Tot School - Getting Back into the Groove!

I feel like our year is finally beginning! Goodbye 2009 and, most importantly, bronchitis! Last week we didn't get to do as much as we liked, but we still had a lot of fun. I would love to seek out the advice of my fellow Tot School Moms so I have a few questions:

1. How much time do you spend doing activities with your children versus allowing them to do self-directed activities? I see a lot of value for both types of activities, but I am unsure how to balance and schedule my days. For example, one day last week, I had a few activities planned. I was ready to start and noticed that my daughter was having a ball stacking and restacking plastic cups. A fun self-directing activity right? No way did I want to pull her away to do what I had planned. So do I just keep the mom/daughter activities for times when her own activities aren't engaging her? How do you plan out your day?

Perhaps I will just start out with this question today since it turned into such a big one. I would love any insight.

So here is our week in review:

Letters: Mini Diva LOVES stickers. She put all her Animated friends on the Letter A. She decided to put them all within the A on her own which I thought was cool :).

Imaginary Play: Mini Diva is getting more and more into dress up and often includes Mini Dude in her fun. This day it was sunglasses, last week he was Cinderella.

Life Skills: Number one priority has been helping her to be the best big sister she can be. We are working on using quiet, gentle voices when we speak to the baby. For the most part, she is a doting, loving sister. She loves to put his bink back in and often brings him toys to play with.

I have also been focusing on allowing her to help me in my chores more. This week Mini Diva:

• Made pancakes! She LOVES pouring and mixing. I can tell that she is getting more focused when we cook together. She was quite sad when I told her that she couldn't flip the pancakes, but she did enjoy counting to 3 and telling me when to flip them.
  
• Laundry. Transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer is something that Mini Diva enjoys doing.
• Putting dishes in the sink.
  

That is all for last week. This week is already proving to be better! Can't wait to post on Sunday!