Tot School--G Week

Isaiah is almost 40 months old

For "G Week" we enjoyed games, gangs, gargantuous amounts of rain, and lots more, but here are some pictures from the week:

Well, actually first, our Bible verse and Bible story:

G is for God (of course!)--Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

G is for Gideon

We read about Gideon in our giant family Bible (ok, not really that big, but to Isaiah it is!) and in his Russian Children's Bible (again good practice for mama). And since mama also had 3 grueling language lessons this week, Julia came to take great care of Isaiah, and she was able to read to him about Gideon without the language limitations, so he heard it correctly in both languages. And incidentally, when I returned home from my lesson one day, Isaiah was only speaking in Russian! He did a great job, too!

I had hoped to do some crafts with the Bible story this week, but 3 lessons rather did me in!

Gang

But the peaceful kind! Tuesday Isaiah and I enjoyed hanging out with Oksana and Slava (Оксана и Слава, for those of you interested in the Russian spelling). This was fun for the mamas and the boys. We were able to take a walk in the glaring sunlight (the only day we had sun this week).

Green grass growing in the ground

On the way home from Oksana and Slava's we stopped off at our park. I had forgotten how gorgeous the color green can be! We gazed at the green trees and grass with gratitude to God for bringing spring at last!

And what could be holding Isaiah's attention so well? A big machine digging in the ground, of course! He watched this for about 20 minutes with occasional smiles flashed at me.

Grandparents glued under glass

Living so far away we take every advantage to make sure that Isaiah knows his family; praise God for Skype! But I thought it would be fun to add to our collection of family pictures, so I printed out larger copies of pictures of his grandparents. First we glued them onto brightly colored pieces of paper. For the first time I let him use the glue all by himself, and he did great! He didn't want to stop!

Then I cut the paper so that a small frame was still around the picture. For glass we used something akin to contact paper, but it was a little thinner and a little more difficult to work with than what I had been used to in the States. But it worked. To work on fine motor skills, I cut a small piece for Isaiah to try to peel apart the sticky side from the backing; here's his reaction: I don't think he's a fan. :)

He did however enjoy rubbing down the "glass" to try to make it smooth over his grandparents faces.

Then he loved on them with hugs and kisses. And now he kisses them goodnight every night.

Garage

We don't own a car here, so we don't have a garage, but Isaiah does! He got this little set for Christmas, but most of the smaller cars that came with it have broken. It's supposed to shoot cars out really fast, but Isaiah enjoyed playing with it like this:

The rest of the activities/songs/foods don't have pictures, because I was usually really involved in them and couldn't take pictures.

Gravity

We dropped his animals into different containers, and they always fell. Gravity is pretty predictable that way.

Grapes

Isaiah LOVES grapes and can even say the word fairly well.

Guitar

Isaiah also LOVES the guitar. Every day when we have family worship, Daddy lets Isaiah strum the guitar after each song we sing. He even tries to use the pick now! I do hope to get a picture of this, but usually he's in my lap for family worship, and then I forget later.

We sang lots and lots this week, but here are the songs that are G-ish: God is so Good; My God is so Big; No More My God; (sensing a theme?); The Green Grass Grew All Around; Great is Thy Faithfulness; The Graham Cracker Song; and I think there were some more, but that's all I can remember for now.

We sadly did not get to read very much this week beyond the Bible story. And we don't have very many G related books anyway.

We are jumping to J next week, since we recently did H and I. See you then!

For more Tot School fun, don't forget to check out 1+1+1=1.

Tot School--F Activities

This week F is for FINALLY! I finally got this post done, and in all honesty, we finally did some Tot School!

So here's some stuff that we did...

Bible Verse:

Proverbs 18:24b There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Bible Story:

Flood--we played a lot with his ark and his animals, but you've seen pictures of that already, and I actually didn't take any new ones, so you'll just have to trust me on that one. And during baths we talked about all the water that there must have been during the flood, and Isaiah tried to get me wet.

F is also for...

