Tag Archives: Tumbling Tuesday

Easy Jingle Bell Tutu

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I love Christmas! And nothing sounds like Christmas more than the jingling of bells. This year I had the idea to make my daughter a special Merry Christmas skirt to help her practice her dance moves (more on that another day) and spread the jingling sounds of this holiday season!
Here is the finished product. It was SO easy to make. And my daughter loves it- she runs around the living room in circles wearing this!
Step 1: Google “no sew tutu”. Find a site that has a cute tutu (I used this site and this site, but there are SO many great tutorials out there!)
Step 2: Go to the craft store and purchase rolls of green and red tulle. I used four rolls (2 red and 2 green) because I like my tutus nice and fluffy!

Step 3: Follow the steps to make the tutu- basically just stapling (for people like me that really want NO SEW!) or sewing the elastic in a waistband about 3 inches smaller than your child’s waist. After the elastic is ready, simply tie a series of knots until the skirt is as full as you like! (great site here for the basic steps in tying the tutu knots)
Step 4: Cut several ribbons twice the length of the skirt. Tie small jingle bells on to both ends. It may help to use a strong adhesive to ensure that the bell will stay on the ribbon. I just tied a double knot and it has been holding up fine. Then attach the jingle bell ribbons to various places throughout the skirt using the same knot as the tulle.
You could use this tutu for so many things- Christmas parties, family night dance performances, or just plain fun around the house!
Happy Teaching!

Latest Curriculum Ideas

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I finally have a sec to whip up a blog post! My life has been so SO busy balancing work and mommyhood! Let me share with you some of the ideas for activities that we have done over the past couple weeks.

My Faith Mondays:
We have learned about the Old Testament prophets Noah, the Tower of Babel, the temple, and the Book of Mormon story of Samuel the Lamanite. We are currently working on the story of Joseph Smith and the origin of the Book of Mormon. I decided to spice things up by alternating weeks between bible and book of Mormon stories.
For Noah I used a file folder game found here and a lapbook found here.

My favorite part of our whole Noah lesson was hearing my daughter read (actually she memorized it) the memory verse: “Noah did everything God commanded him to do.”

To learn about the tower of Babel, my Boo and I built a tower up to a picture of Jesus. We then used Little People (valuable resource for learning!) to try and climb the tower to see Jesus. I then had Jesus tell the people that they don’t climb a tower to see him (in my daughter’s words “that is SOOO silly”) but we pray to him instead. I kept the lesson super basic and my little one caught on!
We learned about the temple this past week as well. We built a tower with blocks and used the Little People guy my daughter has named Tony as Angel Moroni on top of one of the spires. We talked about how we all got to go to the temple as a family and I showed my daughter her temple dress, after which she wanted to immediately take of her jammies and put it on (and for her thats a big thing- jammies are her favorite things to wear)! She has grown in the past 2 years however- but she still squeezed into her bonnet! We also had some of the Little People go to visit the temple- I had one of the people be naughty and told Boo that ‘cuz that person was naughty, she couldn’t go to the temple. She had to make better choices and be nice. NO time was wasted in repenting so all the people could be at the temple!
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Samuel the Lamanite was another little story we talked about this week- using the megablocks and Little People again- we built a wall and had Tony a.k.a. Samuel tell the people (who happened to be Candy Mommy and Santa Claus Little People) that Jesus was coming and they needed to be nice. Kept it short and simple and to my daughter’s asking repeated it A LOT!!! She really likes her scripture stories!

Tumbling Tuesdays:
We picked up some hula hoops for Boo and she LOVES them! She calls them her “hula loops” – so cute! What do we do with them? We jump from hoop to hoop, we use the hoops as cars and run around the house, and eventually mommy will be using them for sorting activities. We also have gone on a few walks, been to the park to play, and learned new games such as Red Rover and Tag. Which my daughter CAN NOT get enough of!

Wednesday’s Words:
So this has been very low key- we have learned spanish words for eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, head, body, cold, and hot. I want to have her make a book of the spanish terms she is learning so we have an easy way to review words. That is still a project in the making, however!

Tea Time and Rhyme Thursday:
We have spent the last two weeks learning the story of the three little pigs. Initially I wanted to do a different nursery rhyme a week, but right now I am WAY too busy to gather materials for that.
For the three little pigs, we put on a puppet show and have played with these sequencing cards. She has had fun learning this story, however when I ask her to tell me the story of the three little pigs. more than likely she will tell me this” three little pigs, lost their mittens, began to cry….” and continue on with the story of the three little kittens 🙂 -she has that kitten nursery rhyme down!

Field Trip Friday–
We went to the train station on a cold morning and had all the display trains to ourselves to explore! and a few days later RODE on a train to a nearby city, in a blizzard, to go to build-a-bear. On our way to build-a-bear we stopped by a planetarium to dry off from the storm and “walked on the moon”. It was a lot of fun! I have a list somewhere on my computer of possible field trip locations for your kiddos- if I can find it I will upload it!

Some things I want to ADD to our fun days: piano lesson (I have the workings of a very basic “piano” curriculum running through my head) math exploration time, and more arts and crafts. I am slowly getting a structure and routine in place- I just need about 5 more hours in a day to get everything accomplished! And one day a week where I can do some uninterrupted lesson planning!
If anyone has great spanish teaching ideas (besides watching Dora the Explorer) I would love to hear them!!!!
Happy Teaching!!!

