From Babble to Scrabble, We're Going to Tot School

we're back! tot school prep....

2011-03-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

so we are starting tot school on April 4th....so this week we are just getting used to some of the ideas again....i haven't really done tot school with my oldest since he turned Two!

here's a few things we did today!

R saw a little girl on the box of this activity with the pegs on a string, so he decided he wanted to do the same thing!! he decided on this pattern. we made a necklace or a 'man band' haha!

Thomas the Train Puzzels! This puzzle is almost too easy for him! ha!

We talked about letter D!! Practiced his cutting which he LOVES- he actually cut around the objects with limited help. He doesn't get frustrated with this even though it is challenging whereas drawing is such a chore for him. crasy! after that he glued and pasted!

B really likes tops so i gave him so tupperware to try to put the tops on!

B had some puzzle time while i was working with Reid.

*no picture on this, but R decorated a ribbon for a project at school- painted, glitter glued, and used stickers!

Tracing shapes. let him do the first one and i guide his hand for the second one.

This started out as B's activity, but R decided that he wanted to try and decided that doing patterns

was more fun than stacking them!

B had his first introduction to utensils! He did some transferring too. And turned them into music as well.

Rockin' around Shutterfly, it's a shutterfly-holiday!

2010-10-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

For the past three years, I have used Shutterfly for Christmas Cards, Birth Announcements, and printing all of my pictures! I love the quality of their work and their service!! The desiI want to share with you their current promotion, so YOU can get in on the great things that shutterfly is doing, too!!

Take 20% OFF ALL HOLIDAY CARDS using the link below!

“Shutterfly is offering 20% off all holiday cards”

The first year I ordered with shutterfly I did a photo card; the color came out just as I saw online and I was so happy. Last year, I went with a cardstock 5x7 with holiday bells on it- I couldn't find a religous card that really worked for us. This year, I am so happy to see MORE of a selection of designs with a Christian Holiday theme! My choices are wider and for our family, that works!! I also browsed the other holiday choices and they are greater this year too!!! Everyone get's more of a choice this year- whatch out tiny prints, shutterfly is coming!!!

We are having our family portraits taken this weekend to use on our Christmas Card from Shutterfly.

I will decide if i want to use ONE or Two pictures on the card once I see our proofs, but i have pretty much narrowed own our choices to these two cards!

I love this one because we are wearing blue and brown in our pictures and this one will coordinate great! There is enough room to write a message not just names! I could do one traditional family picture, one artsy picture, and a picture of each of my sons! I just love this layout!

This one is another favorite! This one also coordinates with our blue and brown theme! This is a little bit more simple, but sometimes that is the best way to go! I love that the 2010 is big because i'll never forget which year this card came from!! The font's for joy and magic are great too! I would use this card as a 'folded' card, so I could have more room to write a message on the inside and really personalize the card for each person we send them too!

Use these links below to find fabulous Hanukkah, holiday-story, and religious Christmas Cards that fit your style and your family!

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/hanukkah-cards

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-story-cards

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/religious-christmas-cards

Please leave me a message on this post if you have any questions about using Shutterfly for your holiday cards this year!

we're about to start tot school again!!!

2010-10-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Preschool started in September and We've been focusing on that, but we are about to start tot school at home on Fridays and also starting tot school for baby brother!!!

exciting things are coming!!!

Tot School This Week:

gross motor skills: riding a bike, galloping like a horse, sumersaults, throwing a football!
fine motor skills: writing letters with mommy/learning to hold a marker properly, woring with bigger puzzels, building train tracks, doing finger games to nursery rhymes, practicing zipping!
memory skills: two new songs this week (jesus loves me and our god by chris tomlin)
spelling: recognize the A sound in words!

tot school with two...

2010-03-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

this week is all about squares!!!

1. watching the shapes movie by preschool prep!

2. crafting with squares: gluing little squares in a big square

3. puzzle time

we mixed all the pieces up and he had to find the square and put it in its place- and he DID IT...

as he would say...: REID DID IT! ...lol, we talk in third person right now!

4. coloring our square for a soon to make 'shapes book'

no pictures....but...

we 1. decorated SQUARE styrofoam blocks with golf tees, tooth picks, and feathers

2. played with chalk outside by drawing SQUARES and jumping in the and then putting some trucks into each square

3. played with soapy water and had our first experience with sponges (squeezing and soaking)

4. gross motor skills fun: running through the sprinkler (aka: fountain) - ran in 'circles' (even though it was 'square week' the sprinkler is a round ring that squirts water up like a fountain and he was fixate on running in a 'circle' around it...hey, learning is learning!)