Fun with Friends

Isaiah's friend Lydia celebrated her 3rd birthday. I don't think Isaiah could have had any more fun than he did on this day, playing with the other little people. And Lydia's daddy was so nice to help him really participate in the games as well! We love our friends!

Face

I don't have a picture, but Isaiah and I got to make a face at the birthday party, too. It was a really fun craft. One of the moms had cut out different facial features for the kids to choose from and make different faces.

And sadly, F is also for fever, which is what Isaiah had several days this week, another reason for the delayed post, and really not that many activities. Thankfully F does NOT stand for fever seizures! We are praising God that it seems like Isaiah might be outgrowing those really terrible things!

Family

I told you to expect this one, didn't I? Only it didn't quite play out the way that I had in mind, but that's ok. Since Isaiah was sick we had some special family time. His grandparents don't often get to spoil him with fun, fanciful, frolicking toys (just had to get some more F's in here somehow, because we really did use them a lot!), but thanks to financial freedom, this week he got a special treat from his faithfully fond grandparents in forever hot Louisiana, his very own computer!

Flower

And since my favorite flower is a daisy, I found a print out of a stencil to make one, and we did.

Fine Motor Skills

We work on fine motor skills all the time, but this week Isaiah showed some fabulous progress! He taught himself how to unscrew a bottle cap. We figured out that he could do this when we found Zicam powder all over him and a good bit of the kitchen. Now we know not to give him a bottle unless it's ok for him to open it or it's childproof!

He's almost got the knack of fitting the cap back onto the bottle, too. But don't you just love this face!

We also sang: Five Fat Freckled Frogs, This is my Father's World, and some other songs that I can't remember, as usual.

We don't have that many F books, but we did enjoy Beatrix Potter's book about Mr. Jeremy Fisher. I've also started reading The Adventures of Frog and Toad every time Isaiah takes a bath.

He is also doing a fantastic job learning his letter sounds. We've been watching the LeapFrog Letter Factory, and he gets really into it now. It's so much fun to hear him repeat the sounds!

Don't forget to check the other Tot Schools at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School--E Week

Isaiah is 39 months

This week was a little different, but I don't really know why. I don't have many pictures, but we did do some other activities, so words will just have to suffice.

Unfortunately I didn't do that well with a Bible verse for this week. I just had a hard time choosing one, and then I didn't talk about any of them very much with Isaiah.

Bible Story: Elijah

We enjoyed reading from his Russian children's Bibles about Elijah. We read about Elijah's faithfulness to God when lots of other people were not faithful, and we read about the altar that shouldn't have burned, but God made it burn!

E is for

Elephant

I found this elephant mask online, but have since lost the web address. It was something about Go, Diego, Go!, but I don't really know what that is, since it's not on Russian television. :)

Isaiah wasn't too thrilled with this thing on his face.

So we pulled out his elephant foam puzzle square from his really awesome foam mat from Aunt Emily, Uncle Rich and Luke. He seemed to enjoy taking all the pieces out, but didn't really care about putting them back.

Our friend Deanna also came over for supper one night, and she brought Isaiah a really cute stuffed elephant because she knew we were working on E, but I didn't get a picture of them together like I should have!

Aunt Emily

For some reason, it had been a while since we looked at Isaiah's family book (get ready for more of that next week!), so I pulled it out and he loved on the pictures of his family, oh so far away.

Eggs

I don't have pictures of this, but Isaiah really liked playing with his plastic eggs again this week. He could even get them apart! I finally remembered to save an egg carton for him to put them in, and he could do it! I wasn't sure about his ability to put them in specific spots, rather than just a big bowl. I was pretty excited about this new development! He also did well picking up the color egg that I asked for, though he wasn't interested in naming them himself.

Egypt

This sort of happened by accident. We unexpectedly had to eat lunch out one day due to no electricity, and Isaiah got a pyramid-shaped toy with his lunch. (yet again no picture) We hid treasures in his pyramid and talked a little bit about Egypt.

