Tot School

Nathan is 22 months old

We had a great week of tot school and I'm excited to share the pictures with you! I FINALLY put velcro on the file folder games I made for Nathan (4 months ago) and realized as I was doing it, how much he's learned in the last little bit. He did several of the activities this week and they were no challenge for him, but he did enjoy them. He enjoyed this one in particular as he learned the names of the dog breeds. Somehow, he knew "dahmashen" already. I asked his daddy, and he said they've talked about Dalmatians before bed while reading the fire truck book. Oh. That explains it! :)

Three part puzzles were also a hit. We talked about front legs, head, and back legs as we matched the pieces to form several animals.

Sorting shapes... I thought this would be more challenging for him, but I was wrong. I'll have to come up with more challenging sorting since he seemed to enjoy it!

Our FAVORITE activity of the week was open ended play doh. It started as an exercise with cookie cutters and morphed into so much more!

I added tooth picks to his tray which he LOVED. He started sticking them in the little balls of play doh he'd made.

Then, he got this concentrated look on his face and before I knew it...

he'd stuck two toothpicks into a cylindrical piece of playdoh and started exclaiming, "nay nay made a airpane. you see it fiiii (fly)? fiiii up high in da sky? you see dat mommy?" I was so proud of his creation, as was he. He made several other creations from play doh and tooth picks and played happily in his high chair for a good 45 minutes with this can of white play doh and 20 toothpicks... amazing.

It changed shape again as I added these foam shapes. He stuck them on the toothpicks, pressed them into the dough, sat the shapes on top of mountains, all kinds of things. This activity will be common place in our house for a while! It was so much fun!

Catching water in the tub was another big hit. While Chad poured the water from up high, Nathan tried to catch it in this plastic bottle. Great for hand and eye coordination!!

Poker chips belong in sippy cups don't they? Well when your tot thinks this is a bank and you like that it won't break... they sure do belong! :) Our monkey bank broke so we've created our own piggy bank. Nathan talked about the colors of the chips, that they were circles, and loved the sound they make when they hit the others in the cup.

Stir sticks into holes in a box. A variation of pasta through holes in a cereal box.

Gluing blue and red rectangles onto paper. I squirted out the glue and asked him to cover it with rectangles. He did a great job but freaked out whenever he got glue on his fingers. That's a mommy trait!

This was the first sorting activity we've done with categories of sorting instead of identical item sorting. I asked him to stick the ball stickers on the right side of the paper and the animal stickers on the left side. He did great with the balls, but I realized we've not talked about a pig is also an animal, yet he knows there are animals at the zoo, farm, etc. Once he got the hang of what I was asking he did great, but he kept wanting to put the animals on the ball side so the animals could play with the balls. Funny kiddo!

After sorting the stickers, he wanted to color on his paper... of course I happily provided him with a pen and walked away to clean up something. He discovered that pens color on your hands and I wish I'd gotten a picture of that! He didn't like that the ink didn't come off for more than a day and won't do it again for a while I hope.

This week, we've worked a lot on spoon feeding. He mastered the fork so early and has been working on not dumping the spoon before it gets to his mouth. He does well with things like hummus, peanut butter, and some yogurts, but this week we tried runnier yogurt and meals. He likes to turn the spoon upside down in his mouth... any suggestions for correcting that?

This week, Chad helped me "refelt" our consignment find felt board. With a fresh coat of felt it was as good as new and Nathan LOVES playing with the people. He likes to put different colors of shirts/pants on the people and arrange them in different ways. Today, we talked about bigger and smaller, the colors of the clothes, and where you put them on the people.

I upped the challenge with the word boards and gave him three boards and 9 letters all at the same time and he did great! Instead of turning the "d" upside down to use as a "p" he turned the whole board around. I thought that was funny. The shoes were worn for over an hour this morning although we didn't get to their main purpose... buckling, zipping, buttoning... he just walked around in them!

This week, I brought out these puzzles, another consignment find, and I realized how much more of a challenge they are. We started talking about the corners and how to match the piece with the shape instead of the pictures. I like that these challenge him more and I look forward to doing more of these together in the weeks to come!

We had a great week and hope you did too!!! To check out what other moms are doing with their tots, visit Carissa's website by clicking here. Join us!!!