23 months- tot school week one!

2010-03-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

tot school this week was all 'on a whim...'

and it was super fun that way!

played with and identified all of his letters and numbers 1-9...

and then placed them in 'lines'- horizontal and vertical!

while i was cooking, he had fun stirring!

memory game- what's under the cup...and do you remember with the 'x' was?

making pretend cupcakes and decorating them with shapes (one or two)

color sorting trains

fine motor skills with the money sorter along with sorting colors

fun with lids...shape recognition, matching correct shaped lid to the correct container

Tot School-22.5 months

2010-02-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

The Wonder of Utensils, Pom Poms, and Two Buckets!

practicing fine motor skills with 'tongs' (aka: cheater chop sticks)

-needs a little guidance at the beginning to get the hang of this...

Pouring!

Scooping

Transferring!

Fisher Price Garage used to RACE TWO CARS

#2 reinforcement!

He loves this toy most of all so I decided to play with him and use a little

learning while playing!

Numbers Puzzle!

I have been taking this everywhere this week! It shows up at every meal,

during cuddle time, and randomly throughout the day! He's starting to think of it as a game and is getting super excited when I give him LOADS of encouragement when he find the right number. He is now even 'tricking' me and saying its a number, then shaking his head no, and then pointing to the right one! Fave numbers are definitely seven and three!

We are stressing '2' right now, though.

Drawing:

I left this drawing mat open with shapes drawn on it and a bag of crayons next to it to let him take the initiative of wanting to color...and he did!

He called me over and I encouraged him to color 'in' the different shapes, identifying them and waiting for him to locate it to color at least near it, lol!

tot school- slow while sicky!

2010-02-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

Color Recognition with Fruit Loops!!

Fine Motor Skills with toothpicks into foam!

He did this with a lot of toothpicks and got pretty good at picking it up the right way and holding it in a way that gave him more leverage- practice makes 'better' bc it was way difficult at the beginning and super easy at the end.

Loves to dump out all of his letters, identify them and place the on this board.

I haven't focused on letters other than when we see them when we are out and about, but he proved to still know every one of them! (little hesitation with lower case b vs d...)

Now we are working on letter 'sounds'....best way to do this is with a 'toy' from leap frog- seriously, no craft or game is going to teach them as well as this will every time you get in the car.....he's been taking to it pretty well. Some moms are already introducing 'spelling' or at least putting letters together- but I do not want to push memorization on my son at all. Once he understands the phonics of the letter sounds, then i'll let his teachers at preschool take over...this is FUN stuff at home and I don't want to teach him 'too much' too soon because that means he might now 'really' master the information and be moving along too quickly.

Tot School the past week has been slow because baby boy was sick, but we have been focusing on numbers, days of the week, and big vs little.

I tried introducing 'short' vs 'long' but he had very little interest in that! Its a hard concept to find interest in on its own- so i may leave that one up to the preschool teachers next year!

For Gross Motor skills, when he had some energy, we practiced 'jumping over' things...He's got to learn how to jump with two feet- right now it's kind of like jumping rope with the 'gallop'!

February Tot School- Week One at 22 months old!

2010-02-08T05:16:00.000-08:00

Beginning stages of counting-

he's still to early in his learning process of numbers for this to be effective, but introduction

is also important- he loved the 'frosty snowmans' and the number 2, 8, & 9

Make Cupcakes and color match and fine motor skills activity!

colored the toothpicks with markers and stuck them in play dough cupcakes (huge hit) then matched the fruit loop colors to the cupcake color and placed them on the tooth pick.

took a while for him to figure out how to hold the loop to get it on the tooth pick...so patience is key and i showed his improve throughout the activity...

Decorating the Letter H!

Painting (colors and x review)

- i guided his hand to make it to the circles and let him do it on his own

independent story time....

'Where Does It Fit?'

he came up with this all by himself and i totally encouraged it

tried putting the ball in different cylinders and would lift it up amazed that it was now at the bottom, then tried putting cylinders into each other and putting the ball in others where it didn't fit- great 'problem solving' activity

Heart Wreath:

he helped glue and name the shape

we kept it at our snack and play table talking about the numbers

and that hearts mean love during the week

end of january- 22 months

2010-01-29T20:14:00.000-08:00

'almost' 22 months

Hide and Suprise!

*we haven't done this since his first birthday and he loved it all the more.

took him a while to get 'into' it and really dig to find the shapes, blocks, and letters that i had hid in the oatmeal- but he was happy to label the colors, shapes, and letters once he found them!

