Tot school catch-up…

Noah is 26 months and Shion is 13.5 months.

It has been just over 2 months since my last Tot School post and to be honest we haven`t been up to a lot- lots of play and outside time. Cubbies and pretend play. The occasional craft/art project. Drawing everyday. Oh and of course books, books, books and more books! We did so much “planned” stuff leading up to Christmas though that I guess we all needed a break.

It is tough with Shion around and also because Shion no longer takes a morning nap which is when I would try to give Noah some 1 on 1 time without having Shion try to eat everything we lay out. He still tries to eat EVERYTHING.

I am really looking forward to moving into our new house in April- it will give me more space and I will have more options of leaving activities out maybe in a room upstairs so that we can go up there to do activities. At the moment I pull things out of the downstairs cupboard when we want them but leave the other toys/activities that Shion can chew on if need be out on shelves. Art stuff is up high still but Noah knows that he can ask to do “colouring” at any time- it just means he usually has to do it at the dining table but the taller Shion gets the easier it is for him to try and grab the paper/crayons from the table.

Oh well- soon he will stop the mouthing stage right? I started Tot School with Noah when he was 15 months old or so and he was already pretty good about not trying to eat crayons or paper so perhaps Shion just needs a couple more months and then we will be able to do so much more altogether.

Noah is really into numbers right now so the last couple of weeks we focused on that and also did some Valentine`s Day themed work.

Art & Craft

 
Mainly Valentines themed art. Noah loved the collage work the best and has requested to do it since. I also put up some contact paper on the window and let both boys have a go {no photos though as had to stand very close to stop Shion eating stuff} but realized Shion is just not ready. He liked the stickness of the contact paper though but only tried to pull things off and not put them off which made Noah angry.

Heart tree

Valentine`s Day card

Some collage

I love his tongue out in this one…

Plus some regular drawing. He likes to ask me to write our names and his grandparents names hence the writing at the top.

Also a little colouring # book I printed online. He liked telling me what the numbers were but was not so interested in colouring.

Practical Life

We are constantly working on practical life but didn`t do much “work” associated with it recently or at least nothing I got photos of. He continues to help me pick up toys but this has gotten a bit harder recently as he is starting to assert his own mind a lot more and resents the fact that Shion doesn`t help clean up {I encourage Shion to help but he doesn`t really get it yet}. Noah does much better with this if I make it a race to clean up things really fast {like duplo back into the box} or if we are putting books back on the shelves he likes to hand them to me and say “Here you go” and I say “ta” {What we say for thank you} and then he gives me the next one and so on.

Washing own hands and brushing own teeth are going well. He has no problems washing his own hands with soap but hates to dry them so we are working on this right now. He can also put his own shoes on. I plan to show him how to put his own jacket on {arms in} these coming weeks and see how he goes with that. He is getting better at undressing for his bath as well especially pants and nappy so I think toilet training will start soon.

Lots of other small things as well.

Math & Sensory

Tons of math and sensory activities lately- more than I have photos of as well. Sometimes Noah requests work that he has done when he sees materials for it so I set him up at the table. Even if we had a low table {which we don`t due to space} he unfortunately wouldn`t be able to work at it because of Shion. He is happy to do it at the dining table though.

Counting bears and home made number cards. I used to lay these out in order for him and count them with him before leaving him to do this by himself- lately he has wanted to lay down the cards himself and 9 times out of 10 he lays them down in the correct order.

Melissa & Doug numbers puzzle that he got for Christmas.

Tonging pompoms into a heart ice cube tray- he still can`t get the tongs properly but did so much better than the last time we tried to do tong work. I have pulled this out a couple other times and he enjoys it- after awhile he just uses his hands or counts them or says their colours but still has fun.

I put together a mini sensory box filled with red items. This was more of a language activity but both boys enjoyed seeing things in the box that usually belong somewhere else like the play food area or with the legos. I made sure it would be okay for both of them to play with. Shion enjoyed chewing on things and Noah enjoyed saying the names of things or trying to put them back where they belong.

Lots of Duplo- usually several times a day. Always a hit!

These are animal kumon step puzzles that Noah received from his birthday from his friend Shu-kun. He enjoys them but actually enjoys turning them over and doing them by number instead of by picture. There are 2 piece, 3 piece and 4 piece card puzzles which he can do all of. There are also 6 piece puzzles which I have not introduced to him yet.

Here Noah is doing a number sheet with stickers- Shion is next to him putting heart stoppers in a container.

Sorting shapes- I whipped this together when I was cutting stuff for the collage making. He can say these three shape names so I went with these- he can now say circle and attempt triangle as well. He still says “moon” for cresent though. He did this activity over and over many times giving himself a clap between each round- I left him to it after showing it to him. It was probably a bit too easy for him but he had fun and it gave him a chance to use the names of the shapes

Books & Language

We enjoyed a couple Valentines themed books. I only had two though and I am on a book buying ban at the moment {kids books} but I found some other books that had hearts or a love theme. Noah really liked “The day it rained hearts”.

We do a lot of language stuff everyday but nothing really set except for reading. We do lots of animal noises and pointing and saying words and in recent weeks Noah`s language has continued to take off. He is still behind his peers but getting better and better everyday and loving his new ways of expressing himself. He will attempt to repeat lots of words now buy shies away from words starting with S. He can count to 12 which is how many steps in the staircase…which we count several times a day!!

Baby School

I did a couple of activities with Shion as well.

Shapes puzzle

Stacking/nesting blocks

Heart stoppers in a container

Simple open and close activity with a single box {seriously kept him busy for 15 minutes. It was the box I had put puzzle pieces in for Noah and not meant to be anything at all but that is what he played with while we did puzzles}

Random plastic container with balls but other things have since been added. He plays with this daily!

We tried crayons again but still a no go as he only wants to eat them!!

Other fun

Tunnel

Cubbies

Oh and of course some train play for the train obsessed toddler

Reading together

Plus some outside shots

Linking up at 1+1+1=1, Living Life Intentionally and Living Montessori Now.

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