Tot School

Nathan is 22 months old

With this being our first week of preschool, we made sure to take a tiny break from 5 days of tot school and spent 1 day laying on the couch recovering from being sick, and 1 day at the fair!!!!! Actually, we spent Wednesday celebrating Bethany's birthday, and her request was to celebrate by going to the fair. So, tot school traveled to the fair. My little guy learned all about roasted corn, fudge, gyros, funnel cakes, rides, tickets, chickens, sheep shaving, all sorts of things!!! We also learned that Ethan was the most daring of the bunch! Look at him and his mommy Lauren riding these swings!

Nathan loved riding the pony, once he got used to the idea of mommy not riding with him.

At the end, he gave freckles a pat and said , "tank you horse for da ride"

Sadly, this is the only picture I have of the birthday girl (while she's taking a picture of her little one on the pony). We were more into having fun than complete photo documentation on this particular day. :)

Nathan wasn't a huge fan of the rides, but this one was an exception. All kinds of construction vehicles and steering wheels. He and Izzy and I crammed in a dump truck and had a great spin on the "construction zone".

Now for more "structured" tot school... remember this game? I played it as a kid and Bethany found it at a consignment sale and thought Nathan would love it. For now, we're not timing him, that would be cruel and unusual at 22 months, but he does LOVE to put the pieces in and on the first try put every single piece in the correct hold the first try. It amazes me how good he is at this kind of activity.

Then we worked on fine motor and story telling with stickers... do you see how he put the dog "in" the dog house? He said that one needed to sleep and the one above it needed a bath and some water. So cute to see him tell these stories about the puppies.

Next was some free form play with the colored bears.

Before I knew it, he was arranging them like this with their hands and feet touching. I asked him what they were doing and he said, "da bears holdin hands. dey bein' kind. be kind to izzy and hold her hand." I think he was reenacting some of the character lessons we've been learning this week while playing with Izzy. Lots of talking about how to be kind with our words and hands.

These puzzles are new and Nathan loved them. You match the hands with the gloves, feet with socks, etc. He really enjoyed putting them together.

When I put them in a big pile for him to sort, he had no trouble finding the matches a second time.

Another day we worked on counting. he really liked the pumpkin erasers and held one for the better part of 2 hours one afternoon.

This week for our group tot school, we worked on the pumpkin counting as well as the first letter of every one's name. I regret that I didn't get a group shot this week, but I did get some pictures of the trays prior to tot school. We used "do a dot" markers to put dots inside the N. While it dried, we talked about the letter "N" and Nathan identified the pictures in the "N" book, put together the N puzzles and the nest puzzle. Once the markers dried, we took stickers of objects starting with "N" as well as letter N stickers and he stuck them to the page.

More accurately, he crashed the stickers onto the page. :)

He also worked on more letter recognition and name recognition by putting the foam letter stickers in the appropriate spots on his name card. He was much better at this than I expected!

He's done more art work this week than in the last 6 months! Take a look at our fridge! The plastic baggie is Jonah in the whale, his letter N, a fire hydrant from school (amazingly the teacher put on the glue and Nathan put on the pasta and tissue paper. I was amazed at his straight line of "water"), foam name, and gluing leaves from group tot school!

How do you guys display your child's art work? I'm in need of suggestions!!! Check out what others are doing for their tot schools here. Join us!!!

First Day of School

This week, my little man started preschool. It's one of the things I said I'd never do at this age... I've said that about several things, as I think most of us moms have! Nathan needed to be around other kids in a setting where he was away from me, where he could learn to play with a group, learn to trust another trustworthy adult, and where he could learn some great lessons in how to have fun without mommy by your side. Because I've stayed home with Nathan and have done so much play, tot school, etc right with him, he has a hard time playing without me by his side and we hoped preschool would help that. We're only a week in, and at two days a week, it's too hard to tell, but he is learning things already! The teacher told me Thursday that he'd learned which back packs go with which kiddos and what the kids names were. Considering the back packs are brought in, and hung on a wall and only used during diaper change, I was pretty impressed. Nothing gets by this little one! He also woke up this morning talking about Jonah being swallowed up by the big fish. Apparently Nathan enjoys the Bible teaching and pays attention! :) Enough talk, how about a picture or two of Nathan on his first day of school!!! (Notice Bailey staring out the window hoping to come too).

We're proud of you little man!!!

