Tot with fever School

Nathan is 26 months old.

The last two weeks have been a blur! Nathan's had strep or a fever for the last two weeks and so we're just now climbing out from under the weight of the germs. One on one learning activities in the quiet of our home (aka tot school) are comforting to Nathan and so he requested tot school sometimes while he was sick. Here's what we've been learning about the last two weeks...I still find Nathan using both his right and left hand equally for all tasks and I'm beginning to wonder if he'll be ambidextrous! We did a lot of coloring this week and I love how Nathan is really starting to "color"! He uses various colors and fills in different parts of what he sees. These activities are from two of Carissa's different tot packs: "word world" and "big machines".

Building a tower with stacking and nesting cups from IKEA. This continues to be quite a challenge for Nathan.
AUTOMOBLOX!!! These are a huge favorite, probably Nathan's favorite toy at the moment. I love them too!!! I highly recommend them!
Pushing the cars under the bridge. We also worked on "around Bailey", "under the table", through the tunnel", and "over the squares".

1:1 correspondence, a little same and different, and learning to share with Bailey. :)
I would NEVER let my child drink out of a bowl like a dog... especially if that bowl was the dog's... and I most certainly wouldn't photograph it and post it on the blog. Only my friend Shelby does that.

We made this "zoo" out of trio blocks to replicate the zoo in Goodnight Gorilla. He loved reenacting the story.
Instead of putting the animals in the cage, he put the zoo keeper and his wife in there! Hahaha!

Puzzles puzzles everywhere!
I got Nathan a baseball, soccer ball, football, tennis ball, basket ball, and soft ball and we've been learning what you do with the different balls. Here's a baseball lesson!

Playing games and reading books with Daddy is a huge favorite in the evenings!

I tested out "touch math" with nathan and asked him to use the dot markers to complete the numbers. I'm not sure I'll teach math using touch skills, but it was fun to work on amounts corresponding with the actual numbers.

We used dot stampers a lot these last two weeks. We made a valentine and a flower, filled in pages from makinglearningfun.com, and used one of the Shafer's ideas... I drew shapes on a paper and lined up the colored dot markers in front of Nathan. Then I asked him to put a "blue dot on the square" or an "orange dot on the star". It was a great exercise in listening and following directions!

I was inspired by this post to try a hand and arm print tree by Lauren. I adapted it a bit and this is how it turned out!
I was inspired by Carissa in this post, to try some pre-writing skills with Nathan. I didn't have the cool templates like she did, so I made something new. Using glue, I made "barriers" out of glue and outlined them. Then I asked Nathan to draw in the middle. It turned out to be a great activity!

He did quite a bit of drawing, coloring, and painting this week... Check it out! The picture in the center at the bottom is what he wanted me to draw (he and Madison and a car (he's gonna drive to see her he says)) and then he colored it in. The two pictures surrounding it are more following direction activities... color the middle circle orange... the triangle purple...

Trying to teach the concept of coloring in the lines by using glue as a boundary.

Playdough, great for all kinds of learning fun!

Last, but not least, I'd seen this idea on many blogs but I can't remember where! Nathan is using push pins to "trace" the letters of the alphabet. He was much more interested in just making holes in the construction paper after a while. We'll try again some other time! :)

Do you have a tot? Do you play with your tot? Did you know tots learn through playing? Join us in "tot school" this coming week. To check out other blogs of moms with kiddos the age of yours, read Carissa's blog! It's so much fun!