This Week In Tot School...

Will and I had another great week of learning activities. It is ridiculous how much fun this is for both of us. He loves a new challenge and the one-on-one time we spend together. And I get so excited to watch him focus so intently and accomplish something. I've already noticed a bunch of subtle improvements in his patience level and skills. A month ago, he would get frustrated when he couldn't do something and whine/complain to me that he "can't". Now I think the "game" factor provides the intrigue and he is surprising himself with each new success.

Okay, so first off, here's another sorting/tonging activity. This is fast becoming one of his favorite types of games. And did I mention that "tonging" helps build those little hand muscles that will soon be learning to write? It will also help strengthen and coordinate his hands to help him cut more precisely with scissors.
I think I mentioned before that he often tried to grab the tongs with the opposite hand to make it a two-handed effort... which only made it more difficult for him. We kept reminding him to use one hand. With this activity, he told me "mommy, I'm going to hold the edge of the tray with my right hand".

I'm pretty proud of myself for coming up with this activity and I'd be willing to bet it was his favorite one of the whole week. I gathered a sturdy, gift-type box with an easy-open lid, a bean bag, a rock and a golf ball. First, we practiced with the lid off (and only one object in there at a time) and tilted the box around to watch it slide from side to side and really listen to what that sounds like. Then he had to close his eyes while I placed one object inside and closed the lid. Then he got to tilt it on his own and try to guess which object it was.

He LOVED it! He got so excited and almost couldn't wait to open the lid! It was like a present on Christmas or something.

We talked about the properties of each object (hard, soft, round) and really thought out what each would sound like. I'd ask him "what do you think that sounds like?... rolling like a ball, hard/loud like a rock, or soft/sliding like a bean bag?" He got so into it and we played again and again.

The best part! Oh the excitement of guessing the correct object!

Then I let him turn the tables and make me guess. I really exaggerated the thinking aloud process and he just ate it up with a huge smile every time.

We practiced once on daddy and Big Papa too. He'd ask us "what do you think that sounds like?" :)

This was a really good one for patience and fine-motor. I saw it on one of my favorite blogs and had to try it. Five colors of pipe cleaners speared into a styrofoam disc and five of each color pony beads to coordinate. He had to thread the beads onto the stems and be gentle enough not to bend the stems.

Ahhh, the great practice of tiny hands working with tiny objects. Such fun and such focus!

This was a silly looking cheese face, but I just wanted to show that he came back to this game the next day and wanted more beads. I ended up giving him 15 of each color... that's 75 beads ladies and gentlemen! Way to go Will!

I got this out just to entertain him while I fed Sophie one night and we didn't really do anything specific with it. The magnetic letters and numbers are from the dollar store and he was just sticking them and rearranging them on a dry erase board and saying each one out loud. He actually spent quite a bit of time on it and I want to come up with some good activities to use them.

After our play with bean bags, he wanted to throw them around like daddy does with the cornhole game. I pulled out the Bilibo toy from Christmas and he tossed them in.

I had higher hopes for this next game, but it wasn't entirely dull... just not his favorite. I drew happy and sad faces on construction paper and we talked about feelings. Then I put a line of duct tape on the floor and had him jump to the correct "feeling" when I gave him different scenarios.

For example...

When I put strawberries on your plate for dinner, how does that make you feel?

When Sophie takes a toy that belongs to you, how does that make you feel?

When we go to the playground, how does that make you feel?

When it's time to get out of the bath tub, how does that make you feel?

Then, just to incorporate the bean bags some more, he stood behind the line and tossed a bean bag onto the correct feeling when I gave him more scenarios.

Remember all those tiny scraps of paper we cut up? Well, we decided to make a rainbow craft in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

First we talked about rainbows and the colors that make them up. We made a list of things that represented each color.

Casey, he reminds me of you with his mouth open when he's concentrating... except he doesn't have his tongue out touching his chin. Haha! He used a paint brush to paint glue (which I squirted into the jar lid again) onto the rainbow...

...and then place a piece of scrap paper in each spot. I did have to help him stay on task here. He wanted to grab paper by the handful and just sprinkle all over. His patience wasn't at its peak with this craft.

Pulling apart cotton balls for the clouds.

I think it turned out really cute! Sort of mosaic-looking.

On Thursday morning when I was home with the kids like I mentioned, I had a few sensory hide-and-seek games ready for him when Sophie laid down for her morning nap. The first were ten each, red and orange (his favorite colors) pom poms mixed in with those spiral noodles we used at the babies' sensory play day. He had to dig them out and sort by color. I just used a bundt pan to make it more interesting.

Then he found 10 paper clips in those split peas we used before, this time in a cake pan.

And finally, we got out the buttons again and used a mini-muffin tin to count out two buttons per hole. He didn't love doing this but I think it's because I was trying to clean up breakfast and wasn't working with him.

He found it much more fun in the evening when we worked together and "took turns" putting two buttons in each spot. Then we bumped it up to three buttons per spot and also used the film container to add an extra learning element about size and things that "fit inside".

Here's a sort of boring game we played with dry erase board and magnets. I just wrote the upper and lower case of each letter and he matched the uppercase letter to it. I have some more ideas on practicing lowercase, but I'm waiting for my Melissa and Doug magnetic letters to arrive. They offer both upper and lowercase. The only complaint I have is that there is only ever one of each letter, so I may eventually order a second set. Otherwise, how else is he going to spell "Will"? Boo.

A simple counting game for more practice with one-to-one correspondence. I've found he's pretty good up to four, and can occasionally do up to six, but then starts counting either too many or too few beyond that. We used those glass pieces again.

I just flipped the cards over and added more pieces to go up to six.

Another idea I found on a blog (love this one - and Will did too!): tracing popsicle sticks onto paper to form various shapes. I used one color of popsicle stick for each shape and then wrote the name of the shape on the paper and on each individual stick, along with drawing the shape on the stick. Good practice for recognizing the written name of each shape too.

He first sorted the sticks by color, and then used each bunch of sticks to "build" each shape.

We did: rectangle, square, diamond, triangle, hexagon and parallelagram. I'd like to add a trapezoid and octagon after seeing how much he likes this game. He game back to it a couple times today.

Sophie's entire world of learning right now consists of moving, exploring, mouthing, touching, and basically engaging all of her senses. Babies do love cause and effect "games" at this age, i.e. peek-a-boo and will-mommy-pick-this-up-80-times-if-I-drop-it-over-the-edge-of-my-high-chair? Thankfully, she hasn't really gotten into the second one yet. But I thought it would be fun to play a sort of hide-and-seek game (oh, I forgot she does love THAT game when I play with her on the floor in the living room) using her stacking cups and some Cheerios.

I had to show her that I was putting something under there a couple times, but then she liked lifting each one to reveal her edible prize!

"Hmm? Which one should I choose next?"

Don't worry - she had already eaten her lunch. I wasn't making the poor girl work that hard for food when she was starving. :) Will kept cheering her on from his seat at the table saying "look under the yellow cup Sophie!" Or "she put one under the green cup!"

Then I stacked them up for her with a Cheerio between each level. :)

Of course after watching this, Will had to get in on the fun. He's so funny with suddenly wanting to do or play with whatever she's doing or playing with. It's a little too easy of a game for him, so I let him watch me put one Cheerio under one cup and then mix them all around really fast in front of him.

He actually got it wrong once or twice before realizing that he just needed to remember which color the cup was before I mixed them up. Haha!

Silly boy.

Next Wednesday is St. Patrick's Day and I've got all sorts of activities planned around that theme for the upcoming week. Craig's helping me with a fun one to start on tomorrow. Stay tuned!