Tot School - finshing up 2009

Nathan is 25 months old

Hello everybody! It's good to be back to blogging after a short break over the holidays. We've kept up our tot school over the break and here's what we've been up to over the last 2-3 weeks! I tried to order this INCREDIBLY long post by learning area, but I got frustrated with blogger and so some are out of order, but at least I'm finally posting them. I'll settle for that! :)

Our last group tot school of the year was so much fun! Chad wrapped some presents for toys for tots and the kids decorated the presents with Christmas stickers. It was fun to watch how differently they each went about this. Some decorated evenly on front and back, some just on the front, some grouped stickers by like items, others by shape. It was great to watch!

Next, we made wreaths out of Christmas bows. I can't remember where I saw this, but thank you to whoever posted for this great idea! Help me remember who you are and I'll be sure to link you up!

Then, we made wreaths and candy canes using beads and pipe cleaners. Thank you Shafer family for the idea! This was not a favorite activity, probably due to the difficulty and the concentration needed, but later in the week, it was one Nathan came back to a few times! These kiddos are good friends and so sometimes they just want to play, so I can understand not wanting to do it during group tot school! Izzy was pretty proud of her bracelet (aka wreath).

Colton was excited about his candy cane.

Next, we made snowmen from pre-made kits.

We ended with more snowmen from scratch. It was fun to watch the kids create such different snowmen and to see where they each wanted to put the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. Nathan decided he wanted a sad snowman instead of a happy one... he later changed his mind... or maybe I did. Shame on me!

The greatest part of the snowman theme is that a few minutes after this last activity, it started snowing! For the south, it's a once a year thing and this snow was awesome!! Pics to come!

We have loved doing group tot school and can't wait to start back up again in 2010! If you know other moms around you who might be interested, I highly recommend it! It's so much fun to watch each other's kids learn and to glean new insight from moms of other tots. :)

Over the holidays we always had family around and plenty of fun to be had. Nathan and Yaya played with play-doh for a good 45 minutes one evening. This is such a good activity because it combines colors, shapes, fine motor, creative thinking, and so much more!!!

We were inspired by some fabulous tot school parent for this idea, but I can't remember who! Is this your idea? Let me know if so! After rolling the die, Nathan would count the dots...

put the corresponding number of marshmallows in a bowl and then after asking politely...

he could eat them! This was a huge treat because we don't give Nathan much sugary food and he loved having marshmallows as a part of tot school! It was also a great activity to reinforce "one at a time" and we'll keep this one in our rotation for a while.

Nathan moved into a big boy bed on Dec 21st and he was so helpful with taking apart his crib and assembling his big boy bed. He loves all tools, especially power tools, so this was right up his alley!

This tray was one he often came back to and I noticed so much improvement in his "tong handling" over the week it was out. Can you see the difference in the above and below pics? Way to go little man!

An exercise in 1:1 correspondence. This activity frustrated Nathan because he has spent so much time sorting by color that the thought of putting a green puff ball in a clear container really threw him off. Good to know! We'll come back to this a few more times to help reinforce that blue doesn't ALWAYS have to go in blue. :)

Wrapping paper tubes seem to be everywhere and Nathan LOVES to put his cars into them and watch them come out. He's good at figuring out which ones are too big and which ones fit well. It was a great exercise in size!

We spent a lot of time the past 3 weeks helping Nathan remember not to flip his spoon upside down upon entrance into his mouth. He's been using utensils for so long and this is one of the bad habits we've been trying to break for quite some time. It's gotten so much better and he's remembering without prompting most of the time! :)

Nathan received an Automoblox mini for Christmas from Izzy and he loves it! Without ever having seen it or using it or without instruction, he assembled this car. Of course it's not difficult, but this just goes to show how toddler friendly they are! :)

Nathan also got his first slinky from Nana and Papa and he learned all about how it walks down the stairs. :)

Over the holidays we did tons of Christmas related crafts and Nathan really started enjoying these projects and taking pride in the things he made.

These ornaments were a huge hit with the family. I drew a tiny shape on the foam to let Nathan know what to put where and he did a remarkable job doing these! They turned out so cute and I love that we made enough to keep some on our tree too!!!

Making wreath ornaments for the tree (thank you again Shafer family for the idea!).

