Tot School - Week 4

Sprout is 20 Months

This week we focused on colors and shapes. We spent most of our time focusing on colors, but we played games that were both colors and shapes.

We had a pretty laid back week around here. As Sprout and I caught the cold that JGD brought home from Alaska. So most of our time was spent taking it easy.

Tot Trays

Our Tot Trays this week include 

• Shape "Pattern Blocks" activity
• Cutting, Gluing and Stickers
• Playdough - with circles and heart shaped cookie cutters
• Lacing beads
• Bingo Markers
• A Transferring Activity from Tot Trays

Sprout enjoyed using her lacing beads this week.  She understands the whole idea of putting the string in the bead, but from there we need more guidance.  We will continue working with this one next week.

Sprout really enjoys using these dot markers in a 6 pack at Michael's. Maybe the whole "scented" idea wasn't the greatest idea, but we love them anyway! We found the printables for Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and some other great Brown Bear activities at Making Learning Fun.

Sprout was able to match up the bigger pieces of this "puzzle." She really enjoyed walking around with the shapes though, which gave of us several opportunities to talk about the shapes she was holding.

Sprout hasn't used scissors before so this was completely new for her. We have these scissors so all she has to do is squeeze to cut. This is still tough for her but she really enjoyed trying. We will probably try these out too.

Now for the stickers, Sprout loved playing with her Mickey and friends stickers. She chose to put Donald on the paper, and then take him off!

Projects

This week our only real project was our stART project for this week. This project was based on My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. See my post for more about this project.

Tot Books

We use the Brown Bear, Brown Bear Tot Pack from 1+1+1=1 a lot this week. Sprout didn't necessarily understand all of the components, but she had fun checking everything out. Her favorite activity from this pack was the Shadow Match from Making Learning Fun. I was really impressed with how well she did this, since she shows absolutely no interest in the traditionally matching activities we try. In the beginning, she needed a hint here or there to find the right shadow, but by the end of the week, she didn't need any help at all. I also think she loved playing with velcro that attached the pieces to their shadows.

Sprout also played with her Little Einsteins Tot Book a lot this week. For the most part she was just pulling out the matching cards and walking around with them, or pulling out the accordion activity, but I'm glad that she is getting more familiar with this type of activity.

Practical Play

Because we weren't feeling all that great this week, our practical play this week was mostly trying to get better (we're getting there slowly).  This meant we spent a lot of time trying to get liquids into Sprout.  She really enjoyed JGM's "Lemon Tea."  

Towards the end of the week Sprout decided she needed some exercise and started running laps around the island in our kitchen.  

She also decided that she needed to practice her stunt falls.  

We thought that some fresh air might do us some good so we went to the Florida Renaissance Festival.

Next Week

Next week's theme is All About Me.  I plan on focusing on body parts, clothes, home and family.  We are getting ready to get together with JGD's family for Passover, and they would be thrilled if Sprout could say their names.  Though I don't really think this is going to happen, we'll give it a try.  I made a book with all of Sprout's family members in it, and I'm looking forward to going through it with her.  She loves looking at pictures of people so this should be a lot of fun for us.

To see what other tots were doing this week go to Tot School.