Tots and Me... Growing Up Together

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Thursday Blog Hopping: March 8,2012

It's Thursday!! If you would like to do some blog hopping today head on over to my "Blog Hops" page to see the Thursday Blog Hops I have found. Also the new Linky Follower Party Hop is now open.

If you are visiting from a blog hop, welcome! I am glad you are here. Take a look around. I'd love it if you would follow me via GFC, Linky Followers and subscribe to my emails. I also have a Facebook page, a Twitter and a Google+ page that I would love for you to follow. And if you don't mind, I would love for you to vote for me on Picket Fence Blogs. If you let me know you voted, I will return the favor.

Also, if you are interested in Pinterest, I recently found a great new Pinterest Hop

And tomorrow night I invite you back to link up to my new Lovin' the Weekend blog hops (you can also link up giveaways).

Speaking of giveaways, have you checked out mine recently.
I have joined with Dnbuster and 21 other bloggers to bring you this giveaway for a $50 Amazon Gift Card

ends 3/13

And I am joining in with some different bloggers to bring you a giveaway for My Wonderful Walls
{value $177}

ends 3/11

And check it out, my Baby Shower Celebration has begun. I will be bringing you reviews and giveaways for some great baby/mommy products.

Enter to win:

A Hat of Your Choice from Taylor Joelle Designs

ends 3/17

Woombie/Beanie Hat Gift Set

ends 3/17

And stay tuned for more fabulous Baby Shower Celebration giveaways throughout the month of March!!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Making Finger Paint

Today we made finger paint. It has been a while since we have made it. I believe the last time we made this finger paint was last year when we were making our Showers of Love Valentines project. The girls love helping in the kitchen, as you may already have figured out, and this recipe calls for mixing and cooking the ingredients. We gathered together

1/2 cup corn starch

3 tbs sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups water

food coloring

All of the ingredients, except the food coloring were poured into the saucepan and stirred.

We stirred for 10 minutes (the instructions call for 10-15 minutes, or until it is smooth and thick).

Then I divided it into 2 jars and added food coloring.

Stop back later in the week to see what we make with this finger paint.

Oh yeah, I found the instructions for this at Creative Kids at Home.

Linky Follower Party Hop March 7th

Have you tried the NEW awesome tool–Linky Followers

I have and I am once again participating in this great Linky Followers Party Hop over at It's So Very Cheri. Here is her post and rules, but you can link up right here at Tots and Me at the bottom of this post.

It has so many amazing features (that GFC never had). If you have not signed up you should. (yes you can have both.) I love the new tool so much and want everyone to enjoy all the new features.

…and did I tell you its super easy and FREE!

Wednesday Blog Hopping: March 7, 2012

It is the middle of the week already. Happy Wednesday. If you would like to do some blog hopping today head on over to my "Blog Hops" page to see the Wednesday Blog Hops I have found. Also the new Linky Follower Party Hop is now open. I just found this one recently (this is a great one to join if you are looking for something to replace GFC).

If you are visiting from a blog hop, welcome! I am glad you are here. Take a look around. I'd love it if you would follow me via GFC and subscribe to my emails. I also have a Facebook page and a Twitter you can follow, along with a Google+ page. And if you don't mind, I would love for you to vote for me on Picket Fence Blogs. If you let me know you voted, I will return the favor.

And on Friday night I invite you back to link up to my new Lovin' the Weekend blog hops (you can also link up giveaways).

Speaking of giveaways, have you checked out mine recently.
I have joined with Dnbuster and 21 other bloggers to bring you this giveaway for a $50 Amazon Gift Card

ends 3/13

And I am joining in with some different bloggers to bring you a giveaway for My Wonderful Walls
{value $177}

ends 3/11

And check it out, my Baby Shower Celebration has begun. I will be bringing you reviews and giveaways for some great baby/mommy products.

Enter to win:

A Hat of Your Choice from Taylor Joelle Designs

ends 3/17

Woombie/Beanie Hat Gift Set

ends 3/17

And stay tuned for more fabulous Baby Shower Celebration giveaways throughout the month of March!!

Wordless Wednesday: March 7, 2012 (w/linky): All Sorts of Smiles

Let me just preface this by saying I had started posting some smiles I found/made around the house with my Facebook fans on my personal page. I was going to make this "A Week of Smiles," but I didn't get to post every day like I wanted to. I did plan on sharing them as my Wordless Wednesday though. So, here you go.

Word Family Pizzas

One of the reasons I wanted to continue our pizza unit was because I wanted to make these Word Family Pizzas. I came up with the idea while we were doing the unit back in January. Unfortunately, with my lack of energy and motivation I never got it ready. Suddenly, last week, my energy level and motivation were both back up. So, I made these to go with our second pizza week (which I will post more about at the end of the week).

In order to make these I took brown construction paper and cut out 8 pizza slice shapes. Then I took white paper, cut in the same shape but with the crust cut off. I then colored a tiny bit red for the sauce and the rest yellow for the cheese.

I knew I wanted to start with the short a vowel family words so I decided to cut out some pink paper to represent ham (short vowel word). Then I made a list of words for each family (at, am, an, ap, ack, ab, ag, and ad) and wrote them on the ham pieces.

I placed them in a bowl and grabbed a die out of a game we have.

In order to play the game we took turns rolling the die and counting out the number of toppings rolled. Then we sounded out the words one at a time and placed them on the pizza. The first ham piece got placed on any pizza slice. Then for the following pieces we would see if the word rhymed with any that were already on the pizza. If they rhymed they got placed on the same slice. If they didn't rhyme they got placed on a new slice.

As there is no winner or loser in this game it is fun for the children. They get to listen for rhyming words and because the rhyming words are all on the same slice the children can see the similarities.

Next I am going to make toppings to go with the other short vowels.

Short e-pepperoni

Short i- olives

Short o- broccoli

Short u- mushroom

Also linking up to:

Tuesday Blog Hopping March 6, 2012

Happy Tuesday. If you would like to do some blog hopping today head on over to my "Blog Hops" page to see the Tuesday Blog Hops I have found. Also the new Linky Follower Party Hop is still open. I just found this one recently (this is a great one to join if you are looking for something to replace GFC).

If you are visiting from a blog hop, welcome! I am glad you are here. Take a look around. I'd love it if you would follow me via GFC and subscribe to my emails. I also have a Facebook page and a Twitter you can follow. And following along with the changes coming you can also follow my Google+ page. And if you don't mind, I would love for you to vote for me on Picket Fence Blogs. If you let me know you voted, I will return the favor.

And on Friday night I invite you back to link up to my new Lovin' the Weekend blog hops (you can also link up giveaways).

Speaking of giveaways, have you checked out mine recently.
I have joined with Dnbuster and 21 other bloggers to bring you this giveaway for a $50 Amazon Gift Card

ends 3/13

And I am joining in with some different bloggers to bring you a giveaway for My Wonderful Walls
{value $177}