'My First Birdfeeder'

Painting fun and talking all about birds- encompasses fine motor skills,

color id, attention enhancement, and outdoor fun!

The Letter 'T' for the day!

-talked about all things that started with T for the day!

- used crayons and stickers to decorate!

Melissa and Doug Counting/Color sorter

- love love this toy!!

-engages tot in counting, color id, and shape id!

'spin spin a LETTER'

-he got this for christmas LAST YEAR and plays with it totally different now!

-learning new and refreshing already known animal sounds and letters

Shape Sorting!

-can never go wrong with going over shapes over and over if the tot likes them!....

then go around the house and try to find another shape just like it!!

1:1 correspondence!

-putting ONE letter in ONE empty hole

-I want to start working on counting correspondence, but figured I should make sure

he could master this first....and he can!

-of course it was fun to see what letters we found in a big bowl as we went along, too!

.... continued the correspondence and fine motor skills on a whim when i found him unwrapping an orbitz gum package- those things are HARD to get into!!!...so then we took the gum out and put them into the ice cube tray and counted them....yes, i let him 'taste' the minty gum too! now chewing- just licking like a lollipop! lol

Tot School- january week 2

2010-01-19T16:47:00.000-08:00

21 months

Gluing Practice! Color Identification!

(used an old OJ box....i let him decide what he wanted to do as we went along, so grass became flowers and the feathers to represent birds never made it on there bc he didn't like their texture!- great for following directions, enforcing 'lines', and letting child make own decisions on where to put things, colors

Pretend Play: making airplanes with sticks (crossing two sticks together and flying them around...this is something he remembers doing in music class with bigger sticks)

Fine Motor Skills and Color ID: choosing a color stick out of the bag and placing it in one of two bottles, naming what color and which bottle he has chosen...

Lacing Beads! Great Fine motor skill activity, color enforcement, and improving attention span....i found that when he successfully held a bead and pulled the string through all by himself, he was so proud of himself and the encouragment provided was definitely helpful, but he recognized on his own, his success.

Letter Fun...Somewhere New: take letter fun outside, we had a little snow left on the driveway, so we used chalk to write and identify letters- well, i wrote letters, he id'd them and scribbled around...he has started scribbling, calling out a letter, thinking he has written it though! good try, buddy!

January Week 2 .... (to be updated)

2010-01-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

working on our 'letter book'- coloring the letter T, letting him choose his OWN color by identifying the color before using it first....

started working on putting things in 'LINES' this morning...

and by this afternoon after mommy made a line with blocks, Reid made one for his trucks to ride on too!

21 months

paint with water

color matching- placing a train of a certain color on the matching color mat

no pictures from today- bummer, but i'll list what we did:

melissa and doug magnetic letters board-

starting with T and then spread them all out on the floor and let him identify them and place them on the board when he id'd them correctly! he got so excited when finding a letter that he knew and eventually made it all the way through the alphabet. He also learned more about 'magnetism' which he found very interesting....

printed out a big T and little T coloring sheet...

he was having difficulty differentiating between T and I so i wanted to focus on that a little bit.

Color Stacking and Nesting....

two of each color, practicing identifying similar color families (ex: dark purple vs light purple) and grouping them by color

tot school- january 1

2010-01-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

fine motor skills- picking off grapes!!

painting letters- K this week! plus colors!!

putting the caps back on our 'do a dot' paint

cotton balls into trays- filling up and cleaning up

stickers- peel stick push

building towers...color work!

color sorting...not into this at all!

18 MONTHS....

2009-10-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

SO WE HAVE TAKEN A VERY LONG BREAK FROM TOT SCHOOL...BUT WE ARE COMING BACK...SINCE WE HAVE BEEN GONE....

1. we know the letters: A, B, M, N, K, O, and P!!

2. we know the number one!

3. we ROLL, Bounce, (try to) JUmp, and MARCH!

4. we can peel and stick stickers all by ourself!

5. we play independently without whining.

6. we have added ant, butterfly, bug, dinosaur, and gecko to our list of animal identifications!

7. we love trains and are starting to learn the letter T- but pretty much say choo choo instead!- our fine motor skills have improved so much while playing with trains (getting them on the track, rearranging the tracks, ect)

....I NEED NEW IDEAS FOR TOT SCHOOL ACTIVITIES FOR 18 MONTHS AND UP !