Do-a-dot (or "polka dots" as Nathan calls them) were high on the tot school activity list. I can't tell you how many "J for Jesus" sheets he made! Thanks Carissa for the idea! Chad worked with him on these one evening and focused on making slow deliberate marks with the marker and I was amazed with Nathan's precision! He continues to use both hands equally, even doing this kind of activity. Does any one know at what age they show a dominance in a particular side?

Decorating felt Christmas trees with jewels. I'd never used these before but Nathan loved using them. They are tiny, shiny, and he loved that one side was silver and the other was a color. He enjoyed the choice in which way to place them on the tree. Thank you Shafer family for the inspiration to try this! I see Maddie use them often and wanted to give it a try!

For another Christmas tree craft, he glued pompoms on a tree...

and then ripped up cotton balls to make snow. Ripping cotton seems so much fun to kiddos!

We also made a snowman using some of my old scrapbook stickers. I loved watching how Nathan put the different pieces together. :)

After we finished the snowman, he informed me that we needed snow in the sky. Thankfully, there were plenty of snowflake stickers in with the old scrapbook supplies! :)

It's been a while since we've used these foam beads... the last time was in July (at 19 months) when we worked on this... Nathan quickly let me know that we were going to make a necklace for Yaya for Christmas. And that, he did!

We completed the activity by putting it in a box and wrapping it up for her. Don't you love Nathan's wrapping? :) Yaya sure did! And she wore that necklace all day on Christmas. :) Such a good sport!

I pulled out the extra snowmen kits from tot school and worked with Nathan on following specific direction involving different prepositions and adjectives. Put the pink rectangle on the bottom of the blue hat. Put the green circle on the pink circle. Put that green circle above the pink rectangle. He loved this and I was surprised how well he understood and followed the directions. :)

One of my favorite activities was making these snowman handprint ornaments. Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler for the idea. We made 16 of them and Nathan loved all the handprinting! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the finished products. I'll have to dig a couple out of our ornament box and take pictures. They turned out soooo cute!

Open-ended gluing... which turned into finger painting in the glue... oh well, it was still a great and fun activity!

I figured this activity would be a fabulous exercise to work on Nathan's pincer grasp... I gave Nathan 50 pieces of crumpled tissue paper and asked him to decorate the tree however he would like. At first, he put on one at a time... for about 15 of the crumpled pieces... then he got smart and my fabulous pincer exercise flew out the window... Nathan decided to pick them up by the handful and plop them onto the tree and splat them down. Too funny! The tree turned out great though!

A variation on this activity... we used crumpled tissue paper instead of pompoms or do a dot markers to fill in the circles here.

These next couple pics are some of my favorite. Nathan loves to sit in the bilibo and read books to himself. I love hearing him read the books he's memorized. It's a great core workout to try and sit in the bilibo while reading! Maybe I should try it!

The train table continues to be a great tot school tool too. We learn about what happens when you crash the tracks (you can't drive the trains), how to put the tracks together, too big and too small, what vehicles drive on the train tracks, and what happens when a stray ball comes flying toward the tracks! :)

I have a bin of different hats for Nathan and he loves to dress up as different people/animals. This particular day, he was insistant that Bailey do tot school and learn to be a reindeer. She was happily gave in to his request.

Sorting activities are in abundance around our house and Nathan seems to love doing them! This activity came to me one night and I was so excited to see him do it! I colored toothpicks with markers, made balls out of corresponding playdoh, set them in a paint tray, and then gave Nathan a bowl full of pony beads of corresponding color. He knew exactly what to do and did it well... however he insisted that the playdoh toothpick combo was a lollipop. :)

Sorting these little foam transportation beads was very versatile. We could sort by color, vehicle, size, etc.

Magnetic Learning colors is a great book and Nathan does it with ease. He loves the little magnetic squares!

Matching the colored pipe cleaner to the botton and threading multiple buttons on the same pipe cleaner. Not at all a challenge for Nathan, but he still seemed to enjoy it.

Another versitile sorting tool... these huge buttons! We sorted by color and shape.

