Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tot School


Tot School
E is 26 months

This was a great week for tot school.  The stars must have been aligned correctly, or something, because E has been so cooperatvie and hard working recently!  One day she worked for a full hour and a half!  That may not sound like much to some of you, but our prior record time was about 48 minutes.  I rearranged the shelves again this week and added some brand new activities.  Maybe that's what did it.  I know I've been holding off on buying new things/making new things, because we're planning on purchasing all our Montessori materials and I don't want to spend a lot of money or time on things that we won't end up using a whole lot.

Practical Life:

Tonging pom poms was a favorite this week

Stringing pony beads on pipe cleaners

Sensorial:

I kept out our sorting buttons activity from last week, but put it in a new container, and added 2 more colors.  This week we worked on blue and green, yellow and white.  She's so FAST at color sorting, but doesn't really understand sorting by shape or type of object yet.  I think next week's sort will be a shape one.

Matching I-Spy cards, I changed up the cards this week for her to find horses, telephones, and helicopters.

E also had fun this week hiding tigers (only tigers, I don't know why) in her sensory box.  Oh, yes, and Little Lamb had to play, too.



Language:

We've been playing a lot of I-Spy recently, so I pulled out our I-Spy jar that I made for a long car trip to Kansas.  It was fun to shake up and spy new things.  To play I-Spy, all you need to do is tell your child "I spy something that starts with /__/."  Use the sound of the letter, not the name of the letter.  I like to give clues too, since E is just starting to work with this game.  I'll say, "E, I spy something yellow that starts with /d/."  She will look at the objects, find the correct one and tell me (very triumphantly, by the way) "/d/, /d/, DUCK!"

I am currently in the process of putting together an alphabet drawer with miniature objects for each letter.  I spend waaay too much time at Hobby Lobby in the dollhouse section!


Art:

We hosted our crafts and stories playdate this week, and made these cute little ducks to go with the story Dawdle Duckling by Toni Buzzeo.  Check out THIS post for the play-by-play.

To see what other tots have been working on, visit Carissa's blog, 1+1+1=1.

10 comments:

melaniet42 said...

An hour and a half is AWESOME!!! Looks like you had did some great activities this week. Where did you get those "kid-sized" tongs?

Stefanie said...

That duck is adorable. My tot loves ducks so we're going to have to make that when we get to our "spring" theme.

Jess said...

Love the I Spy jar! I am going to have to make one for Sunshine!!!

Musical Mama said...

Got the tongs at WalMart - they were a set of two appetizer tongs.

Anonymous said...

WOW an hour and a half is great!! The duck is super cute! What items do you have in your I-spy container? I need to make some car activities for our trip to the beach this summer and I think this would be a fun one!

Musical Mama said...

I think I'll do a post on our I-Spy activities this week, stay tuned!

Madonna said...

So glad you mentioned where you got the tongs. I need to get out and get a pair. I love sensory boxes, but I have yet to make one.

MamaDuck76 said...

I love your duck project - it's really cute!

1.5 hours is VERY impressive! Last week, after 20 minutes, my 26 month old ran away saying, "Mama, I run away from school!" ;)

Erica said...

Wow, an hour and a half. I can't imagine that. I think our longest was around 35. I'll have to remember the "I spy" jar for the future.

Jenn @ Delicious Ambiguity said...

Just came across your blog & love all the ideas you've shared on tots & Montessori activities. My son is 17 months old & I'm just starting to introduce Montessori activities. I’ve got a MckLinky party called Tot Tuesdays which started on Tuesday. I hope you'll stop by & share:

http://delicious-ambiguity-nennyk.blogspot.com/2010/03/first-ever-tot-tuesdays-mcklinky-party.html


Cheers,
Jenn