Tot School...late again... so sorry!

Nathan is 21 months (well he was when we did these pictures)

We had a great week and a half of tot school but I failed to take great pictures. Nathan is loving having his trays out in the cubby holes and does them more frequently than I'd imagined. We've also started room time this last week and he's been enjoying some of his toys in there as well. This will be a quick post, but here's what we've been up to!

We worked on number identification, counting, as well as one to one correspondence. Nathan is in to bouncing things so we were bouncing the car 4 times in this picture.
An old love, the monkey bank. We're continuing to work on identifying the coins, but right now the only one he really knows is the penny, and that Lincoln is on the penny.
Building towers during room time. I took this picture while he was building the tower and naming the colors as he did it! Such a smart kiddo!
Our lids tray. It amazes me how well he fits puzzles together, including this lid tray. No matter how I changed it up, he got the right lid on the right container every time.

Nathan now can tell you all the letters in his name in order as long as he's looking at it. He recognizes his name in print as well. He loves this puzzle too.

We also worked on our animal ABC's. I need to get a video of him singing the ABC's. It's so cute!

More puzzles. He likes it when I take out every other piece. Then he works on finding the right piece for the right hole based on the colors and animals.

This was a new spin on a tray we did last week. This time I made squares out of scrapbook paper and asked him to match the magnets to the right squares.

This is him in progress. First, he had to show me the house he built in the orange square. I was impressed. He identified the house, roof, garage, and sun in the sky. Do you see it?A finished project, which a "crashed house".

This week, we used the egg containers a bunch and worked on "one in each hole".

Here he was working on picking up just the little balls and leaving the beans in the big dish. This proved to test his patience quite a bit but was worth the work.More "one in each hole" and color identification.
A really old favorite, pushing pasta through the holes in the box.
We played with play-doh, colored, played in rice, water, and shaving cream, and I missed pictures of it all! Hopefully there will be more pics to come this week and hopefully I won't forget to post our tot school pics this time! Have a great week and check out what other moms are doing here!

Tot School... finally!

Nathan is 21 months old.

WOW! It feels like forever since I posted about tot school. We've had a few illnesses and tons of playdates, but not a lot of organized learning activities until this past week! I need to do an overhaul on our tot school stuff and get rid of what we don't need, so please excuse the mess in the background (the stacked tupperware containers) as organizing is a work in progress!

I found these great books at Costco and they are huge write on wipe off picture books. I got 3 of them (numbers, letters, and shapes/colors). This was Nathan's first attempt at these and I think he did well! When read the instructions, "circle the red apple" this is what he did...
Another Costco find, a long train puzzle that is self correcting with numbers 1-10! We started out small with just one set of numbers at a time (each set is 3 pieces)...
and then Nathan connected the number sets and put them in order one through four with some help from mom. He was so excited about the big puzzle and has come back to it many times during his free time.
Of course, these puzzles, while easy for him, are certainly a favorite. He does these daily and loves to do 5 or 6 in a row, asking for specific puzzles each time!

This is an old favorite (how old? see here) and Nathan loves to name the letter and what's on the letter. He did 80% of this by himself! Way to go buddy!
This was tons of fun for Nathan! We brought out the eggs again and this time I placed a ball or pom pom of matching color in each egg. He took them apart and discovered the ball in each.

Then I placed half of each egg in a line and put the other half and the colored ball on the tray and asked Nathan to put the right ball in and then complete the egg. This required patience and focus. He did well with the colors but had a hard time closing some of the eggs. He does keep coming back to this tray however.