Tumbling Tuesday Bible

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OK- here is the book of all books for our Tumbling Tuesdays. It is called “Unplugged Play” and is written by Bobbi Conner. A fabulous collection of some fun games to play with your child from ages 1 to 10.
Here are some games that I think sound like fun:

  1. kitchen soccer
  2. romper roll
  3. beanbag basket toss
  4. tunnel tube
  5. pillowcase surprise
  6. hallway bag ball
  7. duckie dip
  8. outdoor box ball
  9. bumper ball
  10. teddy says
  11. beanbag toss
  12. roll it, toss it
  13. ringer ball, ring a ding soccer
  14. toddler basketball
  15. zoom zoom zoom
  16. follow the leader
  17. one two three. hop like me
  18. toddler tag
  19. stop and go dancing

It doesn’t stop here…..in fact, this book has over 700 activities to do with your child! From arts, playdates, family nights….. this book has ideas for them all! This was truly a diamond found at the library!!!

Yesterday for Tumbling Tuesday (OK, yesterday was Wednesday….but Tuesday I was sick in bed all day so we are making up for lost time!) I taught my Boo how to play tag. She LOVES it. I had “it” wear a scarf so she would remember who “it” was. That really helped out a lot. We ran around the house until we were both out of breath and in need of a drink break. And who knows…maybe in the process of playing with my daughter, I burned some calories!
Happy Teaching!

Tumbling Tuesday- Toddler Balance Beam

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A few months ago I came across this post from Little Hands, Big Work about making your own toddler balance beam. I fell in love immediately. For two reasons- one, I am a sucker for DIY projects, especially when you can save a lot of money. And my daughter LOVES any large motor skill activity I can rummage up. So making a toddler balance beam just seemed to make sense!
If you want a professional looking homemade balance beam, click on the link at the beginning of this post. Our beam is more of a “creation”- or “what can I find lying around our house that would work”. Luckily we had a piece of vinyl fencing and a bookshelf full of bulky computer programming books. It took all of 30 seconds to put together. (Laid the fence board over three piles of books)
The first thing my daughter did when she saw the beam was to jump over it. So we played the jumping game for awhile- jumping back and forth. Then taking turns with Mommy jumping (it was great exercise!) We finished up our jumping game by holding hands while we both jumped at the same time. It was a great, spur of the moment, beam activity.

When we tired of jumping, I modeled the skill by showing my daughter how to walk across the beam (very carefully mind you- I thought that with Mommy weight the board was going to break at any moment) She instantly understood what to do and walked across beautifully. Several times. There were a few falls, but she is a trooper and would tell her self out loud, “let’s try again!” I just love her diligent little spirit!

What do you have lying around your house that would make a great toddler toy? Have fun with your little one today!
Happy Teaching!

PS. Thanks for the blog award Shafer Family! I love your blog TONS! Your recognition of my little blog means so much to me!

Tumbling Tuesday- Make Your Own Ribbon Wands

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For our Tumbling Tuesday activity, I wanted to dance with ribbon wands. I thought they would be simple enough to make- and I was right! They took maybe 5 seconds to make!!! I used long pipe cleaners and colorful streamers (tie a piece onto the pipe cleaner)- just because that is what we had on hand.I wasn’t sure how I would like the pipe cleaners, but in the end I LOVED them because we could transform our ribbon wands to ribbon bracelets easily since pipe cleaner is so flexible. And I won’t feel guilty throwing them away because I can easily make them again. 🙂

Tumbling Tuesday- Thanksgiving Dances

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This is a MUST HAVE activity for anyone with an active, dancing toddler! I was thrilled to come across some thanksgiving related dance moves at PE Central and although it says this activity is for grades K-2, my 2 year old had a blast! With older kids they can name off the food groups while dancing. (2 year old isn’t quite ready for that yet!)

Here are the dance moves:
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MASHED POTATOES: The Mashed Potato Dance (fists closed, arms extended out in front, alternating up and down movement.) This exercises the upper body and potatoes are in the vegetable group.
TURKEY: Flap wings and gobble like a turkey while running carefully throughout the gym. This is an aerobic exercise and turkey is in the meat group.
APPLE PIE: Students roll like a ball (apple) towards the center of the floor and sit together closely like apples in a pie. Rolling needs flexibility and body management. Apples are in the fruit group.
CRANBERRIES: Students stomp on the floor on the cranberries to mash and puree the berries. This exercises the leg muscles and cranberries are in the fruit group and full of antioxidants.
GREEN BEANS: Students walk around the gym on their tippy toes, arms extended upward, attempting to look long and tall. This exercise helps flexibility, balance and body awareness. Green beans are in the vegetable group.
THANKSGIVING: Students walk around the gym shaking hands and giving appropriate compliments to their classmates. This is a way to show proper social skills.
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I created some activity cards that went along with each dance. As I was teaching my daughter the moves, I would show her the card first. After we learned all the dances, she picked a card and then we would do the corresponding dance. She loved the turkey but absolutely hated the apple pie (doesn’t like rolling on the ground). Feel free to download- just click on the pic and save it to your desktop!
Happy Tumbling and Teaching!

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