Tot School

Jack is 24 months old

For the past two weeks, Jack has wanted to read "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" multiple times a day. My mom gave me a felt board set with all the letters and the coconut tree, and he loves to play with those. We worked a little bit on letter sounds, but mostly he insists that all the letters make the "sssssss" sound. :-) I'm in the midst of compiling a Chicka Tot Book for the week after Thanksgiving.

Jack plays dress up all the time, but this week he wanted to shake things up a bit by dressing up as his brother. Silly kid!

We broke out the Color Wonder kit that Gigi and Papa Jack gave him for his birthday. He liked coloring for a bit, but then began pretending the marker caps were "horns." Again, he's a silly (if creative) kid!

We visited A Flip Zone on Friday night for some energy busting. Jack had a great time climbing, hanging, and running in circles.

Saturday morning I was watching Kennison and Colton, so Jack had fun playing with playdough with his cousins. He's getting good at rolling.

 

This weekend we went ahead a got out our Christmas tree and decorations. Jack rediscovered his love of the Little People Nativity Set (these are on major sale right now at Amazon and are a great toy, in my opinion!) Meemaw and Papa Jim gave him last Christmas. This year he could identify all the animals (although he thinks the cow looks like a horse), Mary, Baby Jesus, and the Kings. We've been reading the Christmas story at bedtime, and that's an improvement over his initial interpretation of the pictures in the story: Charlie (Jesus), Mama (Mary), Daddy (Joseph), and the Cowboys (Wise Men). :-)

And a few life school opportunities:

He honed his photography skills...

... and got into the diaper cream in the downstairs changing station (now secured in the bathroom cabinet)... twice!

Tot School

Jack is 24 months old.

Tot School this week was all about puzzles, beads and blocks.

I took some of Jack's birthday cards, as well as a magazine picture, modge podged them onto some cardboard, and cut them into 2-3 piece puzzles.

Jack did a pretty good job, and really enjoyed "making the pictures."

I got Jack a set of lacing beads from the $1 spot at Target. He found all kinds of activities to do with them. We laced them...

sorted them by shape,

sorted by color, and stacked them.

Jack also had a lot of fun playing with this wooden puzzle he got for his birthday. I tried to show him how different shapes can fit together to make squares, but he was totally uninterested! :-) He did enjoy building sailboats...

... and rocket ships, too!

We also tried a matching activity that I made, but I think it was a bit too old for him. We'll put it out again soon to try again!

Tot School

Jack is 24 months old

Now that Jack is two, he and I will start working on some slightly more "formal" pre-school readiness activities as they interest him. While we are planning, at this point in time, to send him to preschool two days a week next year, I've always held in the back of my mind that I might like homeschooling, so this will be a beginning step towards seeing how Jack and I work together academically.

Does it sound like I'm taking my two year old's education too seriously? I'm not! No, really! The whole idea behind Tot School is that it's basically just exposing early learning skills through FUN play. Click on that link for a great explanation of Tot School, and the button at the top to see the Tot School Blog.

I'll share a little more of my journey with Jack in the coming weeks, including how I'm planning, what resources I'm using, etc. (Can you tell I'm a teacher at heart ?! Planning always was one of my favorite parts. :-)

But there's plenty of time for all of that later! Here's what we did in Tot School this week! I didn't do a great job of photo documenting, but here's what I did catch...

I made Pumpkin Spice scented playdough, using this recipe and adding orange food coloring and 2 t of pumpkin pie seasoning. I gave Jack a bit to play with and saved the rest in washed out yogurt containers. I let him have a variety of tools, and he practiced...

rolling,

cutting,

making circle impressions with a Duplo,

and finally, sprinkling colored sugar and mixing it in.

While playing with Daddy's old fire station Little People, I broke out the fireman costume I bought Jack on clearance after Halloween this year. He loved dressing up, and we practiced using the clasps.

He spent lots of time "playing cars" this week, and Daddy showed him how to line the cars up like a train.

Jack also spent lots of time on his new tricycle, and even learned to use the pedals a little bit! This is one of the shots taken today after church while we were working on getting some Christmas card shots!

Tune in next week for my slightly more organized version!