Tot School

Nathan is currently 19.5 months old.

We had another great week of tot school. Looking back I feel as though we spent much of our time with friends and in the pool, and sadly I didn't get many pictures of those events. Speaking of the pool... we have a fish for a son. He loves to be thrown way up into the air only to come crashing down into the water. He pops up and begs for more. He's also running and jumping in the pool both with and without a float. He's really loving having a pool so close to home!

On to tot school...
Books, books, books! Nathan loves books and has started to memorize most of his books. He also loves these picture books and loves to learn the names of everything!

This week, instead of crayons, we've tried bathtub markers. Here he is drawing with blue inside the orange circle. This focused on colors as well as following directions. We also worked on spelling his name and him tracing the letters.

Threading small beads on a string. These beads were a little small for Nathan and he quickly became frustrated, but with some help, he managed to string all 10 that I'd set before him.

Connect 4 - the perfect game for hand and eye coordination, working on crossing the mid line (see him reaching with his left arm across the mid point of his body), colors, and taking turns. We play it almost daily. I hope to start patterns with this soon.

Nathan likes these puzzles a set of 6 I found at target. They are made of foam and each picture is an animal made of 2 pieces. He needs help to turn it the right way, but loves to push the foam pieces in and name the animals.
After we completed all 6 puzzles, I made a cube with them and he then pushed all the pieces into the center of the cube and then pulled them out of the holes. Such a fun thing to watch him do and a constructive way to be destructive! :)

More puzzles... and an outfit Nathan picked out all by himself. Don't you love this "taylor guitar" onesie... especially with the completely UNMATCHING shorts. He sure looks cute though! And he talked about daddy all day because daddy plays guitar.

I finally got this Melissa and Doug see and spell for Nathan. He loves letters and puzzles, so I knew it would be a hit. He really enjoyed putting the different letters in and naming them. He sometimes needed help to get the letters lined up, but not nearly as much help as I thought. We'll be doing this much more!

Speaking of letters, we tried the bottle cap spelling again and he was much better at it. I think if I put pictures on the cards like Carissa, he'd enjoy it much more... that will be added to my project list!

Another fun "crossing mid line activity" was putting stickers in a notebook. I put the book on the left side and asked him to put the stickers on using his right hand. I also tried it the opposite way, but it became apparent that Nathan is definitely right handed! :)

We got this idea from Rocker Tot and his mom... hammering golf tees (aka nails) into foam. Nathan loved pounding them in "all de way". Next time I'll get upholstery foam instead of the green fake flower foam. It was really messy!

This was the first time I'd seen Nathan color with one hand and hold the paper still with the other! Way to go little man! He also named all of the body parts of the cat while coloring on them. SO much fun!
Daddy and Nathan went out for a bit one afternoon this week, and Nathan came home with two new toys... WHICH HE LOVES. The first was a sky ball. Basically a huge bouncy ball. He loves to carry it around (it is currently in his bed while he's sleeping) and bounce it!

The other fun toy... Tee ball!!!! Yeah for daddy for thinking of this. Nathan and daddy had tons of fun in the backyard learning to hit the ball. Nathan did a great job keeping his eye on the ball! He also did well putting the ball back on the tee. Yeah little man!


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Tot School at Yaya and Papa's house

(Nathan is currently 19.5 months old)

We had an odd week of tot school this week, but so much fun. There was very little structured learning in terms of planned activities on a tray. This week we were with my mom's family at mom and dad's house and there was tons of life lessons to be had! :)

First up was a trip to the local fire department! Nathan loved seeing the truck up close and the fireman was so sweet. He has several kids of his own and knew just what to do with a little one. He showed Nathan the flashlights and the tools first...

Then he picked him up and put him in the cab. I was amazed at how tall those trucks are. It had been a while since I'd seen one up close and I'd forgotten how big they are! Nathan loved driving the firetruck and all week long, and still, he says "BIG firetruck. Nay nay drive. fast"

He looks so tiny next to that huge steering wheel!

Of course, there is no lake trip in the summer where you don't find someone in the water... especially Nathan. He worked everyday on his swimming skills. He really enjoyed playing close to the shore picking up the shells and rocks and throwing them in the water.
Yet often enough, he was found in water 10-15 feet deep swimming proficiently in his little yellow tube with the big kids. In this picture, he is swimming with daddy and Bailey. What's wrong with this photo? Nathan is retrieving Bailey's toy instead of Bailey. Hmmmmm.
Nathan also got many lessons in the wild world of water sports. He loved riding the tube and did so several times. He also rode the knee board (well he sat on it while daddy held the rope from behind and about drank the lake). Needless to say, he's learning early, that there's plenty of fun to be had on the lake.
He also got to ride a few jet skis. Normally I go very very slow when it's just me and him, but with Megan on the back (Megan is my cousin Amanda's good friend), we ere able to go a bit faster. Megan and I both held on to him and we did several donuts in the middle of the lake. He kept saying "round and round and round and round again!" This kiddo loves adventure!

