Tot School - Week 3 Letter C (21 months)

While I as surfing this week's blog links over at 1+1+1=1, I found a blog that took a little bit of a different approach to Tot School. Throughout the day I kept coming back to this post in my mind and I thought maybe S would respond better if we took this approach instead. I know for the next few weeks (maybe months) I will continue to adjust my version of tot school until we find a routine that works best for us. As S grows I know I will continue to adjust his program to best fit his needs. So with that said I have postponed Monday's tot school so I can rearrange his lesson plan for the week a little bit. But in the mean time I thought it might be good to come up with some goals for the next month or two:

1. Books: get S a bit more interested in looking at books instead of ripping them apart.

2. Colors: start introducing the differences in colors.

3. Letters/Numbers: continue to show him new letters and see if we can get him to understand numbers beyond his nesting cups.

4. Pronunciations/Words: Continue to help him learn new words and match those words with objects.

With that said this week was a bit less structured then the last two weeks but S still got to get involved in lots of new things. Originally it was suppose to be C week.

Monday: We had some friends over and made some cheese fondue. S had some great fun using the fondue stick to dip his veggies, meat, and bread into the cheese (sorry I didn't get any pictures). We also continued to work on being gentle with the cats and saying the word cat instead of kitty.

S shows Calvin his cat book from the library. This is about as close as Calvin will let S get to him.

Tuesday: We went to story time at the library. We have been taking a break from story time since S would have NO part of sitting still for stories and songs for 20 minutes. But I wanted to get some books and so I decided to give it another try. It was wonderful. He sat and listened to two stories and participated in all the songs (in addition to clapping and saying YAH!! after each song).

S had fun playing with play dough using a cat cookie cutter and some cake decorating stamps (which he found are better suited for building).

Wednesday: S worked really hard on his listening skills when we went to do errands. He helped pick out things on the list and push the cart. S did really well with wanting to read books this week. Maybe because they all had cats of them but I actually saw him get one of the books and climb on to the Lazy-Boy and start going through it. He loved to point out the cats.  He also liked to show the books to the cats.  

Thursday: Today we made rice krispy treats. S poured the rice krispies into the measuring cup and then into the bowl. While I melted the butter and marshmallows, S took handfuls of rice krispies and put them into his mouth or handed them to the dog. We got back on track when we had to mix everything together and pat down the mixture onto the cookie sheet. 

Then of course the most important lesson: learning to lick the spoon.

Friday: Daddy had planted two new maple trees in the yard this week and needed to mulch around the trees and finish moving some dirt. S was eager to help. We also had fun playing with his new board puzzles we got at a garage sale.

Daddy instructs S to put the chunky pieces of dirt in the wheelbarrow. S took this job very seriously.
S continues to help Daddy pick up dirt

S feels the job is better done using a shovel.

Perhaps a rake will help

Next week:  Next week we are going to jump to the letter S.  The theme is going to be types of clothes.  The number of the week is going to be 1.  The color of the week is going to be blue (since it is smurf's week at gymnastics).  For vocabulary we are going to try to add new clothing words.