Wilson Ramblings: Tot School

Nathan is 24 months old... a big 2 year old!!

The last two weeks, we've had a great time learning and playing!! I can't wait to show you what we've been up to!

Nathan has spent tons of time playing with his trains. This is a great activity to develop his hand eye coordination, ability to play gently, cause and effect, identifying colors, and many other things.

I brought out this book again and he had a great time matching the foods to the animals who eat them. He's gotten so much better at it and did it several times in a row.

We had a fabulous time painting and working on finishing up last week's letter A and this week's letter B. Nathan did a great job painting the whole B and leaving no white space.

Then he stuck stickers on the B paper of items that start with B. He also put B stickers on the page.

We did the same thing to finish up letter A.

Nathan used DoADot markers to complete these B pictures of a "bat", "ball", and "bucket".

Nathan painted several times this week and loved the bright colors.

He also had great music time with daddy. They played guitar and piano like usually, but this week, Daddy also brought out his trumpet and Nathan was so excited. He watched daddy play and then tried to blow it and he pushed the valves down as daddy played.

Papa also taught Nathan how to blow the train whistle.

At his birthday party, Nathan had no problem letting his friends help him open all of his presents. They loved it and it was a great fine motor activity as well as encouraging sharing.

Another day we worked on Nathan's letter puzzle. He is so cute identifying the animals. I've also noticed that instead of rotating the letter, he rotates the name board. Silly kiddo!

A new leapfrog puzzle. This was great to reinforce matching the letters and to reinforce "A is for ant" and "What starts with B?"

Gross Motor...

Playing catch! Nathan has actually learned how to catch a ball (thank you daddy) and it's so cute!

Rock climbing with YaYa

Bubble wrap with Yaya and Papa!!! So much fun to jump and stomp to pop the bubbles!

Playing on the big boy playground with his buddy Caleb. This makes me so nervous, but I know it's a part of growing up.

Nathan got these TRIO blocks for his birthday and we played with them several times this week. They are more difficult than I'd imagined, but that does seem to stop him!

Sorting objects by color was fun too. He did great with this!!!

This week, we introduced Nathan to a nativity set. We told him the story and helped him act it out with the various pieces. He's played with it and reenacted it so many times. He loves to put baby Jesus in the manger.

Some times the wise men sleep in the manger...

This is Mary riding on the donkey. :)

This is a birthday gift from Nana and Papa and he loves it. It's a great learning tool because he can use the tools to take apart the truck and put it back together. It's fabulous for exercising his wrist twist as he uses the screwdriver.

Hanging ornaments on his tree proved to be great fine motor!

Picking up suckers at his party was also a great pincer grasp activity! Who knew tot school could be so tasty!!

Stringing beads on pipe cleaners proved to be quite easy for him!

Lacing beads was also a fun easy task for him.

Group tot school this week was so much fun!!! We met and Colton's house and he and Kristin hosted some wonderful activities! We sang Christmas songs, played instruments, and danced for a long time.

Then Kristin got out her nativity set and told the Christmas story and had the kids help with the animals/people. So much fun.

Next the kiddos glued red tissue squares onto wreaths. They all loved this!!

Finally, we made gingerbread houses. I never would have guessed these little ones could do this but they were great and had so much fun. I promise though, they ate more than they decorated. Who wouldn't!

Baby Piper also attended tot school... she did a marvelous job sleeping through the whole thing.

The last activity was such a great one!!! Kristin asked the kids to run out to the tree and find the presents and pick their favorite one...

Each kiddo chose a puzzle...

then Kristin gave them tape and precut wrapping paper to wrap these presents for kids who won't be getting many toys for Christmas. After wrapping they placed under the tree...

and discovered that Kristin had picked each of them a 12 piece puzzle! :) Thank you Kristin!!!

What a great idea! I think they rest of us will piggy back off of that idea for sure!

On to some life skills...

Practicing "sleeping" in a bed. Daddy brought Nathan into our room one Saturday morning and he covered me up with a blanket (one of his loveys) and snuggled beside me. He was practicing sleeping in a big bed... you know for all of 5 seconds. He was super sweet though!

This week, Nathan has also moved up to a booster seat at the table! No more high chair for him!!! He's really excited and loves being so close to us while he eats.

Such a sweet boy!!!

Nathan has also been learning about how to be a good "big brother" to Baby Piper. He's learned that he can sing to her, tell her it will be okay when she's crying, and he can bring soft toys to share with her. He and Izzy both are doing really well with this huge transition!