Tot School

Kayleigh is 29 months

Hello fellow Tot Schoolers! I hope you all had a wonderful week.

Ours was last minute, disjointed and unorganized. As usual. LOL We only did two days of tot school. Kayleigh didn't feel like it. Which was a shame because she's been obsessed with the book Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and I was a good mom over the weekend and got together Carisa's Five Little Monkeys Tot Pack for her.

On the first day, for the most part, she ignored the things that I set out for and raided the bins for her own activities. So here's Kayleigh's version of a perfect tot school day.

Drawing on her Melissa & Doug Chalk Board. She said they were circles. I can sorta see that.

Playing with Magneatos . They were all "red" that day. In case you were wondering. :o)

And, of course, her all time favorite toy, Melissa & Doug Nesting Blocks. They're good for stacking, knocking over, and helping you ignore Mommy as she points out the letter A.

Lastly, she tried to stand on her head. Good times.





At the end of the week she asked to "play games" which is what tot school is to her. This time I had a little more say in the matter.

First I reeled her in with something that she hasn't seen before. The Melissa & Doug Bead Sequencing Set that she got last Christmas but we hadn't used yet.
I just let her explore the toy on her own. I didn't even show her how to use the pattern cards. She rewarded me by saying "I got a skare" everytime she picked up a square. She believes in postive reinforcement. =o)




Then she choose the KinderReady Eric Carle String Along set that I put out earlier in the week. I just put out the stringing beads and string. No pattern cards yet. Although they are REALLY cute. She's been getting better at lacing beads but she was off today. She laced one and declared the activity "all dont." (She adds a t sound to the end of every word that ends with 'n'. I don't know why but it cracks us up.)

Next she pulled our icecream shoppe sensory tub off the shelf. She played with that for a long time. I love this bin so much. It's the easiest clean up ever!

She served...

Sipped on an "icecream float" complete with her improvised straw. A long spoon from the Dollar Tree.

She even practiced pouring. And I didn't cringe when she did it, like I do when rice is in that tub. I'll probably never recover from the rice being in there.

Then she got in trouble when she was finished because she didn't want to clean up her mess. So she went to time out and somehow hurt her wrist. I don't know how, I was ignoring her per Super Nanny's instructions.

After her release, and an ice pack, I slid in some of our Five Little Monkeys activities. And she did them for the first time in history. Finally all my printing and laminating wasn't in vain! There's hope for the Christmas, Brown Bear, and Hungry Catepillar packs yet. I'm excited that they will be able to come out of storage in the future.

We read the Monkey Counting book a billion times while she nursed her wrist with ice. She liked page three best. The monkey in the middle looked "angwy" and that intrigued her.

Then we played with the Monkey Body Parts cards. She loved that. We played it three times. I read the card to her. She showed me her body parts. And she insisted that she had a tail like the monkey.

Then I got out the Counting Book again and took it apart. I placed #s 1-5 on the ground and gave her some little monkey erasers from the Dollar Tree. She placed an eraser on each monkey for some 1:1 correspondance and counting practice. She did a pretty good job. I was expecting her to dump bunches of monkeys on the cards and call it good. It's harder to make a mess with only one working hand I guess.





And now for my favorite shots of the week. Kayleigh has taken to eating with only a certain spoon. A baby spoon. You know those coated Gerber spoons. Now keep in mind that as an actual baby she barely used these spoons. She would not eat baby food of any kind. Whether from the jar or something I made myself. I doubt that, if you added every bite she swallowed, it would be equivilant to 5 jars of stage 1. I find that ironically funny. She went through a similar phase with bottles. Wouldn't take one when we wanted her to. Six months after weening the child from nursing and suddenly she wants milk in a bottle. Life is never dull with her. LOL




Be sure to visit the other tots at 1+1+1=1.