 41 months old**



Last week's Tot School began with some calendar-changing.

Exit January...enter February! Can you even believe it?!

Josh loves to help change the calendar. He likes to work with the blue sticky tac. Can you blame him?



We display the months on the wall using Velcro.

It's a great way to get the months back onto the wall straight...and it keeps them from falling off of the wall.



Josh also took a little time out of his schedule to scrub some marker off of the table with a Magic Eraser.

The funny thing about this picture is what he was saying as he was scrubbing..."I feel like the Sham Wow dude!"

We love Sham Wow advertisements. :)



For quite awhile now, we've been practicing the alphabet when we wash our hands after using the bathroom. This has worked pretty well...except for the whole "L, M, N, O, P" thing. I'm sure your understand. It all ends up sounding a bit like "MLMOMP."

So, we added a ball. Everytime we would catch the ball, we would say the next letter. It took a little while to get smooth, but once we did, it worked beautifully. Josh was forced to slow down during the middle of the song. "MLMOP" is now beginning to sound more like "L, M, N, O, P."

We even got up to the number 13 before he started skip-counting randomly.

At some point during our game of catch, Joshua decided that he needed to wear some protective gear.

I think it was because he would throw it so hard at me that it would bounce off my head and hit him in the head.




After talking about groundhogs and reading books about other animals that hibernate, Joshua tried hibernating himself.



And so did William!



Have you ever tried M&M counting?
Mmmmmm...




Carrie liked adding a little challenge to her counting.
How many times can I throw an M&M into the air and catch it in my mouth?



Joshua liked the more traditional method of counting and eating M&M's.
Hand to mouth.



Last weekend, Carrie and William did some baking for a church bake sale.
As they were preparing their goodies, Joshua asked me, "What do I get to make, Mommy?"

:( I hadn't thought that he might want to make something too.

So, this week, he decided to make some Rice Krispie Treats for his Wednesday night class. He was excited about making something to share. He said, "I think I will take these to my 'church kids' and they will be so happy!"

I hear that he was pretty proud of his Rice Krispie Treats when it came time to share them in class.



And...you and I both know that one of the best parts of baking a treat is cleaning it up!



My original plan was to have Joshua help me bake Groundhog Day cupcakes and take them to church to share. They're so cute! You decorate Nutter Butters to look like groundhogs and then push them halfway into a frosted cupcake.

I started having second thoughts about this after I bought the Nutter Butters...

Salmonella?
Peanut allergies?
Too messy for 2-4 year-olds?

I decided that we would just decorate some Nutter Butters at home instead.

As you can see, ours are a little more simple than the ones that I linked to above.



I think Joshua had fun decorating his groundhog.
Little squeezy frosting tubes are wonderful!



All right.

Confession.

Weekly themes are not working for me.
I'm switching to monthly themes beginning in March.

The rest of February is hopefully going to be devoted to love and finishing up the projects that are lying around undone.

Hopefully.