Sunday, January 24, 2010

Tot School

~Smiley is currently 24 months old~

Tot School

Winter Theme...
We began our winter theme this week. We don't have snow or "winter" where we live, but Smiey nevertheless enjoyed learning about snowmen, snowflakes and snow. He loves the boardbook "Frosty the Snowman" that we read a lot throughout the month of December. I guess our winter theme, should really be on rain, which we have had a lot of this past week!! (he is pretty fascinated by rain, actually).

We made a winter theme collage for our kitchen...
We drew a snowman on another day. I asked him to draw a hat and he made a red scribble over the snowman's head. I was pretty impressed ;)

ABCs...
Smiley is doing really well with his letters. He has known all of his upper and lower case letters for quite some time now. A couple of weeks ago, we went on a drive and I let him watch the leapfrog letter factory in the car. He then asked for it a few more times that week and picked up all of the phonics within a few days!!! I am so impressed by that dvd! Whenever he now sees a letter, he tells me the name of the letter and it's sound!

He got this Melissa and Doug word puzzle for Christmas and really really likes it!


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I bought these letter posters for him at the learning store a while back. We took out the A and B posters this week. I am trying to help him make the connection between letter sounds and actual words. We'll see how it goes ;)
Fine Motor Skills...
I gave him a pair of tweezers for the first time this week. They came with a boardgame that he got for Christmas. They are pretty small though and a bit difficult to use. He doesn't really have the hang of them yet...



Using the spoon was much easier :)
We worked a little bit on number correspondence as well. He wasn't very into it though. He actually does this automatically during every day activities. For example, if he happens to have three blueberries, he'll say "three blueberries". He's pretty much into counting everything... Mom's games are boring I suppose...

We pulled out scissors for the first time this week as well. He was really interested in doing this as he sees me using scissors quite a bit. He had a bit a hard time figuring out how to hold the paper to be able to cut it. He would often hold the scissors parallel to the paper... Definitely something we'll keep working on :)

Finding the right lid for the corresponding tupperwear. Great while mom is doing something in the kitchen :)

Sorting...
Sorting is still something that Smiley absolutely loves to do. Pretty much any activity we do turns into a sorting activity :)
Here he's sorting his pom poms. He still loves pom poms and asked for them several times this week. These sorting plates that I bought were a fantastic investment, by the way!

Here he's finding all the green ones and sorting them into an espresso cup. (he asked for something white, so he could sort his white pom poms, but then it was fun to just sort all kinds of colors into the cup)... Sorting his animals. Another one of his favorite tot school activities! If I could only buy two things, it would be the sorting animals and the pom poms, lol...

6 comments:

  1. You have some great ideas this week. I love the letter posters and sorting blueberries.

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  2. Very nice - the kitchen containers remind me when I was a kid - I used to open up my mom's cabinets & drag out the plastic containers & play with them too. :)

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  3. Those pom poms are terrific! That's great that he knows his upper case and lower case letters! My daughter's the opposite. She's pretty good about linking letters to words that begin with those letters, but actual letter recognition for her isn't very good. We're trying to figure out a "tweezer" activity that works for us too. I tried kitchen tongs this past week and they were too big. I did find some play kitchen tongs in a bag of kitchen toys that might work better for us. I'll give them a try in a couple weeks.

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  4. Wow, what a great week! Love all the sorting activities! I don't know if you guys are in California (we are) but my GOODNESS, we had a week of CRAZY rain! Made for a fun learning week because it finally related to us, since we never get snow! :)

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  5. I am always so shocked by how much your little boy knows at such a young age! Its great!! So he learned his letters b/c of the leapfrog letter factor dvd?

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  6. Melaniet42- Oh, please let me know if you find "tweezers" that work for your daughter. I have tried our regular kitchen tongs before as well and they were way too big for him!

    Our Little Family- Yes, we're in the LA area. My goodness, what a week. We definitely got a lot of tot school in though! We did hit the indoor playground a couple of times though, just to avoid cabin fever ;)

    Rebecca- No, he learned his letters from us reading Dr. Seuss' ABC to him. He requested that book every day in a row for about a week for bedtime, and at the end of the week, he had picked up all the letters (upper and lower case). A few weeks later, I let him watch the leapfrog letter factory, and after watching it a few times, he picked up all the sounds the letters make. So, Dr. Seuss for letter recognition and the letter factory for phonics. So, nothing I did with him really, lol.

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