WEEK OF JULY 5 - THIS AND THAT

~Punkin is 23 months old.~

We took a very laid back and relaxed approach this week to Tot School, and took a break from our "i is for ice cream" unit (I still have tons of activities to do with it), and just had fun doing random things not related to anything. It was a much needed break for us both. I found out that even in our laid back activities that weren't necessarily "academic" in nature, Punkin actually was "learning" quite a bit! We still stuck with our Tot Tray time, but since the rest of the week wasn't focused on anything, I'm going to try posting pictures by day instead of topic this week.

TOT TRAYS

I had red, white, and blue pipe cleaners, as well as toothpicks in a tray for her to put into a sugar shaker from Dollar Tree. She loved this tray!

I filled a tray full of containers and lids and had her take them off, match them up, put them back on, etc. She did great at learning how to turn the lids to unscrew them on and off.

I also added my "beloved" letter rocks that I made last week (that she didn't want to play with) and had her see which rocks would fit into each container.

I put her new Melissa and Doug latch puzzle and matching blocks in a tray. She played quite a bit with the latch puzzle, but not so much with the matching blocks.

I would ask her to find certain things for me to see if she remembered with latch to open. She has a great memory! Then, I'd take out a few of the magnetic pieces from under the latches and give them to her and have her put them back in the right spot. She loved that.

I finally went through some of my tubs of materials from when I taught first grade, and I found quite a few things that I used in my first grade classroom, that I knew Punkin would actually be able to do. She liked these colored paintbrushes that she matched to the correct paint bucket.

Her favorite thing about it was putting the brushes in the slits. She matched them like a pro.

I was so excited about this tray, but Punkin was not. I used our magnetic pom poms and this flag page that I printed from Making Learning Fun. I did it a few times for her to try to entice her to do it with me. (Isn't it sad that I get excited about and have fun doing little activities like this?)

She humored me once and put about 4 pom poms on before going on to other things.

Again, another tray I thought she'd like, but she never touched this one. She loves animals, and she loves puzzles, so I thought she'd enjoy matching the baby animal with the mommy. Nope. Oh well. We'll try it again later.

A few times instead of doing her trays, she pulled down this photo album instead and spent a long time looking at the all the pictures. She has always loved looking at all the pictures of her and her family members.


MONDAY

My husband has been doing lots of sawing in the garage lately, and so lots of Punkin's toys got all covered in sawdust and were pretty dirty. So, on Monday I took out a bucket of soapy water and a rag, and told Punkin to wash her toys. Oh my, did she ever have a blast!

She washed her car, her "bike," her slide, and even the sidewalk and Mommy's face. :)

TUESDAY

We spend Tuesdays at Grandma's house. I didn't have my camera with me, but Grandma got out some file folder games that she has, and Punkin matched up colors with race cars. She also enjoys learing how to "play" the piano on Grandma's real piano!

WEDNESDAY

I took an empty spice container and filled it with crushed Fruit Loop "sand." Punkin had a ball just squeezing the glue bottle as much as she wanted. She finally mastered what "squeezing" means and is finally able to do it herself. (This activity therefore became good fine motor skill practice.) Then she shook out the "sand" all over her paper onto the glue and we dumped off the excess "sand" and had a colorful picture to hang up.

We ended up doing three different pages because she kept saying, "More pease!"

I had a glue bottle, too, and I made numbers, letters, and shapes on her page for her and she told me what they were as I made them.

We had to vacuum the floor when we were done, and Punkin thought she'd help. (She uses this toy as her pretend vacuum and typically follows me around when I vacuum.)

In continuing just a tad with our i unit, I cut out some pictures that start with i and had Punkin glue them onto her Ii paper. She loved using the glue, and I had her repeat each picture and the sound of i each time. When she was done, she took her page and said "I show Daddy." Then she ran over to Daddy and said, "Wook, Daddy! Pitty!" Daddy asked her what all her pictures were and she could name each one for him.

As we continue to work on drawing straight lines from top to bottom, I made some dotted lines with dots above them for lowercase i's, then I put it in a page protector and gave Punkin a dry erase marker for the first time. She loved it. I showed her how to make the straight line down and then make a dot. After a few tries she was doing them really well and remembering to start at the top! We have done this a few times each day since then, and she still enjoys it.

