Spinner's End Primary (at The Linton Academy): 21 Months

Tot-School

RockerTot is currently 21 months old.

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This is a disclaimer, not a boast. I've been accused of pushing and expecting too much. RockerTot is guiding every decision I make regarding our "school trays" as he calls them.

RockerTot knows all of his letter sounds and can recognize most of his letters. I never pushed this, he just loves the sounds associated with anything (animals, letters, vehicles, etc.) The leapfrog letter factory taught him all the sounds in less than a week (not even watching everyday - it's really that good!). He points out uppercase letters on signs and in books constantly, so I'm following his lead to the best of my abilities. It's all about exposure, not mastery.

We still have most of the lowercase recognition to work on, but he's doing very well. This week, we focused on Aa & Bb as well as the number 1 and circles. I plan to do a vowel and a consonant each week or so with him until we've worked through the consonants a few times. (We'll hit the vowels more times since they occur more frequently in words anyway.) Well, here's our recap.
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RockerTot loved the mini mat letter puzzles I got for $1 at Wal Mart (where they keep the cheap junky toys). He loved the texture and that he could put the letters into the boxes and then put the boxes together.

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I guess that's one way to get the last marble out of the bowl.

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He loved the many puzzles I had out for him this week. He has loved to work puzzles since he got his first one. You can find them here and here.

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Stringing different sized drinking straw pieces onto a desktop flagpole (don't ask.. it's what we had) was very popular this week.

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I thought that it would be fun to use his new bamboo tongs (great texture) to transfer popcorn, but he had different ideas.

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Drawing in a tray of rice was not as messy as I feared and he didn't want to stop.

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We made blueberry muffins together. He enjoyed making them as much as he enjoyed eating them.

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I let RockerTot try the bottle top circles puzzle/matching board that I made for him. He did well, but was soon bored of it. Oh, well. He kept wanting to wear the bottle tops as hats.

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I started his alphabet notebook late in the week. We will probably continue with the same letters/number next week. Here is a photo of his A pages. We trace the ones on the left with his finger. I held his hand to draw the crayon a's on the right (he needed a lowercase "a"). He loved the stickers and gluing. It's a work in progress. We'll figure out what works and is fun eventually. He did love coming back to the page and pointing at all the A's, though.

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Before I put them back in the Tot School containers, I took a pic of all the things we used this week for the Aa, Bb, 1 study (so I could remember what to grab/make for the future letters). I thought I'd share.

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As always, I'll end with my favorite photo(s) from this week.

I guess RockerTot doesn't care for tuna salad...

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11 thoughts

Tot-School

RockerTot is currently 21 months old.

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We're still trying to get settled into our new place, so you'll see messy backgrounds in these pics. I did get to make a trip to the Dollar Tree and found some wonderful items. We used a few of them this week.
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He played with his Bottle Top Name puzzle that I made for him.

He enjoyed using glue for the first time while putting together his handprint rainbow.

Here he is placing stickers on his St. Patty's Day snake before I cut it out so he could play with its springy coils. You can print one out here, but I just drew one on green construction paper.

... working his new number puzzle that I found at the Dollar Tree...

RockerTot really loved placing the spaghetti noodles into the holes of this Mrs. Dash shaker (washed thoroughly, of course).

Here he is working on a shamrock and bugs foam craft. I found packs of 32 foam sheets and packs of foam stickers at the Dollar Tree. He loves these.

I feel odd saying this, but he's sorting poker chips into drinking cups. Hey, whatever works, right?

I made this little foam shapes/sorting/fine motor activity for him. I may post later about how I did it. He loved it!! We used the plastic marbles from the game "Aggravation" because they matched the foam very closely.

..another puzzle from the Dollar Tree..

He begged for the beans to come back out all week, so I finally gave in.

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As always, I'll end with my favorite photo(s) from this week.

It's difficult to see, but RockerTot was looking at a grasshopper. He got really excited and giggled and jumped each time the grasshopper hopped.

RockerDad coaxed the little insect onto a dried pod of some sort for RockerTot to inspect more closely. Not many things can make RockerTot give up his baseball, but the grasshopper must be one of them.

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My other Tot School Updates

See what others have been doing in their Tot Schools

Tot School Homepage

7 thoughts

Tot-School

RockerTot is currently 21 months old.

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We moved to a new place this past week. We had absolutely no focus this week due to the big move. We're finally settled and hopefully our next post will be better. Oh, and you'll probably notice that RT had a bad cold in his eyes in some of the photos. He's better now.
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RockerTot likes to sit in piles of things. This time it was the board books in his room.

He chose "My Very First Book of Colors" by Eric Carle to look at this time.

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We worked on his fine motor skills. He kept asking to do activities with the ice cube tray. I never instructed him on any of these activities. I just placed the items in front of him and let him choose what to do with them.

I MUST remember to get a pair of simpler tongs.

He only wanted one marble per cup in the tray.

I think the beans were his favorite tool this week.

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He just had to join in with his big brother, RockerBoy and his Grandma while they played Connect Four.

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As always, I'll end with my favorite photo(s) from this week. RockerTot is really into taking off his pants, wearing hats, wearing objects as hats and wearing other people's shoes. Here are a few shots of him being silly.