Valentine's Fun!

The week leading up to Valentine's Day - Daphne's Tot School theme was love and hearts. We read Guess How Much I Love You, You're Lovable to Me, and Roses are Pink Your Feet Really Stink. Much of our activities came from Over the Big Moon.

Working on one-to-one correspondance - putting one heart eraser into each heart cube.

Spooning the hearts into the ice cube tray

Working on Valentine's number puzzle

Daphne loves to do "which is different?" pages - I think she actually likes using the dry erase marker.

Valentine's Day sensory box - rice was the base and then we filled it with Valentine's goodies as well as some things for scooping.

Matching shapes puzzles

We ended our Valentine's theme with a little Valentine's party. The girls were excited to have some friends over for food, games, and goodies!!

Daphne - 3 years old

I just realized, while I blogged about Daphne's birthday party, I never actually did a birthday post. So I realize I am well over a month over due - but better late than never, right?

Statistics -

Daphne is 36 inches tall (50%) and 23 pounds (under 3%). She grew 3 inches since her 2 year old check and she gained 2 pounds. She is still tiny - but the good news is that she did actually gain some weight because between 18 months and 2 years, Daphne actually lost weight.

Daphne talks all the time. I mean all. the. time. She always has questions and/or comments about something. About 50% of the time she is saying something funny and crazy. She is really the clown of the family and she loves having people watch her.

Here are some of the funny things she has said/done recently:

Daphne, how old are you? "thixthteen"

Me: Thanks for the sticker.

Daphne: Don't say thanks.

Me: Umm, why?

Daphne: Cause it's rude.

On a warm day in January, the girls and I went to the zoo. As we were walking through River's Edge, I overheard Daphne say, "we go see aging ellie-fats" otherwise known as asian elephants.

Daphne was cutting with scissors. Me: D- You are cutting upside down. Your thumb goes up.

Daphne: I NOT care.

Daphne wasn't very happy about sharing her birthday month with me. The day before my birthday, Lucy said, "Daphne, tomorrow is mommy's birthday!" Daphne's response, "Noooooo. It MY birthday, Luthy!" Then on my birthday, she kept saying, "It my birthday next. You make cake for MY birthday. You make it today?" At bedtime she said, "NOW it my birthday."

Daphne alternates between claiming to be a big girl and the baby. Depends on the situation - if she is trying to get out of trouble, she tries to snuggle up and reminds me that she is my baby. If she wants to do something that I already told her she was too little to do, she tells me that she is a big girl.

Daphne is definitely the most outwardly loving of the three girls. She is constantly hugging everyone. She is always hugging and hanging on me. I often have to peel her off of Kevin before work because she needs, "just 1 more hug."

I think Daphne was born a ballerina. She pretty much lives in a leotard, walks on her tiptoes, and spins. She also does this little break dancing thing on the ground. She just cracks us up!!

Daphne is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She begs everyday to watch. She sings along with the theme song - and never misses a word!

Daphne is definitely a joy and a blessing to our family. She makes us laugh every single day and we can't wait to see what God has planned for her!!

Here are some pictures of Daphne from the last year - there are a bunch of pictures. I couldn't narrow them down (the quality of the pictures isn't that great - they are all from my phone. They were just too funny to pass up!!)

Daphne often picks out her own clothes - especially if we aren't going anywhere. You will notice that a theme throughout these pictures is that she doesn't care whether or not she matches.

She referred to herself as "Princess Daphne."

The middle of winter and Daphne is seen in a swim suit.

Daphne doesn't nap often, however, when she does nap, it is never in a normal position. Here she is with her hooded bath towel on her head. Don't worry - I took the towel after right after I took the picture.

Daphne wanted to help clean so I gave her a new sponge. She climbed in the tub and decided to "clean."

And here she is . . .in her clothes hamper. This is a weekly event.

I am only guessing that the sun must have been in her face.

Don't we all play with play-dough in a gold hat?

This is one of my favorites!!

Even if the leotard is 2 sizes too big - it still works for her!

Bed head - that was fun brushing through

She is a girl who gets what she needs.

Apparently she needed to be really close to the tv!