Another new thing this week... Nathan showed us that he can sit in a big boy chair and eat a meal. This was his first time ever to eat a meal while sitting in a big chair. He did perfect. I didn't want to chance it by trying it again, but for his first time, he did perfect! :)

After lunch, we fed the fish and geese french fries and hamburger buns. The fish are giant carp... I've blogged about them before here. Nathan loved dropping the food in for them and they didn't leave a morsel untouched!

Nathan also spent about 5 minutes with this flower discovering it's scent and various other things about it. He picked the petals, crumbled it up, dipped it in the water, watched it float, and offered it to many people. :) Nature school at its finest!
One of my favorite moments of learning was this one...
what in the world is he doing? Well, he's learned about fishing from Bailey. Remember that here? This is Nathan fishing for big rocks. He figured out that the big rocks were farther away from shore and I can't tell you how many times he'd walk out a ways (it's probably 2 feet deep) dunk his head as far under as he could get it (with the buoyant float on) and pick up a big rock and throw it. I love that his feet aren't even touching the ground. He must have done this a dozen times in a row. Kiddo is hysterical and fearless in the water!

Also, this week, since we missed gymnastics, we made up for it by bouncing on the big water trampoline that my mom's friend let us borrow. The adults had a hay day on it, as did Nathan. It was really hard to stand up on but once he got the hang of it, he enjoyed it.

More fun... learning to blow water out of the end of the fun noodle with YaYa. He loved it when she squirted him with it, and was equally as excited to learn how to do it himself. :)

There was plenty of side walk chalking to be had this week... plenty. When Nathan grew bored with writing on the sidewalk, he tried writing on the house, chairs, deck... which we quickly put an end to. Yaya decided he should sidewalk chalk her toenails thus "painting" them pink in the process. Fine motor work at it's finest!
Here's a bit of excellent gross motor work as well. Try pushing this tractor through the thick grass up and down the hills. It's great for your legs and your motor development! :)
Speaking of motor skills, how about a few more fine motor drills along with color recognition... all wrapped up in a shrek fishing rod. Pushing the yellow button and winding up the line were huge hits during the week. :)

While most of our tot school was outside, I did bring a few things along to have "official tot school" activities inside. These great building toys are called Magneatos and Carissa recommends them! So does my friend Kristin and she let us borrow some of hers. Nathan enjoyed playing with them, although I must confess, he really liked throwing them more than building with them. I digress. They were quite a bit of fun and Nathan did get into building more than I've ever seen before.

Puzzles - always a hit with this little man! This time we tried a big boy puzzle where I took out three pieces and let him figure out where they went. He quickly grew frustrated, but successfully found the place for all 3 pieces. He couldn't yet put them in the right way, but we're happy with the success of finding the right spot for them!
Stacking little cups and playing with tiny pompoms.
He loves the tongs. Really, he's got a strange fondness for them. He asks for them almost daily and loves to pick up the corks with them.
A new craft... painting sun catchers. We quickly discovered that it was much easier to use Q-tips for the painting and he really like painting them with Amanda. Nathan painted almost 10 of them in one sitting. Great fun!

Another new skill... making necklaces. He watched my mom and cousins making jewerly and I suppose he wanted to be a part of it too. These foam beads my mom bought were a huge hit. He could actually string them on the needle and push them down on the string. He made a necklace for Yaya and Lisa and decided he'd keep both and wear it. I did not get a picture of that.

Of course, with 11 people at my moms, there was plenty of cooking to do and a time or two, Nathan helped out. Here he is making the cream cheese filling in blueberry yum yum. No, this is not pot, but I did learn that "blueberry yum yum" is a type of pot... this is after eating it every summer for 28 years. It's an excellent desert consisting of a shortbread crust, creamcheese and coolwhip in the middle, and blueberries on top. To die for... but definatly not pot. Nonetheless, Nathan did help cook it! :)
Last but certainly not least, Nathan learned an excellent new skill...

Yep, jumping off my parents dock (a good 4 feet above the water) into the water and swimming to the ladder. After about the 11th jump, he'd learned to go under, turn around and start heading to the ladder without any help from daddy. Scary how much of a fish he is! He still hasn't figured out how to "jump" off the dock, rather he steps out and gets a gentle push, but it's all the same to us, as we watched in amazement as he wanted more and more and more jumping! :) Good thing it's a rule that he wear a lifejacket while on the dock!
Little man, I'm proud of all the things you are learning to do! This is such a fun time in your life and I"m so thankful to be your mommy!!!

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