Toddler Beginnings 21

My notes on Mavi's tot school moments this week

Date: September 27 – October 1, 2010

Mavi is 25 months old.

It’s a good time to introduce letter U (for umbrella) since it’s been raining for days.  Though we seldom use umbrella when we go out, Mavi can still see a lot of people using it.  Because of the gloomy days, Mavi wasn’t in the mood to do stuff at all.  He just wanted to watch his videos or lie down.  To keep him out of it, I  made him paint.

Painting is one of the thing my son loves to do and we’ve been doing this almost everyday.  He can spend hours and hours of just painting with watercolors or tempera paints, pretending that he can paint rainbows, eyes, cars, dinosaurs or just about anything.  That’s good news because at his age, the maximum attention span is 8 minutes.  So you see, whenever I do some chores in the kitchen, this is my solution: setting up the desk near the kitchen so I can work and at the same time supervise him.

   

Books we read this week:

• Armadillo
• Go Dogs Go
• One Fish Two Fish

Videos he enjoys watching:

• Dora and the ABC Animals
• Dora and the Train (Choo Choo)

CRAFTS DAY

Umbrella

From: No Time for Flashcards

I like how this craft turned out.  It’s a wonderful activity and I got lucky to pick-out some colorful cookie linens!

Things he learned:

• Painting with watercolors!
• Applying glue to the cookie linens
• Gluing straws in the cardstock

 

COLORS AND SHAPES

Triangle

• We make use of my playdough shape mats.  I just made them.
• Playing with glue using triangle shaped papers.  Makes him practice of gluing.  

• Playing with shape cutters which I got from Pertini Toys.  We are using the SES CREATIVE dough cutters.

 

• Our Circle Time is dancing with Color Mats.  The color mats are just colored papers which I have. I placed them on the floor and we dance to the tune of our nursery rhymes.  Then I would say a color and he’s supposed to jump, stomp his feet, clap his hand or swing his booty as he goes into that color.  It’s similar to this.  Great way of practicing Gross Motor Skills.
• Coloring sorting using rainbow pasta.  I bought paper plates and glued colored papers on it.  Then I made some colored bowtie pasta to be used for sorting activities.

 

LETTER

Big letter U

U is for umbrella!

Our letter U paper craft is detailed here.

 

For pre-reading and practice of spelling, I made these letter puzzles.  Mama, Daddy and Mavi are the ones I made.  I printed two sets of these words, the first one to be used as a guide and the second one, I cut it out so he can match the letters to the first one.

 

NUMBERS AND SIZES

Sorting Sizes

I was a little busy on this say and didn’t plan ahead of math activities so I make use of what we already have. 

• Number recognition:  14.  He calls this number “thirteen”, basically all the numbers from 13 to 15.  So I write the number 14 on a paper and introduced it as “fourteen”.  He got it right away, but there are times that he calls 13 as “fourteen”!

 

• Tower beads count using playdough and the beads that we have.

 

• We did number puzzles
• We count raindrops using our umbrella counting cards. 

Montessori Actvities

Sensorial/Play Pretend/Practical Life

• Play pretend using his kitchen set and cutting toys
• Pouring pasta from the pitcher to the drinking cup using a DIY funnel
• Scooping and feeling red beans

 

• Capping the lids of the glue sticks/liquid glue.  He always loves to do this! Whenever we work on glue or colored pens, he would always insist that he’ll be the one to “cover” the pens or glues.  Though when it comes to the glue caps, he doesn’t know how to twist or “screw” the caps... same with water bottles.
• Self-feeding.  I’ve been training him on this since he turns 1.  But of course, it depends on what meal I serve him.  If it’s not that going to be messy, then I’ll let him eat by himself, else it’s me doing the job.
• Practice cutting using our cutting/chopping toys. 
• Putting colored pens and pencils back to their boxes.  He loves doing this as well, placing the pens one by one.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

Painting!

 

Mavi is into painting these days! Every morning he always want to paint... he’s so fascinated with it!  He loves using his watercolor more than the tempera paint.  Our tempera paint is so thick and it’s hard for him control and laid out the colors in the drawing pad, unlike our watercolor it’s easier for him use.  Maybe I need to try other brands. Check here for our potato prints activity.

Writing this post gives me more ideas of things that we still have to do for the coming weeks! Ayayay! *Excitement!

Well folks, that’s a recap of what we did for this week. Sorry again for the late post.

Ciao!