Tot School (30 months)

Yay for another great tot school week! As summer begins, I am beginning to taper some of our tot school time and turn it into independent work and play. With a baby coming in November and Nathan used to having my undivided attention all day long, this transition needs to begin at some point, so I’ve started the slow transition this summer. :) Anyway, back to tot school! I think some of these pics may be from the week before last, but nonetheless, here’s what we’ve been up to! :)

Puzzle Time!

Gross Motor Fun!

Balancing on top of Bailey’s giant rope ball – talk about a core workout! Jumping over another one of Bailey’s toys was also super fun.

The all time favorite – the slip and slide! I think we’ve done this every day this week and let me just tell you how tired it makes my child! Partly because he stands wayyyyyyy across the yard at the other side of the fence and takes a loooooooooong running start. :)

Big Brother Practice…

When baby Ethan came to visit, Nathan practiced playing gently, sharing, learning about big vs. small toys, hard vs. soft toys, and how to engage a little one in play.

Writing Fun from the Kumon workbook.

Fine Motor Fun

Remember the game “Perfection”?? – great fine motor activity! We also did stickers and the matching middle oreos – complete with a giant stack of oreos for mommy to enjoy!

Drawing Fun

Nathan is loving cranes right now, and he draws one every chance he gets!!!! He draws a rectangle with wheels, a long beam, another long beam, and then a special hook. I’m so proud of him!!! This week we worked on spelling crane and writing it on the crane pictures. “R” is a tough letter for him to write so it was great practice.

Phonics Fun:

Practicing beginning sounds

Time for pretend/imaginative play! We played with his constructables which led to pretending to be Bob the Builder and “fixing” everything. Another day, he pretended to be a construction guy and built a road for his cars (thank you to the road crew who have been working outside our house for what feels like a month – you’re teaching my kiddo a lot about how to maintain roads!) Another day, we played with his tickle monster finger puppets. Oh my goodness, that was a hoot!

Speaking of building… remember this post? Well, I finally got around to posting the rest of the pictures. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past few weeks building, building, building! Towers, cities, conveyer belts, factories… so many things. We’ve been building with blocks, legos, pillows, anything that stacks! I love this age and the love for building in my kiddo!

I love the crane and conveyer belt in this duplo set because it really also helps to develop two handed skills (one to steady the crane/belt, and the other to wind the crank) and also it is a great fine motor exercise! Not to mention, with my background in Therapeutic Recreation, I can’t think of a better way to build fine motor skills than to play with legos!

Cutting Fun

Reading Time!

This might possibly be one of my favorite times of the day with Nathan. He will sit and listen to book after book after book. He’s always loved to be read to before bed, but now he’s sitting through 10 or 15 books in the middle of the day too. I always stop every few words and let him practice sounding out the words and learning that words make up stories and fun things like that. He’s doing fabulous with sounding out words and really LOVES books and reading! YAY!

I’ll leave you with my favorite picture of the week…

What have you been up to in your tot school this week? Please join the fun! Visit www.1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com for more info or to link up!

For the love of trucks

Lately, Nathan’s favorite vehicles are cranes, cement mixers, tow trucks, diggers with caterpillar tracks and anything related to Cars. I treasure this stage of his life! He treasures his cars!

What do these two pictures have to do with one another?

Can anyone guess what these two pics have to do with each other?

Wordless Wednesday (okay, not at all wordless)

I ran across these pictures the other day and I had to share. This happened the last weekend in June of 2007. (I was about as far along then with Nathan as I am now with this little one).

