Teeny Tot School–Trial Run?

- Abby is 11 months old -

Abby is 11 1/2 months old but seems to be maturing physically sooner (she started walking at 10 1/2 months!) than my son Adam did so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been noticing how she’s playing and how deliberate she is about how she puts things together, in, out, etc.  I’ve been thinking she would enjoy early Tot School type activities…..I just haven’t wanted to start yet!

I feel bad that she doesn’t get as much one-on-one attention from me as her brother did when he was her age.  He is just SO demanding of my time and attention that she (now that she’s completely mobile) gets a little left behind.

One day this week, Adam and I had finished our Tot School time so he asked to watch something.  Abby was awake so I sat down with some toys and just played with her and it was great!

She is very deliberate and tries to get things 'just so’ even though her motor skills haven’t caught up with her thinking skills yet.

We played with a ring stacker and she tried and tried to get the rings off and put them back on.

I would get them started and she would pull them the rest of the way off.

I held the stacker (that rocks) steady and helped her place the rings back on.  We did this several times.

Peek-a-boo!

We also played with these Discovery Toys blocks that she got for Christmas.  She loved trying to stack them.

And discovering all the things hiding inside the blocks like this mirror.

Adam was using these large colored shape buttons and she spent a long time, (when he wasn’t pulling the bowl away from her), throwing buttons in and taking them back out.  She has always been very forceful when she plays.  No daintily placing things, she throws them!

And of course, everything still ends up in her mouth.

I didn’t start Tot School with Adam until he was older so I have a lot of planning and acquiring to do before I officially start with her but this fun day with her has got my wheels turning and I’m excited!  It’ll take me a bit to get ready so I’m planning on starting weekly Teeny Tot School posts after she turns 1 in a couple weeks.  She is leaving her babyhood behind way too quickly but I love watching her develop and grow and I’m excited to plan one-on-one time with her (gotta figure out what to do with Adam though)!

Tot School–“Corduroy”

- Adam is 37 months old -

We are finally back in the swing of using Before Five in a Row to “study” a book each week.  This week we focused on “Corduroy” by Don Freeman.

This book, along with “A Pocket for Corduroy” were two of Adam’s favorite books as a toddler.  I put them away planning on bringing them back out within a couple of months but this unit got pushed back several times so Adam hadn’t seen them for probably 6 or 8 months or so.  He loves them just as much today as he did back then!  Both Nat and I have nearly have them memorized we’ve read them so many times in the past and SO many times this week!

To go along with reading “Corduroy” and “A Pocket for Corduroy” we checked out a third book, “Corduroy Lost and Found”

We had fun with the following rhymes:

“Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”
“Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch your nose,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch your toes.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the ground,
Teddy Bear Teddy Bear, turn around.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear climb the stairs,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say your prayers.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn off the light,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say ‘goodnight’.”

“The Teddy Bear Song”
“Hug, hug, hug your bear,
Squeeze him very tight.
Hold him high, watch him fly,
Then hug with all your might!”

Adam glued on Corduroy’s green overalls with two buttons, a purple pocket, and a slip of paper with Corduroy’s name to put inside the pocket, just like in the books. 
(This bear and the following color/counting/sorting bears are from Homeschool Share.)

We sorted and counted gummy bears.
Whenever he sorts something he always says one is a baby and that the baby needs his Mama and Daddy.  I then have to encourage him to continue sorting or he’d stop at a happy family of 3 pieces each.

We counted the beds, lamps, and sofas on this page of the book.

Adam played with these big shape buttons from Oriental Trading.  He was pretending they were cookies.  I think this kid has a cookie obsession!  Lots of things turn into cookies in our house.

Making a ‘gingerbread man’….I guess because gingerbread men have buttons on them.

We used the big buttons to make “Button Soup”.  I asked for a particular color and shape and he carefully spooned it into the bowl and stirred it up.

Little Sister also go in on the action.  She LOVES these buttons!  They played with them nearly every day this week.

This picture needs the explanation that he was putting buttons on his own pair of overalls.

I attempted to have him practice lacing….he did one button and declared he was done.

We also played with some small buttons. 
He sorted them into colors….for about 5 minutes.  Then we wanted to play kitchen and bake, you guessed it, cookies.

“It’s a kaleidoscope!”He noticed the transparent buttons and we talked about the difference between see-through and not see-through.  We also talked about light vs. dark colors.

Teddy Graham counting
(counting sheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler)
He made it to 7 and was done and just wanted to eat them.

So he did….in my bed while watching a little TV.  What could be better?

We also had a short discussion on manners (Lisa is a very polite little girl) and spent some time acting out the action words that Corduroy does in the story, (looking, climbing, tugging, falling, etc.)  He LOVED acting out the story!
I had planned on taking him to the mall to ride on the escalator (Corduroy rides an escalator) but it didn’t happen.

It was fun being back to using Before Five in a Row for our Tot School.   I forgot how much work it was to plan and execute everything.  It’s worth it, but man, it’s a lot of work!  I’m going to do a post on Abby’s impromptu mini Tot School this week.  I think she’s ready but I’m not!