I decided to participate in Moments to Remember this week - and hope to more frequently. As a homeschool mom, it is easy to get too caught up in the to-do list (and all the things that are not working) and not take time to enjoy having the girls at home with me. Sometimes it feels like there is more fighting and whining and arguing - because we are together all the time. There are tons of great moments, too, though. The girls get to where dress-up clothes during school hours, they get to learn together, the get to help each other and encourage each other, and we get to each breakfast, lunch and dinner together almost every day! Since I have them with me more than most moms and kids - I want to remember to good things about our homeschooling years!!

The girls each have a couple of games on the I-pad that they get to play during the day if they get all of their other work done. The funny thing to me is that they like to wait for each other to finish school so they can sit together and watch each other play! I love it! Usually Daphne is there, too, but she is a little more. . . fidgety. She is usually climbing on the girls to get a better look and she wants to "help." Norah's favorite is Rocket Math, Lucy like Teach Me Kindergarten, and Daphne like Teach Me Toddler. There are a bunch of other apps they love - but these are the favorite educational ones.

Ducks, Dora, and More

36 months

Our focus last week was the /d/ sound. While I am not actually teaching Daphne letter names, I am introducing sounds. I know they basically go hand in hand, but I don't think that it is necessary to teach her the letters as a young 3. Gotta save something for later, right? When we talked about snowmen, we talked about the /s/ sound. I teach the sound while she traces a textured letter - I just rarely mention the name of the letter. Ever since - whenever Daphne sees an 's' she says, "Mom, look! Sssssss like snowman!"

I want her to learn the first letter of her name so we spent last week on D!! I didn't take very many pictures this week but here are a couple.

Playing with her water tub and ducks! She loves this activity!!

Painting with some feathers. I wasn't sure if she would be very interested in this activity, but she stuck with it for a long time!! She spent most of her time swirling the colors together.

We also read Make Way for Ducklings and Duck on a Bike (the girls LOVED this book - they thought it was hilarious!!) We sang "5 Little Ducks" and "6 Little Ducks That I Once Knew." Daphne counted little duck beads and practiced 1-to-1 correspondence by putting one duck in each cube of an ice cube tray. She has been doing some pre-writing practice mainly because she wants to. If Lucy is writing - Daphne wants to write. I am using these books (she just uses book 1) plus a few printables from here (which is why we did some Dora stuff).

We will probably spend another week on the /d/ sound after Valentine's Day. I am planning on spend 2 weeks on each sound but using 2 different themes to teach it. That is about it for Daphne this week. I am sure I am missing something, though, because we were super busy all week!

Go here for more Tot School ideas!

Snow Stuff

Norah's writing curriculum is similar to Writer's Workshop. Here she is "publishing" one of her stories.

When we finished our gingerbread man theme, we jumped right into a snow theme. I thought this would be perfect planning - January in Missouri - surely we will have snow. Umm, no. Actually, it has been 60 degrees instead. Ha!

The girls had fun anyway! We read The Snowy Day, The Jacket I Wear in the Snow, and The Mitten.

The girls played with play dough. This is the recipe I use. I love it! It doesn't dry out - it lasts forever! This time I didn't add any color - but I added sprinkles. Daphne thought it was fun!

Lucy was helping Daphne with "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow" activity. Ahh - it makes me crazy that both the girls sit in the "w" position. I correct it EVERYDAY but they still do it!

Daphne is so serious when she "writes" - I love it! Look at that perfect grip - even as a leftie! I really hope she doesn't lose it because I am now trying to fix Lucy's crazy grip. Ahh!

Daphne loves her Montessori activities that are available everyday (I change them every week). She is putting "scrunchies" on a thick dowel rod. She eventually sorted them by color, too.

Daphne also loves stringing beads right now. I love the chunky beads because she can easily grip them and the shoe strings work well too.

Lucy - working on sight word puzzles from here.

And here she is working very hard to maintain a proper grip. She is holding a quarter under her ring and pinkie fingers. If she doesn't let the quarter drop - she gets to keep it. She is doing really well - I also have her use some pencil grippers, too.