Birthday Gift and Reader Thank You

I don't know about other early education moms, but I definitely spend a lot of time choosing birthday and Christmas gifts carefully!  On the one hand, I am an only parent living with my father so that I can finish graduate school... resources are limited.  On the other hand, I want toys that are educational and long lasting.  I HATE clutter and do not like the idea picking random gifts that will sit around collecting dust after a few weeks.

Well this year, I decided to get him the large set of Magna-Tiles.  I originally fell in love with them years ago when my step daughter had some.  They are colorful little tiles with magnets around the edges, which allow for some great building!  I am always trying to encourage him to build and create, so I thought they would be perfect!  I was nervous though; what if he did not like them.  They are definitely the most expensive gift I have ever purchased for him, but I took the risk and it paid off.  He LOVES them.  He has played with them every day since he received them, sometimes for hours.  He took them to daycare and everyone there loved them also.  

The magnets allow him to build much taller structures than he could with normal blocks.  He also likes building "houses" and then putting things inside, since the tiles are translucent.

Honestly, he loves them so much, I am considering getting him the add-on set for Christmas.

Anyway, in addition to sharing for anyone looking for birthday or Christmas gift ideas, I also wanted to say Thank You to my readers.  I've always been upfront about using affiliate links, and wanted to say thank you to those of you who have clicked one and ordered anything (even not the exact product clicked) in the past.  The commissions are small, but by saving all year and using a couple of gift cards I had received for Mother's Day, I was able to purchase his Magna-Tiles with relatively little out of pocket.  My first reason for blogging is not to make money (I don't even have any ads), but the little bit extra is so nice to use for purchasing educational toys and tools for Xander.  I am grateful.  :)

For more gift ideas, check out our Toys and Tools page!

Tot School Addition: Preschool Backpack

If you have been following the blog for a while, you may not be surprised to learn that I have decided to skip formal preschool for Xander.  One of the most important factors influencing that decision is that we are lucky enough to have a phenomenal home day care provider.  After some discussion with her, we have decided that I am going to send some preschool materials for Xander to do daily (all of the kids will have daily "table time").  This will ensure that he still has all of his preschool skills covered (about which I wasn't really concerned).  It will also be a HUGE blessing to me because it will lighten my Tot School load for at home, giving me more time to complete my masters projects and to start a formal math curriculum with Xander.

 I let Xander pick out a new backpack that he will take to daycare at the beginning of every week.  There is a folder and dry erase sleeve for worksheets, as well as a pencil pouch with washable dry erase markers, a mini eraser, and twistable crayons that will just live in the backpack.

Every week I plan to send 5-10 worksheets (my kid is weird and asks for worksheets), a couple of books he should be able to read entirely himself, and at least one activity in each of the following categories:

Reading/Phonics

Math

Logic/Thinking Skills

Spanish

Letter Formation

I will rotate the activities weekly and adjust the number of activities as needed.  My goal is for the activities to be simple and fast enough so as not to be a burden on our daycare provider, while still giving him practice and review in these areas.

Here is the backpack from the first week (I won't be starting letter formation activities for a few weeks).

2 Books
5 Worksheets (with sleeve and makers)

 Spanish Colors 3 Part Cards

Counting Bears and 2 Pattern Cards

Block Buddies (one card and corresponding pieces only)

Rhyming Sounds puzzles

New Calendar

Xander has really started taking an interest in the days of the week and concepts like "tomorrow,"  "yesterday," "last night," etc.  I decided to take advantage of this curiosity and bought him a magnetic calendar.  I am so happy I found one I like!  First of all, I wanted it to be magnetic so that I could store all the pieces right on there while still looking streamlined (I'm admittedly a little OCD, clutter is VERY distracting to me).  Some of the more traditional school calendar stations have too many pockets and things hanging off them.  Also, storing everything right on the calendar itself keeps me from having to find a place to put the extra months and seasons.    This calendar doesn't have the traditional grid, which is fine with me because I know he is not ready for that kind of abstract representation.  It also allows the calendar to be smaller, so it fits perfectly on the side of my bookcase next to his desk.  

Xander was super excited when I showed it to him.  We went through all of the categories together and I helped him select the correct magnet and place it in the correct spot.  He liked it so much we actually had to do it a couple of times that first day.  I'm hoping he continues to like it and that we can make it a (semi) regular part of our day.

Play Dough Fun Box

Xander has been interested in play dough for a while, but lately he has been wanting to play with it a lot more.  I had had all our tools and doughs in a bin.  However, we keep accumulating new tools and colors, so I needed something better and came up with this box.