He is in childcare/school 2 days a week every other week and one day every week....but i want to keep it up at home and with his getting older, i need to be working harder at finding 'cool' things to do bc he'd rather just play with his trains!

Tot School: 15 months old

2009-07-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Tot School at 15-15.5 months old

Pipe cleaners through the holes of foam numbers and letters...

a COLORS & fine motor skills activity

Pipe Cleaners in small holes...

a fine motor skills and concentration building activity

Painting!

Stacking Cups!

Playdoh fun!

the things you can teach them while playing with playdoh are amazing!

he manipulated the doh with different 'tools' and placed balls in different sized cups

all the while focusing on 'blue'....

he LOVES playdoh and especially loves tearing it apart and distributing it among the containers

Tot School Not pictured:

pushing and pulling- loves to push his car (while someone is riding of course) and his 'baby' stroller with his monkey in it

READING all about animals!

Singing about body parts and ID'ing them

Water Play- Scooping and Pouring

Coloring with Crayons and Tadoodles

(if only i could convince him that it is cool to stay ON the paper)

Tot School Week of 6.15-6.19

2009-06-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

R-man is 14.5 months old

Pardon the wetness...I promise I change his shirt about hundred times a day and he normally has a bib on...just not this time! We are working on two molars and it causes for A LOT of DROOL!

making music with measuring spoons....after he learned how to 'scoop'!

this is a great activity because I applied what he learned here to lunch time where he was able to scoop his own applesauce...so we are currently eating all things that go in a bowl (soup, stew, yogurt, applesauce, ect) by our self!! yea!! we're still working on the fork...

This was after he had found all the 'little people' during our 'hide and suprise' game!

He loved the texture of the oatmeal, getting his hands all messy in it- watching it slip through his fingers, ect...we he found his duck hidden at the bottom, he was so excited to see it...i just wish he had called out 'DUCK'....oh well, that word will come in time!

*pictures were an afterthought*

Sticker Fun! I'd peel a sticker off just a bit and let him pull it the

rest of the way off and place on the paper. he loves stickers!

i am still finding a few around the house, but he did pretty well putting them on the paper...

i had to help push them down to make sure they stuck- but he got the idea.

(Transferring) Tootpicks into small containers...

This too so much focus, but he did all of them!

Next up is to have him put them in a small container with the little holes!

(great for more exposure to colors if you use colored toothpicks!)

Blue Day! Reid loves Blue...and yellow!

Playdoh fun!

He used blue cups and an old baby food tray to put little torn off pieces into...

and spoons to manipulate the 'doh'. He did this for a god while. I was there

encouraging him and talking about every little thing to reinforce the purpose of the activity.

no pictures...but we also did the following:

*putting pennies and dimes into a piggy bank

*coloring with crayongs

*coloring with chalk

*using mr. octopus to learn about colors

*dance partAY!

Tot School 6.1 to 6.10

2009-06-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

Tot School

from the past two weeks starting June 1st, 2009

R-man is 14 months old

MOM'S FAVORITE:

paint chips and wippees!

cut up some strips of paint chips in different colors and show your

child how to put them in the hole in the wipes box! It took R-man a few

tries to master this, but after that, he was sold on the fun! He eventually figured

out how to OPEN the entire box to discover where they all went!

Music Day at Music Together!

So much learning goes on here! R-man demonstrated excellent rhythm by keeping with the beat for longer than expected, so says his teacher Mr. Dave! He loves the sticks song where they do different movements beating these sticks together or on the floor per the teachers instruction.

Tuesday was also GREEN DAY!!

GREEN STICK IN GREEN CUPS

MAKING MUSIC WITH THE GREEN STICKS WHILE BANGING THE GREEN CUPS

GREEN STICKS AS SHOVELS....see below

GREEN SHAVING CREAM TEXTURE PLAY

Mixing up the Green Shaving Cream!

He loved the ooey gooey feeling in the bag!

HIDE AND SURPRISE!

I set out three different boxes with red, blue, and green letters inside.

He had to learn how to Open the box, transfer the letters, and put the lids back on.

During the day, he would wander back to the boxes and partake in this activity all by himself: pouring out the letters, putting them back in the boxes and placing the lid on top (not securely, but enough for a 14 month old)

Last week we had BLUE DAY outside!

Fun with BALLOONS!

This was R-mans first time with balloons!

He thought they were great! Like floating balls that mommy had to run over the field to catch to make sure they didn't fly away!

BLUE PLAYDOH EXPERIMENT!

(no playdoh was eaten- hurray!)

we mashed it with blue sticks, pulled it apart and put in it different cups, made balls with it, ect.

