Last week's tot school

Nathan is 29 months.

Number/counting fun with bingo chips and some printables from here.

I made Nathan a calendar and we've begun to talk about days of the week, months, what day it is, and some of the bigger numbers. He loves to put the numbers on the calendar each day. Too bad I didn't realize we started May on Friday (instead of Saturday) until a week later. :)

Of course, with a daddy in IT, we have a techy tot. He loves this IPOD and is learning quite a bit on it!

Helping out with some chores around the house. :)

Puzzle fun!

The top pic on the left is a set of puzzles that I played with when I was little! The pic below is our fun race car magnet puzzle/fishing game. The top one on the right is one of Nathan's current favorites (as is anything with letters on it). The middle pic on the bottom is an idea from Carissa. You can find it here. I gave Nathan a pile of heads and tails and he had to sort them and match them up. He loved it! The bottom left pic is a 6 piece puzzle.

Fine Motor fun:

This idea came from Carissa. You can find it here. Nathan matched the clothes pins to the shape or color (depending on the day) and had to open the little clothespins to put them on.

I put little x's on both sides of the clothes pin where he was supposed to put his fingers. This helped to keep him from trying to push both ends at the same time.

HiHo Cherryo

Lacing the pig

Sensory box with animals. Nathan had to find the animals and match them up.

Making a kite, using glue, and matching the colored word with the shape. This idea came from Carissa. You can find it here.

Alphabet dot to dot with a new pencil! These are really cool and you can find them here.

Fun with tongs. :)

Art fun!

This really surprised me! Nathan loves to paint so I thought I'd give this a try. I used markers and drew the outlines of this picture (and the cow). He "traced" the outline with the matching paint color and then filled in the middles. The only help I gave him was to remind him not to mix all the colors and to paint green on green. I was amazed with how well he traced and painted and how it turned out!

This week Nathan discovered that he could actually draw pictures with sidewalk chalk. We spent an hour in the driveway practicing his letters and then he started drawing shapes. One thing led to another and he drew the pictures below:

left (a sunshine); middle (a person); top right (a balloon); bottom right (a spider - picture doesn't show but it does indeed have 8 legs)

Reading Fun:

We read tons of books this week! We always read books before bed and nap but I've started to incorporate them into more of our activity time as well.

Tracing/Writing Fun:

I hate that I didn't have my camera with me, but Nathan clearly and correctly wrote his name without any prompting and without being asked. He did this at my mom and dad's house over the weekend. We started out the week using dry erase crayons and this template with his name to trace. That progressed to the aquadoodle, sidewalk chalk, in the bathtub, anywhere he could and then at my mom and dad's with a pen. Anytime he can find something to write with, Nathan starts writing letters. He can write almost all of them legibly now. I can't believe it and I'm so proud of him!!!

Pre-Reading Fun

Working on words, letters, phonics, and beginning/ending sounds.

Nathan liked this mini book Carissa made. Check it and other spring stuff here.

How to build an A... one of our favorites!

ABC find with bingo chips.

Sorting items by their beginning sound.

Matching the word to the item. This was quite a challenge for Nathan as I didn't tell him what the words said, only encouraged him to sound them out. It was fun to watch him process through it. He got about 3 of them correct without assistance. :) We'll do this again!

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