7/1/2007 "Saturday morning I was on the phone with my dad and happened to see Bailey (our golden retriever) pick up something in her mouth (she got it from a hole in the yard), bring it across our yard, up the deck steps, and lie down by the back door with something small and mobile... she was licking it. I ran to investigate and found that she had ever so gently plucked two newborn bunnies from a horribly built nest and she was licking them. I immediately took them fearing she would try to play with them like her other toys. Thankfully, they were by no means hurt or injured in any way - amazing. I couldn't put them back in the nest, Bailey would just retrieve them again. So, I brought them inside and called a wildlife care center. They were closed until Monday, but gave me instructions for care over the weekend... so needless to say, we've been feeding these tiny bunnies through an itty bitty syringe for the last two days. They have even grown a little bit. Their umbilical cord stumps were red and raw (I told you they were newborn- barely hours old) on Saturday but today they are now brown and have dried up some. They even started to grow a little white fur on their tummies. Other than that, they are essentially hairless. They are about 3.5 inches long and their eyes and ears are still closed. So tiny. Tonight, Bailey was whining pitifully at the bathroom door when I was feeding the bunnies... and I decided that we should give her maternal instinct a try. Chad came to help intervene if necessary. I put one of the bunnies down near her and it immediately crawled toward her soft fur. She licked it and laid so still allowing it to bury itself into her thick neck fur. Occasionally, she would nuzzle it and lick it. I brought the other one down to her and she let it nuzzle as well. Within seconds, we heard this sucking sound. They were trying to nurse in her hair! Oh my word... to see a 80 pound dog nuzzle and mother these TINY bunnies that are no more than a few days old and weighing no more than 2 oz was precious. Can you imagine what a good big sister she will be? We ended up feeding the bunnies through the syringe stuck through her fur for the remainder of their stay with us. Our dog rocks! By the way, the little boy in my tummy is about 1.5-2 inches longer than these bunnies and doesn't weigh much more. :) It's been a great weekend!"

That story warms my heart and I just had to share!!!!

Nathan... up close and personal

Oh my goodness this boy is amazing!

Baby Ethan

This is my friend/college roommate's little boy Ethan. Is he not adorable? He spent some time with us the other day and I could resist photographing a seemingly still 10 month old. :)

Tot School

(Nathan is 30 months old)

We had another fabulous week of tot school!!! Here's what we've been up to!

Sticker Fun:

I found this book at a consignment sale. It's the story of Noah with stickers that you add every few lines. We had a blast with this and it was great for Nathan to learn the names of Noah's sons, to practice the fine motor skills, and to match the picture in the book to the sticker. We'll be doing this again for sure!

To continue our sticker fun... I found 3 amazing Priddy giant sticker books at Garden Ridge for just 3.99 a piece!!!!! They are these 3 books and they retail for $12 a piece! Check out your local garden ridge!!!

1. http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Sticker-Puzzle-Book-Activity/dp/0312500947/ref=pd_sim_b_4

2. http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Sticker-Activity-Work-Book/dp/0312495234/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275681035&sr=8-12

3. http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Sticker-Fun-Book-Activity/dp/0312500920/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275681035&sr=8-15

After putting all the "e" stickers on and piecing together the elephant, we started writing. Nathan loves to write letters and "E" and "e" were no exception!

Phonics/Word/Spelling fun:

I checked out this Hooked on Phonics program from our library, covered the workbook pages with page protectors and Nathan and I set out to work through it. Dry erase crayon in hand, he completed over 30 pages without stopping. I finally stopped us so we could eat lunch. It's a great program with many activities, including writing, matching, tracing, flash cards, a DVD to follow up on the unit, and a book to follow up on the unit!

Nathan also completed about 10 pages in his KUMON upper case letters book.

We have used letter magnets a bunch this week learning word families and practicing more on sounding out words. This kiddo has a love for reading already!

I drew pictures and asked him to write the word on the blanks. This was a fun activity (and one than challenged my drawing skills)!

Playing in a box is always loads of fun! Especially when you learn to tip the box over while sitting in it! Talk about a core workout!

I showed Nathan a picture of our Compassion child and asked him if he'd like to draw a picture for Abdul to send in our next letter. He was so excited and eager to "make Abdul so happy and help him smile." He wrote Abdul's name (with me spelling it for him) on the front and back of his picture. So sweet to see his excitement over this.