Another Take at Hide and Surprise Game!

The first time, he really was surprised to see his colored letters in there!

PAINTING WITH WATER! (no mess!)

This was part of our blue day continued....

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS:

lots of PUSHING, PULLING, CLIMBING, AND RIDING....

ah- life with a 14 month doesn't require any creativity for these skills!

tot school week of 5.25

2009-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

R-man is 13.5 months old

Pom Poms into a measuring cup!

colors, fine motor skills, focus, transferring, texture

Blue Stick into a Cup

colors, transferring, managing two objects at once- holding cup and stick

Blue Pom Poms in a cup...

he was having fun, so we tried it again!

Stacking NEVER gets old!

Playing with His Farm set...

matching animals, button pressing, animal sounds

Using Crayons

fine motor skills, colors

Using Silverware

started using a spoon and a fork all on our own this week!

Nesting!

Nesting together and taking the nested boxes out...

Free Time....results to this!

No Pictures....

but we also mastered squating and can jump now!

he is grabbing, picking up, and throwing balls, now!

he is identifying more and more animals through his play with animal cards!

Tot School Week of 5.15

2009-05-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

Tot School Week of 5.15

R-man is 13.5 months old

Old McDonald Had a Farm

This little leap frog toy is GREAT for fine motor skills, placing the head and tail of the animals together in the magnetic space...and it plays the animal sounds, too!

R-man is particullarly found of the chick at the top....

To the Beat of My heart!

Makin' Music

Yeup, we drum, play the piano, tap on a xylophone, sing nursery rhymes, shake rattles, make our own shakers out of old toilet paper rolls, and listen to toddler tunes on Tuesday mornings before our Music Together class in the city!

Small Objects in a Bottle:

He is a PRO at this now!! He loves putting things in bottles. I sometimes do this activity before bed because it takes so much focus and really calms him down. in this pic he is putting qtips in a bottle.

Sorting:

sorting green pom poms into a muffin tin!

when he gets older, we'll work on sorting by color, but right now, I just want him to get the idea of putting the pom poms into a separate space. He more wanted to put them all into the same hole, which is a form of sorting (putting all of the same together) in its own right.

Stacking:

He is so fast at this now!

These are great toys! I have to press it down after he puts it on though bc it takes a little bit more muscle than he has to actually lock each color together.

Puzzle Play:

Fabulous way to learn giraff, zebra, monkey, elephant, lion and tiger.

we've got all down except the lion and tiger.

LET'S PLAY WITH THINGS THAT ARE BLUE!

Pouring BLUE water using a BLUE cup!!

Making Music out of Anything!

I am encouraging music with this tot and he loves it! He's got an excellent BEAT and can bang along to any song! So we made a drum out of this tub, before it was used to play with water.

Tot School Week of 5.11.09

2009-05-15T05:36:00.000-07:00

R-man is 13 months old

He started attempting to 'NEST' the cups this week. I have started leaving them for him to use when he is good and ready and this week he showed some interest.

This was a fun activity that we will be working on weekly as he grows. It is great for fine motor skills, following directions, and is a little bit of hide and suprise. I cut holes in the cherrio box and asked him to put uncooked pasta in the holes. I think he got three pasta spirals in the box in total, but i think that is GREAT for his first attempt! He loved picking the box up and looking inside to see where they went! And for the first time ever when playing with pasta, he did NOT try to put it in his mouth!

This was merely a game of 'putting'. I talked about the different colors as I gave him a new ball to place in the muffin tin. His favorite part was taking them out (which turned into teaching him how to throw- not sure if that was my best idea ever). I left it all for a while with the balls scattered about and some still in the tin. Throughout the morning he'd pick up the balls and put them back in the proper slots- when we really start working on colors, i'm going to encourage him to keep the same colors in the same line- but that is a LONG way down the road.

When R-man first started eating solid foods, I made ALL of his BABYFOOD and i used this cute little containers to freeze it in. Now, I use them for transfer containers. We were focusing on green this week, so I gave him some green pom poms and a few containers. He was NOT intersted. About ten minutes later while I had gone to clean up a bit, I noticed that on his OWN, he had started participating in this activity without me showing him what to do! Of course, I ran to his side to applaud him, followed by repeating open and close as he liked that the cup had a lid to keep all the pom poms inside. On his own accord, he took the pom poms to the muffin tin and started placing them in the muffin holes, too!

