Tot School

We had a good time with Tot School this week!

We did a lot of drawing with chalk outside, which Z loves - and I used that time to draw some letters and ask him to recognize them. He is pretty good with his uppercase letters, but doesn't have the hang of his lowercase letters yet. We have been using his new alphabet desk to help with identifying the lowercase letters. He gets especially mixed up between lowercase b, d, p, and q, since they look so much alike.

Some other fun outside activities included basketball -we worked on dribbling and passing (and, of course, shooting baskets). See above pictures - blogger is being a jerk and would not let me put those pictures anywhere else except RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING. :(

And Daddy taught Zachary a game called Delivery Boy - he rides his bike around with his bowling pins in the basket, then knocks on the door (where I am inside, doing dishes or something equally fun and productive), and when I come to the door, he says, "Dewivery!" and hands me a pin. Then, at Daddy's prompting, he says, "Have a nice day!" and rides away on his bike to deliver another pin somewhere else on the porch. :) Cuteness!!! He is getting better at pedaling his bike, but he can't pedal and turn at the same time. :)

We used our shape sorter this week, and talked about the shapes as he put them in the correct holes. We also played with our new caterpillar ABC puzzle - it seemed to be too hard for Z to focus on finding the next letter in order, but when I would say, "Now find Q", he did, and was able to slide the pieces together, so he had a good time with it. We also played with our muffin tin letter matching game - I used magnetic letters this time, thinking they would stick to the muffin tin through the paper. They did a little (not very well), so we played the matching game for a few minutes, and then put away the muffin papers and just stuck the magnetic letters in the muffin tin holes, which we both enjoyed. :)

We painted and stamped some Mother's Day cards this week - here is a picture of Zachary swirling the purple and pink tempera paint, then we used a foam painting stamp to stamp a flower onto our cards. Somehow I managed to forget to get a picture of the finished product, and didn't realize it until they were already mailed, so I apologize!

We played with pom-poms this week - we've used them before with this veggie tray for color sorting, so this time I just handed him a bowl of pom-poms, two spoons, and the veggie tray and let him go at it with no instructions from me. First, he started sorting them by color, saying, 'Da blue ones go here..." Then Chuck the Talking Truck got involved, and starting hauling the pom-poms around, delivering them to tractors, wagons, and even a barn. :) I think our experience ended with Zachary throwing the pom-poms all over the living room. So then we picked up. :)

He played with his new word-making toy, he is starting to get the hang of finding the right letters & matching them up to make words, so that was fun. At one point, he used his LeapFrog Fridge Phonics letters to make a 'word' on the fridge this week. I think the word was spelled AIGTNH, but he said, "It says 'Set, GO'!" So the phonics concept may not be sinking in yet, but he is realizing that letters make words, at least! For our craft this week, we made a dragonfly out of a paper towel tube! This was a spur-of-the-moment craft I made up, but it was fun & turned out well - I would do it again!

First, gather your supplies - yelling into the paper towel tube is optional. :)

Next, color with your markers on your paper towel tube. Cut some tissue paper into the shape you want for your wings (Z said, 'That looks like an H' when I cut the wings like this), and then color them with markers. I cut a wide slit in each side of the tube (about big enough for a quarter to go through comfortably), and stuffed the wings through - they ripped a little, though, so you might want your slits a little bigger. :( Then we added twisty-tie antennas, marker eyes, and a smile, and voila - a dragonfly! Zachary used the time while I was stuffing the wings into the dragonfly to color ALL over himself - notice the purple eyebrow and blue lips, which stayed around all the next day... :) He had marker all over his hands and shoulders and face...and while 'washable' must refer to clothes, it does NOT mean that the marker wipes right off of your child's skin, unfortunately! My Two Tots

Zachary always enjoys playing with Natalie, and entertaining her with toys. I love this picture for so many reasons - Z jumping & playing the maraca for Natalie, so cute. Natalie looking up at Z, watching adoringly. The blue bunny laying next to Natalie, meaning Z shared his toy with her. The 2 teethers that Z placed RIGHT up on her chest so she could chew on them if she wanted to...awwww... :) I ran over to take this picture when I heard Z say, "I will play my 'raca for you, Nallie". :) Watching my two babies together gives me such joy. :)

My Tiny Tot

And here's Natalie's picture of the week - she sat in the highchair this week, and rolled over all the way for the first time, and used her Johnny Jump-up for the first time (she seemed to really like it!), so it was a busy week for her! She had her 4-month appointment, and weighed 15 lbs, 14 oz. and was 25 1/2 inches long! At this rate, she'll be taller than me (I'm 5'0") at age 7 or so. :) So here she is in the cutest headband ever, sent to us by my sweet SIL after I mentioned I wanted one when we were shopping together a couple of weeks ago! :) Thanks, Emily!!!

Well, this is a pretty long post for me, I guess - I actually had a few minutes to sit down and get my thoughts together this week - normally I just go with the pictures I've taken and end up forgetting everything else we did! :)

To see what others are doing for Tot School this week, head on over to 1+1+1=1!