WEEK OF AUGUST 16 - POTTY TRAINING

~Punkin is 24 months old.~

We spent all week on potty training. Monday was rough, but after that, she has done SOOO well. When we went to church today, she even told the nursery workers that she had to go potty....and went .....on a strange potty! I am so proud of her. We're still working on being poo trained, though she will go if I can catch her cues, she just hasn't told me that on her own yet. But I feel a huge burden lifted after this week, and it makes me realize that my baby isn't a baby anymore. It's kinda sad...

Anyway, we didn't do much tot trays or any "formal" tot school stuff, due to the fact that we remained in the kitchen most of the week (where we have tile floor and accidents were easier to clean up), and I wanted to focus on the task at hand and not take on too much. But that being said, I brought out a lot of her favorites and we did a lot of fun stuff.....in the kitchen.

TOT TRAYS

(We did a few tot trays on Monday morning before we got deep into the potty training.)

She loved putting Q-tips into an old parmesan container. She even figured out that if she shook it hard enough upside down that some of them would come back out the holes, too.


Playing with her magnetic fish puzzle. She is getting very good at this!

And her latch puzzle. Another favorite.

A FEW "SCHOOL" LESSONS

I numbered the bottom of an egg carton from one to twelve and stuck a marble in it. Then, I had Punkin shake the egg carton, open it up, and tell me what number it landed on.

I had her then put a sticker next to that number on her "graph." I used to have my students do this activity when I taught first grade to introduce graphing, and I'd take it a step further and use two marbles and have them add the numbers together. I was reminded of it again, though, after reading about it on Crunchy and Green, and realizing that Punkin could do it with just number identification.

Her favorite part was working really hard at getting the carton open and closed.

We did another pattern block page using some pattern block pieces that I already had cut out from when I was teaching. Punkin LOVES these activities. She even told me, "Mommy, we need the ocagons now." (Well, actually, they are hexagons, but she was close.)

She always holds up her creations and says, "Look, Mommy! Pitty!"

I taped some color dot pages up on her easel that I got from Home Grown Hearts. I wanted Punkin to use her pom pom magnets to fill in the dots with the right colors. BUT, for some reason the magnetic easel just isn't that magnetic enough....even for little pom pom magnets. They kept falling off.

So, we took them to the floor instead. But then, she thought it was more fun to get out her egg carton and put the pom poms in there.

She used her princess wand to find numbers I called out on her easel.

ALL THE OTHER RANDOM STUFF WE DID WHILE POTTY TRAINING

Played with her wooden shape train.

I got this science experiement idea from The Science Mommy that used milk, food coloring, and a toothpick dipped in dish soap. It was really neat and kept her interest for quite awhile.

Then, she wanted to try.

After awhile, she just started playing with it, stirring all the colors together. She said she was making soup. :)

We played with playdough ..... a LOT!

Punkin also played a lot with her bean sensory tub. She again got her egg carton out to use with it.

We tried painting with tempera paint and an actual paintbrush for the first time. This was a huge hit!

We even did a little color mixing with it!

We lined up her Disney foam numbers and jumped on them again and again. Then she got out her princess wand to point to them, too.

I got this tool set at a garage sale last week. This was her favorite toy this week. She had fun using tools "like Daddy."

We drew some more on her easel with dry erase markers.

We played with bubble wrap from a package I got in the mail.

We had to play with our tub of water, of course! Again, a favorite.

I tried to have her help me make a cake for Daddy. It kinda got all over. But that's okay. The cake still tasted pretty good!

We did lots of puzzles.

Punkin enjoyed playing with her Little People farm.

We "washed" plastic silverware in the sink.

Punkin spent a lot of time playing at her toy kitchen and table that I had moved into our kitchen. She even asked to eat snacks at her little table, and she would feed her baby and stuffed animals, too.

We read lots and lots and lots of books. (I have "Corduroy" and "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" memorized now!)

She "read" with her Tag Junior a lot while sitting on the potty.

Punkin had fun throwing balls in the laundry basket.

She also enjoyed getting into the basket and throwing all the balls back out. I also got a kink in my back from giving her many "rides" around the kitchen.

Punkin used foam shape stickers to make pictures.

She played with her shape sorter and had fun lining the shapes up again and counting them.

She built "towers" with the counting pegs.

We had "tea" and "cakes."

She found out it was fun to crawl under the table and play peek a boo.

Grandma came over one day to play. They had fun with dominoes.

She tried to put together our caterpillar number floor puzzle. I had to help, of course, and then she had fun taking it all apart again.

We ate many of our meals "picnic style" on a towel close to the little potty in case of quick needed trips to the potty. Punkin LOVED our picnics!

And this is of course how we spent a great deal of time as well. She really loved being able to pull off the toilet paper when she went in the potty.

And she also liked eating her "treats" when she went! (Bites of Twizzlers and little mini muffins from Grandma!)

And finally, this is just something I noticed this week after spending lots of time coloring with Punkin. She told me here, "Mommy, I color ovals blue." Instead of randomly scribbling all over the page, she has begun to color with a purpose. She obviously didn't stay in the lines completely, but I was proud of her for diligently coloring each one.

Here she did the same with the stars, saying, "I color stars black."


I think I can say we are successfully potty trained now (aside from nights), so hopefully, if all continues to go well, I am looking forward to a more normal week next week. To see what other Tots were up to this week, go check out 1+1+1=1.