Tot School: Letter N

Littlemiss is 27.5 months old

This was one of those challenging and exhausting weeks. Littlemiss caught the crud, so slowly we all got sick. Since she didn't feel well she was in a mood funk most of the week. She lost interest in sitting and doing activities together. She mostly wanted to play independently and didn't want much to do with our letter of the week. She loved the bug theme and played with the plastic insects a lot though.

I learned a lot as a parent this week. I had planned all these activities that I thought were fabulous and Littlemiss just didn't engage with them like I had planned. I'm learning how to let Littlemiss lead our activities more, and this week was a good challenge for me. I want to encourage her to think more abstractly and independently by letting her lead and choose the activities we do together. I do think for some activities it's good to encourage or suggest something, but others it's good to leave open-ended for her to play however she pleases. I learned more about facilitating engaging play for her this week and meeting her where she is. I never want our focused tot time together to become un-fun.

There is a ridiculous amount of pictures for this week! I guess I just took more pictures than usual!?!

Our letter of the week was "N" and the theme was bugs. I highlighted Eric Carle's book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." These were our tot trays (activities) for this week: play dough with bugs and rocks, cutting paper, M&D magnetic bug puzzle, M&D butterfly peg board, picking up bugs with tweezers, and M&D bead lacing. I didn't get a picture of her playing with the magnetic bug puzzle, but this was her favorite activity this week! I just didn't catch it on camera.

We went to the library and picked out some more books on insects. We even got a non-fiction book, which Littlemiss loved. I, however, was squirming and squealing everytime we read it because the bugs were creepy looking!

She sat and read these books a lot. I wish I had a recording of her talking for these pictures. She talks non-stop while reading and always holds the book the correct way. All good pre-reading signs.

Littlemiss's magnet board and pocket chart ($1 section at Target) with pictures of bugs.

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Insect sensory bin. It is rice, rocks, bugs from a bug toob, large bugs ($1 store), net ($1 store), and magnifying glass.

She picked up the rocks and moved them with the net, and then would dump them out on the blanket. (open-ended, child-directed play)

We matched the plastic bugs with printed pictures of real bugs. (parent-directed/encouraged/suggested play)

She played on this color matching peg board for a long time. I was impressed with her concentration since she typically "speed plays," moving quickly from one activity to the next. I've been encouraging her to sit and complete and activity before moving to the next.

She played dress-up in our imaginary play area in the playroom. She can't just wear one tutu, she has to wear all FOUR of them at once!

Couldn't resist adding a few pics of BooBoo just hanging out during tot time.

My premature, 17 pound, breastfed 3 month old. He's a chunk. And, yes, it was really warm in our house and typically he's clothed.

Littlemiss was uninterested in doing any seated activities at home, so we headed outside for a "N"ature walk. She loved this and ran most of the time. She wanted to wear her butterfly wings for the walk and pretended to be a butterfly. She was flapping her arms and saying, "I like a butterfly!"

Littlemiss pointed at the sun and said, "That's the sun!" excitedly.

"It's a pincone!" We collected objects from nature on our walk.

Standing on a tree stump.

Running!!!

I set up all the items we collected on our nature walk and set up an open-ended play area. I got the idea off of the Play At Home Mom blog that has awesome ideas for open-ended, child-directed, hands-on activities.

This was an activitiy I set up and it just didn't go as I had planned. Littlemiss wasn't really interested in it. She moved the rocks, and engaged a bit with me, but then moved on to something else. That is totally fine, it's what she's interested in and I will keep introducing activities like this to encourage more open-ended play.

I suggested we make letters out of the sticks, and made a letter "N" out of the sticks and asked Littlemiss what letter it was. She said it was a "Z" which it looked like a "Z" from the side. She then took the sticks and made them into the picture above, which she called an "A." I'm trying to encourage her pre-writing skills through letter building.

She took the rocks and carried them across the room with the net.

I thought she would play with the play dough activity all week, but she just wasn't interested in play dough this week. She played with it once and wasn't much interested in pushing the bugs and rocks into it.

Of course she had to taste the play dough. She would lick it and then say, "no eat it." So funny to hear her correct herself!

We cut a butterfly out of the play dough with a sandwich cutter. Littlemiss held it to her heart and kept saying, "baby butterfly, I lobe you."

Then she had to have her "baby monkey" from last week.

Working those fine-motor skills lacing beads. She had me help her with this because she gets frustrated easily with it.

To go with our book for the week, we did some Eric Carle art. Eric Carle paints tissue paper and then cuts it out into shapes to create the pictures for his books. So Littlemiss painted tissue paper and I cut them out with a 2 inch circle hole punch and she created a caterpillar with it.

LiLittlemiss's caterpillar.

Building the letter "N." It took her a few times of trying to move the center line to the right place to match the letter "N" maganet. She got a bit frustrated with it, trying to manipulate it to make the letter "N," but was so proud of herself when she was able to make it!

One of the apps on my Ipad has tracing to make letters. We were tracing to make a letter N. Mommy would take a turn drawing a line and then Littlemiss would have a turn. On one of her turns she created a letter "A" within the letter "N!" I couldn't believe she thought of that on her own!

Playing the "monkey game," as we call it, on the Ipad. It's been great for her fine-motor skills. It has her matching shapes, counting, identifying colors, etc.

I put Littlemiss's doctors kit and a doll in the basket in our living room for the week. She found it much more interesting to play doctor on her baby brother instead of the baby doll. He's such a good sport!

"Mom save me!"

She didn't want to color, but she did want to play with the bugs. Putting the bugs and rocks in the net. You can see all the coloring pages on the table too, because I asked her if she wanted to color the "N" for Net, and she kept saying, "No, color "M" for Mouse!?!" I guess she really liked our letter from last week. I learned that she will be more likely be interested in a letter if it is an animal, or object she can relate to better.

She played with her dollhouse A LOT this week.

I often just sit and listen to her monologuing while she plays. She has named all the figures, "Mommy, Daddy, Littlemiss, and Baby."

Her bugs somehow made it into the playhouse! At one point Baby was riding the large ladybug...too funny!