Colors- color sticks in colored cups. This was simply to keep him happy while I fixed breakfast! and it worked! I gave him some colored popsicle sticks and placed them in the cups, then took them out, and he proceeded to do the same...although it ended up with banging on the cups instead....hey, as long as it's FUN, that's all i care about!

Fine motor skills practice with a truck book! It's windows slide open and close! This is one of his favorite books and his little fingers are getting so good at pushing the window open and closing it again.

The Kid LOVES elmo- i can tell him to go find elmo, and he will hunt hi and low until he has found the little red monster!

Everyday we have story time!

First attempt with crayons!

I got the triangular grip ones- and he liked it. he drew more with the end of the crayon than the tip, but he thought it was fun for all of a minute!

Tot School Week of 2.25.09

2009-04-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

Pack N Play and Blanket Time teaches a child to focus on one toy and enhances the attention span. It also initiates the understanding that what mommy/daddy/teacher/ect says to do is what you should do. Normally during our blanket time, I give him one toy to play with for at least 10 minutes and he must stay on that blanket or in the pack n play for that amount of time with one or two toys.

This week, I pulled the balls out that we used at his b-day party! It was a little more interactive that blanket time normally is, but he was IN the pack n play and LOVED it! (score!)

Everything we did this week involved DUCKS! quack quack quack!

took our ducks outside, put the ducks down the slide, gave the ducks a bath, & put the ducks on hour head, toes, and nose

This is a great new toy that daddy got him! It's not a tot school toy, but it's super fun for and great for practicing those fine motor skills!

Reading Time: this week's favorite was a truck book that he got as a b-day present from a little friend! I am waiting until he starts saying TRUCK like our blog friend Wright

Seek and You Shall Find!

Who knew I could tie a bible verse into Tot School!

I hid Green objects and little yellow ducks (I really tried to help him with 'duck' this week) in a big bowl of oatmeal! This was so fun learning a new texture and he got so excited when he found something at the bottom; he'd pull it out when a funny look on his face and then would show it to me! Precious! Of course, he also tried to EAT the oatmeal....oh well, guess I can count that as a snack for the day!

Colored Sticks From Cup to Bucket: This was a great idea, that turned sour FAST!

He transferred the different colored sticks while I was repeating the colors over and over again, but after about five minute, he decided it would be more fun to eat them instead....which in turn meant colored dye was all over his hands....fun stuff! Oh well- two days later he was saying blue and green so hopefully it was some good reinforcement. And he LOVED dumping them in the bucket and taking them out.

He's Getting Better and Better about putting the qtips in the bottle! Often times he doesn't even need me to do it first!

Shape Sorting! He's finding the shapes more intriguing, but the process of trial and error is VERY frustrating for the little man! He can get the circle in the circle hole, but when the square doesn't fit in the same spot- Game Over! It's good practice and he likes the blocks, and he likes the bucket, so one day, the two will go together. For now, we get as much time in shape sorting with mom as we can, and then it's just in and out in and out and bang the blocks about!

This kid will be buckling himself in his seat before i know it!

Little does he know, he's LEARNING while he does this THREE TIMES A DAY!

Tot School Week of 2.20.09

2009-04-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

Tot School Week of 2.20.09

R-man is 12.5 months old

*pictures are not in order of week's activities

Tuesday was music day! In the afternoon we played with our drums, bongos, and sing along stage while our new cd 'toddler tunes' played in the background. I was actually able to leave him with his musical instruments for a good twenty minutes and he played contently & independently with only the toys I provided him with.

Putting/Taking/Empty/Full: This was a great lesson while mommy was getting ready one morning. I placed a bunch of bibs and burp clothes in this old diaper box and he carefully took them all out, placed them in piles, and put them back in! While putting make up on (haha), I was telling him 'empty', 'full', 'out', 'in'....if anyone saw me, they would think i was looney, but R-man loves all that we do together!

Wednesday morning we had a little bit of time to do tot school before the AM nap and then it was off to gym class! Since we were going to get a ton of gross motor work done in class, I thought we would focus on fine motor skills. R-man played with q-tips which he thought were AWESOME and placed them in the bottle! He loved this and was so proud of himself (clapping) when he got one in! He eventually understood that he could do this with anything that had an opening so he started playing them i these round balls that have holes on either end!

Go R-man!

Just a 'action' shot of R-man at music class! This was our late morning activity- music together!

The instructor uses a guitar which mesmerizes R-man! The rhythm this kid has is all because of this class! In this picture they are playing with 'shakey eggs' and singing.

