**J is 29 months old**
I forgot to put this on the Tot School post from last week. We visited a great craft store called Wisconsin Craft Market. I had to be careful since things were not very cheap, but I was able to get some great deals on a lot of fun things. We got different beads for stringing, things for our Halloween sensory bin, craft nests with birds and bird eggs, silk flowers, Styrofoam pieces. One that J picked out was this dinosaur mat. Right away, he started making up stories about the triceratops and the T rex. It has pictures on the front and then background information on the dinosaurs on the back.
This was our first time working with pom poms. I just used an old egg carton and pom poms we got at the craft store. We didn't find any tongs and the ones we use from the kitchen were too unwieldy for J, yet I gave him an A for effort. We sorted them by color. Daddy actually stepped in on this one and joined us in play.
I have been looking out for a great deal on these little Tonka trucks and found a lot of 13 for sale on EBay. I got them for less than $1 a piece. J was excited to open the package and played with them a lot this week. What he enjoyed most was lining them up in a row. He also would put a few in his trick or treat bag and toted them along anytime we left the house.
I did an introduction to our new craft beads and stringing them onto a craft string. J wanted to play with the colored stars so he would pick out a color and I would string it on the bead. The holes in the beads were a little small and somewhat hard to thread, so I think I need thinner string so J can give it a try.
I watched my friend's 20-month-old son Jackson three 1/2 days this week. The boys had lots of fun and boy did they keep me busy. I introduced Jackson to the sensory bowl and he really enjoyed it. In fact, the boys had a lot of fun playing with it together as I gave them each a bowl. Jackson really had fun when I got out other containers to transfer the items into. J somehow got the idea that he wanted to get INTO the bowl (that's his kazoo in his mouth). Jackson didn't really know what to make of it, I think.
Several times while the two were playing, they'd ask for bubbles. Jackson especially would come up and say, "More bubbles?" until I got them out. In these pictures, J was doing his incredibly contagious belly laughing until Jackson joined in and they ran around popping the bubbles and giggling like crazy.
One of the days while watching the boys, I put on our Where is Thumbkin CD and it had the song Jingle bells on it. I remembered I picked up some bells from the craft store so I got them out for us to play along. I decided to tie them onto a string but J got super upset (don't ask me why; he's 2). So, he sat and cried while Jackson and I jingled. Then I cut off his string and gave him his bell and he was happy as a clam joining us in the fun.
My Titus mom's group from church had a wonderful Fall Festival for the kids. They had a parade through the church office where all the staff came out to watch, several tables of crafts and a variety of games all around the gym. J had fun playing bean bags. His version is walking right up to the hole and throwing it in! He really had a great time doing the crafts. We made a goody bag, a cat mask and he did lots of coloring too.
J has really been enthused with doing bubbles this week. Whenever he asks, I just start blowing them and then he runs around trying to pop them. This time he said he's trying to trap the bubbles. I can't believe I snapped a picture with the bubble right in his hand before he popped it. This is a really good gross motor activity for him. At one of our playgroups (PalZone) we did a development questionnaire and gross motor was one area that was a bit in the gray, where he could use extra practice. So some focused running around is good.
At the crafts store, I found some neat Halloween and Fall stickers. Then I got some construction paper from the store and J had a great time putting stickers all over. He can't pull the stickers off himself yet so I would pull off the sticker and he would place it wherever he wanted it. He also had me put them all over his hands and was showing them to people out at the store and at Culver's.
Books
The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV
Poky and Friends, Lucky Ducks
Richard Scarry's Busy Workers
Sesame Street Sleep Tight
Ten in the Bed
This is My Family by Mercer Mayer
Videos
Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey
Handy Manny: Manny's Green Team
Sesame Street's All Star Alphabet
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