Blue Horse Week (21 Months)

Blue Horse... Really?  It is tough to find blue horses beyond this book... Some day this will be funny to him.  For now, it seems standard, ducks are yellow and horses are blue.

We played with some craft pom-poms for one of our tot school lessons this week.  He had a blue cup, a yellow cup and some blue and yellow pom-poms.  Initially he was not interested.  Then I started sorting them and he watched me sort and then fill the cups with the same colored pom-poms.  Naturally, he decided he did in fact want to play.  What happened next was funny... he took a yellow pom-pom and put it in the blue cup... and then put his hand over his mouth, gasped and then laughed... as if to say, "look mom the wrong color!" He thinks he is so funny... well, so do I :) After a few more minutes of play, Mr. Little Man decided throwing the pom-poms and rolling the cups was way more fun... so we threw and rolled together.

 

We started using our Tot School Notebook this week.  I used clear plastic sheets (like we used to put book reports in) and put printed coloring book-like pictures inside.  He uses white-board markers and when we finish, he can wipe it up and voila we can use it again another time... oh, and LM LOVES markers.

His Blue Horse (found on google images, not my original artwork).

Another tot school favorite, tooth picks and the foam block. We had travelled to his grandparents so this is an easy one to throw in a bag for TS on the go. He lost interest quickly this time, I think because he was so busy enjoying his grandparents... and their golf cart.

And what is a golf cart without a golf club!? LM played with his blue plastic golf driver outside... which is probably his favorite thing ever. Well, besides the golf cart.

 

We played with blue play dough and made little balls.  To then smash... "again" & "again" & "again"... 

I was given some classroom decor by a teacher friend who had used it in their classroom the previous year... it was BBBBWDYS themed and while originally I had no idea how I would use the big cardboard cutouts, I discovered the perfect use mid way through this week.  Similar to the "elf on a shelf" idea around Christmas time, I took the blue horse cut out and put him on the wall.  That morning after LM "made his bed" (aka throws all his stuffed animals into his crib), I walked with him into his playroom and asked him where was the blue horse.  After some looking around her found the horse and was really excited!  I cheered for him, he cheered for him... smiles all around and we had discovered a new favorite game.  Each day thereafter, I moved the horse to another spot, getting more and more "hidden" each day for him to wake up and find.  By Friday morning (day 7 of our TS week), LM ran in to find the horse all on his own before I even remembered about it.

 

We recently started teaching Mr. Little Man how to feed the dog.  He is loving this new task and in one week has already come a long way. Initially he would scoop until I said we were done and would only scoop a few pieces at a time. By the weeks end, LM knows we do 3 scoops and he fills each cup to the tippity-top.  He then methodically takes the cup puts it in the container, shuts the lid of the container, takes the bowl from mommy, lays it down for the dog and then we pet the dog on his back and we 'say' "good boy". He is almost like a mini robot and just loves routine!  I'm so proud of him and can't wait for the day he begins to understand the concept of time and makes the connection that, 'oh! we need to feed the dog!'

LM had little interest in our tot school lessons this week- in fact there were 3 lessons I didn't even include in the blog because, quite frankly, he gave them about 10 seconds of interest.  He has just started new school, a Montessori play group type 'school' (aka daycare) which is definitely stimulating him and keeping him busy and happy.  He is very tired by the days end and I think he just had too many other things going on that he couldn't or didn't want to focus.  Hoping Green Frog week will be more engaging.

Linking to:
http://www.artfulhomemaking.com/2013/08/my-blue-boat-before-five-in-row.html

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/08/tot-school-gathering-place-week-31/

Yellow Duck Week (21 Months)

Yellow duck, yellow duck... what do you see?  I have to admit, by mid-week I was ready for yellow week to end... must just not be my color ;)

 

In all seriousness, we had a great week exploring the cheery yellow color and our quacking, web-footed friend, the duck. Mr. Little Man was quick to spot the color while out and about and seems to have embraced this whole TS adventure we are on.  Which makes me want to stay up late and find new "lessons" for our upcoming themes.  This TS thing is addicting.

 

Here are some of our lessons from the week:

 

We did our weekly coloring book picture. He had fun using various yellow markers and crayons. He jumped from one to the next holding each one in his tiny little hand as he looked quite seriously at the empty black and white duck on the page... then he'd carefully "create his masterpiece".