Then I tested Nathan's problem solving by giving him a sheet of paper with 7 outlined shapes and 5 squiggles of color. I placed a dot of glue on each shape or squiggle and handed him a basket of buttons. He independently and correctly glued the buttons in the right place based on color/shape. The only instruction I gave him was to put the buttons where they go. I love to watch him figure out what to do and then follow through with his own line of thinking! :)

I was pretty impressed with how well he lined up the shapes in the outlines. The buttons pulled off the page easily after the glue dried and we did this activity several times during the week.

Sequencing using this folder game from www.filefolderfun.com.

Stacking and nesting. These cups were less than $1 and have been so much fun over the months! I found them at Harris Teeter on the wine aisle. I'm sure their intended purpose wasn't tot school, but that sure is what we use them for!

Puzzles are Nathan's favorite activity I think. They might tie with balls and cars, but seriously, this kid loves puzzles and does them every day. We've had this one since last Christmas and it's super simple for him. I found that he'd pulled it over to his table and was working on it one day. Later that evening when he was in the bath he asked me to write his name with the bath tub crayons. Just for kicks, I said, "sure but can you tell mommy how to spell it?" We've never worked on him learning how to spell his name, simply to recognize the letters in his name. I was shocked when he spouted off, "N-A-T-H-another A, and another N". He's done it several times so I'm sure it wasn't a fluke, although he's figured out that we think it's really super cool so he's started misspelling it on purpose just to be silly. Stinker!

Back to puzzles...

Nathan got several of the wooden 12 and 24 piece puzzles for Christmas. The 12 piece ones he can do independently!

The 24 piece are a bit more of a challenge and require some verbal prompting but he does these soooooooooooooo well! I'm so proud of you buddy!

Items that go together/puzzle.

I go tthis idea from the Shafer family, Chasing Cheerios, and Shannon's Tot School. We tried it using the control outline and Nathan got the triangle and square right away. I think we'll try rectangle, octagon, pentagon, and hexagon in the coming weeks.

Letter recognition:

...using the bottle top words. Does anyone know how to glue the magnets to the bottle tops and have them stay? I tried hot glue but they magnets keep popping off!

More work with letters... Nathan told me this particular day that every letter makes a sound (thank you Leapfrog) and has a home. "Mommy this is where the A lives".

Chad got an iPod touch for Christmas and we've loved the apps that Carissa reccommended. Nathan knows 95% of his letters expressively (identifying them when asked what that one is). I hadn't tested his receptive knowledge of them (finding the "r" or "o"), but this app sure did! Come to find out he knows 100% of his capital letters, but the lowercase ones throw him for a loop sometimes. Any suggestions on teaching lower case? when? how?

Sorting letters of different fonts. He loved stacking the letters and building a "b tower" or an "a tower". :)

Touching or patting or splatting or tapping or kissing or tickling the letter I called out. This was a fun game!

We put stickers on the outlines of letters C, D, and E this week.

In the last few weeks, we've added D, E, and F to our letter wall. These activities are so much fun for me as I rummage through old scrapbook supplies and stickers to find stuff! :)

Every now and then, you have to allow some creativity in the placement of the E sticker right? Oh, and that orange circle on my son's nose... daddy's idea... post to come!

Gross Motor:

riding his new bike... well actually he sits on it and I push and steer. I do love this new bike and it will definately grow well with him! I love that the handle in the back can be steered by the parent and that the pedals don't have to turn when the bike is moving! :)

throwing balls... for some reason Nathan is convinced that playing catch is called "play baseball game" and there is no changing his mind! It makes me laugh every time he says it!

Catching... he can catch a medium sized ball when thrown right into his hands. Daddy was working with him on catching a small ball... apparently we need to instruct him to keep his eye on the ball not the ground. :)

Learning the difference in overhand and underhand throws... or throw vs. toss.

If you can't tell from the lengthy post and all the pictures, we've had a lot of fun learning around our house in the last few weeks! If you're doing tot school with your kiddo and not posting, I encourage you to share your ideas with everyone here! It's so much fun to learn from one another! Happy New Year everyone! This wraps up our tot school for 2009. When I look at where we started... click here... to where we've come, I'm so glad we've been doing this together! It's so much fun! Thank you Carissa for the fabulous idea and for keeping us all linked up through your blog! We look forward to reading all of your posts and getting new ideas for 2010!