Tot School (Puzzles, ABCs, Counting)

***I forgot to put the 1+1+1=1 button on!!! Here it is!***

*J is 27 months old*

Puzzles

J has been more into his puzzles lately. This puzzle was a special gift. His cousin Dylan spent a few days with Grandpa Bernie who does woodworking and this was one of Dylan's first projects. J could get most of them into the right place except for the last piece. He got frustrated when he kept putting it in backwards and asked mommy to do it. I held out encouraging him to finish yet he gave it up and moved on.


These are puzzles we got from my sister, Amy, whose youngest just turned seven. Even though I'm not that fond of Teletubbies, the puzzles have been really good for his fine motor skills. He's getting better at working puzzles in general. This one has nice big pieces and he was doing pretty well putting them in but then would get frustrated and move on.


Out of the blue one morning, J picked out his bowling set to play. This was great, since the weather was wonderful (the humidity had finally broken) and we took it outside to play. We hadn't used this yet so it was fun setting it up and watching J's fascination then explaining how to play. He had a hard time standing far back and wanted to get real close and throw the ball so after working with him he did it that way. He liked throwing overhand and wasn't keen on trying to roll it. We also used this as a counting activity. We'd count the pins together as I set them up. Then we'd count the fallen pins every time one of us knocked some over.





We did a little play with Mr Potato Head which is great for his fine motor skills. He doesn't yet know how to create the face and puts things all over randomly. When he put an arm where the nose goes I broke out laughing and got my camera for a picture. He shooed me away and wouldn't let me get a picture of that.









J was lining his fire trucks up in a row on the couch and was playing fireman with his little people. He started talking for the Little People saying, "I'm sitting in my fire truck. Everybody ready to go?" Then he answered with another little person, "Yeah! We're ready to go!" He did this a few times, it was so cute. Soon after, he came running to me asking to watch the DVD Mighty Machines. He wanted the fire truck segment. Then when that was over he wanted to watch the garbage truck segment again.









ABCs and Counting
I got this video idea from Carisa's (1+1+1=1) website. We watched the Letter Factory DVD by Leap Frog. This takes you through the entire alphabet one letter at a time using a story while saying the letter and making that letter's sound. When we got to the letter E, J went and grabbed his Leap Frog alphabet fridge toy and was playing the song on the toy whenever he heard that song play on the video. I did most of the interaction singing the Leap Frog song about the letter and then shouting out the letters while he watched it.








Next I got out what I call the ABC panels we found at the dollar store. In addition to learning the alphabet sequence, I'm working more on letter recognition. I laid these out on the floor and started pointing to each letter asking him what it was. For some reason, at first everything was the letter E. Then I showed him which letter was E and went back to A. I started this time using a pointer (our back scratcher) and then he wanted to try. He had a ball using the pointer and naming the pictures. I used the pointer to point to each letter as I sang the alphabet, trying to show him the ABC song (which he knows pretty well) follows the order of these alphabet picture panels. I took turns pointing and singing really slowly to reinforce it. He stopped playing so I started singing goofy songs in case things had gotten too serious. Then J went running down the alphabet panels and I said, "You're running down alphabet road!" He did this a few times and then moved on.

After the ABC panels, J saw the numbers poster and pointed to it wanting to do some counting. He was really in the mood for this and we went over many different numbers counting the individual items for each number.











Bible Stories
We're doing more with focusing on individual bible stories, like Jonah. We read this in his Jesus Storybook Bible. Sometime during the week, I was on the computer and J came over and wanted to see. I got the idea to look on You Tube for some bible stories and found Jonah the Whale. This video on You Tube was super cute. It was created by a 4th grade class. J had me go back and replay the part of Jonah getting swallowed by the whale over and over.




Pouring








J likes to help me feed the birds and this is a good pouring (and nature) activity for him. Plus we get to be outside! I have J transfer the seed from the big container into the small one while I help fill it too. It's OK if he spills, since it's the garage floor and we can just sweep it up. Although, this time J wanted to be involved in the sweeping too. I love it when he helps with "chores" so I showed him how to sweep it out of the garage.

On the Go Fun
We went to Toys-R-Us this week to get a gift for my nephew's birthday. J couldn't wait to try this. On our way out, I let him do it and he was having fun climbing on and using the steering wheel. He didn't even realize it moved. So I put 50 cents in and he had even more fun when it was moving. Only problem, he didn't want to go!

For more Tot School ideas, visit 1+1+1=1

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