Puzzle Time...the funny thing about the morning of tot school that we played with puzzles is that we were not supposed to be playing with puzzles. He found it, pulled it out, and started playing....I had an activity with pom poms planned that he had not interest in that day- but he did use the pom poms, placing them inside the holes were the puzzle pieces were supposed to go! Works for me! perfect example of playing while learning.

We focused on green this week and enjoyed painting with green yogurt for snack one morning.

This was a make up as I go tot school activity. He loves the basket, loves the balls, and loves throwing them....so we practiced throwing- not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing...but it also helped reinforce the idea of 'clean up' which I am ALL FOR!

Reading Time! The kid can sit for nearly half an hour with the books alone if i would let him!

Tot School Week of 4.13

2009-04-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

R-man is 12.5 months old

week of 4.13

Transferring- I stopped by the dollar tree one day to pick up some things for this activity! I wanted to focus on 'transferring' from empty to full with R-man. We worked on this concept by taking pom poms in one bucket and putting them into another; then we did it with only one color. Not too long into the activity, R-man was looking for every pom pom he could find to put it into the bucket! He had so much fun playing with the little pom pom balls, especially when i dumped the bucket out on top of his head and ticked his cheek with them.

Learning through Play- it's a beautiful thing!

Fine Motor Skills: R-man LOVES buckles! Whenever he is in the high chair on on the changing pad, i take full advantage of his desire to learn how to put the buckle together! He lets me manipulate his hands to hold the buckle properly and then put one end inside the other. I think it's a 'boy' thing because he wants to know HOW IT WORKS (totally not a girl thing!).

Another 'random learning moment'...i was cleaning up R-man's room a bit and he was toddling around on the floor when he discovered his favorite thing- the HUMIDIFIER! (no joke.) I watched as he was, for the first time, intrigued by the dial that turns it up and off. He was trying to turn it, so I encouraged the learning process of "turning"! He has yet to put this new ability together with the ability to turn the 'key' that is in his car.

During Outside Time, we played with the shape sorter! He doesn't quite get the concept of shapes fitting in the same shape hole, but he so badly wants to stuff them in there- we're on the verge...:) After some time on the blanket, we had an older friend stop by who wanted to learn too. R-man was great- he shared his toys and would offer blocks to her to play with! adorable. We enjoyed our gross motor skills to the fullest while outside too. Walking, swinging, sliding, and even rode in an airplane! R-man's favorite part is to point at things he wants to do- i love that he can communicate with me!

Today we focused mainly on STACKING during tot school.

He loves to play with blocks but had not really turned onto the idea of 'stacking' them.

Four about a minute today, I saw him trying to put the cups one on top of the other

. They wouldn't stay there, so he got frustrated and left them for the stacking rings, but I though that was a MAJOR breakthrough! I can't wait to post about how this has improved in the next two weeks!

We spent time with our ring stackers again. Normally I hand them to him and he puts them in order, but today I let him do it his OWN way. There were rings on the star stacker and stars on the ring stacker and some in a bucket, too! I love that he is using his own creativity to enjoy his learning time. It's hard to get a picture of him doing this activity, especially sine he'd rather rip the camera out of my hand, so this is the after picture. When i clean them

up, i stack the rings to the side so that he can put them back on if he wants to.

We also played with some building blocks. At this age, the activity consists of choosing a block, banging it on something, exploring its shape and texture then throwing it

away for a new block. I maniuplate the blocks, stacking them, making towers, putting them in little cars that roll- i hope as he develops, he will see how 'i play' and try to use his own imagination. right now, we're exploring and discovering which is right where we should be.

No pictures....but we also practiced our animal identification by singing 'old mcdonald had a farm' and stacking...although stacking is more like 'demolition' as that's the only part R-man finds fun right now!

Language: he's babbling as if he is trying to convey something, but no new words that I can readily make out! So far, this week i have heard (no, mama, dada, dog, book, more). Pointing a lot, though, and that is a sign of language development, so i'm not worried.

Tot School Week of 4.6

2009-04-07T16:37:00.001-07:00

Colored Water: we played with a big tub of water and made it blue just like the ocean! we put blue bath tub toys in the water and watch them SINK or FLOAT! we used a 'basting brush' to wash the toys and get them clean! Then we splashed and felt how cold the water felt on our toes! I love playing with texture and exposing Reid to new ways of learning! He loved placing the objects in the water that sunk to the bottom. If anything, I think the activity reinforced the word 'water' or 'wa wa' and started his thought process on the concept that some toys stay on top of the water for him to grab and some object sink to the bottom where he has to dive in to reach them.

