Toddler Beginnings Week 18

My notes on Mavi's tot school moments this week

Date: August 30 – September 3, 2010

Mavi is 24 months old.

Since I’ve been busy for the past days, there wasn’t much preparation made for our tot school this week.  I just made use the available materials we had, and did the same activities we had before.

To add to this, Mavi was quite moody and doesn’t want to cooperate this week.  He seemed grouchy.  So what I did was just allow him to do the things he wanted to do, where he will lead us.

So here are some of our accomplishments for this week’s tot school.

CRAFTS DAY

Squares with Concentric Rings

 

A very simple activity that I got from No Time for Flashcards.  Since he didn’t show any sign of interest in painting, we only draw circles like the ones you see.  At 24 months, he can now form circles in his scribbles!  Next target would be lines and connecting dots.

Read how we get on with this activity here.

COLORS/SHAPES/SIZES

Rainbow Sorting Cards

 

Since R is for RAINBOW, I printed out these sorting cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I showed my son how to arrange it according to sizes but he wasn’t quite interested.  Instead, he just played with the cards and tried to stack them in random.  But he was really really happy to see the rainbow cards.  My son love rainbows, he truly adore it.  That’s why he was so giddy seeing the cards and played with it for a very long time.

Sorting Red and Yellow Color

 

R is for RED.

I made use of our flashcards and cut out different shapes from yellow and red construction paper.  I made him sort the shapes according to color.

 

I don’t know if he’s just NOT in the mood to play with this because we tried this activity, he only got the right match once.  The rest, he put all the shapes on the yellow flashcard.  Also, I tried to consider the fact that he just woke up from his nap, so he might be in a trance while doing this activity.

The next day, I gave this activity for him while I do some cooking and he was able to match all he shapes according to their color.

Speaking of RED, when I realized that he doesn’t want to do the sorting color activity, I asked him if he wanted to paint.  When he kept on saying “paint” and sat on his desk, I knew that he wanted this activity.

Here’s Mavi doing some hand painting using the SES Creative Tempera Paint.  This is the first time he did a fingerpaint using tempera because previously, we used watercolors.

 

The paint was so sticky, I don’t know if that’s what it is supposed to be.  But you see, Mavi doesn’t like to get his hands dirty especially when he touches something sticky, he keeps on saying “Eeeew yuck”.  But I was also thinking that he didn’t have much exposure with paints and textures.  That is why I PLAN to add MORE SENSORY activities for him for the next week to come. I will incorporate these SENSORY activities in our crafts, letter crafts and with other activities.

LETTER:

Big letter R

My son knows his alphabets, may it be capital or small letters.. he can identify all of them.  Nowadays, he loves to make the sounds of each letters.  Thanks to Leapfrog Letter Factory video, he knows all the sounds.    He’s been singing that tune of letters making sound, day and night.  It’s amazing how he can absorb all those sounds just by watching the video!

Anyway, currently I’m focusing on the crafts for big letters.  Why on the capital letters? Because it’s the first thing he learned.  So once we’re done with letter Z and will go back to the letter A again, this time... we’ll be doing both small and big letter crafts.

 

Again, got this activity from No Time for Flashcards.  I’m always referring on this site whenever I plan for something to make.

Read about how we were able to accomplish it here.

 

Since my previous DIY playdough turned out moldy... I made another set for Mavi this time.  He loves playdough and could do a lot of things from it.  For this, I kept on forming the letter R out of the dough.  With this, he learned that we can create letters with just about anything!

NUMBERS

Rainbow Clipping/Counting Cards

Again, got this from Confessions of Homeschooler.  We used this card for our counting activity.  Supposedly, we were to clip something on the card, but since I don’t have any materials for it yet... instead we just counted the dots.

 

I forgot where I got this idea since I randomly read blogs.  Anyway, the idea of this is to trace the number 11 by putting RECTANGLES, MMs, CHIPS and STICKS on the number which I just wrote on the construction paper.

 

 

R is for RECTANGLE.  He put 11 rectangular cardstock on the number.  He also did his number puzzle for number 11 (only). I didn’t give him the whole set of the puzzle.

 

He also tried to put MM on the 11 umbrellas seen on the flashcards.  We used to put chips but I wanted to be creative this time and make use of the MM.

The aim of these activities is to learn counting using different materials.  So after he counted 11 chocolate M&Ms, he ate them all!

 

Additional activity was matching the numbers.  It was an impromptu activity because I needed some time to do work and I have to give him something that can entertain him for a long time.

PRACTICAL LIFE (Montessori Method)

We did beading and clothespin this week.

• BEADING.  I used the beads in his abacus and a shoe lace.

Mavi didn’t seem to enjoy this activity, the beads were too small so he couldn’t get the shoe lace to go into the hole.  The activity lasted for about 2 mins only.

 

• CLOTHESPIN TRANSFER.  Used the clothespin that we have and his stacking cups.

The verdict, he love this!  Although he can’t manipulate the pin yet, he loves taking them all in one cup and try to put them on the other cup.  He loves removing the pins hehe.  I tried to teach him how to the “open close” of the pin but he cannot control it yet.   

He wailed when his finger got into the clip.

 

MORE OBSERVATIONS

This week, Mavi got interested into forming letters with just about anything.  For example, this ribbon, he tried to assemble it to form into  letter P, flower and letter A.  Can you see them on the ribbon?  He was so happy with it!  This pretty much occupied his time.

 

Another, he used the excess of the colored paper straps from our Rainbow activity.  The letters he formed were V, A and X.  His version of letter A is the inverted letter V hehehe.

Well, there you go.  I hope you enjoy and learned something from this post.  Till we meet again.

Ciao!