Another day we took a walk outside and looked for ducks along the water.  We ended up seeing only seagulls... (close enough?)  On the way home LM found some sweet smelling yellow flower

 

Mid week we played with yellow play dough (an all time favorite) an even added a paper towel roll.  This became a tunnel, a rolling pin, a cookie cutter and eventually a drum stick.  This is a great example of the mind of a toddler... TS is so fun for him and so fun for me to watch him explore, in ways I never could have guessed he would. 

 

 

By far the most exciting thing we have done was gather a bunch of yellow items and put them in a container.  Seem simple?  Let me back up... I had gathered these items from his playroom the night before Yellow Duck week began.  I put them in the bucket to keep them all in one place and planned to use them as a tot school lesson at some point that week.  Well, if you choose a bucket your toddler can get in... plan on him doing that. He rode in that bucket, along all the yellow items, all week long. He pushed it, pulled it and spun it around. It was definitely NOT about the yellow but ALL about the bucket. He smiled for every minute that he played with this "lesson" though...

 





 

We explored some yellow big bird stickers (close enough, again :))

 

Played with our felt board...

 

We also tried a matching game I had found on Pinterest (this is not my original matching game... I found it on the 1+1+1=1's blog).  Mr. Little Man was not very interested in this game... not even interested in the pictures, the cards, nothing.  We spent about 30 seconds on this Tot School tray... I filed these adorable cards away and will try again in a few weeks.

 

Some other fun things:Yellow Chalk on our chalkboard table...

Yellow dried pasta into and out of holes made in a coffee canister...

 

Yellow truck books galore!

 

Besides BBBBWDYS, here are just some other books we read this week:

F.Watt & R. Wells's "That's not my bunny..."

Matthew Van Fleet's "Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings"

Richard Scarry's "Egg in the Hole"

Priddy Books' "Slide & Find Trucks"

 

Linking to:

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/08/tot-school-gathering-place-week-31/

http://www.growingupourstyle.blogspot.com/2013/08/tot-school-yellow-activities.html

 

Red Bird Week (21 Months)

As I write this post, I am laughing because all of the pictures from throughout the week that I chose, have him in either just a diaper or in his Elmo jammie's... at least it is a"red" Elmo jammie shirt :) I promise he wears clothes and has more than one pajama shirt. 

 

So, this week was a better week... I had restocked the book crates for the week using books with birds and the color read as a focus in addition to some other favorites. This week I had more planned and had a lot of variety from the week prior and from our normal playtime activities. Keep in mind, we spend from 10 minutes to maybe 90 minutes doing tot school each day, depending on his interest.  This is only a small part of our day which is full of lots of fun and play.  The tot school addition, however, allows me to teach him new concepts with the same or new toys and build his understanding of the world.  In addition to our planned activities, we found the color red all over the place throughout our week, cars, firetrucks, flowers and even our food!

 

Our TS activities included:

 

Playing with red silicone baking cups in a container of water. Little Man practiced pouring and stacking and absolutely loved every minute! 

 

One day I gave LM a crafting styrofoam-like block to which he put in some red plastic tooth picks.  This is a great time to stress that all of our time doing TS is spent together and supervised, he is never left alone and therefore was well monitored while using these small pointy tooth picks.    

We spent time reading about colors in general and got very excited when red (and brown for that matter) would pop up in our color books!



I made Mr. Little Man a felt board by hot-glueing some white felt fabric onto a cardboard board.  I also bought some colored felt and cut shapes with them for the appropriate weeks. Mr. LM loves his felt board.  However, his time playing with it quickly went from how I thought it would go... to something much more fun...

Then it became a cozy place to sit while he stacked some rings.  This was great and I appreciated the genuine fun he had in exploring the felt board for the first time... in his own unique ways. There are no plans or rule on how we play with the activities... except that he is having fun.

 

 

 

LM loved the water play so much that we did it again later in the week. This time we had some extra pitchers and pans to play with and it was another big hit!  He even said "ded"... aka RED!!!

 

We made some popsicles with red strawberries, banana, carrots & peaches which was a blast for both of us!  Oh, and delicious.



