Tot School - 26 months

We did Tot School again finally! Brennan is currently 26 months old.

It's been ages since I've planned out a week of Tot School, but decided to do it again this week. I am so happy I did. Having pre-planned activities helps our week run much more smoothly. It definitely reduces both mine and Brennan's frustration and boredom. Here are some of the activities we did this week!

Color/Shape/Number Run:
I cut out seven different shapes on seven different colors of cardstock and numbered them 1-7. I taped them around the living room and shouted out a color for Brennan to go find and bring back to me. He LOVED this activity. He asked to do it over and over and over again. The game leant itself to many variations since I could rehang the pieces and shout out a number or shape for him to find. No matter which one I shouted, as B was bringing it to me, I would ask him about the other attributes. It was a great review for him and got out some energy. I even ended up taping the shapes up and down our hallway so he could run even further to grab them. This game would be great fun to play outside too, but our temps have still be too chilly!

Mega-Block Patterns:
Since Brennan spent literally ALL MORNING doing the above activity, we just talked about patterns over lunch. I used the blocks to make simple ABABAB patterns and had him tell me what would come next. He made a few mistakes at the beginning, but seemed to grasp the concept by the end. We will definitely be reviewing this more. Later in the week he was playing with his Mega Block on his own and made a blue, red, blue pattern and called it by that name all by himself. I was pretty impressed!

Fun With Action Words:
I got the idea here. When I introduced it, I just flipped all the actions words over and let B choose one. Then he performed that action. His favorite was spinning!

Mancala:

I didn't think B liked it that much at first, but he then asked to play with it again multiple times throughout the week, so I guess it was a hit. I only let him play it with my supervision because he still occasionally puts small objects in his mouth. We worked on putting one marble in each cup. Then I had him close his eyes and I secretly put two marbles in one of the cups and once he opened his eyes, he had to to find it. I can't remember where I saw this idea, so I don't have a link to give them credit for it. He also enjoyed using the measuring spoons to scoop the marbles.  

Moon Sand:
On Monday I made my first batch of Moon Sand. We played with it a little on Tuesday. I made mine with too much baby oil because it's not as crumbly as it is supposed to be. Probably because I was thinking the name was moon dough instead of moon sand. Our is pretty doughy. B wasn't that into it.

Toilet Paper Bowling:
I tried to be sure to plan plenty of active activities for my active little guy. If you're on Pinterest, you've probably seen Pumpkin Bowling. I decided we didn't see to wait until Halloween to have fun bowling over toilet paper rolls. We experimented with different types/sizes of balls. We tried rolling them, but throwing them was more fun. Brennan liked stacking all the rolls up. And of course knocking his tower down!

Animal Charades:
I wrote down the names of several different animals, put the slips of paper in a fun light up cup, and then had Brennan draw one out at a time. I read him the word and he mad the animal sound. He seemed to have fun, but the activity didn't last very long and he hasn't asked to do this one again. Below he's being a monkey and a rooster.

Don't Let the Balloon Touch the Ground:
I haven't seen or heard Brennan this excited in a long time. Boy it's always the little things that bring them the most joy. He LOVED this game. I thought I might be hearing-imparied by the end with how loud he was screaming, but I'll take happy squeals over annoying whining any day! I helped him keep the balloon up in the air and he thought it was the funniest thing. This was also great because the balloon was plenty large for him to catch. He isn't a great catcher, but this helped him get a lot better.

Clothespin Airplane:
I made it while he watched. I could've made it more interactive and let him decorate the clothespin and popsicle sticks, but he didn't want to do that. He spent a few minutes flying his plane around.

Table Salt Painting:
Brennan hasn't been super into crafts recently. I think he would just rather keep moving around. I did get him to try the salt painting though. It was pretty neat. If you click the link above you can read more details about it. Basically we made a design with Elmer's glue, covered it with table salt, then dropped food colored water onto the salt. We didn't have a medicine dropper, so we used a little syringe thingy. If I let B try by himself he was squirting out way too much colored water, so it worked better when we did it together. I think I should've made the liquid a little more concentrated to get the bright colors I was hoping for, but we had fun watching the color spread across the salt.

Self-Correcting ABC puzzle:
Brennan loves these self-correcting puzzles. He got a number one for Easter and this week I bought him this ABC one. They are only $4.99 at Marshalls, so you really can't beat it. In this version you are matching each letter to an object that starts with that letter. Brennan does understand initial sounds a little, but this is pretty easy because on the back of each object is the letter it starts with. It's a great introduction to initial sounds.

Balloon Bam:
We pulled out the balloon again and I made up this game. There's not much I love more than his laugh!

Let's hope I can keep up the planning because we really enjoyed doing Tot School again this week. Head over to Carisa's blog  and to No Time for Flashcards to see lots more great ideas!