Tot School - Week 1 | 20 Months

Little Mouse is currently 20 Months old

We had a fun week playing with the toys that I made for her last week, we also did loads of swimming as it is so hot in SA, at this very moment I am suffering in the heat!

We also worked on our Open Ended Art project and finally finished our Colour Wheel - Mouse loves her colour wheel. I put it up in her room and she will stand in front of it and point to a colour, I am then supposed to shout out the colour name and she laughs and points to the next one. So cute! She is also trying to be sneeky and catch me out, she will point to one colour, then to the same one again for two to three times and then all of a sudden to one at the other end of the colour wheel!

I got her this music set from Boikido and we had a blast playing with it, she loves music and she really enjoyed this!

I decided that it is time to start with some sort of structured Bible study with her, we started with the story of Noah and the ark. I read the story to her and explained to her about the ark and the animals. I made her this Noah Ark playset from craft foam and attached some magnets to the back. We had loads of fun playing out the story on our fridge.




She also played with this sensory box I made, she escpecially loved the pasta - I found her on more than one occasion eating it!





For an art project we made a star viewer, I found the idea on Growing Up Our Style. I just used contact paper in stead of cling wrap. Sh first painted the TP Roll, while it dried we made the viewer part by adding some glitter to contact paper - I just then attached the contact paper to the TP Roll.

I just love my little girl so much!

Want to join in Tot School fun? Visit 1+1+1=1

Book Fan Friday - We are Horses

Mouse loves animals and she enjoyed this book so much! We are Horses by Molly Grooms is such a cute book about a mommy horse teaching her little baby horse all about being a horse! It teaches little ones about horse behaviour and strenghts.

Great book and we loved it!

Want to join in on Book Fan Friday? Don't be shy! Visit Three A's and a C!

Disclosure Policy

Please note that I do not receive any payment for reviews on my site / blog. I may from time to time receive a free product or book to review, I will state this in the relevant post. All reviews are honest and the companies does not influance me in any way to do only positive reviews.

I also am an Affiliate of a few companies - this means that if you do click on an affliliate link that is included in my posts and you decide to purchase that product, that affiliate will pay me a small commission.  I appreciate any purchases that you make through these links. All funds are used in Little Mouse's homeschooling.  The Affiliates are as follows:
Amazon
Currclick
Kalahari
Centers in a Bag 
{please mention my name: Trudie van Dyk}
SpellQuizzer

Book Review - Mom's Bible: God's Wisdom for Mothers

I was so excited when I received the Mom's Bible from Thomas Nelson in the post, for free to review! It is absolutely a stunning bible - beautiful hardcover and gorgeous page layout with borders and inserts about Moms in the bible.

I did not read the entire bible, but I spend loads of time on my favourite chapters. What I love about the bible is that it is so easy to understand. The notes by Bobbie Wolgemuth makes it a joy to read and gives a practical approach to what the scripture actually means in your life as a mom. It gives a practical meaning to applying the word of God to your life. The bible is centred around you as a mom, guiding you in God's plan for you and your family. It also focus on the different stages of life that you as a mom will experience, strenghtening your relationship with the Lord.

This is definately a must have bible for all mommies! I can see that this bible will still get dog eared in our house as I keep going back for more spiritual guidance and to learn more about God's plan for me and my family. I was actually suprised at how impressed I was with the bible - I love the insights on life as a mom. These insights are highlighted in special borders to easy identify them and provides so much info in a few sentences. Great bible to have as a mommy and I think this will make an awesome gift as well!

Disclosure: Please note that I was not paid to do this review, Thomas Nelson did sent me a FREE copy of this book to give a honest review on. This review is my honest opinion of the book and I was not required to write a postive review in any way. This free copy was sent out as part of their Booksneeze.com program.

Homeschool Bloghop - Theme 2 Your Family

I enjoy this Blog hop so much hosted by Our Worldwide Classroom, be sure to visit and join in!

This week's theme is all about my family. So here is a little bit more about my family!

My wonderful husband is always a pillar of strenght to me, he is an absolutely amazing dad and hubby. He will always go out of his way to do things for me and Mouse. He is caring and loving and loves spending time with his little girl. She adores her dad and shouts "Papa papa!" when she sees his car coming round the corner in the afternoons!

He is a software engineer and loves his work. He is actually very good at it!

Then there is Little Mouse, I love this little girl sooo much! She is just such a joy. She loves the dogs and cannot get enough of them. They are so patient with her, letting her lie against them and letting her pack her toys all around them! She loves running around outdoors and she LOVES music. She dances and sings and enjoyes herself so much. We constantly have music on in the house and she loves it. I will be getting her Hillsong for kids, or something similar soon.

Then also part of the family is our two German Shepards, they were the kids long before Mouse showed up! They are the most gentle dogs and so good natured. I just love them to bits! They love being inside the house and they love chocolate (yes, I know it is bad for them!)


Well that is just a little bit more about my family!

I bugged Mouse's room!

Last weekend I found these cute little wooden bug stickers, they are just perfect for Mouse's room! We had so much fun applying them to the walls and cupboards!

I just love this little girl so much!

Open Ended Art - Colour Wheel Project PURPLE & Finished Wheel!

We finished up with our Colour Wheel project by completing purple! Little Mouse tore some purple tissue paper and stuck it to contact paper. She loved tearing it up and it is great fine motor skill development as well!

Here is the purple segment:

After she finished the purple segment I took all the other ones and and cut them into triangles and fixed them with some glue to a paper plate. I then covered the whole plate with some contact paper. This is now in her room next to her colour poster! She loves it and I think it turned out great! She stands in front of it and points to colours then I have to shout out the colour name - so cute!
If you want to join in on the open ended fun, visit Zonnah's Addictions.