Sticker fun... also lots of coloring this week.Another new activity. My friend Bethany found this fun set for us at a consignment sale! I drew three circles of different colors on the board and asked Nathan to sort the pieces into the appropriate colors.
Look at the focus on his sweet little face!
He really liked this!
Stringing beads on pipe cleaners is a challenge in and of itself, but when you add in sorting the colors onto the right color pipe cleaner, it makes even more of a challenge. Honestly, his favorite part was removing the beads and counting them!Kitchen fun! Thank you Carissa for posting about juicing in this post! It inspired me to do a little research of my own! While we don't have a juicer, we do have a blender and this blender and this post have radically changed our morning routine! Every morning I make smoothies for the family and often Nathan helps me. He loves throwing in the veggies and fruits and has learned some new foods like swiss chard and green leaf lettuce. I love feeling like our family is starting out their days with a healthy meal. What's in the smoothies? You probably don't want to know if you're the drinker, but... usually ground flaxseed, coconut milk or coconut/pineapple juice, almonds or walnuts or pecans, and then then fruits and veggies... say: a kiwi, a peach, a banana, 1/2 head of green leaf lettuce, one carrot, 2 handfuls of spinach, and a stalk of celery. Sometimes I add vanilla yogurt for a more creamy snack. We've eaten these every morning for two weeks and most mornings, Nathan begs for one! Amazing.
Doesn't look too appetizing does it?
Back to the "classroom"... This is another old favorite that we recently pulled back out. This time I pointed to the apple on the book and asked Nathan to push the button. He got a kick out of this and then changed it up a bit on me...
he decided it would be more fun to step on what I asked. It worked on his balance and helped him practice his impulse control (oh how fun it would have been to jump on the book but he delicately placed his toe or foot on whatever button corresponded to the picture I touched).
In the last month, Nathan has begun to share his love of books with his animals. This particular day the animal of choice was his bear. "bear" had to touch the things Nathan called out...

These magnetos are another favorite around here (thank you Kristin for continuing to let us borrow them!). Nathan loves to free play with them.

Can you believe he built this tower by himself? It was a painstaking process that wasn't successful the first, second, third or fourth attempts, but eventually, he did it! Way to go little man!
Boys will be boys right? Well, crashing and jumping are gross motor skills, so we'll call this a tot school activity. We also worked on "wait" and "jump" while all this fun was taking place!

Last but not least, tot school occurred at the park. Nathan climbed a rock wall a good 7 feet high, with me close behind (obviously not taking pictures), he dried off several slides still covered in dew, he climbed up, walked down, slid down, ran, jumped, and took turns! My favorite pics of his happened here...
As he begs for me to swing him higher, you can tell he's holding on for dear life and having a blast!
Okay, so the above pictures are my favorite of just Nathan, but this one below is my favorite of him and Izzy. They have finally learned to hold hands, and they are very good at it. They've covered long distances hand in hand and I pray this doesn't change any time soon!
For more tot school ideas, check out this post and all the others linked up to it!

Tot School

Nathan is 21 months

I haven't yet gotten in the habit of posting these mid week, so you'll have to forgive my lack of pictures. My camera has been sitting in the office and I keep forgetting to grab it thinking I'll just take pictures later this week... well, then I remembered that Carissa closes Mr. Linky on Fridays now, so I wanted to post earlier. Anyway... here's our short week of tot school!

The other day, I was folding some laundry and Nathan happily occupied himself playing with these! I noticed that he only stacks like colors. After I finished the laundry we played together building towers and shapes in multi color and like colors.
Chad found this puzzle this week at the dollar spot at target! Nathan loves all the babies and their faces. I took about 10 pieces out and he figured out where they went with minimal help! We did plenty of other puzzles this week too.
Daddy taught Nathan to hold the pinwheel in front of the fan and he loves to do this. Today we worked on stop and go using the pinwheel and the fan.

Another highlight of our week was when the guys came to work on our front yard... they brought a bulldozer with them and Nathan watched it for so long. We walked out to see it too and he pointed out all the parts to me. (all the blue squares are to blur out the other houses and draw attention to the bulldozer after all, to think like a toddler you have to have tunnel vision)
Great fine motor activity. Putting the money in, twisting off the lid, and we even started identifying the types of coins.
This week has started the jumping FROM things... so we have a small step ladder set up in our room to provide Nathan with a safe place to do this. Today, not only did he crash, he also dropped coins and rocks from different steps on the ladder and watched them fall. Physics anyone?
"ready set jump"
crash
Nathan read so many books this week in his little reading nook. I love to hear him read books to Monkey. He takes Monkey's hand and asks him to find things in the book and then points to them with Monkey's hand and says, "good job Monkey, you found it"
Great life skills with daddy! I have to tell you that my husband is wonderful at teaching Nathan all kinds of things. Since Nathan was about 15 months old, he could tell you the steps to tying a shoe. This particular night, Chad began teaching him not only, "cross, loop, around and through" but also how to make the first part, the cross.
Working on undressing and dressing

Last but not least, Nathan has turned into quite the helper this week. He's loving helping me with all kinds of chores, including laundry. See how he helps?

That sweet face and delightful smile makes all the chores in the world seem easy... until he unfolds what I've folded, dirties what I've cleaned, and pulls out what I've put away... but then again, that's how he learns. And I love how this little one learns!