Eli

Who is the main character of one of Isaiah's favorite books, Moonpowder, which obviously doesn't start with an E, but Eli does. And Isaiah sounds really cute when he says that name!

At the end of the week, Isaiah got sick, so we've been focusing on keeping his fever down and limiting our activities. Hopefully next week Mama will be more "with it" and plan ahead a little better!

For the other Tot Schools, be sure to check out 1+1+1=1.

Tot School--D Week

Isaiah is 39 months old

D is for Day

Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made; we will be glad and rejoice in it!

Bible Story: Days of Creation (yeah, it's a carry over from last week when we didn't finish) :)

So here are our D activities for this week:

Determination

Isaiah loves taking off his socks, perhaps in part because I love to give him lots of praise for it! Anything that he can do for himself like this is certainly worthy of applause!

Day 2

This activity was actually intended for C Week, but I just ran out of time and steam. So when we talked about Day 2 of Creation, we made a cloud. Isaiah quickly remembered however, that cotton balls are much more fun to pull apart than anything else.

Delight

We have been enjoying some amazingly wonderful weather, so Isaiah and I have been outside A LOT! Hence, Isaiah's extreme delight! Here are some D things that we saw one day in the park:

Drain

Not particularly stunning, but Isaiah had fun learning how to say drain while I took his picture.

Dandelions

These aren't actually dandelions, but they're close! We found these little flowers in the park, and thankfully I had thought to bring a plastic bag along. Isaiah loves putting things in plastic bags lately, so we collected some flowers. We did see actual dandelions later on in the week.

Downhill

You might not be able to tell from this picture, but this was a pretty good downhill slope in this new-to-us park. There were actually several, and we enjoyed running downhill over and over, running up wasn't as much fun for mama, but Isaiah enjoyed that, too.

Dome, Durham, Dalmatian

I love this picture. I had a better one with Isaiah actually looking at the camera and smiling and with the dalmatian actually in the picture, too. Yeah, didn't realize until after the upload that the dog didn't make the cut, oh well, just use your imagination. But you can still see really well the dome of the church across the street from the park and the Durham Bulls logo on Isaiah's cap. We love baseball!

Drinking

Ok, so Isaiah's 3, and until this week he has only drunk from a sippy cup, though minus the valve that prevents spills. I've tried in the past to get him to drink from a regular cup on his own, but since balance is often an issue for him, he's not too interested in doing anything that requires lots of care with his hands in a situation that's not familiar. But this week he did great! I was so excited that I kept snapping pictures, but for y'all I limited my selection to only 2. :)

Dinosaur

We were able to attend a concert this week, and Isaiah looked dashing in his dinosaur outfit from Grandma and Grandaddy!

Deanna

Here Isaiah's with our dear friend Deanna at the concert.

Daddy Directing

What would D week be without something special about Daddy?! He directed the choir at the concert that we attended, and of course he did a great job!

Dancers

Isaiah really enjoyed watching the dancers at the concert, too. Actually, he liked watching them warm up when they had to run 5 circles around the seating area the best. But he enjoyed watching them dash across the stage as well.

Door

If there is a door in our dwelling that is open, don't worry, Isaiah will take care of that for you in seconds!

Days of Creation

At the end of the week, we had finally completed all the Days of creation. I had found some small plastic animals at something akin to a dollar store here. When we talked about how God made the animals and man, I gave Isaiah his new little animals, and he was thrilled! I tried to imitate the sounds, and he tried to copy me! We're excited about his verbal progress lately.

Here's Isaiah playing with his animals and our ark from a few weeks ago after we finished all the Days of creation.

Disaster

Ok, it really wasn't that bad, it was actually pretty funny. I made the error of leaving out the crates I use for his school supplies after I had done some cleaning. Isaiah found them and managed to pull out just about everything.

Then he struck gold when he found the plastic bag with the foam letters! He got the bag open (great fine motor skill improvement!) and started moving the letters from the bag to the big crate then reaching into the big crate and pulling them out to put them back in the bag.

