Nursery Rhymes

Last week our Twinkie Time was based on nursery rhymes. One of the twins' favorite books is Mary Engelbreit's Mother Goose. It was one of the first books we read together and now we often read the book cover to cover before their naps. Twinkie Time was a natural extension of some of their favorite nursery rhymes.

Monday - Table Time - This Little Piggy Shadow Matching from Little Adventures Tot Packs
                Floor Time - I cut up some sheep from Little Adventures and hid them around the room. We pretended we were Little Bo Peep in search of her sheep. My little Emma loved this activity.

Tuesday - Table Time - Hickory Dickory Dock Size Ordering from Little Adventures
                Floor Time - Repeat of Monday

Wednesday - Table Time - Water colored different sheep for Baa Baa Black Sheep
                     Floor Time - Rice Sensory Bin

Enos

Monday - I introduced the account using the Little Hands visuals from LatterDay Chatter. We sang I Pray in Faith from the Children's Songbook.

Tuesday - We drew pictures of all the different things that we can pray for while singing our song.

Wednesday - Enos is a little tricky to act out while keeping the interest of a two year old. :) I retold the story emphasizing that just like Heavenly Father heard and answered Enos, He will hear and answer the twins as well.

Friday - Retelling of the story

Nephi Traveling to the Promised Land

Monday - I introduced the account with pictures from ldsfamilyfun.com. We sang All the Folks on Nephi's Boat from Scripture Scouts

Tuesday -  We colored a picture of Nephi steering the ship from ldsfamilyfun.com while singing out song.

Wednesday - We all pretended we were on Nephi's boat (our couch). I, then, pretended to be Laman and tied Nephi (James and Emma) up in a blanket. We then rocked back and forth and up and down as if we were tossed in a storm (much giggling) until Nephi was finally let go.

Thursday - Repeat of the very popular Wednesday.

Friday - We retold the story using Little Hands Visuals from LatterDay Chatter.

Nephi Building the Boat

Every day we start scripture time by holding our Book of Mormons and singing the chorus of Scripture Power. James and Emma now love the song and like to sing it with great vigor. :) A few weeks ago we studied the account of Nephi building the boat. Here's how our week went.

Monday - I introduced the story with pictures (free!) from ldsfamilyfun.com. At this site you can download coloring pages from the Living Scriptures videos. We don't actually own these videos, but I do like using some of the coloring pages to help tell the story. In an ideal world I have time to color the pages I am going to use before I introduce the story. However, you can often find my oldest two coloring the pages Sunday night, or occasionally I tell the story without the pages colored at all. You can download A LOT of pages for each story, but I find that the twins lose interest if there are too many. I try and pick just a few to tell the basics of the story. We sang Chop, Saw, Hammer and Chip from Scripture Scouts, Nephi's Boat from Scripture Scouts, and Nephi's Courage from the Children's Songbook.

Tuesday - We colored one page from our story, Nephi building the boat while singing our three songs.

Wednesday - We built Nephi's boat out of legos.

Friday - We retold the story with our songs.

Trucks, Trucks, Trucks

Last week our twinkie time was all about trucks! Here's what our week looked like -

Monday Table Time - Shadow Matching from Little Adventures Tot Packs
              Floor Time - Masking Tape Roads for our cars to drive on

Tuesday Table Time - Tested out what kind of tracks our cars made in playdough
              Floor Time - Masking Tape Roads (twins insisted :) )

Wednesday Table Time - Practiced writing our names (the twins watched and then had fun scribbling)
                   Floor Time - Had a car wash in the kitchen sink (this was a BIG hit!)

Friday Table Time - Color Truck Splat Matching from Little Adventures Tot Packs
           Floor Time - Played Stop! and Go! with our trucks

Some of our favorite truck books include:

Roadwork by Sally Sutton
Demolition by Sally Sutton
My Truck is Stuck! by Kevin Lewis
Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Rinker
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
Little Blue Truck Leads the Way by Alice Schertle

Lehi's Dream

Last week we learned all about Lehi's Dream. Here's the run down of how the week went...

Monday - I told the twins the story using some fantastic visuals from Latterday Chatter. I love her Little Hands series. I have a variety of story telling props for scripture stories, but the twins love these the most simply because they are, as she so aptly named, made for little hands. They are just the right size for my toddlers to handle and play with. I typically like to use free resources, but these were a purchase that I felt were worth every penny.

Tuesday - I drew a picture of a tree and some fruit that the twins colored while I sang, 'The Fruit of the Tree' from Scripture Scouts and the chorus 'The Iron Rod' from the Hymn Book. I usually just sing the songs over and over and pretty soon the kiddos are singing with me.

Wednesday - I pulled out one of our little Christmas trees, threw some oranges in it, pulled out our broom and sang while the twins took turns holding the iron rod and taking the fruit off the tree. They especially liked eating the fruit.

Thursday - Wednesday was such a hit that we repeated it Thursday, though James wanted to know why we weren't getting the rest of the Christmas decorations out. :)

Friday - We retold the story with the Little Hands visuals while singing the songs.

How does this all work?

Here's how a normal Twinkie Time morning works...

9:00 Scripture Time
9:10 Free Play while I clean, vacuum, generally get stuff done
9:40 Calendar Time
9:45 Singing Time
10:00 Twinkie Table Time
10:15 Twinkie Floor Time

While we do many other things together throughout the day (read, bake, play etc.), this is time that I have set aside just for them, where they have my undivided attention, no matter what.