Tot School (Week 5)

Caeden is currently 23 months old...for one more week! :)

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This week I had a lot of fun ideas to do with our letter of the week which was "M". Unfortunately, I only got a few implemented. Things seem to come up when you have everything semi-organized, and then a few of the activities C was not interested in...at all. I was pretty flexible with C this week and kind of let him pick out activities or toys for us to play with.

We started off the week with our usual letter of the week activity. I let C used markers for the first time. I was a bit hesitant since I knew he would want to touch the tip of the marker and the probably try to taste it. He managed to only "color" his hands a few times after trying to line up the markers. He would draw a line or two, lay it down and then ask for another color. He would repeat with a simple line and then ask for another color. He ended up with the markers in a row and seem happy with that. I encouraged him to keep coloring the "M" and even colored mine along side him.

I think I will invest in some smaller markers that he can handle better. Maybe we will try Crayola's Pip Squeak Markers next time. :)

I also thought I would see what he would do with magnet pages, and tried to keep with the "M" theme. I printed off the Ming-Ming magnet page from Making Learning Fun and used small colored marshmallows to place on the circles. C was able to put one marshmallow on a circle. One.


Then he started to eat the rest. I had printed off another magnet page so I could do it with him. He paid no attention to me, and after me trying over and over to get him to stay focused on this activity, I just let him play with the marshmallows. He decided to take them off the plate and put them back on.


On Wednesday we headed to our library for Sneak, Peek, and Read time. The theme of story time this week was "Teddy Bears". We read the Sign and Sing Along: Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear book...did rhymes and finger plays about bears, and then the tots got to put bear cutouts on the magnetic whiteboard which helped practice color recognition.

I was really excited to see Sneak bags for C's age. I usually see them for older kids, but I stumbled upon them while looking for some books to check out for him. 1,2, 3 Discovery Sneak bags are assembled with developmentally appropriate materials, including board books and manipulative's which help encourage adult/child interaction. I picked one that I knew C would like. It was the Things that Go discovery bag.

This has a been a big hit with C. As soon as we got home, I opened it up and just let him pull out everything to check it all out. We've read the books a million times, and he loves the train prop.

The toy train leading the cars. :)

Caeden wanted to play with his Little People barn. We sat in his playroom and worked on animals and placing them in the right spots. C also likes to try and put his cars and trucks through the openings, but we had to work on big/small this week.

C also helped put his trucks away...without me even asking! (Had to capture this rare moment)

We also worked on letter and number recognition while playing in his room. I also make letters each week to place on the wall. They are at his level so he can point and "say" them along with me. I print the letters from here, and the numbers from here.

Some of my favorites from the week:

That was our "M" week! Hope everyone had a great Tot school week as well!!

{I am still having problems with placing pictures, and making it look "clean". Still looking for any tips with placing photos in blogger!}

~Jamie