We enjoyed singing: This is the Day, of course; as well as Deep and Wide, Don't Ya Know (from a Veggie Tales music CD) and ShenanDoah and some other songs that I don't remember right now. Isaiah loves Shenandoah for some reason. It's really cute though, he'll sing "Dough" really loudly over and over again. He also likes to sing with me when I just sing "do, do, do" in the place of all the words of a song. I like that, too.

We read: Oh My, Oh My, Oh Dinosaurs; I Love you, Daddy; and tons of other stuff that has nothing specifically to do with d.

And yet again we didn't get to all the things that I had planned like drums, daisies, doughnuts and more. Oh well, there's always next time! But we did get to...

Dancing!

We love to dance!

Make sure to check out 1+1+1=1 for more Tot Schools!

Tot School--C Week II

Isaiah is 38 months old

We're getting back into the alphabet where we left off before starting with Isaiah's name. We had done C a little bit, but not as thoroughly as I would have liked because it was around Christmas, and I got very distracted. So, here's what we did with the letter C.

C is for....

Creation

Our verse for the week:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Celebrate!

We enjoyed celebrating Daddy's birthday on Tuesday! He had a yummy chocolate cake, which Isaiah also really enjoyed. Unfortunately I can't get the picture off my phone to show you, so you'll just have to trust me on that one.

Creation

We only made it through the first day of creation this week, but I think that we can easily continue this theme with the days of creation for D week next week. We really only had one official day of Tot School this week, but I have all the projects ready for all the days of creation, so we should accomplish more next week.

Isaiah helped me glue our creation circle for day 1: Light and Dark. We cut out the circles in light and dark colors of construction paper, then glued half of one circle onto the other. Here Isaiah is clapping after we finished the craft.

Cotton

I found some small plastic containers at IKEA when we were there with friends on Monday, so now I don't have to keep borrowing from the kitchen and running out when I need them! I found some cotton balls, and Isaiah really enjoyed moving them from one container to another, no big surprise to me.

But then he realized that he could pull them apart, and that was even more fun!

And if you missed this other post, you can now know that C is for CRAWLING

We are super excited about Isaiah being able to pull his knees up under his hips and get around a little bit at a time. There's a video, too, if you would like to see him in action!

Cutie in a Cap

We had a nice family day on Wednesday when we were able to go visit Pushkin. We were outside almost all day, which thrilled Isaiah, of course. The weather was not cold, which thrilled all of us! But here's Isaiah looking oh so cute in his Durham Bulls cap, a wonderful gift from North Carolina.

Clock

We visited Katherine the Great's palace in Pushkin. There were lots of neat clocks like this one in the entryway.

Ceramic Furnace

Almost all the rooms had ceramic furnaces in the corners like this one. Be sure to notice the cool blue footies that Isaiah's Daddy is wearing. :) Any time you go to one of the palaces or other historical spots in Russia, you will usually need to wear these over your shoes to protect the floors. Thankfully our Russian has improved so that we could talk the administrator into letting us use Isaiah's stroller throughout the palace so we didn't have to carry him the whole time!

Castle

Ok, so here, these are actually called palaces, but they're really like castles, too, don't you think? It was really quite beautiful.

We really enjoyed God's beautiful creation!

We enjoyed lots of singing again this week: If You're Happy and You Know it, Clap Your Hands; Consider it All Joy (written by Isaiah's Daddy from James 1:2-4) and lots of other songs that aren't related to C at all. :)

We read lots of books (especially since we went on a short trip the end of the week, but that's another post, this one is already long enough): Corduroy; The Cat in the Hat; and some Russian books that Isaiah really enjoys, but don't start with C necessarily, just the hard sound that's written with what looks like a latin K.

We ate crunchy nuts like almonds and cashews and not so healthy things like chips and chicken nuggets, too, and of course the aforementioned chocolate cake, which was by far his favorite food of the week.

So that's our short Tot School week. Check out the other creative ideas at 1+1+1=1.