I bought a two tier Snapware box from Wal-Mart.  The top has a bunch of our tools.  I have included the dough stampers, alphabet cookie cutters, and animal cookie cutters from the Mommy and Me ABC units we have already completed.  I will continue to rotate those tools in as we complete more.  I also have a little Snapware container with large google eyes and some colored plastic gems.

The bottom tier has our play dough (when I took the picture, I had cleaned out all of our homemade play dough).

There is plenty of room for our dough stamping pages (free in the Mommy and Me Printables) above the containers of dough.  They are designed to be used with the dough stampers.  It is nice to have everything in one place!

Tot School on a Budget

As I have mentioned many times, I am a single mother and grad student.  That means I am on a pretty strict budget.  I have been incredibly fortunate to have so many tot school toys and tools for Xander and thought I would share some of my tips for accumulating them cheaply.  

1.  Buy Second Hand - The biggest money saver for us has been buying second hand.  He have had EXCELLENT luck at garage sales, on craigslist, and at consignment shops.  There are many of our tools, toys, puzzles, and games I never would have bought new, but found for almost nothing at garage sales.  Books are also SO much cheaper used.  I love when you can find them for a quarter or dime each.

2.  Craft Stores - Michael's almost always has a 40% off one item coupon on their webpage and frequently offers a 50% off coupon for holidays.  They have an excellent selection of Melissa and Doug toys and puzzles, as well as a wide variety of Toobs.  I usually try to buy something every time they offer a 50% coupon, and then keep it in my stock pile of toys/puzzles for presents (not just for Xander, I use my stockpile for birthdays, Christmas and other occasions when I need to give gifts).  I got our wooden blocks, Dress-Up Joey, Traffic Sign Set, and Farm Blocks this way.  Hobby Lobby is another place to look for Toobs and learning games.  They also frequently has 40% coupons.  

3.  Share Things - While I don't know many moms in "real life" that do tot school, I do know some.  Certain tot school tools are intended for classrooms, so can easily be split between a few families, drastically reducing the cost.  Some examples include number tiles, alphabet tiles, and learning links.  I have also split a few stamper sets from Oriental Trading since they have four of each stamp, making them pretty inexpensive.

4.  Buy in Bulk - I realize this is one of those "duh" things, but for some reason I was a little hesitant at first.   Places like Amazon, Oriental Trading, and some other teacher stores offer things in bulk, making them much cheaper.  I also usually try to wait for a free shipping promotion to make it even more affordable.  One thing that I really saved on by buying in bulk is dot magnets!  The first time I bought them was from Hobby Lobby.  They were either $1.99 or $2.99 for 16.  Then I found 200 magnets for $5.25 at Oriental Trading.  Those small packets of laminating sheets are incredibly expensive, but I can usually buy laminating sheets for 10 cents each on Amazon or Sams Club

5.  Use Gift Giving Times - Another thing that has really let me accumulate a good supply of educational tools and toys is using the normal gift giving times to buy them (Christmas, Birthdays, etc).  Personally, I don't like the "fluff" toys that are played with once or twice.  I like the interactive things like constructive toys, pretend play, active toys, art supplies, and puzzles.  Xander is still young enough that I can get him whatever I want for gifts, so I select things thoughtfully.  For example, for Easter he got a puzzle instead of a basket full of candy and sweets and junky toys that would be broken within days.  I also have some great family that get him educational toys and movies for holidays.
  I would love to add to this list!  How do you save money on Tot School toys and tools?

Bottle Cap Letters

As I was collecting materials for Xander's alphabet themes, I considered buying the generic plastic letter tiles.  While there is absolutely nothing wrong with them, I decided I wanted something a little bit more fun.  I also saw some neat wooden alphabet disks at The Princess and the Tot.  While I did end up making some similar to hers, I wanted to be able to make multiples of each letter for letter matching sheets.  The wooden discs are nice, but add up when you start buying a lot of them.  Instead, I ended up with the bottle cap letters pictured below.  I bought 100 of these bottle caps, but I have also seen them at craft stores.  With a regular Sharpie I was able to create multiples of each letter within minutes!  I started out with two capital and two lowercase of each letter, but have some left over bottle caps to add letters as I need.  I already created pages to go with these and I am really excited to use them!  The only thing I would change is possibly writing the lowercase letters with a blue Sharpie for some distinction between the cases.

Xander loves to dig through the box of letters!  I found him throwing them at the wall the other day...

Be sure to watch for the bottle cap matching cards in my Mommy & Me ABC printables!