- Adam is 32 months old -
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As we walked downstairs on Monday morning to do Tot School, we had this conversation:
Adam - “I’m really, really sorry. I don’t like to do Tot School”.
Mom - “You don’t?”
Adam - “Yeah, I do!”
This kid cracks me up! He’s at such a fun age!
We had fun this week reading “My Blue Boat” by Chris L. Demarest (using the Before Five in a Row curriculum). Sadly, this book is out of print but I was able to find it at my library. It is a simple story about a boat that goes on an adventure in a child’s imagination and the illustrations are wonderful watercolors.
We reviewed the ASL sighs for boat, water, moon, and stars and learned the sign for blue.
A suggestion in the manual is to explain some the vocabulary words that your child is unfamiliar with. There are many great words in the book like channel, harbor, swells, and beacon. And he learned what a lighthouse was for.
On the inside of the front and back cover of the book, there is a pattern of boats in a row. The book suggested guiding the child’s finger from left to right, down the page as you tell them that that is how you read a book, from left to right. Adam actually enjoyed tracing the pattern of the boats.
We also followed the suggestion of having Adam quickly put his finger on the picture of the boat on each page as I quickly turned them. Most of the boats were in the same general area, but on a few pages, the blue boat was in another spot and it was fun to see him starting towards the normal spot and then have to search for the boat in order to put his finger on it. The manual stated that this was a good exercise in tracking and Adam giggled the entire time!
We sang “Row Row Row Your Boat” just about every day too.
Stamping a letter B using Bubble wrap and Blue paint.
Together we colored a picture of a boat and Adam started making marks, saying he was writing. I asked him to write his name and to my surprise he said, "A-D-A-M” as he made marks (I’m pointing to his “name”). I had no idea he knew the letters in his name in order!
The plan was to watercolor like the illustrations in the book, but that only lasted a couple minutes because he discovered that when you dip a paintbrush full of paint into water, the paint comes off and swirls around. He went on and on about snakes and bugs while he dipped the paintbrush in over and over again.
In one of the illustrations there are a bunch of stars in the sky so we counted those and then used star cut-outs to practice putting sizes in order from biggest to smallest. He needed quite a bit of help after the first couple of stars.
I found a little toy boat and surprised him with it on Saturday when we had the pool out. My plan was to have him make up a story about where the boat was going, like in “My Blue Boat”, but he just wanted to drive it around and pretend it was a submarine under water. Oh well!
For other Tot School activities this week, Adam tossed plastic rings into the pool (or up in the air….or at the house….or at his baby sister), and Daddy helped him do somersaults into the pool. He thought he was pretty darn cool doing that!
I just LOVE this picture of him! Pure summer joy right there!
Inside we…
Played with a foam number puzzle I got at Dollar Tree.
Glued pom-poms onto paper .
Made play doh cookies
And did a new file folder game I made called “The Funny Farm” where he had to match the animal head with the animal backside. After he did it “right” the first time, he had fun mixing them up and putting the heads on upside down. 
To get out of the house, we took a trip to an aquarium with my Mom and sister. It has been 4 months since we went and Adam really enjoyed it this time! He kept saying, “Let’s do somefin’ else!” as he ran to each new tank or exhibit.
Adam and Mommy driving the boat. I think this is Adam’s favorite part of the aquarium!
Adam the Marine Biologist busy at work. This is his second favorite part!
Riding a giant frog with Aunt Annie
Baby Sister Abby intently watching the fish swimming around.
We had a great week of Tot School and Before Five in a Row!