 Another activity we did was sweeping some red pompoms with a new hand held min-broom. This was one I was excited to show him because he LOVES to sweep.  He must grab our broom and dustpan three times a day to use in the kitchen.  I had seen this little handheld one at Target and decided it would be a very fun thing to explore together! (oh, and cleaner than the actual one we use in our house!) He swept, explored the textures... and had a blast!

 

We continued to read Brown Bear, Brown Bear everyday... My husband and I are thinking this is going to be a long 9 weeks of reading this book ;) 

 

Some of the other books we read this week included: 

Margaret Wise Brown's Big Red Bard

Mary Ann Hoberman's I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Susan Reed's Up, Up, Up!

Donald Crews' Freight Train

Risom & Scarry's I am a Bunny

 

Overall, great week... we are both thriving with this newfound TS.

 

Linking to:

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/08/tot-school-gathering-place-week-31/

No Greater Honor!: Tot School - Week 2 of Red Week

 

 

Brown Bear Week (21 Weeks)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle created an addictive book with that one.  Mr. LM just loves this book!

For our first week of tot school, I was planned and excited but also prepared for things to get flipped upside down and need adjusting... this is time with my sweet 21 month old after all!  We happened to have a trip planned to our family house in New York so I was extra glad I had activities planned! I could just pack our stuff and Tot School could come with us on our trip!  This way, Daddy could do tot school with LM while I was working.


We read our Brown Bear book a few times each day, as well as many other books!  I had gone through our collections of books and gathered all books that dealt with brown and bears.  I keep small crates in areas that LM hangs out and try to rotate the books weekly.  This keeps them fresh and keeps him interested in reading. Since I had chosen to have our Tot School surround weekly themes, I decided to rotate the books weekly, and incorporate the theme when and if possible.

We use our cardboard blocks for stacking and building but we also discovered "dominoes".  This was such a fun activity and LM was instantly hooked!

Another day, I taped a long cardboard mailing tube to the wall in our play area and we spent time rolling cars down the tube.  After 10 minutes or so of playing with the tot school activity, those cars soon turned to some found balls, blocks, you name it.  LM decided to gather these and try them out on his own.  It was amazing to watch him look curiously at items when they were too big to fit... at first he seemed frustrated but then he would put the big item down and find something smaller... it was so cool, to watch him learn this concept of size and space.

We also played with colored pipe cleaners and our colander. This was a frustrating activity at first.  He spent his time holding the far end and found the hand eye coordination tough to get the other end in the holes.  After I observed for a few minutes, I decided to join the fun and made sure he could see that i was holding the pipe cleaner closer to the end I wanted to stick in the holes.  He slowly moved his hand down and after 10 minute or so from when we started, he had mastered the concept.  I could tell this was an activity that made him tick... he loved this and I knew we would need to do more.

As we took of for our trip, I packed stamps, coloring pages, and brown pom poms.  We found that we spent most of our time outside and ended up having one of our tot school "lessons" be hiking though the woods and gathering brown items.  This was fun, especially because our family was together and outdoors; something we love!

Here was LM's Brown Bear Printable (I googled this "brown bear printable" and printed this picture, please note the destination is listed on bottom of the picture)

Lastly, We read more books. One book that was a true find was an old book from who knows how many years ago... it had no spine and the pages were full of dust in an old box at the house in NY.  The book was full of children's stories and rhymes.  This one naturally caught our eye that week:

Other books we read that week:
Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle's Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?
Allison Ritchie's Me and My Dad!
Michelle Meadows' Hibernation Station
Miles Kelly, I Love Bears, First Facts and Pictures
Nancy Tillman, On the Night You Were Born
A Disney Classic Pooh board book called Pooh Loves


Overall, the first week was pretty successful.  I was happy with LM's interest in having a specific time we worked on activities together. We tried to do one activity each day after his nap and mid-afternoon snack. By day 4 he was looking pointing to the color brown when asked and climbing on tables to get to the TS supplies.  I did feel like I got my feet underneath me and that the concept of TS was going to work for us.  I also felt inclined to plan more activities for each week to give me more to choose from and give me more flexibility.  I was so excited to start our next week and try some new ideas that I decided to wake up early and set up for Red Bird week! Cheers to next week being even better!

Linking to:
http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/08/tot-school-gathering-place-week-31/