Tot School 4 1/2

For starters, I really want to know when our ants are going to arrive. I'm ready to learn about the letter "B." Our life is stuck. We talk about "A" ants all the time. Enough is enough! Please bring our ants, Mrs. Mailman!

Time to focus. Crazy. School is done for the summer for most children and teachers and I am convicted for the need to be more regular in our Tot School, which explains the absence of my weekly Tot School post--we had our summer break before summer break.

School has been a random splicing of activities. I am going to have to find a new groove with the addition of regular exercise and gardening now added to my list of granola activities. My focus for Tot Time has been and will be learning from our life experiences, scripture memory, recognizing letters and sounds, creating a corresponding lapbook with the letter of the week, basic counting, and fine motor skills such as coloring and cutting. (And moving tadpoles to the frog pond.)

The boys learned to set the table. Their future wives will thank me. I taught them how to set the table. Next, we took turns making a mess of our mock table and then correctly placing the dinnerware in its designated spot.

Here are a few highlights:

Mr. Smackdown has delighted in showing off his newly acquired skill of setting the table. I wonder how long it will be "fun" and not a chore? It is amazing how little helpful hands by growing children can become tremendous time-savers. When can he start cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming?

As if we didn't already know the letter "A," we made "A's" with rubber bands on our geoboards, along with other designs to improve fine motor skills, which is necessary if your hand gets slapped by a taught rubber band!

Childhood just wouldn't be complete without using Ed Emberley's Thumbprint Art guidebook.

And to wrap it up, today we confiscated Mr. Smiley's bath time alphabet toys and put the letters in alphabetical order.

(Can you tell which letter is missing?)

We had some leftover numbers, and used our Connectagons and corresponded the correct number of pieces below each foam number.

After all that fun . . . I stopped at the library so that we could begin learning about the letter "B." The ants will have to move into our home under a different letter whether they like it or not.