I know this is late, but this week has been BANANAS.
First of all, my little 2 year olds and my boys’ classes had their Valentine’s Day parties on Tuesday so I had to have all their little Valentines ready (you can see what we made HERE).
Then I was the speaker at our school’s weekly chapel service on Wednesday morning.
Thursday was Grandparent’s Day (an event that my class and the other 2 year old class got to sing for (adorable) but which cost me a few years of my life as we waited in the hallway for our performance cue for 20 minutes (insanity)). Do you know what it is like to be in charge of 30 excited 2 year olds in a crammed hallway next to a room packed with 300 people for 20 minutes????
Think Lord of the Flies meets Jurassic Park and you will have a small window into my morning on Thursday.
Friday was a teacher work day at my school and then I ran to the mall with my mom (who was in town for Grandparent’s Day – yay!) to try to find her a dress for my little brother’s wedding (which is in just 3 weeks).
That afternoon I had a meeting with someone to try to find out how to move my blog to a self-hosted site so that I can add advertising and try to make a little money. One thing the guy asked me in order to gauge how ready I am for this move, was how consistent I am with posting. My response was something along the lines of, “Uhhhhh whenever I am not needed by anyone” – which is usually about once a week, at midnight, for about 10 minutes.
And Saturday was spent celebrating the people I love by decorating the kitchen table all fancy for Valentine’s Day only to see them all take their pancakes into the living room to watch TV.
Needless to say, instead of going on a hot Valentine’s Day date last night, the hubs and I were in bed by 9 – lol!
So here I am on Sunday getting this post to you about 3 weeks late, but hey, it’s not even midnight and I’m all for stretching out celebrations. I mean who’s to say that Valentine’s Day has to end on the 14th? In my opinion, Valentine’s doesn’t technically have to end until March 1.
I went to Dollar Tree and found these cute plastic heart buckets and these sparkly heart picks.
The hubs helped me drill some holes into the lid of the bucket and then we let the kiddos have at it!
This was a really simple and fun way to strengthen my kids’ hand muscles as well as help with their one-to-one correspondence.
They can push the little heart sticks into the holes as well as pull them out for a great time!
I hope y’all had a good Valentine’s Day!
Happy Baby sends you a smooch!
– Julie 🙂
What a cute craft idea. Even a cuter child
For little ones with very weak fine motor skills, esp 2 year olds, pulling the hearts out will be much more motivating and will allow them to be successful. All you have to do is think backward and preload the buckets. Super fun! The important part is to watch and see if they are using a pincer grasp (pinching with first two or three fingers vs fist). If so, they are ready for a variety of fine motor activities. If not, try serving finger foods in an ice tray to encourage the pincer grasp.