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!

Tot School

Nathan is 17.5 months old

We had another excellent week of tot school! It was quite different from most because we spent the majority of it at my folks house in VA nestled on the beautiful shores of Lake Gaston. Before we nestled in, we did do some tot school at home! Here are a few pics from tot school at home.

Refining "blow" while playing a recorder (meanwhile working on balance while wearing one shoe).
Two part automobile puzzles. Nathan LOVED these new puzzles! When you correctly match the front and back of the vehicle you can hear the sound of the vehicle. Very self motivating! Also, great rewards!

We moved on to stringing buttons on a pipe cleaner. Great for color ID and fine motor.

Next, we tried spaghetti noodles in a spice container. Nathan had too much fun breaking them into little tiny pieces before putting them in the container. Oh well, at least he finished the task, just not in the way I'd imagined.

3 part animal puzzles

stir sticks into Styrofoam

lacing these cute little animals lacing beads... the lacing activities were all Nathan's idea and I love that he enjoys these!

On to Tot School at the Lake...

working on letters with Daddy

Bubbles with Yaya... learning to sit and watch, sit and wait, and pop while sitting.blowing bubbles with Yaya

drawing with sidewalk chalk with Yaya

Yaya had a great idea. She drew big shapes on the ground and had Nathan stand in the... "oval" or "square". Great idea! We followed up the next day by having him jump on different letters! Great idea Yaya! 2 part puzzles with Daddy

Wonderful time with animals all week. We've seen horses, cows, baby birds (mom has two nests in her yard that we check on daily, goat, birds... but this one topped it all. We saw something swimming across the cove and couldn't figure out what it was. Yaya followed it and it turned out to be a baby bunny!!!! Did you know bunnies could swim? We sure didn't. It barely made it to shore (exhausted from swimming a long way) and just laid there. Yaya and Bailey took good care of it! Bailey licked it many times and Yaya picked it up (it was so exhausted it just went limp in her hands) and showed it to Nathan (who amazingly was quite uninterested - probably because he couldn't pet it), and then she took it into the woods and made it a nest to recover in. :) Sweet animal lover, Yaya is! Here are the pics.

Kisses from Bailey

Nathan and Bailey watching, Bailey is much more interested... her mothering instincts turn on in a heart beat!

Enough wild animal adventures... more tot school at the lake!

Nathan got several new pair of shoes that he could learn to put on himself. One pair are these rubber boots and HE LOVES THEM. He wore them all day long the first day we had them! He loves pushing this toy around. It makes a jingling sound and it was actually mine as a baby! He loves to push it around!

Learning that we smell flowers, and we don't pick them! Especially when they are Yaya's potted plants!

Working on IDing letters and animals and putting puzzle pieces in. This melissa and doug alphabet book is awesome and we really enjoy taking it places.

You didn't actually think that we'd go all week at Yaya's without a new toy did you? Well, the animal barn finally belongs to Nathan. We've been playing with the animals all week.

Touching different shells and listening for the ocean. Nathan liked all the different textures of the shells, and this one was a favorite.

Looking out the window waiting for the rain to stop... incessantly saying "boat boat" and asking me to sing "it's raining it's pouring..." He's also beginning to learn that different things belong to different people. In this case, Papa's boat and Nathan's boat. :)

Putting one block in each cup.

stickers

Reading with daddy before dinner one night. We did lots of reading this week.

So, have you begun doing Tot School with your little one? Join us! Check it out at 1+1+1=1.