Last week I had mixed some food coloring into water and put them into plastic containers and stuck them in the freezer. I did yellow ones, red ones, and blue ones (primary colors). I filled the sink with water and added yellow food coloring to it. Then, I got out the big red ice and let Punkin play with it in the water. I asked her before we started what color the water was. Then, I asked her what color the ice was. After a little bit of her playing with the ice, she noticed it was "get small" (getting smaller) and at the end when I asked her what color the water was now, she noticed it had turned orange! Cool! We talked about how red and yellow together make orange. What a fun little science activity! We will definitely be doing this again soon with the other colors.

After her big red ice cube melted, I gave her some regular ice cubes. I told her to "catch" them before they melted. Without my prodding to do so, she began taking them one by one and throwing them into the other side of the sink as she counted each one. Now, though she can count easily, we have been working on one to one counting objects. She can do it easily with my help as I guide her hand to point to each object. But lately, I have been trying to get her to count by moving objects from one bowl to the next. She hasn't been interested. Then, here she goes and does it on her own! Just goes to show that sometimes I can't force something and that there really IS so much learning that takes place through play.

THURSDAY

I found this computer keyboard for 25 cents this week at a garage sale, and since Punkin has been enamored with wanting to use my "puter" I set up a little "play" computer for her at her table. She has played so much with it this week! She'll climb up onto her chair and tell me she's typing on her "puter." Sometimes I'll even hear her saying what letter or number she is "typing." Since we are working on lowercase letters right now, I think I will take little stickers with lowercase letters on them and cover the capital letters on the keyboard.

She wanted to do some more letter tracing. She did these in the picure all by herself!

And of course, she found out it was just as much fun to erase her lines.

FRIDAY

I used painters tape to tape ice cream numbers in order on the floor. Right now Punkin is into "jumping" so I helped her jump to the numbers in order as we said them. Then, she wanted to step on each one. Finally after a few times of that, she decided she was done and went in order and picked them up off the floor one by one. I had her tell me each number she picked up as she did it. (Sidenote: I have noticed lately that she is calling a 9 a 6. Guess we'll have to work more on that.)

We went outside and blew some bubbles. She can actually get a few bubbles out by herself now which makes her giggle.

I also brought out the sidewalk chalk for the first time this week. She loves it and calls them "dalk." She enjoyed drawing as well as lining them up in a row. Unfortunately, she also found it fun to throw them to see them break in pieces. :(

After playing chalk, she had it all over her. I had brought out a spray bottle (for another activity), so I sprayed her with it to wipe it down. She thought that was great. Then, I showed her how to do it, and she tried her best. She didn't get much out, but she had fun trying.

SATURDAY

I took those same ice cream numbers and taped them up around the kitchen for her to go find. She had fun at first, but then got freaked out when Daddy was using the nail gun ("Daddy's noise") in the kitchen, and that was the end of that.

Saturday was Daddy's birthday, so we made him a torn paper collage as a card. She really stayed focused on this better than I thought. The tearing was hard for her, so I had to help her by starting the tear for her to finish. In the end, I did most of the tearing for her, and she did the gluing and putting the pieces on.

I glued some pieces around the edges to finish it off, and then we wrote, "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" on it.

While I was making lunch, I gave Punkin her bean tub, a couple measuring cups, and some of her drinking cups. She had a blast pouring beans into the cups.

Of course, we also had a bit of mess to clean up, but that's part of the fun, right?

Since Punkin's birthday and Daddy's birthday are so close, and since we are going to be gone on her birthday, we had a party Saturday night for them both. She got a doll stroller, swing, and highchair, and a big kitchen which were both a big hit!

Eating cake.... :) Punkin is allergic to milk, and last year we were thinking maybe eggs, too, so last year I had to make her a special cake that was.....not so good. This year I could use Duncan Hines yellow cake mix because it doesn't have milk and Pillsbury frosting. She has never really had cake before (we are also picky about how much sugar we allow her to have), so she thoroughly enjoyed it and has been asking for "more cake pease" since then. :)

Another thing we did a lot this week was categories. She started this on her own one day by starting to name all the things she saw at the parade. One other day she saw the park and started naming all the things at the park. On another day, when she saw the airplane in the sky, she also started naming other things in the sky like clouds, moon, etc. Each time, I tried to expand on what she was saying and ask, "What else can you see at the park?" or "What else can you see in the sky?" It was kinda an impromptu activity that turned into quite a great Tot School lesson!

Next week I will try to get back to my "ice cream" activities, but we'll see. Visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other tots were up to this week.