Sunday, March 15, 2009

Monterey My Museum

This weekend we were able to visit the MY Museum in Monterrey. Liliana had such a great time exploring all the exhibits! It is truly a kids paradise, but if you are in the local area the Stockon Children's Museum has many of the same great things for less money. Here are pictures of our adventure at the Museum:
Playing in the playhouse

Driving the Ambulance
Playing Doctor

Life size Operating table

Exploring sea life

Rocking the Boat


Driving the golf cart
Playing golf with daddy

Building a house

Grape Stomp

Tree house slide

Firewomen lili

Driving the fire truck

Tot School Week 4

Tot School
~Liliana is 21 months old~

To find out more about tot school check out 1+1+1=1
This week the weather was wonderful, so we spent a lot of time outside. Liliana enjoyed playing with chalk and running around in the front yard!\


By the end of the night we wound down with some great books

This week we read:
Carl's Sleepy Afternoon by Alexandra Day (She really liked this book because we were able to search for the dog).
My, nose, my toes and Me by Frida Bing (Lift the flap book)
Gallop by: Rufus Seder(a motion book)
Dear Zoo by: Rod Campbell(flap book)
Piggy and Dad Play by: David Martin

Also I saw this Fisherprice website and liliana loves to play on the computer! Its the perfect website because its a simple touch of any button!


We were able to take a special trip to the Monterrey Bay aquarium (click here) and to the Children's Museum in Monterrey. Liliana learned and explored and had a ton of fun (click here for post)

Monday, March 9, 2009

Snow

So Marco and I really had a hard time deciding what to this weekend we couldn't decided between the ocean or the mountains, so we did both. On Sunday we invited Paula, Nathan and Sophie to go up to the snow. We went up to Bear Valley and played at a Snow Park. The girls didn't want to go deep into the Snow park so we stayed on the side and played. Time flew by! Liliana enjoyed playing in the snow, even if getting up there was an adventure it was well worth it in the end. (She is wearing my jacket in the pictures because she got a little sick. Liliana quickly learned that snow is ice and that ice is water and therefore she could eat some lol!The girls playing
Liliana standing
Going to throw a snowball at mommy
Making a snow ball with daddy

By herself

Snow man

Our family

San Fransisco

Saturday March 7th we went to San Fransisco. It was very much so a spare of the moment trip. Marco got home at 7 in the morning and we were out the door by 9:30. We would have left earlier but I had an assignment I needed to finish. We were sure we were going somewhere just not sure where(Marco only gets weekends off about every three months). So we take full advantage of them, when he gets them. So our journey led us on a car ride, a bart trip, a trolley and a 2 mile walking trip. We had a good time! Liliana entertained herself by playing with the manipulative cubes (moving them from tray to tray on her stroller). Then we took a trolley ride down to pier
39. We had lunch at the Hard Rock (very expensive and not very good at all). After lunch we headed to the aquarium. Liliana loved to see all the fish! She especially liked the tunnel of fish. After lunch we walked along the beach front and did some shopping then we headed home. On the way back we decided to walk back to the station. The trolly's get full fast and we had our large bulky stroller with us. We had such a great time! It was nice to get out and enjoy the wonderful weather we have been having.
At Hard Rock

San Fransisco Bay Aquarium

She liked the fish's

The Nemo Tank

At the Park along the pier
I loved it, their where tulips blooming along the pier!


Ready to go Home

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Tot School Week 3

<Tot School
~Liliana is 21 months old~

To Learn more about Tot school please click here



This weeks Tot School focused a lot on Arts in Crafts. Our first activity was creating a leprechaun.
Items needed for this project are:
Outline of leprechaun on heavy white construction paper
scissors
Hole Punch
brads
crayons.
Have the little ones color and cut the leprechaun. The hole punch the pieces together an attach with a brad. This is such a cute little decoration. Liliana enjoyed playing with it afterwards because its arms and feet moved.



Our second St. Patty's day was also a leprechaun. For this leprechaun you need a empty pint carton. A white construction paper with a hat drawn on it, a 2 inch circle, google eyes, black marker and crayon and a piece of orange construction paper to create the beard and eyebrows with. Fist color and cut the hat. Then assemble the face and place on the carton. Once that is complete you will need soil and grass seed (so that the leprechaun can grow hair! Such a cute project.
Filling the Bottle

This week we also created a fill and spill bottle to play I spy with. This bottle is featured on No Time for Flashcards. This was a great project with more than one use. The first she got to work on fine motor and secondly we worked on expressive language( by labeling all the items in the bottle.





This week we created a Bird feeder featured at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. Her sight has wonderful craft ideas This was also a great idea! I especially loved it because it Incorporated the outdoors and Liliana enjoyed a healthy snack.

This week I brought out some of math manipulative's. Liliana enjoyed playing with manipulative cubes, tangrams and beads.


This week we also enjoyed a trip to the San Fransisco Aquarium and the snow. It was Liliana's first time in the snow and she quickly learned that snow, was frozen water. At the aquarium, she looked all around to see the fish's .







Monday, March 2, 2009

Weekend fun

This past weekend Liliana was able to spend some time with her grandpa Tavares. We had a great time together. We were even able to visit Marco's brother John and his family! Here are a few pictures:

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Tot School Recap for the week

Tot School
~Liliana is 21 months old~

This week we had a ton of fun with Tot School! I had a structured plan out for this week, but never got around to organizing it,hopefully this week as many of the other Tot school moms have inspired me! Also not pictured below we worked on our alaphabeat puzzle, but liliana didn't show interest in completing the actvitiy, so we sang our ABC's instead (pointing to the letters on the puzzle). I am a strong believer in student lead learnig at such a young age. We also worked on identifying body parts(she currently knows eyes, nose, head,mouth and we are working on feet,knees and hands). By the way I read this blog post over at No time for flashcards about playing is learning she has some GREAT ideas!

Liliana's favorite tot school activity is the fill and spill bottle
. We also completed the shape sorter puzzle, nesting blocks and ring sorter!


I introduced the sensory tub this week (rice and counting bears). Liliana enjoyed playing with the sensory tub. She enjoyed the rice so much that I let her explore (run it through her fingers and then onto the table and floor). She then even enjoyed walking on the rice.I think this coming week I am going to introduce the spaghetti and meatballs sensory tub from Teaching tiny tots

As an introduction to color we played with water colors. The fist time we used them this week she mainly painted with water, but by the second time we manged to get some color on the paper!
Also to introduce the concept of colors we mixed whip cream with food coloring and watched it change colors.
We were also able to go outside and play with some chalk. The whole family also went bowling this week.


As Always for more information on Tot School please head over to Carisa's Blog!