I joined the IG world!

Hello all! Been awhile :)

So I joined the Instagram world and I LOVE IT! I had no idea I was missing such a cool social media platform. I ditched my personal Facebook about 2 months ago and I will never look back. It was constantly filling my little emotional head up with negative posts, full of hate and it was awful. Now that I'm on IG - all I see is beautiful, happy, traveling people! I see so much positive and happiness. In return, that makes my SOUL happy! Find me on IG, friends! @totschoolmama =)

P.S. I also added a "shop" page to the blog. It'll take you to my etsy shop for awesome homemade play things and gifts! If you have an etsy, please favorite whatever you like! If you have a shop, PLEASE leave it in the comments so I can check yours out! I love supporting small businesses!


  I've been trying to keep up with updating it. We do so many fun things in the tot school that it's hard to remember to document it all! The beginning of March was Dr. Suess week, celebrating "Reading Across America" and Dr. Suess's birthday that fell on March 2nd. We totally partied it up over here! Surprise you didn't hear us celebrating ;)

  For a snack activity, I took the older tots (2 and 3's) and gave them these awesome printables! get yours here! Then we took Goldfish snacks and tried to fill the fishbowls accordingly. I had one that was only concerned with how many she could get in her mouth to eat, but nonetheless a FUN activity! Even if it isn't Dr. Suess week!

Later in the week, I took big bowls of shaving cream and mixed it with fingerpaints. Then I drew funky tree stems and we painted fun Truffula Trees! NOTE: If you want to keep the artwork you make with this style puffy paint, add equal parts glue and shaving cream, mix until it peaks on its own when you bring the spoon up. The glue will harden with the shaving cream and it'll keep for a little bit on the artwork.

I also took a generic coloring page of a hot balloon and let them fingerpaint/freestyle paint on them. I cut them out and made "Oh, the places you'll go! artwork. 

Grab some blue paint and paint on hand, only the fingers (thumb included). On the other hand, paint red all over except for the middle finger. Stamp to make Thing 1 and Thing 2 :)

Here are some of our masterpieces from the week!

Again - sorry I'm so stinkin' late! It's a good post though so I can't forget it! 

DIY Mud Kitchen!

I FINALLY got around to giving my boy a mud kitchen for those mud pies he is always making!

So my husband and I have had this scrap piece of counter floating around for forever. Seriously, forever. It was once used as a work table before he opened his actual shop business. Then, it was in our back yard but not in our son's back yard (we have a huge fenced in yard. We fenced off a smaller section for our son, because we have a dog that we never walk..and well, yeah..LOL!) and we used it right over the smaller fence for our green onions, basil, parsley, etc.

Well, of course we killed those all eventually. So the past few months, it's just been sitting there. The other day I was outside with the munchkins and I happened to look at it and immediately (after it being around THIS LONG!) thought ... omg! A mud kitchen! It's basically a piece of kitchen already. Goodness gracious, DUH!

We picked it up several years ago from our friends grandmothers house after they renovated her kitchen. Like I said, it served multiple purposes for us over the years. Now, we've passed it down to our dirty, muddy 3 year old. He LOVES it. It also serves as twice the fun for us since we have the child care. Straight muddy, mud pie making, dirt slingin' fun for 5 children. We also live in FL - we have already played in water twice this year and it's only the beginning of February. Looking like we will spend lots of time out here!

Here's a picture for inspiration. I didn't think to take a before and after, or even during but it's pretty simple and to the point. You could really make it out of anything! Pallets, scrap wood, old dressers.. Really. Anything.

Hey fellow people! So, I fell a little behind on my blog because I opened...*drumroll please* an ETSY SHOP!!!

Okay, I work with children 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Yes, 60 hours a week I am labeled a munchkin wrangler! I change 25-40 diapers a day, feed different mouths 100 times a week and have small talk with parents 50 times a week during pick ups and drop offs. I get a LOT of interaction with the little people of our world! I also get a lot of interaction with the parents of the little people of the world.

There are so many types, techniques - methods, if you will - of learning and education. Two of my favorites are Montessori and Waldorf style teachings. Here's a little infographic I made to show the differences between the two.

I decided to take my love for crafting and mix them with my love for education and children. My etsy shop will continuously feature adorable additions to pretend play. I love to see when people "favorite" my items! I haven't received any shop favorites yet but I will be SOO excited when that day comes! I did make a sale back in June but I recently started to become serious with it. Check it out here! Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think if you do!

More blog posts to come. We are going to have a BLAST tomorrow and into next week for Valentines day! YAY!