Tot-School

RockerTot is currently 27 months old.

>Well, we're officially back. I think we both missed it (even though we were still playing and dedicating time together). The break was nice, though. It gave me an opportunity to evaluate and plan for the fall. Anyway, enough of my rambling... here's how the camera viewed our week:



RockerTot was extremely excited to see the scissors back out again. I was unable to fetch my camera before he started, so here's the end product.


He made some letters for his new Alphabet notebook. Most of these ideas came from the Totally Tots website. (Yes, I realize that we did three in one day, but he's had the alphabet and the basic sounds mastered for quite some time, so this is just review/fun stuff.) First, he used two of his dinosaurs and some paint to make Dinosaur tracks on his Dd page. He wants to paint with his dinosaurs all the time, now.


O is for Octopus.... he used glitter finger paints for this one. He first painted with a cotton swab, then he smeared the paint with a scrunched up paper towel.


His third letter required some gluing. Here he is carefully putting the glue on his Gs...


... and here he is showing me the grass he's glued onto his letters.


Here are the finished letter pages (displayed on the fridge, of course). Yes, they spell "dog". We are reading through the Alphabetti books from the (free) Progressive Phonics program. We're just using the alphabet activities from the site as fun review.


No, we're not studying calendar skills (although we talk about them... just for exposure), but RockerTot places the new number on the calendar each morning and we say the number together. It's just a cheap (Dollar Tree) way of having another type of numeration activity.


This was a fun (and spontaneous) project. He wanted to play with his number and dinosaur foam stickers, and I helped him to create this book. (Well, I guided him verbally and folded the card stock, but he did the rest.... oh, except for the handwritten parts, of course.)


He was so proud. He flipped through and counted the dinosaurs on each page several times this week.


This idea was taken from the Alphabetti activities listed above. RockerTot is making "ball and stick" d's out of foam circles and elongated rectangles I cut for him. He's using a plastic tactile letter as a guide. This was a great "hands-on" pre-writing activity (since we don't do the tracing sheets).


My niece (a teacher) gave RockerTot these two wooden geoboards after she learned how much he loved his homemade one. I have been using the second one to copy his designs/shapes and talk about how ours are the same. I figure that one day, the tables will turn and he'll be able to copy mine.


He wanted to do these A to Z puzzles daily (sometimes many times each day).





RockerTot cleaned daily (no photos), swept the floor a few times (again, no photos) and did the dishes.


He then used the water as a transferring activity. (The water was clean, as were the dishes he washed.)





It rained most of the week, so we had limited outside time. I did manage to snap a photo of him gathering grass for his Gg alphabet page.


One of my best friends since childhood handed down this tractor to RockerTot. You would have thought he'd won the lottery.


... picking up a rock to add to his collection...


Tearing up leaves was a favorite activity on this particular day. Here he is picking some to destroy. (He doesn't normally tear up leaves, but that day he found it funny.)


... smelling his peppermint plant... (the aroma is so powerful, that if I stand near the plant I can taste the peppermint)


Climbing the fence at dusk... our one day outside was over.





RockerTot was excited to finally get to run RockerDad's model train again. He is attempting to switch the track ahead of the engine... he's cutting it a bit close.


Play-doh was the staple activity this week. He never seemed to get enough.


RockerTot took this photo of RockerDad. He's fascinated by the camera. He wants to know what all the buttons do.


He wanted to play checkers. He was good at taking turns. During his turns, he would jump any piece of his over any piece of mine and yell "I got one of yours!" while removing my checker. It was cute.


He enjoyed building checker towers.


He always wants to play our board games, so I try to find a way to make some of them "tot-friendly". Here, he is pulling Scrabble letter tiles from a bag, naming them, saying their sound and placing them on the tray (in any order he chooses). This is one of his favorite board game variations. He did it for over half an hour.






RockerTot napping on the floor with Bumblebee (his favorite Transformer).


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