This Week In Tot School...

I already posted about our St. Patrick's Day activities. Here's how we filled in the rest of the week.

Will showed interest in our shape-building game, so I created a couple more pages to include a pentagon and a trapezoid. I also filled in the number of sides each has, for all our shapes.

I originally had a couple ideas for spring-themed crafts. But after my revelation about his interest level in crafts that have a specific outcome in mind... as well as my revelation about my own inability to not micromanage his work... I opted for a little less goal-oriented projects. :) Since we were focusing on shapes, I decided to set up this tray:

Inspired by this old book of his (which now resides on Sophie's bookshelf), I cut out a bunch of shapes for Will to assemble and glue into various objects.

For a couple of them, he used the book as a guideline. He'd first line them up on the book page and then decide where to place them on the paper. More practice with glue:

Notice the wardrobe change... We had a sort of, um, malfunction.

I thought this was a great compromise of craftiness. He got to create something on his own that he was familiar with, and I had an indirect hand in the product actually looking like something. Haha.

He did a very good job, I think.

Are you proud of me? I didn't even jump in when he decided to put the chimney horizontal on the peak of the roof! (Although we did later go out and look at our chimney and it's correct position.)

Or when he left the emergency/flashing light floating in space above the bed of the fire truck.

Overall, this was a success and I'm already thinking of more objects he can create like this using basic shapes.

Another "craft" involved using a glue stick to paste down a bunch of multi-colored clippings in various shapes. I really liked the mosaic look of our rainbow and I was certain I would be able to let him go at this without assistance and just... create.

He liked using the glue stick for a short time...

...but ultimately wanted to just rub glue all over and ditch the shapes. This is all the further he got before quitting. I'm not giving up on this yet. I have an idea to encourage more effort on this project in the future. One bright note: he remembered the trapezoid shape!

Yet another shapes craft: cardstock, washable paint, sponges cut into a few basic shapes... whatever he wanted to do using these tools.

I showed him briefly how to "stamp" the shapes onto the paper. He never wanted to mix the colors and it irritated him when his hands got dirty. Guess he's a bit of a neat-freak like his parents?

This project didn't last very long either. And this was the final outcome:

I guess he likes the new trapezoid the best?

A quick idea my mom gave me for "painting" with water color books: freezing food-colored water with popsicle sticks and then letting the child go to town.

Anything with colored water is intriguing to Will.

There was renewed interest in his old shape-sorting cube. This one is wooden and has lots of different (but similar looking) shapes, so it's a bit more challenging than your average Fisher Price plastic one. But he's gotten much quicker at it and is noticing the subtle differences.

On Saturday morning, during Sophie's nap, we made use of some quiet time together. I've been really interested in all sorts of sensory learning for kids and it's even something I can include Sophie in too, i.e. our sensory day with Mya and Stella. So Will and I went out to collect some pine cones from the yard:

And then stick them in a bowl full of cotton balls for our sensory tray. We mostly focused on touch, taste and smell today, although we also picked a couple books to see and hear by Will's request.

On the porch, he stuck his hands in the bowl and described for me the different things he could feel: "scratchy" pine cones and "soft" cotton balls. Despite the face, he really liked this and wanted to show Sophie when she woke up. We didn't stay outside much longer because it was very windy that morning!

Inside, we conducted our tasting game and first talked about sweet, salty and sour and how we taste with our tongue/mouth. I skipped bitter, but he already knew and understood the others. He ate a goldfish cracker, an M&M and a slice of kiwi and decided which category each fell under.

Sometime soon, I'd like to see if he'd participate in a blindfolded tasting game of several of his favorite foods and see if he can name them.

Next up, we smelled a few of mommy's seasonings and talked about smelling with our nose. This was nutmeg:

Fuzzy pic, but so funny.

Cinnamon was next:

Then I let him hold out his hand while I sprinkled a tiny bit on and let him taste it. He loved it! He asked for more and we did it two more times.

Garlic powder didn't get too bad of a reaction...

But cumin, on the other hand...

LOL - what a good sport.

As promised, we read his chosen books and here he's pointing out all the unusual animals that I can't believe he remembers from "Handa's Surprise" - a book about a little girl who's delivering a basket of tropical fruit to her friend Akeyo and each piece of fruit gets taken by a wild animal, only to be replaced by a full basket of tangerines! He loves it. And because of this book, he knows the names of the antelope, gazelle, ostrich, parrot, etc.

When Sophie woke up, we showed her our "touch" bowl (which she immediately tried to dump out... she's got a thing for bowls) and I made her a homemade "noisemaker" (a.k.a. a rattle?) using an empty honey container and dried split peas. She loved it!

Oh, this was another intriguing noisemaker from last week: an empty handwipes container with a small rock inside. Shake, shake, shake!

I'm showing her how to shake it.

Yay! Such fun.

Seriously, I am looking at everything differently now! I'm inspecting things around me in a whole new way by trying to dream up how I can use it for learning purposes. It feels so out of character for me because I normally like to get rid of or give away everything we're not using on a regular basis... I despise clutter! Now I'm saving empty containers and toilet paper tubes and scouring the aisles of trinkety craft stores for cheap finds and interesting manipulatives.

I guess it's good to feel inspired though. It's fun to look forward to planning and doing all this stuff with the kids. I'm learning so much myself! I had no idea that there WAS a Dr. Maria Montessori, nor was I aware of her incredibly basic and profound ideas for teaching and engaging children's minds. I'm reading all kinds of ideas for how to present these topics to kids and, though I don't think I would want to be a teacher (as my sister suggested I might), I am having fun "playing teacher" to my own kids and can now see how a professional teacher might feel giddy when she/he walks into a teacher supply store. Ha! Anyway, a lot of the blogs I'm reading are moms who are much more in depth than me. Most of them are homeschooling and preparing actual curriculums. I still have every intention of sending our kids to public school, but for now it's fun to learn while we play!

So with that said, here's how my new fascination has taken over my personal space. Tot School work is inexpensive in general, but a lot of... um... stuff piles up quickly. Our little house isn't exactly loaded with open play space or storage space for this kind of thing, nor do we have an official "play room" for the kids. So Will and I have been using the kitchen floor for messy work and just plopping down all over the place for various games. And as for my supplies, well... let's just say it's a good thing we have a big walk in closet in our master bedroom...

The above picture is my side of the closet. I'm storing prepared trays (which I purchased from Oriental Trading) under all my hanging space. I also purchased a plastic drawer organizer at first, but then ended up rearranging my shoe shelves to accomodate more stuff.

I got some cheapy baskets from Meijer to hold our paint supplies (which were currently on a tray in this pic). I'm super excited to put those Do-A-Dot stampers to use soon! And I had a few extra glass jars going unused in my kitchen stash that are now converted into bead and marble storage.

Also, some plastic food storage containers I already had are organizing pom poms, beads, and popsicle sticks...

I was just telling Casey I can't wait for the girls to get a little older so we can plan some Tot School playdates for them. I know Casey and Wes will be totally game for this - it's going to be so fun!