Tot School

This week was another 'light' week for Tot School - Hubby was gone, so I was holding down the fort & also trying to get Z's new room painted - on that note, last night was Z's first night in his 'big boy' toddler bed & he did amazing! It took him about an hour to get to sleep, since the whole experience was so exciting and all, but once he finally went down, he only woke once in the night, and slept until 7:20 this morning! I am so proud of him, and also a little weepy! :( It remains to be seen how he will do at naptime, though - we'll find out in a few hours! :)

In spite of our busy week, we did manage to get a few informal tot school activities worked in there. :) Z's new favorite toy is this stuffed frog named Tad (from LeapFrog), who sings songs when you press his hands, feet, and belly. Tad also has a night-time feature, where he sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and then goes on to play instrumental music for either 5 or 10 minutes, depending which setting he is set for.

Z played with this frog, who he calls "Todd", nonstop this week, and took him everywhere with him. By the end of the week, he was walking around, listening to Tad sing, and singing along...and he now knows almost all the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

I discovered another great tool this week for practicing letters and numbers - the computer keyboard! If your child is as enamored with computers (and anything with buttons to push) as Zachary is, they will love practicing typing on the computer! Z loves to push the letters & numbers & see them show up on the screen (I just open a Word document for him & let him go).

The one big activity that we did this week was bathtub painting. Or, rather, it was SUPPOSED to be bathtub painting. I got the idea and the recipe here, but the recipe didn't mix up the way it should have...so I ended up with soapy suds along with cornstarch lumps...not great...but we went ahead and enjoyed it anyway. :)

Here is the mixture in my mixing bowl:

And here is Zachary painting with the soap suds, he actually loved it:


He started out painting with a little plastic brush that was already in the bathtub, and being a little shy about getting it on himself or all over his hands...after he got comfortable, we switched to a sponge, and he got a little more into it:

Here he is inspecting his work:

So we had fun! This week, I hope to get pictures of some of our more favorite learning tools, and also to do a craft or two together - just have to remember to get the camera out when we're doing 'active learning'! :)

Fore more Tot School, head over to 1+1+1=1 and see what everyone else has been learning this week!