Tot School

Nathan is currently 17 months old

We had a great week of Tot School~ and had many many times of structured learning.  Nathan loves that his tot school activities are on the shelves in the playroom and he'll bring me one of the containers and say "tot tool yes seat" and sit in my lap.  It's so fun to see him wanting to learn!  I've let him direct many of the choices of activity this week and that worked really well.  Here are some pictures of our great week.

Nathan's favorite activity is still drawing and he asks to do this at least 15 times a day, any time he sees a pen, crayon, pencil, marker or paper.  I'm trying to work with him on holding the pencil more correctly, kind of like Ephraim does in his these pictures.  He loves the aqua doodle and so do I!  No mess!  We're working on learning to leave the pen with the drawing mat when he gets up.

He is usually quick to turn the writing utensil the correct way, but this day, he was using the crayons upside down on purpose and saying "where" when he'd color and then laugh, followed by turning it the right way and then gasping when it did color.  It was funny to see him pulling my leg a bit.

Painting the sidewalk is a bit hit in our house!  

After Nathan painted this, he said "airplane".  I guess it kind of does look like an airplane.

Puzzles were another hit this week.  He's so good at looking at a shape and matching it to the correct hole.  

I'm not sure what this is called but my grandparents brought it back for me from Holland when I was really little.  Nathan is very interested in all the little babies and he loves to open them all and fit them back together.

We've been working more with the letters in his name this week.  Several times when I wrote a few words, including his name,  and asked him to find his name, he chose correctly.  I think these puzzles are helping to reinforce the letters as well.  He calls this one "Naynay putzle" (Nathan's puzzle).  

More work with letters, animals and puzzles. 

This week we also worked on talking on the phone.  He has just started to tell "stories" about his day and he's wanting to share them with people.  Yesterday, he picked up the phone and said "hi Yaya?" So we called Yaya and left her a message.  In it, with minor prompting, he said something along these lines..." hi Yaya ( horse noise ) seat (pig noise) pat pat pat dog wuv ewe bye bye".  Loosely translated, "hi Yaya!  I went to chic fil a on Tuesday and sat on a horse and petted a pig and a dog.  I love you.  Bye bye".

Pushing the truck is great gross motor and motor planning to drive it around things.

He loves this toy and it belongs to Sadie.  He sees it and says "slady eek eek frow".  He means that it's Sadie's toy, it squeaks, and we throw it.  He likes to squeak it and I think it's good for building those hand muscles! ;)

Nathan has begun to show more interest in choosing what he wears.  When it's appropriate, I let him.  This is what he wore one day this week.

He likes to put these shoes on and walk around.  He'll keep them on for hours.  

We spent a lot of time this week playing musical instruments, singing, playing piano, and listening to different kinds of music.

I have this cube in the middle of the playroom because we're working on Nathan's climbing skills.  He quickly gets frustrated when he can't get up there and gives up easily, so we're purposefully working on climbing skills.  I'm not sure if I'll regret this later, but for now it's cute to see him get up there and read a book for a minute or two!

He spent a great deal of time this week reading books.  He chatters to himself as though he's reading and then will shout out things he recognizes.  He wants to sit in his rocker or in your lap or in a big chair to read.

He's saying "fire hot"

He is not a fan of stacking, but I try to encourage it when we can.  He loves to say the word and try to stack things but he knocks them down so fast!  I'm trying to teach him about towers and building them really high and waiting to knock them down.

Stacking and peg board work, as well as color recognition

Fill and spill/transferring activities for the week.

After stacking the cups and blocks, we started putting one block in each cup.  It was great to see him catch on so fast and want to do it again and again and again!

Nathan discovered this back massager in our room the other day.  For some reason he calls it a "belleee" perhaps because I did it to tickle his belly one day.  He loves to walk around with it pushing it down on different surfaces.  I think it's a great learning tool because he's learning that it makes different sounds on different surfaces.  He also does it all over his body.  Too funny to see him doing it on his knee caps and...

on his head.

Speaking of sensory activities, how about some beans?

Pulling just the small pompoms out of the beans was a challenge for him and really great fine motor work as well as a sensory activity.  It was also a good lesson in "just take one".

Nathan and Daddy playing with playdoh

Fine motor activities... this particular straw activity is the hardest for Nathan and he needs some help and is quick to give up, but we're learning to finish a task before putting it away.

The rest of the activities he loves and requests all the time.

To see what others are doing in their tot schools, click here.  Join us and share a post regarding what you're doing in your tot school!  You can do that here too.  Have a great weekend!