Tot school!

(Nathan is 33 months old)

Last week was a crazy week for us, but we did enjoy some fun and some tot school activities!  On Monday, Labor Day, we headed to an animal farm and had a blast.  It was so much fun to do something like this with Chad!  The weather was beautiful and cool and we were so thankful!  So, how does this adventure qualify for tot school?  Well, lots of ways!
-emu have 3 toes, ostriches have 2 toes
-zebras have upper and lower teeth and shouldn’t be hand fed
-how to hold your hand flat so that you don’t get nibbled
-animal names and how they like to be fed (dropping food in their mouth, eating out of a bucket, eating out of your hand, etc).

-baby zebras grow fast and nurse for a long time
-animals with beaks are often scary to feed but if you dare, feed directly out of your bucket, not your hand!
-llamas spit (thanks Tim for learning this one for us!)

-baby pot bellied pigs are super cute
-rhinos love the water and weigh a lot
-tongues come in all shades of colors

-each giraffe has a different pattern of spots, just like zebras stripes are all different
-sheep can grow really long curly horns
-camels only have bottom teeth and reallllly like to be hand fed!
  
There were so many fun things to learn!!!  We all enjoyed feeding the giraffes (especially the baby one in a different area – although I didn’t get pictures).  It was really neat to look closely at their different markings, the bumps on their noses, their eye lashes, and the wrinkles on their faces.  How cool that God made us all different… even the animals!

Nathan loved sitting this way while we rode the wagon around the huge sanctuary.  He could see everything and didn’t have to try to see around all the tall adults.  He was always ready to stop and feed the animals and was most often found with one hand on the rail and one hand in the feed bucket.  :)

Feeding the camels was probably the funniest part of the day.  These three were so boisterous about getting food and they constantly had their mouths open and their lower jaws through the fence.  They were also realllllly slobbery!
 

They reminded us of the three stooges.

We’ve been to Lazy 5 Ranch a number of times and each time we go, it’s a new adventure.  Each time, Nathan has a new favorite, and has developed more confidence in feeding the animals.  This trip, the only animals he was slightly hesitant to feed were the emu and I DON’T BLAME HIM!  They are super scary to me!  You can click on the 2 pictures below to see our last two Lazy 5 adventures. 
                              
             September 15, 2009                                                                      April 28, 2009
 
It was a lovely day, and full of so much fun and learning!

Also this week, Nathan started back to preschool and is really enjoying his classmates and all the activities.  They have a free art center where all kinds of art supplies are easily at their disposal and Nathan loves this!  He’s also worked on cutting, gluing, lacing, stacking, writing, academics, sharing, communicating with peers, music, and all kinds of social opportunities!
In our more formal tot school at home, although I got no pictures, we continued to talk about the metamorphosis of frogs and even let our frogs and tadpoles go this week!  We worked on holding up the fingers to display 1-5, days of the week, months of the year, counting by 10s to 100, counting to 20 by ones, drawing and writing, cutting, building, stacking, jumping, hopping, skipping, galloping.  Nathan also spent a great deal of time outside.  He loves to ride bikes and scooters and is quite good at it!  He loves to ride his “big boy bike” – a 2 wheel with training wheels and is really good at slowing down and breaking when needed.  He also loves to ride the big kids razor scooters.  He has a small 3 wheel one, but he does much better on the 2 wheel kind and we’re looking for bargains for one of those!  He’s also a fan of riding his trike.  We’ve been working on sounding out words and have been reading the BOB books.  Nathan loves all books and everyday we read many different books.  Nathan you are such a joy!!!
  
Are you doing tot school?  Interested in tot school?  Check out Carissa’s blog for more info!