Sunday, October 18, 2009

Tot School - The Letter W & My New Blog, Counting Coconuts!

Hello, Tot School mamas, welcome to my new blog! I decided to create another blog just for James and our learning adventures. Take a look around - I added some old learning-related posts from earlier in the year. :)

Now for Tot School...
~James is 30 months~
Ww is one of those letters you can do a lot with, so I really had to pick and choose our W topics for this week. And since it's National Dinosaur Month we spent some time learning about dinos, too.






Art & Music:
I found this cute W idea from No Time For Flashcards. It's a watermelon W! James actually liked making this craft (he's been anti-crafting lately). He thought Ernie should get in on the action, too. :)

We enjoyed lots of singing and movement at Kindermusik this week. I'm not able to take pictures in class though as it's really a mommy-involved program.

Letters & Numbers:
James loves this bottle cap name activity, a great idea from the 1+1+1=1 blog. Now that he knows how to spell and read his name, I'm going to create a few more cards for him to learn.

And as always, counting - LOTS of counting. We count everything - steps, cars, raisins, the zits on my face... (thanks, son!). James can count to 20 now (though 13 is usually absent). :)

Science & Nature:
We took a field trip to the beach one warm and sunny afternoon. We talked about how there were lots of W words at the beach: wet, water, wind & waves. We brought his pinwheel (I had ideas of making a windsock, but never got around to it!) and watched how the wind propelled it. James would live at the beach if we let him, so this field trip went over quite well!

We spent some time playing with our dinosaur puzzles. This Melissa & Doug magnetic puzzle is awesome - you can take the book apart and focus on one or two puzzles at a time. We also put them on the refrigerator. :)

One of the biggest hits of the week was dinosaur "excavating". We had a bunch of dino figurines on hand and I froze them in water (in layers). Once they were frozen, I put together a tray of various excavating materials (salt, warm water, paint & tooth brushes) and we spent a LONG time trying to dig them out. For added fun, we used markers and watercolors to paint the ice (fyi, markers don't work well on ice). It was a great activity and it provided the perfect avenue to talk about what may have happened to the dinosaurs.

Other activities this week:
Another W activity - this watermelon game I found on Kidsoup. James liked it... for about 10 seconds.

Hands down the favorite for the week was this Halloween sensory tub I made. James spends a good 30 minutes or more a few times a day exploring, counting, and sorting the objects. I can't wait to make December's tub!

We made banana smoothies and I'm proud to say James made it almost entirely by himself!! Here he is cutting the banana.





Fine Motor:

I introduced tweezers this week. They were tricky for James, though he did eventually figure out the pinching aspect. We moved onto tongs later in the week when we did dino excavating. Tongs were much easier for him.






This simple and super cheap activity was a huge hit with James. I simply took an old Cheetos container (I know, they're so bad), covered it with construction paper (so I could forget I ate them) and cut a wide slit in the lid. You could put real or fake coins through the slit, but we used poker chips.

I found these little wooden people at The Barn for a mere 25 cents (score!). Perfect activity for size sequencing. James kept naming them, "Dada, Mama, and yittle baby one". :)

Colors:
We had lots of fun playing with these bean bags I made.

This week we searched for white things for the I Spy book I'm going to make (idea from 1+1+1=1).

Click the button to the left to see what other parents are doing with their tots!

10 comments:

The Activity Mom said...

oooh we have a TON of poker chips and we've sorted, stacked, made patterns, but never put them in a container like that. Great idea! =)

sbswtp said...

What great activities :)

DB said...

Just realised that I hadn't added your new Blog to my reader yet.
I have missed much fun & games!
I've just nominated you for a Blog award, but since you're other Blog is going on the D/L I've put this link.
It's all explained in my next post. :P

Kate said...

Love the new blog! Great activities and actions shots. My son would love the dinosaur activity!

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

wow, when do you both sleep?! you're an amazing mom!

Julie said...

My daughter likes to point out my blemishes as well... leave it to kids to give you humility.
You had a lot of great ideas this week, I'm anxious to try several of them out with my daughter.

Rebecca said...

Im sure you hear this alot, but thats soo cool you live in Bermuda!! Jealous :) I love your Halloween sensory tub! Im hoping to make one this week.

Counting Coconuts said...

Thanks for your comments! :)

Jen said...

Holy moses you two are busy!! You've inspired me, I'm going to make a sensory tub for Aiden this week!

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