Tot School - 16 . 5 months

We tried to get as much Tot School in this past week as possible. The little man came down with a little cold in the middle of the week, so we had a little bit of time spent like this:

Thankfully, he's a trooper though, so most of the time was spent more like this:

He seems to be on the mend and I am hoping he is fully recovered by tomorrow because we leave on Tuesday for a trip and I do not want to fly to with a sick toddler. Anyways...here are some pictures of our fun this past week!

Brennan has loved puzzles for several months, so when I spotted this shape sorter toy at a yard sale last weekend, I knew I needed to buy it for him. He plays with this thing on a daily basis! He knows exactly where the circle and star go each time and the rest he figures out through a process of elimination! Such a smart boy!

We worked on rolling balls. This kid also loves any kind of ball. He was great at rolling/throwing them, he just didn't want to roll/throw to Momma. (Thanks Momma Sherri and Papa Dukes for the cute outfit he is wearing here!)

We also stacked blocks. Next week, I want to stack Do-a-Dot marker lids like Carisa did here.

I mentioned his love for puzzles. I know I've included this Melissa and Doug puzzle in Tot School several other times, but it is still one of his favorites. He picked out the horse on the command this week for the first time. He just gets the mouse and hamster (or whatever those two animals are; I have a hard time telling) mixed up. It's funny because if you try to do this puzzle without good lighting, the sounds won't work and Brennan gets super frustrated.

Of course we played outside in the water. It seems to happen a lot! So refreshing after a long walk.

We also played inside with water. I've been wanting to try this for a long time now and I'm glad I finally did. It was pretty messy, but he had fun and it's just water -- it dries!

He enjoyed taking magnets off and putting them on the fridge. These magnets are normally on a magnetic board that's up high in the kitchen, but he often "asks" for them. I think he likes them since they are in different shapes.

He really liked putting the neck of his sippy cup around this empty soda bottle. It was great fine motor practice and he put it on and took it off over and over and over again.

I always see other Tot School moms doing sensory bins and I want to do one so badly. However, Brennan still puts stuff in his mouth quite a bit, so I've been hesitant to try one. (He just cut his third 1st year molar this week, so teething is still going strong). I decided to sort of test the waters and put some uncooked pasta in a container with a few random objects to see what Brennan would do. I wanted to see if he was going to immediately put the little pasta pieces in his mouth. To my surprise, he actually did a good job. A couple of times he brought a piece towards his mouth, but I would redirect to do something else and it was fine. I think if there were some better objects in the bin, then he'd be even more interested. I gave him a scoop and he liked putting individual pieces of pasta in it one at a time. So maybe it is time to start a sensory bin with him. It would just need to be highly supervised.

So that was our week! I probably won't link up next week since we'll be out of town, but I will be sharing lots of pics of our fun in Georgia!

Make sure you head over to Carisa's blog to see more great Tot School ideas!