Tot School: Valentines

Littlemiss is 28.5 months old

Valentine's week was a blast! I planned a ton of activities and we didn't end up doing all of them. That's just what happens sometimes and it's a part of being flexible.

I introduced a few new things to challenge Littlemiss. To challenge her fine motor skills I bought a new pair of scissors that to help strengthen her hands. She's had trouble holding regular scissors correctly, which is totally appropriate for her age. The scissors I bought are just a step down from the regular scissors. Also, I got some tweezers to work on picking things up. She doesn't spend very long on these activities, maybe 5 minutes tops, but it's still challenging her ability to concentrate on one activity at a time and her fine motor skills.

Littlemiss's recall abilities are great, it's definitely her strength. Not just with the alphabet or numbers, but she's great at remembering people and places. She knows all the capitol letters of the alphabet and their sounds. I just started exposing her to the lowercase letters. When she identifies a letter she can call out the sound it makes. She can also identify words that begin with the letter. For example, "L is for Lollipop." To challenge her I'm going to start making a sound and having her identify the letter that goes with it. My goal is to keep exercising her brain and challenging her to think. There are some Montessori-type toys I'm waiting to buy that work on recall as well.

After saying all that, I want to emphasize the importance of going with a child's lead. Littlemiss loves reciting the alphabet and the sounds, so we do it. She often asks me to do it with her. All the activities we do together are because she chose it or agreed to it. I NEVER force her to sit still and work with me. She typically doesn't sit long for these activities and often prefers tactile or gross motor activities (which are much more developmentally appropriate for her age). I am constantly challenging myself to think of more hands on ways to teach her size, color, shape, etc. I love setting up sensory activities for open ended exploration as well. It's important that we are always just "playing" together during her Tot School. What makes an activity play is that it is enjoyable for the child.

Tot trays for the week were play dough, cutting practice, introducing ABAB patterns, transferring animal counters with tweezers, and some activities from Tot School Valentine's package.

I got these fun building blocks at Home Goods, love that store. They are Alex brand.

Using her Fabel Castell scissors to cut. She did pretty well for the first time. I helped her hold the scissor and once she got the hang of it she cut all the way up to the cupcake on the page.

Transferring counting animals with tweezers into paint trays.

To encourage her to try this we took turns. These tweezers are for ages 3 years, so I'm not expecting her to master this right away and I will wait if it's too frustrating for her. I couldn't find tweezers for her age.

She wasn't interested in tweezing them into the paint tray, so we tried it on the table.

She became frustrated and just wanted to do imaginary play with the "baby teddy bear" and "kitty cat," so I stopped encouraging her to tweeze them.

Throughout the week she would pick up the little animals and play with them.

They were playing on her blocks...

...they took rides in her Little People car, and later on in the week they helped us in the kitchen. Her imaginary play has really taken off! She talks the whole time she plays with objects. She names them, they talk to each other, and she plays out scenarios with them. Sometimes they are flying, going potty, being sung to bed, etc. It's so interesting to watch!

These were some cards from the Tot School Valentine's pack. I printed two of the sheets and we played a matching game. We took turns and she really enjoyed this.

For her school Valentine's we made crayon hearts, which is so popular on Pinterest right now. I wanted Littlemiss to be a part of the process, so she could make them for her friends. I laid out her colored sorting bowls, an Amazon buy, and let her help me sort the crayons. This didn't last very long because she wanted to imaginary play with the crayons...

She named them "Daddy" and "Littlemiss." Well, "Daddy" and "Littlemiss" went to the play room and ended up driving back in her Little People car, and even flew through the house together. What an imagination she has!

Crayon carnage.

To help in the kitchen Littlemiss has a stool to stand on. I'm waiting to purchase a Learning Tower, so she can be safer and have more access to our counter tops. She's fallen off the stool and even a chair on a few occasions. Anyway, in this picture she brought in the block and set the tiny teddy bear on it saying, "Teddy watch Mommy cook!" This was while I was chopping up crayons.

I took a ladle from her play kitchen so she could ladle the crayon bits into the heart molds. This was a bit tricky. She learned from watching me to lift one end of the bowl up to get the crayons into the ladle.

Finished product! Aren't they fun!

 BooBoo's been learning and developing around our house as well. He's now bringing objects to his mouth. He is determined to get this frog into his mouth!

On one of my favorite blogs, Sew Liberated, I saw her son washing his baby doll, so when a few of Littlemiss's stuffed animals needed a good clean I let her do it. She was a bit timid about this activity at first, but I think she will grow to love it.

I added a little detergent and some water to a plastic bowl, gave her a wash cloth and a cup for pouring, and let her go to town.

Squeezing her monkey out.

Drying monkey off :) It was sweet to see her care for her little animals.