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

This is a new blog I'm also linking to.

A day at home with lots to do

This morning L and I didn't get to have our alone time. J woke up crying at 7:30am, just as I was getting out of the shower. He recovered pretty quickly and was quite rambunctious too. We still had some prayer time but pretty constant interruption from J until I got him coloring. Some of the highlights of playtime were getting out Mr. Potato Head which J hadn't played with in a while. That really didn't last long. He wanted my help with getting his mustache and glasses on. We did some work with ABC's using these ABC panels I found at the dollar store. He asked for his numbers poster and we did some counting and naming of objects. (I'll put a lot more detail on this in my Sunday Tot School post.) Then I brought out his Teletubby puzzles and he worked on those for a bit. I got a good picture of him with a grumpy face while he was working on it. I think this was when he didn't want my help anymore.

I was doing something on the computer and J came over and wanted to watch. I decided to look on You Tube for some bible stories and found Jonah the Whale. This was super cute and J had me go back and replay the part of Jonah getting swallowed by the whale over and over.

Jonah and the Whale


J-likes to help me feed the birds and the feeders have been empty for a couple weeks now. The poor birds keep stopping by and there's no food. So we went out into the garage to get the seed ready. This is a good pouring activity for him. After we filled up the bird feeders, I checked out the garden again.







My (4) banana pepper plants are now producing and one is almost ready to pick. The cherry tomatoes are the only tomato plants producing out of 6 plants. This was such a weird gardening year for my little plot. When we came back into the garage, I was going to sweep up all the bird seed that spilled, but J really wanted to sweep. I got it started for him, then showed him how to push it out of the garage. It is great to see him eager to help with work! If only that will last. It was so beautiful outside (very low humidity) so we did some bubbles but I could tell J was getting tired. He didn't chase them around like he usually does, so he went for his nap.






We had a battle of the wills tonight at dinner. First it was J wanting to keep coloring when I called him to join us for dinner. Twice I had given him a heads up he'd have to stop coloring soon and he waited until I started the 5-4-3-2-1 count (I only had to say "5" and he came over). Then he ate maybe 3 bites of pasta and no meat and says he's all done. He's been doing this lately, only taking a couple or few bites and saying all done and refusing to eat. So I decided to try something to work with him on it. I set aside a few more bites saying if he ate that he'd be all done and we sat there.....and sat there....and sat there all the while he's crying and saying "all done" and me reading my book super calm telling him we needed to do just 3 bites. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore when he started to really cry and I wrapped it up. Maybe another time. Later, we all took a nice little walk around the neighborhood with J's car. It was a beautiful night. There is a hint of autumn in the air though.

A weekend being around home

Friday
Since I was going to meet up with my friend and her son later in the morning, I knew I had to get to the Y early-ish if I wanted to get in a workout. I had very little motivation but I remember saying a prayer for the will to go and I did get the motivation to go. It may seem like something small, yet it touched me and reminds me no matter how small, the Lord loves when we bring things to him. It was really crowded in the nursery but it didn't seem to bother J. I had a good workout and we got home just in time for my friend Eileen to call. We met at the West Towne mall and had lunch. Then we went to the kids play area. At first, it was a little weird being there since I had flashbacks to when J was an infant and I wasn't doing well (in depression) and this was one of the only places I got out and went to particularly during that summer. It sure was a reminder of how far I have come from that time. J is pretty cautious there so he stays out of the way of the bigger kids, but I notice how much he's growing up since I don't need to follow him around anymore. He'll come running up to me every once in a while and hold onto me for a bit and just "check in". Eileen's son was having fun too. It's amazing that he's about 9 mos. younger than J but taller and bigger. They do well together.

We got home and my babysitter was waiting. She had beat us to the house. I'm glad I called her to let her know we'd be cutting it close. She watched J while I went to my doctor's appointment. When I got home, Karen had J show me what he had learned. He had been practicing on his kids computer and could find d, e, h and m on the keyboard! He was pretty excited about that. I could tell they had a great time playing. She is really good about doing activities that teach him something when she watches him. He was really tired and went right up for his nap. L worked later hours today and didn't get home until around 6:30 (versus 4pm). We ended up eating late and then before we knew it, it was J's bedtime.

Saturday
We had a nice, relaxing day at home today. It was really hot out so we spent most of our time inside. J and I did some different learning activities together like puzzles, flash cards, alphabet. He got really cranky and tired earlier than normal and when he started crying and wouldn't stop I knew it was time for an earlier nap around 12:30pm. He slept for almost 3 hours and when he was waking up I opened the door and started talking to him with his horse puppet while I hid behind the door. He was answering the horse's questions. Then he asked for the horse in his crib and he lay the horse down and covered him up with all his blankets. It was so cute. Well, we barely left the house all day until we decided to go out to dinner to Culver's. J is always excited about this. We brought his plastic elephant and zebra which he played with while we waited. A few older folks made a point to stop by and talk to him about his little animals. He was shy and just said hi. After dinner, we headed down to State Street where we had a nice several-block walk to rent some movies at a video store we like there. We saw a white horse and carriage on the way and J asked to stop and pet him. He was talking up a storm as we did and the owner just laughed and said he was a little motor mouth. On our way back, we saw a black horse and stopped to pet her on our way home.

Sunday
We volunteered at church this morning. On the way in, we saw my friend Heather with her daughter Wren. I pointed them out to J and he started talking about Joan and Olivia too. Wren and Olivia are his play date friends that we haven't seen for a while. J and Wren were together in the same room and he liked that. I barely noticed the time since we had 18 kids today in our room and I was involved with helping in a bunch of different ways. The time just flew and it was really rewarding. One of the girls sits alone in the way back and often plays with toys and doesn't interact much. I made it a point to talk with her last week and invited her to do things even though she didn't join in. I had no idea if I connected but then this week I was saying hi and talking to her again. During the bible story, I noticed she kept inching closer and closer to me until she was leaning up against me. I put my arm around her and then she laid her head on me. It was really sweet. After the service, I picked up J and we talked about what he learned. The focus is talking to God and prayer through the story of Hannah. J took in the story as he told me how Hannah was crying and wanted a child and then talked to God about it.

At home, he was playing and I noticed he put all his little people in one of the train cars a friend gave us. Then we colored together with some new crayons (which he was really excited about; we put them in the train car) but then it was time for his nap.

We went back to church later on for L and I to attend the service. J wasn't happy this time about going to his teaching room. He said "I'm all done churchy" and started crying when we left him. He ended up having a good time and was so excited to see us. He was running to me saying "uppy mommy, uppy mommy" until I could reach him. We continued in our series "Wired for Relationships" and this was a really good message on parenting. The focus was on Ephesians 6:4 and how Paul didn't write a manual for the Ephesians about childrearing, he gave them this verse. Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. One of the main things he shared was that as we teach our children to follow the Lord and we include family devotional time, our children will learn from what we do (how we live) not so much from what we say. If they never catch us reading our bible or hear us praying, the teaching we try to do will seem irrelevant. I believe this deep in my heart and so my focus is on living what I'm telling J I believe. I also want him to see I don't do this perfectly and our pastor hit on this too. He had his daughter come up and talk about ways he discouraged her and also ways he made an impact and one of the things was he and his wife were quick to apologize and admit their mistakes. This is hard for me to do, yet I feel it's so important so I strive to do this. But a confession....now I need to bring that attitude to life with my husband! I find it easier to apologize and say I'm sorry for something, yet so much harder to say the words "I was wrong". Lord, soften my heart.

We had a late dinner when we got home and then J colored some more. I noticed he's starting to watch the lines and doing better at staying in them. I haven't been working on this with him much at all but I encouraged him when I saw how well he was doing. Later, I was working on the blog and J comes up and says "Who's this blog?" and it just so happens I was working on my blog which I've mentioned a bit. I told him it was mommy's blog and we went through several days talking about and looking at all the pictures of him. Then really unexpectedly he bit me (something we are really trying to nip in the bud) and he got an immediate time out. All I had to do was tell him he was in time out and to go there and he went right over to his corner across the room. He tried to peek once but turned back when I told him to. Once he was done, when I asked him if he knew why he was in time out he was quick to reply that he hurt mommy and no biting. I really hope this is training him for no biting. When it was night-night time he was whining and crying but it's so funny in about 30 seconds he was happy again and going upstairs for bed.

Tot School (Mish Mosh)

**J is 27 months old today**

Mish mosh (in the slang dictionary): A disorderly conglomeration. Without a theme or focus.

That's what this week's Tot School was like. No real order or theme; just a bunch of random, different things we did. J was OK with some of the things I planned for us to do, but mostly he would pick out activities on his own which was fine.

J likes all kinds of trucks and equipment so I picked up a DVD called Mighty Machines. We watched this and he really paid attention when the garbage truck segment came on. They describe what the trucks do from the time they pick up the garbage to the time they bring it to the dump. J likes to watch our garbage man when he comes each week. He'll run to the window and sometimes we'll go outside to watch him and the truck which picks up the garbage with a mechanical arm. Now he knows where our garbage goes.

Letters, ABC's
We got a kids "computer" from my sister that J really likes playing with (Fisher Price Fun2Learn...I had no idea it cost this much). There's a setting where he'll press a letter and the capital form of it comes up on the screen and a voice says the letter and then it shows an animal with that letter while saying the name. J liked playing this over and over. He is just learning how to recognize letters and after a time there were about four he could pick out on the keyboard, probably because he likes those animals right now (d=duck, e=elephant, h=hippopotamus, m=mouse).

My sister also gave us this ABC puzzle which J really loves. He doesn't recognize letters very well yet, but he is getting very good at moving the piece around until he finds the right fit. I would read the letter on the puzzle piece and he'd name the object before he put it in. This time around, he didn't get very far from what the last picture shows before he was off to something else.
















Fire Truck Puzzle
He wanted to bring out his fire truck puzzle (Melissa and Doug Giant Fire Truck puzzle ) and needed help with it. We did this in a past Tot School. We worked on it together, first sorting out the pieces and putting "like" pieces together. Then I put a few down and we started to build on it. I'd ask him questions like, "Do you think this piece goes there?" and he'd say NO! if it was way off or Yes! if it looked right. Then I'd move it close to where it fit and let him connect the piece.


Numbers and Shapes
I found a great teaching video on numbers and shapes from the library (Little Steps: Numbers and Shapes). The first part on counting had a few different segments. In one segment, the numbers would drop out of a plane one at a time and we'd say them together. In the next one, numbered blocks would show up on the screen from 1-10, and in the last one fireworks would go off and be in the shape of the numbers going up to 10. This is the first time he actually counted 1 to 10 without skipping any numbers. He used to make it to 4 and then skip around, so he's making progress. I really liked the repetition as the 3 segments were repeated again and again giving him a chance to count several times. He wasn't that interested in the shapes segment and asked to go back to numbers again so we went back to counting.

I found a large 1-20 numbers poster from the Dollar Store. J was interested more in naming the items versus counting. He did do counting with me a little bit but he quickly lost interest in this one.










I used our shape flash cards and came up with an activity to sort the shapes by color in rows. Then the idea was we would go through and name the shapes. J wasn't that keen on playing along. I started out by setting out the flash cards and explaining what he was to do next. He ended up placing down two yellow shape cards in the correct row, but then had more fun knocking the cards out of their row and then picking them up and running around with them wanting me to come chase him. Hmm....maybe another time.








Cars
When J got tired of taking my shape flash cards and running off with them, he wanted to play with cars. He likes to drive them on mommy's leg.







Music Appreciation
J has this fascination with Elvis. This was the first musician he recognized on the radio. We heard an Elvis song once and I told him who it was. Then some other day we heard that song again and J goes, "Elvis mommy!" Now he asks for Elvis in the car and we play a 50's CD. The funny thing is he'll say "I don't like this one" when we play any Elvis song BUT Jailhouse Rock. He has something for Jailhouse Rock. So he was asking to see Elvis on the computer so I showed him the Jailhouse Rock video of Elvis from 1957 on You Tube. Once it was done, he wanted to see it again.

Matching
At the dollar store, I got three sets of cards. A Bible memory match, Bible heroes and Bible Go Fish. I worked on matching a few months ago showing him how to match socks together, but he wasn't catching on at all. I thought I'd try again with something else but I kept the pictures face up to start out. Since this was our first time, I really walked him through it by placing the matching cards near each other and then helping J find the ones that matched. He seemed to get this a little bit, but was more interested in collecting the cards, holding them and also laying them out. This will be a good continuing activity.





Physical Activities
J has not played with this toy in months but it captured his interest on this day. Walking around the house "making popcorn". The cat wasn't too excited about it.







We also played a game of hide-and-seek. So far, J seems to like the same place to hide. He loves going behind the kitchen door and then I'll tiptoe up to him and yell "boo!" once I find him there he'll scream and laugh and then come running out. (This picture is a little blurry.)




When it's my turn to hide, he'll go to the stairs to sit and wait while keeping his eyes covered. (I love this and think it's so cute!) I'll go find a place to hide and say "OK, I'm ready" and he'll come looking for me. I also love it when he's found me I jump out and he squeals and runs away and we start over again.

