Tot School

~Smiley is currently 17 monhts old~

Stacking...

Smiley had lots of fun stacking our plastic cups. He made towers....


He put put the cups on an empty water bottle that he carried in from outside...

and he put his sippy in the empty water bottle ;)

Smiley loves his mega blocks and asks for them almost every day.

Stacking the pieces of his sorting toy.

Fine Motor Skills...

Smiley likes to stick toothpicks in a parmesan shaker.

Sticking plastic sticks into an empty body lotion bottle.

He likes to take caps off and put them back on. Here he is taking the cap off of an old eye liner and putting it back on.

Sorting...

We had fun playing with this shape sorter toy. We also tried to focus on matching the right colors. I named the colors as he was manipulating the shapes.

Smiley loves playing with wallets these days, so we gave him an old wallet with some old cards. He loved it and has been playing with this for several days this past week.

Games/Puzzles...
I got the idea to use Connect 4 as a tot school tool from several other blogs, including Wilson Ramblings. Smiley loved playing with this...

Playing with his puzzle. I usually ask him, "where is the pig?" and he will get the animal and repeat the name. Sometimes he also makes the animal sound as he gets the puzzle piece and puts it back in its spot :)

Life School...

Smiley really enjoys cleaning, and I am the last person to stop him ;) I hope his love for cleaning will last many many years!

Having fun with daddy...

Watching his signing time dvd. This is the only dvd that he watches, and he absolutely loves this series. He is very focused the entire time and will make most of the signs that are covered on the dvd. Currently, he gets particularly excited when he sees the train and the puppy :)

By the way, Smiley is obsessed with keys these day, so in many of the pics this week, you can see him holding our keys. He walks around sticking them in key holes and several other places. He also insists on being the one to unlock our front door and our car :)

One of my favorite this week ...

If you would like to read what other tots did for tot school this past week, please check out Carisa's great blog at 1plus1plus1equals1.

Tot School

~Smiley is currently 17 months old~

Fine Motor Skills...

Sorting pom poms into an ice cube tray.


Finding pom poms in a bowl full of penne pasta...

Stacking pegs...

Transferring pom poms with a measuring spoon.

Gross Motor Skills...

Smiley loves to climb on everything these days. Here he is standing on his leap frog fire truck. Mommy and daddy are not very excited about this new found love of climbing...

Art...

We colored with crayons a few times these week. Smiley actually did some coloring this week, rather than just taking the crayons in and out of their box. However, we had to discontinue our coloring a few times because Smiley started eating his crayons.

Smiley likes to color with pencils and ballpoint pens these days. Maybe he thinks he's writing like mommy and daddy ;)

The father's day card Smiley made for daddy...

Animals...

Smiley loves animals. We're talking a lot about animals every day. We read books about them and look at them on our walks.

Here he is looking at his cousin's fish, saying "fish" and making the appropriate sign.

Playing with his cousin's monkey

Giving his bear a big hug and kiss. He loves to hug and kiss his stuffed animals these days. I love it. It's too cute ;)

Looking at a pond full of fish and turtles with daddy

Here is a picture of the fish they were looking at so intently

There are so many fish and ducks to look at...

It's cute how he studies the animals :)

Looking at the ducks up close with mommy...

Life School...

We did a lot of life school this week, like every week :) It's probably the majority of our tot school.

Smiley had a great time being pushed around in this little tykes car at his grandparents' house. He loved it and we're thinking about getting a car like this as well, or buying a tricycle.

We spent a few times at Smiley's grandparents' house and Smiley had a great time playing with his two cousins. It was cute watching him and his 14 month old cousin exploring each other :)

We take Smiley on a daily walk and he absolutely loves it. He particularly likes pointing out all the animals, cars, trucks, and flowers he sees. It's really cute.

And of course, there was a lot of running around every day this week. Running around is probably one of Smiley's favorite things to do ;)

If you would like to see more tot school ideas, please check out Carisa's blog at http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com.

Tot School

~Smiley is currently 17 months old~

Smiley had a fun tot school this week. Daddy was on vacation and therefore spent a lot of time with Smiley. Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of the things they did together, since it gave me the opportunity to get some other things done. However, here are a few shots of our tot school this week.

We started our week doing all kinds of activities with our little pom poms. Here are some picture of Smiley putting them in his fisher price mailbox.


I tried to do a coloring activity with Smiley again this week. It didn't work out as planned though. He had no interest in coloring and was only interested in putting the crayons in and out of their box. I guess we're practicing fine motor skills :)

Smiley saw helped daddy pump his stroller wheels a few weeks ago. On this particular day, daddy got the bicycle pump out of the closet to get to something else, and Smiley started pumping. It was really cute. He then carried the pump over to his stroller, put the needle by the wheel and pumped some more. So cute!

We worked with our pom poms quite a bit again this week. They truly are a big hit around here. Smiley tranferred the pom poms to a coffe cup and then put them in the little holes of the muffin pan. He then did his own tot school activity. He actually gathered all the red pom poms into a pile. I thought it was coincidence at first, but a little bit later, he did it again. We may have to start working on our colors soon :)

If you would like to see what other mommy's are doing for tot school, please visit Carisa's great blog at 1plus1plus1equals1.