Throwing: We did this in a two part game....first we rolled balls back and forth to grandma and practiced holding the ball and then letting go. Then, during pack n play time, we asked him to throw us a ball. He eventually was able to throw the ball and not just drop it! He was so proud to see the ball go FAR! We tried to tie colors into this game, asking him to throw a particular ball color, but that did not go well, so we'll try to add that when we've had more color play later down the road.

Stacking: every morning we do our ring stacker two times and the skills are getting better and better and faster and faster!

Shape Sorting: I am normally sitting right there with R-man during his learning time, but this afternoon, left him on the play mat with just a shape sorter and blocks with music in the background. This activity normally doesn't interest him at all, so I was very curious what would happen. As I rounded the corner to peek in at him, he was putting blocks in the holes through trial and error- moving from hole to hole until the block fit! I did witness some frustration, but he stayed with it, until I walked over to him and stole away his attention, of course! There were about six blocks inside the box. Wow! I am so proud! I know we are a long way from id'ing the shapes, but the motor skills to put them in the proper hole is my current goal for him. (baby steps!)

Learning Happens All Day Long Not Just in Tot School: for example...

R-man is now putting the lid on the aquaphor lotion jar, correctly! I will take it off, he will go get it, and place it gently on top of the jar.

Tot School Week of 3.30

2009-04-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

This was our first official week of tot school, but I don't think we'll really be 'in our routine' for another month. We're still working out our one year jitters, tantrum, and figuring out limits.

Activities This Week:

1. Music time: sang twinkle twinkle little star, over and over again, playing on the drum and xylophone

2. Color Identification: practiced colors where R-man would point to the color in the bath tub basket that I asked....He would only identify yellow, oddly enough. But I was proud that he was able to point to the object he wanted!

3. Finger painting with blue and yellow- this did not go well, i think we were too close to lunch time...we are going to try pudding and yogurt painting next week to see if we get a better outcome!

4.Fun on the Farm: R-man sat in his chair and i set up the animals on the table....we sang old mcdonald had a farm and popped up the animal when we said it along with the animal sounds! He didn't do it along with me, but was smiling and enjoying it....so i know something was sinking in.

5. Animal ID: we spread out all the animals that we have and did the song "ribbit ribbit went the little green frog one day" (it got hard when we got to zebra and giraffe bc i don't know what sounds they make!)...he was able to properly ID the duck, frog, zebra, cow, and elephant....everything else (monkey, lion, cat, dog is hard...) of course he knows a REAL dog, he just doesn't get the stuffed dog concept!

It's just the beginning

2009-03-25T19:50:00.001-07:00

With Reid's first birthday only five days away, I have started to plan lessons and activities that I want to do with him as I teach him things during our days at home together.

Tot School will be a structured playtime that exposes my toddler to early learning practices. He will PLAY and learn simultaneously. We will focus on gross motor skills and fine motor skills, but he will be immersed in PLAY and Reid will take the lead. When he's done, we're done.

To start off this new tot school blog, I'll give a little run down of activities we have engaged in this week:

1. shaky pasta: we took uncooked rotini pasta and practiced putting it in an old soda bottle. he did extremely well with this task, missing quite often, but feeling very proud when he was successful and understanding that he had done it right. of course, post lesson, we shook and shook and shook that pasta so loud that we had to put on music and pretent it was a maraca.

2. stacking: as good as he is at taking things out, we're not as good as putting them back so we worked on taking the colored rings of the stacking toy and putting them back on. we've been working on this four about five days and today he was a pro at it! A lot of something is a good thing- continuous repetition with toddlers is key to their learning process.

3. gross motor skills: we took the walker and the fire truck up and down the long hallway in the apartment building. he was all tuckered out at the end, but babbled the whole time! he was so excited when he got to the end but got a dazed look on his face when i turned him around- classic!

4. drawing: we practiced with crayola's tadoodles crayons- needless to day we are not quite ready for this yet. I am willing to expose him to the coloring process and talking about colors, but his idea of coloring is throwing the crayons on the floor. We will probably hold off on this activity for a little while and instead let him watch mommy color and gain interest in the activity before trying again.

5. music: we attended music class on tuesday! At home, we played with our drum and used everyday house things such as wooden spoons, tupperware, and a pot to make new music. we sang new songs and tried to keep a beat.

6. blocks and balls: we rolled balls back and forth to each other. he's started to understand this more and more and loves this game when it first stars. he loses interest fast in this but has started using the back side of his hand to roll the ball back to me, which is a start and he'll only gain more confidence in it.