(because it loaded out of order. Really, this was intended for the end of the post...)
Tot School "Flops":
~ Driving a racecar on the letter E. This lasted about 12 seconds. He hated it.
~ attempting small plastic tweezers. He cried because he couldn't do it himself. Sobbed, actually. (Don't worry - I picked him up & cuddled him as soon as I snapped the picture.)
Tot School, Alex Style:
~ "reading" Curious George. Grandma & Grandpa gave him a big set of Curious George books for his birthday, and Alex begs me to read George all. day. long. We even had pancakes for dinner this week because George makes pancakes in one of the books.
~ poker chips, to be explained later...I just didn't get that picture into the collage
SPOONINGAnother activity borrowed from A Mommy Talks , only she was using a snowman muffin tin, and our is a snowflake tin. I gave Alex a bowl full of cotton balls & a large measuring spoon. He had a blast! He's asked to do this again & again this week.
POMPOMS, finally!
We live 30 minutes from everything. I like it that way, but I never take time to go anywhere except Target & the grocery store. This week, we hit SuperWalmart so I could grocery shop & go craft shopping in the same store.
Let me tell you, these were a HIT! Alex absolutely adored them! We played with pompoms and tongs, pompoms and a gravy ladle, pompoms and a measuring spoon, bowls, cups, muffin tins...the list goes on. I think Alex could have survived the week on pompoms alone! The tongs were a bit tricky. (Better than the plastic tweezers, though!) After trying the tongs for a while, Alex requested a "big foon, please". (Big spoon)
This idea is based on one from Wilson Ramblings. (Katie always has the neatest ideas!) Alex enjoyed this! He colored on a blank sheet of paper while I had fun drawing pictures for him. He really enjoyed putting the pompoms on the correct circles. (It only lasted about 10 minutes, though, before he decided it would be more fun to throw pompoms at the dog...)
Dot-Art for Letter E. We're still working on dotting in the circles. Sometimes he tries & misses; other times, he doesn't even care & just starts randomly dotting the page while saying, "Dot, dot, dot." He's definitely learned how to screw/unscrew the lid on the bingo markers.
(Can anyone tell me why Do-A-Dot markers are better than bingo markers? Is there a valid reason to buy the official dot markers?)
Colors - We worked with poker chips from the dollar store, sorting them by color in a muffin tin. There's also a random picture in the first collage of this post where we put the chips through a hole in the top of an empty Crystal Light canister...we did all the reds first, then the blues, until Alex grew tired of it. Next time, I might limit it to 3 or 4 chips of each color. It might be better for his little attention span.
I also printed color cards. I want to give credit, but I printed these quite some time ago, so I don't recall where they came from. There are 6 different colors, but I only laminated red & blue for our first try with this color-sorting activity. Alex willingly sorted the pictures, but he didn't have any desire to do it again.
Random
~ playing with his Tag Jr (I only pull it out on occasion, so it's a special treat)
~ stringing beads by shape - all the circles, all the stars, etc. Mama still helps him string, as our dollar store beads don't have very big holes.
~ his E-shaped grilled cheese sandwich
~ jumping ON and OFF the rug
~ coloring his E is for Elephant. I told him "color the toes" or "color the tail" and he attempted to follow directions
~ turning his dump truck into a ride-on toy
~ riding his new tricycle - he can't quite figure out how to pedal independently yet
~ "eating" a poker chip because Mama called it a chip. Oops! ;)
To see what other tots are doing this week, check out:
