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.

Tot School (Beans, Building and Just Plain Fun)

**J is 29 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. We had a fun week!

J wanted help to get out his Melissa and Doug dinosaur puzzle. He likes to lie on his tummy and work on fitting the pieces together. This is a more chunky puzzle that he can work mostly on his own and loves my encouragement when he finds a piece that fits. He did ask for help a few times. I just coached him by telling him how to turn the puzzle pieces he was trying to fit in. We were working together pretty well, but then he got his mind set on putting a piece where it didn't fit. He got a bit pushy when I tried to show it didn't fit and pushed my hand away. So I told him I was taking a little break. He didn't end up finishing it.































L has a penny jar he has been keeping for at least a couple years now. J loves putting pennies in it. We found a few that he was able to put in. Not too long and it will be full! It'll be great to see how much is in it.
































I was building a shelf for toy storage and right away J says, "I'll help!" He wanted a screwdriver so I gave him one and he pretended to help put the screws in. He said "I'm building momma!"
J has been playing with the real screwdriver a few times since and pretending to "build" things. Also at our playgroup PalZone, he was really interested in playing with the tools and workbench like I haven't seen before. I've been wondering what I might get him for Christmas and I am thinking of a toy tool set with tools and a construction helmet.
































I also needed to use a hammer for my shelf. J of course said he could hammer, and I remembered we have a little hammer and peg board so I got that out. J sat hammering away right next to me while I built the shelf. Even after I was done, he kept hammering away having me take the pegs out so he could start over again. He got this out several times throughout the week to hammer away. I tried to teach him he could get the pegs out by turning the board upside down. This worked for him some of the time and other times he'd just ask me to help.
































My friend brought over her son again this week so she could substitute teach. The boys did pretty well together since I was there to referee when there was a squabble. We played inside before lunch and then got outdoors to enjoy some of the wonderful weather we had this week. They didn't even need coats. They enjoyed things like sidewalk chalk and bubbles. They also spent some time just running around too.



















































J was looking for something to do and was asking for one of his puzzles but I couldn't find it. Then I remembered I bought a few bags of beans we could play with. So I dumped red beans, black beans and yellow split peas into a bin. I got him a couple shovels, containers to transfer into and also a stacking cup to use for pouring. He did the scooping and transferring for a while then turned to pouring. Then I started hiding little things in the beans and asking him to find them. He was really excited about this. He'd say, "What is it? It's a surprise!" I hid a stacking ring, then his little animals, then a pair of his sunglasses. At one point, I hid 4 little animals for him to find. He said, "I have work to do!" and got busy searching. He experimented with what he could hide in there too. His Mickey Mouse stuffed animal and blankie were too big though.




























































J wanted to get in my storage cupboard where I've been keeping a flower arranging project for a while. I got this idea from another Tot School blog, The Toy Box Years and J really wanted to try it. I found some flowers from the craft store along with some styrofoam to stick them in. I let J do all the arranging but had to help a bit to get the flowers in deep enough to stand up. As he went, he kept talking about "the contest" saying "this is for the contest". I don't know where that idea came from! He was very proud of himself when it was done and wanted to do more, but we had used them all so he just pulled them out and started over. When he was all done, he admired his work saying "I won! Ta Da!"
































We had some fun stacking and knocking down (or pile driving really) dominoes. J started out with the idea that we would match dominoes, but then had more fun knocking stacks of them over. We both were stacking and J was knocking over his own, but once he noticed I was stacking mine too he couldn't resist knocking mine over. I gave him some instructions to see how high we could stack them before knocking them down and he did hold back a bit. It was so tempting for him to knock them over though since he got into making sounds effects and sort-of pile driving them all over the place with both hands. I tried to get a good before and after shot with them all over the place.














































On one of the days that was nice out, J wanted to go outside and do some bowling. It's been a while since we did this but we always enjoy it. I set the pins up and J helps with that a little bit. Then I let him knock them down. This time he preferred to keep holding onto the bowling ball as he knocked the pins over. I let him know this wouldn't pass at a real bowling alley! He kept saying, "Go away wind!" since the wind knocked some pins down a couple times too.













































We also took some time again for one of our favorite nature activities, feeding the birds. This time, J got a couple small buckets so he could help distribute seed. He would fill his bucket from my big bucket, and then pour it into our larger wooden feeder. He also had fun picking out the peanuts and putting them into a little seed holder on the ground (no picture). While we were filling the feeders, we were blessed to have a chickadee come and land about 3 feet away from us! He was waiting for us to finish (no picture since we stood stock still, well at least I did - J tried).

Book Favorites
Handy Manny Cookie Rescue
The Nose Book
One Drowsy Dragon
Please say Please! Penguin's Guide to Manners
Sounds Around Town

Movie Favorites
Ralph S. Mouse and more exciting animal adventure stories (A Scholastic video)
Barney and Friends - Just Imagine
Handy Manny - The Big Race


Just Plain Fun
















On the day my friend's son was over playing, J decided it would be fun to put his mom's bag on his head. He sat there laughing while I ran for the camera and was able to snap off a few pictures. This one turned out the best.
































I bought some really cute big boy underpants as one of the things I'm doing to encourage him to start using the potty. He was interested at first, but now he's kind of forgotten about them. So I got them out and was just plain silly putting them on his head to see what he'd do. He thought this was really funny too and ran around the house with them on his head.


















One night, J was not tired at all for bed. We had friends over earlier in the evening and he was pretty wound up. He took out a bunch of toys and I found them all lined up on the couch (too bad his eyes are half closed here). Then he found this honey dipper thing and was using it like a conductor's wand and was singing his heart out. He sang the ABC's, he made up a song about the animals and toys that he loves and sang Where is Thumbkin. (I'll be adding a video of it to my Tiny Talk Tuesday post next week ;)

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