Muffin Tin Monday - Red

* Just a quick note - I truly believe that there is such a thing as porridge brain, no matter what any scientist says! I did this post over the weekend and scheduled it to be posted on Monday - today I realized that it never published so I went to take a little looksie on my dashboard. Yes, I did schedule it to post on the 15 of February, but not 2010, it was scheduled for 2011!!! The same with my other posts! So dear friends, there will be a few posts coming through today! *

This week we started with the Colour Schemes for Muffin Tin Monday and we kicked off with the colour red!

I made Mouse a little tin with some of her favourite red items, then I also tried something new. I sliced some pear and gently cooked it in some sugar water with some red food colour added. I thought it turned out great - she didn't like it at all! The dogs received their helping of pears from Little Mouse!

She had from left to right: Red pears, Red Rice Crackers, Rooibos Tea (in English it is Redbush Tea!) and some toast with Strawberry Jam.

Join us at Muffin Tin Mom for more muffin tin fun!

Fun with Little Mouse Games

I had some enquiries from mommies in SA looking to buy some of the Games that I made for Little Mouse, after much thought I decided to go for it and uploaded the items on my Jolly Mommy Online Shop.

I will be adding more items as I make more for Little Mouse!

Tot School - Week 4 | 19 Months

Last week we celebrated the month of love with loads of valentine's crafts. Little Mouse loved it! I also made some new Homeschool Tools for her.

Here is what we did!

We are still working on our Open Ended Art Colour Wheel Project and will hopefully finish it today! We did Orange and Green last week.



We made some Valentine's hearts for the grannies and granpa's!



I made a new Fine Motor skills activity for her, by giving her a salt shaker and some pipe cleaners.



I also made a colour recognition game for her from craft foam - she loved both these activities!



We did our stART project.



We went on a Nature Walk in our garden - hopefully we will be able to do this on a more regular basis and at some other fun and exciting venues!




I made Mouse a set of Lacing Hearts as well as a big Lacing heart - she is still trying to get the hang of it!




It was a great week!

If you want to see more Tot School fun visit 1+1+1=1

Homeschool Bloghop - Theme 1 You!

I found this great Blog hop over at Our Worldwide Classroom , this one is for the mommies! This week's theme is You.

I am the eldest of three children, I couldn't find a picture just of me, as I am normally the one taking the photos! From left to right: my sister, Irene, me and Mouse, my borther Nic.
I love the ocean and I love love love to read. I love my little girl so much and enjoy spending time with her each and every single day. She is such a blessing in my life. I met my husband when I was in grade 11, as my brother in law and I was in the same class in high school and good friends. We only started dating years later! I love to cook and bake and have tons of recipe books, over a 100 of them. Just wish that I had more time to spend on reading and cooking!

So hop on over to Our Worldwide Classroom and share in the fun!

Lacing Hearts

Oh craft foam - how I love you!!! I made these cute little lacing hearts for Mouse after I saw this idea on A Mommies Adventures, I used blue, red and yellow foam, this way we can use it for lacing activities as well as colour recognition activities.

I also made this bigger lacing heart from pink craftfoam, this is a bit trickier and she hasn't mastered it yet, but practice makes perfect!

Nature Walk

We had some crazy hot weather the past couple of days here in Cape Town. Yesterday was a bit cooler and we went on a nature walk in our garden. We took her little yellow bucket and Mouse filled it with goodies from the garden. She really enjoyed this activity and I plan to do it more often with her.

Here she is with one of the flowers she picked.

Here is the other "treasures" - even stones were picked up!

Book Fan Friday - You're All My Favourites

Such a sweet story! You're All My Favourites by Sam McBratney is such a lovely read. It is about a family of bears that explains to the little ones that all of them are loved equally, that the Mommy and Daddy bear does not have any favourites at all.

I loved this story, not only to explain to children that their parents can love each child individually and just as much as his or her siblings, but I think this is also a bit like God's love for us, even though we are flawed He still loves us unconditionally.

Link up with your books at Three A's and a C!

stART - The Sweetest Valentines

This week for our stART project we read The Sweetest Valentines by Jane E Gerver. It is such a fun and sweet book, I think I enjoyed it even more than Little Mouse!

It is about this cute little Bear, Fred, that makes the most beautiful Valentine's day cards for his family and friends. I just love the last sentence where Mommy bear says to Fred that he is her honey bee!

We made a Valentine's day card for Daddy, Mouse used a foam heart stamp to make this. She really had fun doing this!

We love stART! If you want to join in visit A Mommies Adventures!

Homeschool Tools

I made two new Homeschool Tools for Little Mouse this week, she enjoyed playing with both.

We did this Fine Motor Skills activity before, but we used spaghetti. The Spaghetti tended to break and splinter and I had crushed pasta all over the floor. I saw this great idea on A Mommies Adventures, where instead of spaghetti she used pipecleaners. I grabbed some blue, yellow and red ones and Mouse had a blast, best of all - NO MESS!!!!!!


I also finally got my hands on some crafting foam and I cut out circles from blue, red and yellow foam. I saved this wooden container from one of my Christmas gifts and we used it as a sorting tray to sort the foam pieces into their different colours. She also loved this and I will use this within our Tot School week.

What I also like about the foam and the sorting tray is that I can add anything to it, I have some other ideas and I will keep you updated!

Valentine's Day Crafts - Plaster Hearts

Little Mouse made these adorable little plaster hearts for Valentine's Day gifts for the Grannies and Grandpa's.

I made the hearts by pouring some mixed plaster into heart shaped cookie cutters, once they dried I popped them out and Mouse painted them pink.

After the pink basecoat dried, we dipped her fingers into blue and yellow paint and dotted some flowers onto the hearts (I know they don't look to flowery, but just use your imagination!)
We will deliver them this week to Little Mouse's Valentines!