Tot School

Nathan is currently 18 months old

This was a fun week of tot school because we had so many field trips!  On to the fun pics of our adventures this week.

Nathan discovered that two of his blocks put together would make a circle.  I was so proud of him for discovering this on his own!  Now, he only wants to play with these two blocks.  

Our great shape sorter was a big hit this week.  Nathan can do the whole thing independently, and names them all as he puts them in.  It's so cute to hear him doing this.

He has loved this toy for a whole year now.  He still plays with it daily and it was so worth the money.  It's a great toy to play with as they grow through different stages.  Here he is at 8 months playing with the Parents Busy Street Activity Cube...

Here he is at 18 months playing with the same cube...

Now he focuses on pushing the shapes through the holes and pushing the cars through the doors.  He also loves the letters and pictures on the side of it.  We've been identifying many of those this week too.

On Friday, I introduced trays.  Nathan knows what a tray is from his high chair and he knows things are supposed to stay on the tray.  This went over well with puzzles, but not so well with blocks.  We'll focus on the puzzles for now!

Another favorite - 2 part vehicle puzzle.

Another new word this week... ambulance.  It's funny to hear him say it and I'll have to video it! 

Lots of music time this week!

Stacking blocks on the tray.  

Pennies in the bank.

Gross motor... dunking the ball outside!

Carrying two balls at one time.  I love this face!  He wanted me to carry one, but I encouraged him to carry both and he did it.  It was so funny to watch though, and encouraged him to use both hands simultaneously.

climbing and sliding

Nathan loves to jump and bounce and he's getting so close to getting both feet off of the ground when he jumps.  This particular day of tot school, we did lots of jumping and movement on this air mattress.  It's not fully inflated and was a great place for Nathan to build core strength while he balanced, while working on gross motor skills and having a blast too!  He sits on the edge and bounces up to a standing position.

jump, jump, jump, Nathan jump... this is our tumblebees chant and he loves for us to say it as he jumps.

turning in a circle making very silly sounds

crash!

Looking at books - we do this so much during the week and it's so fun now that he's talking a mile a minute because he likes to tell you what's on the pages.  He was happy to see a donkey in this book because he saw one on Tuesday at the petting barn.  He also learned that a donkey says "he haw".  

naming more animals and animal sounds

Our first cooking adventure.  This went about as well as I'd expected.  Nathan has little self control over his hands and grabs anything in sight.  This is a work in progress, but it makes cooking with him a bit challenging (especially photographing the cooking...) so bear with me.  This was so much fun though and we'll definitely do it more often!

Opening the box and pulling out the bag of cookie mix

Pouring the cookie mix into the bowl and using the handheld mixer to mix it all up.   He loved that, but I didn't dare take a picture or cookie dough would have been strewn about my whole kitchen!

And the best part of any cooking adventure... licking the beaters!

Tasting the fruits of our labor (minus the chocolate chips - mommy ate all of those out of Nathan's cookie - we're saving chocolate as a potty training reward).

This week we had a fun time with our friends learning to take turns and share.  Here are Nathan and Colt sitting at the table together.

Riding the choo choo and learning about the different animals we saw along the way.

Looking at the donkey

Pretend play!  Nathan is learning to pretend a bit and here he is pretending to sleep.  he likes me to wake him up too.  He tried to snore and it's really funny!

We had a great week of tot school and I'm looking forward to reading about your ideas!  Please post them here and share your love of tot school with the rest of us!