Tot School (More Christmas Season Fun)

**J is 30 months old**

I love doing Tot School with J! We are very laid back and so far I don't really plan anything. I keep a lot of things visible to J and let him lead when it's time to do some focused learning-play. Thanks for stopping by!


Holiday Decorating






























This year, I got some window cling decorations for J. He has fun putting these up and then taking them down again. He also likes to play with them.


Puzzles






























J worked a little bit on some puzzles this week. He is getting better at finding pieces that fit together, but sometimes needs my help in getting them to completely "click" together. I sometimes only have to guide him just a little and he can find where something goes. Some he does find completely on his own. The second puzzle here was an alphabet puzzle and I notice he's starting to recognize a lot more letters from sight.



Coloring
















This is a favorite activity around our house. On this day, J picked out a coloring book for me and asked if I'd join in. I colored the Cat Woman in his Spider Man coloring book.

































I found several Christmas printables for J to color. After he colored the front of them, he started "drawing" on the backs. He was chattering and chattering and I heard him talk about waterfalls, jump ropes, and other things I couldn't quite make out. I love to see his imagination at work.



Working on Number Recognition































We used our See and Say toy. J was actually playing with his mini-computer and pulled this toy out for me. He said, "Sit and play with me mommy?" So I started playing with this and asked for his help. He had the most fun just pushing all the buttons and hearing the numbers called out. I showed him how the game is actually played by waiting for the voice to call out instructions. We did this for a little bit. The game asks a few different ways to find the numbers e.g. "find the red number, find the 4 or find the blue 3. J does great finding the number by color but has trouble recognizing the number by itself. I got out our numbers sheet to do a little practice with that. It didn't hold his interest very long. I'd ask him to find the 8 for example, and at one point he said, "I'm too busy dancing."


Diego Printable Poster Activity































This was a printable that I downloaded and forgot about. J was rooting around my activity cabinet and was super, super excited when he found it. He asked me what it was and can he play with it. I explained it was a poster and I would cut out the pieces and once I cut them out he could glue them on. He is really excited to work with the glue stick lately and now he can do it pretty well. He didn't need too much coaching on this one. He would pick out an animal and then I would tell him to find the page where it would go. He would put the glue on and stick it in place. When we were done, he had fun pulling them off and then putting on more glue and sticking them back on again.



Christmas Carols Play-A-Song Book

I found this book after seeing it on another mommy blog called The Iowa Farmer's Wife. J just loves it! I barely got it out of the box when J was already sitting down figuring it out. On his own, he figured out that the little picture on the Christmas song goes with the button on the side to play that song. He asked me to read it, but I told him they're songs so he had me sing them several times throughout the week. I love Christmas carols so this has been a fun activity for us.



Enjoying Gingerbread













































We had a lot of fun making gingerbread cookies this week. I found some Betty Crocker gingerbread cookie mix and a lot of toppings to decorate with. I let J do a little stirring, but mostly he joined in the decorating part. He even was able to put on a little of the icing. I'm not that fond of eating gingerbread cookies, but noticed J liked them a lot. Most of them we ended up bringing to church for a college student study day that takes place each year.

































We had a "mom's morning in" for my Titus group meeting at church. Normally, we have a speaker while our children are in the nursery, but this week our kids stayed with us and made gingerbread houses. We did this last year, so I knew to put a T-shirt smock on J. He gets really into the frosting and it ends up all over. He was most interested in eating the goodies, but he did help me a bit in placing things on like m&m's, pretzels and chocolate chips.



We're Going on a Bear Hunt Song
J was singing a song from our library story time and I ended up finding it on You Tube (click here). He wanted to watch it a few times in a row and we sang it together. There's something about it I really like, I think it's the beat that's so catchy.

See the fun things other moms are doing at the Weekly Wrap Up, another place I link up.