Tracing/Drawing Fun:

I drew some pictures for Nathan to trace and he thought it was funny to trace them right side up and upside down. Then he drew some pictures of his own. Lately, his favorite thing to draw is a crane. :)

Art Fun:

Nathan and I spent one morning painting and we had a blast. On some pages, Nathan "traced" my outline and then painted it in (like the traffic light and stop sign). On other pages, he did his own painting; of course no painting day can be complete without handprints!

Puzzle Fun:

Nathan was really into puzzles this week. He did all of his puzzles at least once and some of them many times. He's getting really good at figuring out how to put different elements together (like the truck then the bulldozer) and then fitting the elements together.

We also did this folder game from Carissa. You can find it here. Nathan loved matching the mommy letters to the baby letters.

Carissa has fabulous idea and tons of resources!

Check them out by clicking on this button below.

I'll leave you with my favorite two pics of the week...

Have some fun ideas you want to share? Visit Carissa's blog and link up your post and let's continue to share the valuable lessons we teach our kiddos!

I don't want to forget days like this...

Yesterday was one of those days that will stand out in my mind for years to come... but I want it to remain there forever. Perhaps documenting it on our family blog will help! :) While Nathan loves to play and do tot school and is easily engaged in most things, when playing independently, he's not usually engaged in one activity for long. Yesterday, that was not the case! Our morning started with playing "Cars"... He was Mater and I was Lightening McQueen. He asked me to be the voice of McQueen and oh boy did I enjoy it! We must have played "Cars" for a half hour or more. We both laughed and the pretend play filled the playroom. Nathan doesn't do much pretend play so this was a huge moment! I loved the way he created scenarios for the two cars to help each other out, how he engaged Mater with McQueen, and how it didn't seem to matter that we both sounded so silly!!!

After our "Cars" adventure, I neeeded to declutter and reorganize our playroom/tot school area. While I was in the same room as Nathan, for over 1.5 hours if I didn't engage him, he played as if I wasn't there. It was a beautiful moment to watch him build, create, and PLAY as if no one was watching, doing the things HE wanted to do, creating as HE wanted to create. He played with his legos and built huge cranes and conveyer belts. Then, he built a train and added people one by one, while giving them a voice as they sat on the train. "Hello lady. Have a good trip." "Thank you Nathan. I sure will, I'm going to Florida." and so on. PRECIOUS!

After he cleaned up the legos (yes, I did mention that would be a good idea), he pulled out the wooden blocks. One by one, he carried them from the box (which he amazingly didn't dump all over the floor first) over to his table and built a beautiful castle. It fell a number of times in the process, but he never got frustrated or crashed the whole thing from the table; he simply rebuilt the part that fell. One by one, he'd carefully select a new block and walk it back to the table adding it to the top of his creation.

After stepping back and studying for a moment, he called me over (unaware I'd been taking pictures). "Mommy come see the beautiful castle I built. Please don't crash my tower. I built it, so you may not crash it." He was so proud, as was I!!!!! He's never built anything like this, he's never spent that much time and patience building something, and he's never built anything and stepped back to admire what HE could do. I was all teary eyed. He too, was prouder than a peacock. See?

After all of this fun, we had a big first... first nap with no diaper! I told Nathan that he could wear underwear to bed and call for help if he needed to go pee pee or poopie. He then asked if he could go to bed as a "nakee baby". He has a love for all things soft and fuzzy (like the sherpa blanket that we use as a fitted sheet and the 5 blankies in his bed), so no wonder he wanted to sleep naked! I said sure, prepared for several sheet changes. He woke up half way through, asked to go pee pee, and then went back to sleep for another 1.5 hours. When he woke up, he yelled, "mommy I didn't pee pee in my bed! Hooray!" So today, is day number two of napping sans diaper... and yes, sans clothing too. :)