Tot School

~Pumpkin is currently 19 months old~

Pumpkin has had a very busy week with Tot School! I planned out a lot of activities, like I usually do, but normally we don't get to all of them, either because Pumpkin doesn't have the attention span or because we just get too busy. But I was on break from school last week, and Pumpkin was very interested in all of my planned activities! I'm very excited to share this week's post. 

Letter I Activities
As we do every week, we made the letter I for Pumpkin's Alphabet Book. He is getting very good with glue! The ideas for our alphabet book are found at the Now I Know My ABCs section of the Totally Tots blog.

We also used our Do-A-Dot markers, with a couple of print-outs from I is for Inchworm curriculm on the Confessions of a Homeschooler website. Pumpkin is getting very good with these markers!

We also played with the inchworm puzzle from the same curriculum. I made it fairly simple for him, simply just putting space between the correct puzzle pieces.

And of course, our letter I collage.

Colors, Shapes & Numbers:
To work on colors, we sorted all of his toy cars by color. I had him repeat the name of the color that that particular car was, and place it with the other like colors. This worked out fairly well!

The next 2 ideas come from the 1+1+1+1 website. I made a color wheel using our foam sheets, and made matching circles from the same sheets, and him match the colors. This was a bit more difficult for him, so we'll probably pull this out again in the next few weeks. We also printed out Number Recognition Cards, and I used clean lids on each card to have Pumpkin put beads into. We're still having trouble counting, but that's okay! When we were finished, Pumpkin put all the beads into a jar, which was totally his idea, and I didn't mind in the slightest!

Learning Toys:
I don't usually blog about the toys we rotate each week. But I really enjoy these toys, because Pumpkin can find many ways to play with them. This week, we played with our Sesame Street ABC& 123 blocks and flashcards, which I cannot seem to find to purchase on the web. But they provide plenty of entertainment to Pumpkin. We also played with our Music Box, which I believe was purchased at Target. The Music Box has a microphone to help work on speech development.

Motor Skills:
We worked on beading and pouring this week. Beading is not a new skill, and one that Pumpkin has pretty much mastered (at least, when it comes to small beads and a pipe cleaner). Pouring is a brand new skill, and he had a ball! I'll be heading to the Dollar Store here to stock up on supplies for this, because Pumpkin laughed hysterically the entire time.

Books 
Just a few pictures to show how much this kid loves books!

Life Skills: Cooking
Pumpkin's kitchen utensil set was a big hit at Christmas. When we opened it for him, he took the spoon and ran into the kitchen, saying "Cook! Cook! Cook!" This week, we played with the utensil set quite a bit, and we added a mixing bowl and a small saucepan to it. He fed both me and Elmo his cooking creations. I set it up on his table next to me in the kitchen while I made cookies, and I also let him partake in making bread. He made a lot of fun punching down the dough, which I unfortunately don't have pictures of because I was helping him.

As you can see, I took a LOT of pictures this week. I'm really just soaking up all that life has to offer with such a sweet little boy. I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Tot School

~Pumpkin is currently 19 months old~

It's been awhile since my last Tot School post! I'm slacking with blogging, I've had quite a bit of schoolwork that has needed to be done before I can do much of anything else (well, besides being Momma!). We worked on Letter H this past week, as well as doing some motor skills work. 

We used our Do-A-Dot markers to make an H, but we also used them to make some artwork too! He seems to really enjoy these markers, and I don't have to employ the hand over hand technique with them so much anymore (although I do need to stay within arms length).

We did quite a bit with Hands this week. We made hand prints out of a foam sheet, and we made hand prints out of fingerpaints, which always goes over well. Plus, I love having the artwork to hang on my wall.

To combine both the letter H and some motor skills work, we worked with name stickers! Pumpkin's name starts with an H, and he had such a blast with the stickers!

We also worked on sorting. I gave him white and red poker chips, and a box with two different spaces (we used the box his Melissa & Doug alphabet magnets came in), demonstrated what I wanted him to do, and let him go to town. 

When he got done sorting the different colors into their spaces, he went ahead and put all the red chips back with the white chips. 

We did some work with shapes, in the form of Shape Puzzles, taken from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Instead of laminating the pieces, I traced the pieces onto foam sheets. 

Pumpkin really liked the star puzzle, so he took it to the couch with him!

All in all, it was a pretty good week! I'll be incorporating more motor skills work and basic skills into our Tot School routine. Next week: Letter I!

Tot School: Letter G

~Pumpkin is currently 18 months old~

Well, I'm 2 weeks behind in posting this! Letter G week was the week of February 14th, but I was on vacation from school last week and didn't do any blogging (or any Tot School... if I'm on vacation, so is Pumpkin).

As always, we made a Letter G for Pumpkin's Alphabet Book:

We made a "mini book" about the letter G, which I found here at First School Preschool Activities.

I cut out the book pages for him, and he glued the pictures of the things that start with G onto the pages. He also colored the book... with both pens and crayons. I love the way he holds a crayon, it's almost like he's trying to hold it like he's a big kid. It's so cute!

We also made a Letter G collage (of course):

 And we worked a bit on motor skills. I saw that Carisa from 1+1+1=1 worked on throwing, so we did just that. I got out our smallest laundry basket, and all of Pumpkin's soft balls and toys, and we worked on throwing!

At first, he wanted to eat the toys.

Then he bagan placing them in the basket.

 He couldn't quite throw them into the basket. I guess this is just something we'll have to work on. He can throw things, just not with any sort of accurate aim just yet. :)

For more information about Tot School, please visit 1+1+1=1.