A week ago Monday (the 26th), Craig took Will to karate and I stayed home to play with Miss Sophia. I've decided I'm going to make sure I already have dinner ready on these nights when it's Craig turn to take Will and use this rare alone time with her to do some Tot School activities. We only have about 45 minutes, but it's also the only guaranteed time I have alone with her. I've found it's much harder to do with Sophie the things I did with Will because it's much trickier to get one-on-one with her like I did with him. Will and I used to do most of our activities while Sophie napped. But now, he always wants to be included if I try to do something with just Soph. And although I can still find some simple activities that are appropriate for both kids, I'm really longing for some quiet time alone with my girl where I can give her my undivided attention and help her learn a new concept/skill.
We only did a few things this first night, but we had fun and I'm looking forward to planning more.
I remembered Will really loved this first activity. It helps a child key into their sense of sound to determine the properties of an object and identify it without seeing it. For Sophie, I just used two objects: a block and a ball. But I would like to try this again with a ball and a bean bag. I think that would have been a better combo to start with. To begin, I show her each object and we place them, one at a time, into a box and take turns gently turning/shaking the box to listen to what kind of sound it makes. I pointed out that the ball makes a rolling sound and the block makes a "thud" sound. Then I ask her to close her eyes while I stick just one object in the box and hide the other behind my back. I tilt the box back and forth gently and put a really curious look on my face and she LOVED it. She'd get a huge smile on her face and, though she didn't always guess correctly, she did get better as we went on. Then I let her reverse rolls and she got to pick what went in the box and have me guess.
The next day, I found a sturdier box since this one was kinda' flimsy.
Next, we did some water color mixing with food-colored water in an ice cube tray. I gave her a small spoon and a medicine dropper to transfer and blend the colored waters. She hasn't quite got the medicine dropper figured out yet.
I've mentioned before that she loves sequencing things. Here, I gave her my measuring cups and she helped me place them in order, biggest to smallest.
Then nesting them together is fun practice too. (P.S. sorry for the crotch shot, Soph!)
This is actually why I selected the Matryoshka doll set for her when we were in Traverse City. I knew it would be perfect for her. So we lined them up like this and practiced saying "smallest... bigger... bigger... bigger... ... biggest!" and "biggest... smaller... smaller... ... smallest!"
Here she was looking out the window for "Slippers" the cat. Have I mentioned him (her?) yet? We've adopted a new outdoor cat. Haha - not really. But there's this cat that comes around just about every day to eat the food scraps that we throw into the field. (We don't have a garbage disposal and we burn our garbage, so food scraps just go into the field to "compost".) It is black with white feet, so Will named him "Slippers". He's fattened up a good deal since we first started seeing him a few months ago! :) And we're pretty sure he sometimes sleeps on our front or back porch. So the kids have a good time looking out for him each day... usually around dinner time.
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March: counting bubbles (marbles) above each numbered fish.
Summer: Phonics game from Rethman family. First letter sounds are far too easy anymore. He breezes through these in no time. But he still enjoys them, so I'm sure it's still good practice.
Transferring marbles into a silicone star-mold tray using a melon baller.
Threading like colored pony beads onto pipe cleaners, which have been poked into a Styrofoam disc. Reeeally good fine motor work!
Can you see the wetness below her right eye? She was crying about something unnecessary and this is often what I do to redirect her. She instantly stops her tears and begins to focus. ;)
Color matching (very similar colors!) using two sets of the same paint samples and some clothes pins. One set of paint samples gets clipped apart and glued to a clothes pin and then they can practice pinching clothes pins while keeping a good eye for subtle color differences.
Again, the pinching part is still tricky for Sophie, but she'll line up the colors beside their appropriate match and then Will clips them on for her. She does try though.
Another old favorite activity: "Which is different?" Strips of colored cardstock and LOTS of stickers. All stickers are the same on each strip, except for one. "Which is different?"
Will liked playing teacher and explaining this to Sophie.
Fall: threading ditalini pasta (teeny tiny rings) onto a piece of uncooked spaghetti. I used a tiny pot of play dough to hold the spaghetti upright.
Will has more patience with this type of work than Sophie. He filled his spaghetti to the top!
I've mentioned before that she loves sequencing things. Here, I gave her my measuring cups and she helped me place them in order, biggest to smallest.
Then nesting them together is fun practice too. (P.S. sorry for the crotch shot, Soph!)
This is actually why I selected the Matryoshka doll set for her when we were in Traverse City. I knew it would be perfect for her. So we lined them up like this and practiced saying "smallest... bigger... bigger... bigger... ... biggest!" and "biggest... smaller... smaller... ... smallest!"
Here she was looking out the window for "Slippers" the cat. Have I mentioned him (her?) yet? We've adopted a new outdoor cat. Haha - not really. But there's this cat that comes around just about every day to eat the food scraps that we throw into the field. (We don't have a garbage disposal and we burn our garbage, so food scraps just go into the field to "compost".) It is black with white feet, so Will named him "Slippers". He's fattened up a good deal since we first started seeing him a few months ago! :) And we're pretty sure he sometimes sleeps on our front or back porch. So the kids have a good time looking out for him each day... usually around dinner time.
----------------------------Also, here are a bunch of random old pics of Tot School type activities this year.
February: pinching clothes pins around an empty plastic container. (This is tricky for Sophie yet.)
March: counting bubbles (marbles) above each numbered fish.
Summer: Phonics game from Rethman family. First letter sounds are far too easy anymore. He breezes through these in no time. But he still enjoys them, so I'm sure it's still good practice.
Transferring marbles into a silicone star-mold tray using a melon baller.
Threading like colored pony beads onto pipe cleaners, which have been poked into a Styrofoam disc. Reeeally good fine motor work!
Can you see the wetness below her right eye? She was crying about something unnecessary and this is often what I do to redirect her. She instantly stops her tears and begins to focus. ;)
Color matching (very similar colors!) using two sets of the same paint samples and some clothes pins. One set of paint samples gets clipped apart and glued to a clothes pin and then they can practice pinching clothes pins while keeping a good eye for subtle color differences.
Again, the pinching part is still tricky for Sophie, but she'll line up the colors beside their appropriate match and then Will clips them on for her. She does try though.
Another old favorite activity: "Which is different?" Strips of colored cardstock and LOTS of stickers. All stickers are the same on each strip, except for one. "Which is different?"
Will liked playing teacher and explaining this to Sophie.
Fall: threading ditalini pasta (teeny tiny rings) onto a piece of uncooked spaghetti. I used a tiny pot of play dough to hold the spaghetti upright.
Will has more patience with this type of work than Sophie. He filled his spaghetti to the top!
1 comment:
As always, awesome ideas! And that little sweetie pie is just too cute... she gives the best hugs! Seriously, such a doll
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