A Long Overdue Tot School

with

Mr. Me-Too (3 1/2 years old!)

God has blessed us with lots of snow.  And we are happy about it.  Every opportunity that we can . . . the boys go and play in this natural fluffy playground.

They may not think shoveling the driveway is fun when it is their chore in the future, but for now it is a novel idea to mimic what they see their Daddy doing.

Sometimes I bring the snow inside . . . when I just don’t want to go through the process of putting snow gear on.

Phonics and handwriting fun . . .

I have been intentional about introducing the alphabet to Mr. Me-Too and the corresponding sounds using various resources:

• ABC Teach – Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) printable practice pages
• Homemade Roll-A-Dough letters that mimic HWT
• Wooden HWT letters
• All About Spelling magnetic tiles that I wrote a review on

 

Cooking

Mr. Me-Too had a cooking lesson with Nana.  They made chocolate gingerbread cookies.  They were so good that our dog climbed on the counter and ate them while Mama and Papa were over babysitting. 

Mr. Me-Too has also taken a new interest in setting the table for dinner and helping to make his breakfast of a morning. 

Music

We have been using Kinderbach for our music curriculum.  (I will be writing about Kinderbach in the near future.)  Mr. Me-Too received this alligator keyboard from his Mama and Papa for Christmas and it has provided entertainment and has assisted in his education.  His parents (not that I am one of them -- ahem) are ready to take the batteries out of this delightful toy, though. 

Tot Trays

Mr. Me-Too used a scoop and spooned beans from one container to another one, while racing Mr. Smackdown who likes to be first to finish.

Don’t call the environmentalist on me . . . I even surprised myself with this Tot Tray.  I found some cheap note pads at Staples.  To work on fine motor skills I had Mr. Me-Too tear off each sheet of paper.  Then he had to crumple it up and stuff it into a pillowcase.  Needless to say, this Tot Tray was a hit!  The paper was later used as pretend snow, stew, and a fire. 

 

What do I do with paint chips?  Oops!  This had the potential for being a very cool Tot Tray . . . I just didn’t know what I was doing. 

For a paint chip Tot Tray, go to your local hardware store, get two of each color scheme.  Cut the various shades of one of the identical paint strips.  Then, match the cut shade to the identical in-tact paint strip.  I found this out AFTER I tweeted with Carisa . . . next time I’ll get it right.  Mr. Me-Too had fun pretending they were playing cards and clipping them to a clothes pin.

Connectagons offer a lot of possibilities for the imagination, but mostly it is just fun to pull all of them out of the box.

I had forgotten that scissors are supposed to be sharp, until my mom bought me a new pair of scissors for Christmas.  These things even cut fabric. 

I now offer to cut things for the boys because I like my new shears.  Wanting to cut something else, I cut a lot of string into all sorts of lengths for this next Tot Tray.

The idea was that Mr.  Me-Too had to take each string and lower it down into the glass milk bottle. 

 

And when I wasn’t looking . . . he just stuffed all of the string in at once.  I’m sure that was a learning moment too.  How can I get done with this the quickest?!

I printed some Pattern Block patterns from PreKinders.

Mr. Me-Too also worked on some word puzzles.

 

My mom heart was excited to see Mr. Me-Too engage with and help Mr. Smiley join us for school.

 

 

And yesterday, Mr. Me-Too and his brothers got to go to the Children’s Museum.  We met his cousin, Josiah, and Mama and Papa there!  Too much fun!

Mr. Me-Too enjoyed the slide with Daddy that used to be stairs.

 

He played in the water . . . creating dams and spillways just like Daddy does at work.  I am not sure who had more fun . . . the kids or Brian.

After all that activity, this was one tired tot.  The biggest change for Mr. Me-Too has been that he has graduated to Big Boy status . . . which means that he no longer takes an afternoon nap.  It is a long story . . . but he seems to be much happier with his new schedule and status!

 

Technorati Tags: Tot School,Children's Museum of Indianapolis,Tot Trays