22 month update and photos with Leo the Lion

I can't believe I'm so late posting this update!!!!! Our little man is 22 months old and is growing so much every day. Just the other day, he heard me say to Chad that a friends' house looked big and he replied... "it's huge!" It's amazing what he picks up on by listening to other conversation! Doesn't he look so big?

Nathan and Leo at 4 months...

at 10 months...

at 16 months...

and finally at 22 months. Such a sweet kiddo!!!

Nathan is doing so many fun new things these days!!! I hope I remember everything. He has learned to "thank Jesus for your food" and will say, "dear Jesus, thank you for our food. amen" sometimes saying "thank you for the peas, the broccoli, ... naming whatever is on his plate. It's so sweet to see him learning to be thankful at a young age.

Nathan's growth seems to have slowed a bit, although he seems taller and taller every day. I think he's around 28 pounds and 34 inches tall. He's comfortably wearing 2t shirts and many although the sleeves are a bit long. His pants depend on the brand but between 18-24 months and 2t. He's in a 7.5 wide shoe and loves his new Saucony sneakers!

Funny story... yesterday in Target, a different one than usual, we walked past the pharmacy and he said, "mommy Tom not at this Target, you at a different one." I about lost my jaw as it hit the floor with his observation. You see, Tom, is our pharmacist... Another funny story from the same trip? We walk past the bra section and Nathan shouts out, "you see BOOBIES!!! Lots of boobies!" Behind my stifled laughter I explained to him that those weren't boobies, rather bras. He look at me and said, "well mommy, you put the bra on the boobies". Out of the mouths of babes. I promise there were more than a few people around us chuckling!

Nathan has started singing full songs on his own now including the pitch. He sings ABC's, Father I Adore You, Twinkle Twinkle, Jesus Loves Me, and many others. He's also started singing along with the DVD's, radio, and with us. I love hearing his little voice.

Tuesday, Nathan started preschool! That was a huge step for us, one I didn't think we'd make so early, but we thought about it and prayed about it for a while and thought it would be the best thing for him socially and regarding his fears of being separated from mommy. He cried for about 2 minutes and then had a great 3 hours. He really likes his teachers and told us all about his first day! He'll go 2 days a week this year and we're looking forward to him being in a Biblically based program with 9 other kiddos his age.

He's found his nostrils in the last 2 weeks too. I thought he'd be 2 before he ever picked his nose, but thanks to a cold and friends with colds, he's learned that his finger does indeed fit up there. He says, "mommy, I get the boog. that better". I cracks me up every time although I try to discourage the finger placement!

Nathan has begun napping and sleeping much better these days. We've tried a new technique and it's working! I did this gradually, but he's learned that crying from his crib doesn't bring mommy or daddy in to get him any sooner. Instead he's learned to happily play in his bed until we arrive in his room... in the am no earlier than 8am. Some days he's sleeping until 830! He's still going to sleep at night around 730pm which gives him the right amount of night time rest. During the day, he's in his bed from 1-330 regardless of sleep time and he's come to enjoy the alone time most days. I'm happy that he's able to recharge again during the day!

Nathan is a huge fan of all things related to cars, books, towers, soft/fuzzy things, his dog Bailey, animals, trains, talking, "beesa van", Izzy, strollers, balls, picking anything off a tree or bush, his new racing tower for cars, jumping, slides, water, did I mention talking, crocs, smoothies, gummy vitamins and fruit snacks, water fountains/falls, Wonder Pets, Psalty, being sans shorts or shirt, tot school, puzzles, dumping things, mommy, daddy, dumping things, milk, just to name a few... :)

He is not a fan of large crowds of people, being separated from mommy/daddy, sitting in his high chair without a shirt on, carousels, fish, pasta, people in his perceived "space", performing, keeping his fork on his high chair tray, diaper changes, dark rooms, and I'm sure I'm missing some...

During the photo with Leo time, he decided Bailey would make a better partner in his chair. Down Leo went and up he called Bailey, "Bailey, you come up here right now, beside Nay Nay... please." With a split second of coaxing, she happily obliged!

I'm pretty sure the last time she was up in this chair was when he was a mere 34 weeks old... in this photo...

My how they both have changed!!!

Still great buddies though!

Little man, I'm sure there are many things I'm forgetting in this post, but no worries, they are etched on my memory for sure! We love you SOOOOO much Nathan!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEEEEEEEESA!!!! We love you!

Wordless Wednesday