S is for Store and T is for Tower

Sometimes I get in the rut of giving my kids lots of seat work - coloring. worksheets, workbooks, wordfinds, etc. All of these are great avenues of learning, but I need to get them up out of their seats too...especially when Baxter is home! After he threw his pencil across the table last week, following a tracing sheet that was just too long for his THREE year old self, I remembered "Oh yeah, he's three, he (and Owen too) need to do more hands on stuff mixed in there too..."

So, a few fun things have transpired.

During letter S week (each week has a letter of the week - primarily guiding Baxter's activities, but Owen has some letter related things too) Owen had a math assignment that was working with paying for items using pennies, dimes and nickels. He loves any time we get the money out, and so I decided to include Baxter in the fun too. Owen created a Store (s is for store) for Baxter to come shopping in. He chose the items, made price tags, and organized it all. Then Baxter came shopping. Owen helped him find the right amount of money to pay for each item. It was a great exercise in team work and creativity. They each pretended well in their roles (shop keeper and customer) and worked together fairly well.





This morning began T week. I bought a box of Dixie Cups and gave the boys each a huge stack to make a Tower (t is for tower). They had a blast! Baxter made one LARGE tower, and Owen made a little town of towers. I love to see their minds at work!







Another fun thing last week was the boys enjoying their first cups of "hot" chocolate. I have been telling them that whenever it snows, we can buy hot chocolate and marshmallows to enjoy while we watch the snow or after we play in the snow. Well, it's the middle of February and I am beginning to think we will not have any snow. So we went ahead and enjoyed some after rest time one day last week. They loved it and were really fascinated by the process....especially adding the marshmallows!!