Saturday, January 30, 2010

Tot School - 25 months

We had a little more time to focus on Tot School this week, but Alex had NO sit-still in him! Some of our activities lasted about 2 minutes! Others, like the beans, lasted 45 minutes. You just never know what might capture the attention of a toddler!

I thought Alex would *love* gluing cotton balls on this snowman. He loves glue sticks, and he's never played with cotton balls before. Nope. He did about 6 cotton balls and announced, "All done, Mama. NO MOH!" (I happily finished it and hung it on the fridge...I thought it was cute!)


Yes, you can make biscuits into shapes with cookies cutters. I wasn't sure how well it would hold the shape, but our heart-shaped biscuits turned out all right!

Transferring beans with a spoon...this is the first time we tried any activity with beans, and Alex was hugely proud of his efforts. We had a few beans on the floor (and a few in the mouth, so I gave him a graham cracker to snack on while he played) but overall, Alex did very well with spooning the beans from one bowl to another. It's also the first time I've let him work with anything made of glass. (This is a CLOSELY supervised activity!)

Puzzles - Alex was on an anti-puzzle kick for a while, but the other day, he took my hand and said, "Tum!" (Come!) We spent about 30 minutes doing puzzles together on the living room floor.

Playdough - free play. His favorite is my garlic press. He needs help, but he loves to make long strands of "spaghetti". I was doing dishes while he played, and he asked me to bring him a bowl of bubbles. ("Mama, bubbles please. Bubbles bowl!") He had fun decorating his face and head!

Colors - We did the mitten activity from Mormon Chic's file folder games. (No, we're not Mormon, but the activites at that site are fun!) Then, we went back to Alex's favorite - drive the cars on the colors. He "hauled" colored blocks on the top of his cars to bring them to the correct spot.

I also included a picture just for fun. His little wooden cars are from the dollar spot at Target. The sticker on the bottom makes me laugh. On the top left, it says "ages 2 and up" and on the bottom right, it says "not for children under 3 years". Gotta love those "made in China" toys! ;)

D! Alex begged to paint, so we did the "D is for dinosaur" from a Fisher Price ABC *.pdf file that I have saved on my computer. It came from a Fisher Price House Party that I hosted when Alex was small. (If anyone wants the file, I'd be happy to e-mail it to you. It's meant to be shared.) He also half-heartedly did the D is for Dog magnet page using a pink bingo marker.


Random...
  • Alex's dresser labels - pictures & words for what's found in each drawer
  • Alex's digital clock - We covered up the minutes with tape, so Alex can only see the hour. I wrote "7" and drew a sunshine on the tape. We're working on teaching our early-bird that he can't leave his room until the clock says 7.
  • D-shaped ham & cheese sandwich (Wilton cookie cutters)
  • using a towel to clean up a spill...he's getting pretty good at that!
  • wearing a paper bag...he didn't want to decorate it
  • A horse climbing the bridge on Alex's Pooh Bear playset
  • putting up Valentines window clings
  • Tigger driving a tractor (I love imagination!!!)
  • playing with his Pooh Bear playset

To see what other tots are doing this week, check out:

Tot School

10 comments:

Kat said...

I think you shared that file with me before, but I can't find it...will you send it again please?

I love the biscuits! We will have to try that!

I'm so proud of you for sticking with this...he seems to really be enjoying it! I love the "Montessori-esq" activities like transferring beans...


Keep up the great work! ;)

sbswtp said...

so fun!!! I love how the biscuits turned out :) What a great week!

Theresa Mezo said...

LOVE all of your activities, and I completely understand how some activities last 2 minutes, and some longer.. my son wasn't very cooperative this week in Tot School!
Look forward to checking out your future posts! :)

Stefanie said...

What a fun week!

We use Mormon Chick's print outs a lot. They are very cute.

Julie K said...

What fun times!

melaniet42 said...

What a fun week! Bubbles are one of the best toys ever!! I tried matching colors with sheets of colored felt and cars with my little one last week and she wanted to have NOTHING to do with it. Guess we'll have to try again - I think it's a great activity!

Madonna said...

Love the biscuit idea...we are actually having biscuits and gravy for dinner this week, so I am going to have to do this!

Lisa @ Our Country Road said...

You did so many fun things, and did such a good job of capturing them on film! I love your little man's shirt :). We have the latches puzzle too, isnt it fun? Thank you for so many great ideas!

Wilson Ramblings said...

awesome week! I love the cookie cutter sandwiches! where di you find the cookie cutters? I'd love the file if your able to email it! :)Great job!!

MamaDuck76 said...

The cookie cutters are made by Wilton. I got them from Amazon in December. They were $10 at the time, but the price has really gone up since then! I think you could probably find them at Michael's or Hobby Lobby, too.