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

Laughing with your 2-year-old is such a gift

This morning was different. It was a really mixed morning. Part of the time, J seemed prone to cry super easy like when he'd ask for something and I'd say no. But then we'd get into these periods of silliness with each other and we couldn't stop laughing. We had been playing his leap frog phonics letters and I started singing the letter song with my nose plugged. J just loved it! He tried doing it then and we'd just crack up. Or he was making clucking noises with his tongue while driving his little car on the furniture and I started clucking back and it just made him laugh which got me laughing. He also had to see the marching elephants from Jungle Book several times (2 frames from the movie). I decided not to do the library story time today. We were out yesterday most of the day and then tomorrow to Sunday we're going camping PLUS it was a nice rainy day which is perfect for staying in. We had fun doing Tot School. Our focus was on the alphabet. As you see in the post, he wasn't that keen on lining up the blocks in ABC order. I tried explaining Tot School and then he did a little more saying "I'm doing Tot School mommy." I liked watching him play with his little people. He lined them up on the couch and put a couple in a car. Then he'd make up a story about where they were going and what they were doing. He got upset about something and then says "I need a nap mommy" which I knew was near so he willingly went upstairs with me so I could lay him down. We read a story from his Jesus Storybook Bible about God giving Moses the 10 commandments.

He ended up taking a 3 hour nap so I was able to have time alone with the Lord and also time on the computer and a little reading. In my time with the Lord, the focus was from Phillipians 3:4-6 Paul having no "confidence in the flesh". I notice Beth Moore (I'm reading To Live is Christ) is using his early name Saul so that's how I will refer to him for now. She is talking about the influences upon Saul's life growing up like the Pharisees. The word Pharisee was meant to represent genuine piety and deep devotion to God. In the days of Jesus and Saul, the term had become synonymous with hypocrisy and cynicism. See Matthew 23 where Jesus addresses the teachers of the law and Pharisees. Beth underscores the need for loving God, being loved by God coupled with obedience. Without the love, we are just trying to be good. Saul fell into the pitfall of the Pharisees trying to live out the law faultlessly; not out of love for God but to follow the letter of the law. Saul's heart begins to turn away. She refers to Isaiah 29:13,
The Lord says:
"These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
I pray that I would never fall into that trap! It's so lifeless and empty. I find the more I become aware of God's love and majesty, really letting that in, the more I desire to follow him and his ways. Not just following a set of rules because I want to be a "good Christian" or something. This was really good to think about.

The first thing J wanted to do after his nap was see the marching elephants again. Daddy had just come home so right away he joins us marching around the living room. It was cute. J was asking for muffins for dinner and when I told him we were eating as a family mommy's tuna casserole he started a cry which I thought could be a melt down and then he just stopped. He would only eat a few bites though and then said he was all done. Even after sitting there a while he didn't eat anything more. After dinner, we stopped at the library where I had some holds come in. Then we stopped at a friend's house to pick up song books. We're going camping at Devil's Lake in Baraboo this weekend and L is bringing his (borrowed) guitar. She has a real fondness for J and he let her hold him and he sat on her lap while she read a couple books. Once home, it was time for a bath and then bedtime. It was nice, he went up without much ado and enjoyed the bath (except for getting his head wet). Then he wanted Daddy and he came to read a book or two.

Tot School (ABC's)

Over the last couple/few days, we've been focusing on the alphabet for our Tot School time. I got a fridge phonics leap frog and he really enjoyed changing out the letters. Then he'd press the ABC song and sing what he knows of the ABC's. Sometimes we sang together and sometimes he sang alone. It went something like this: A-B-C-D-H-I-F...J-K-L-M-N-O-P...Q-R-S...Y and Z. He liked it when I held my nose and sang the song for the individual letters. Then he'd do it and we'd just crack up. This is something he goes back to several times throughout the day.




I set up J's alphabet blocks to create a little game. He'd pick out a block, I'd say the letter and then put it in alphabet sequence. He can't recognize the letters yet so this continues to be a good focus. We did this with several blocks but then J started to lose interest and then wanted to kick the blocks instead of set them up. I told him we'd take a break and come back to it later. When we came back to it, I would point to where the letter goes and he'd put the block in place but this time he stopped after only a couple blocks.












I picked out several of our ABC books to read. The one that seems to be his favorite is Clifford's ABC's. He'll often repeat the letters after me and then identify the pictures.