Tot School: Autumnal Animals

~Caden is 21.5 months~

We had a lot of fun with Tot School this week, even though it was very laid back. We tried some new things with the felt board and I set up a more organized tot tray which I don’t always do. These new additions to our Tot School were fairly successful and I have more planned for next week.

On Monday Caden and I got an early start to  Tot School. As soon as Daddy left for work and before we even got dressed, we started our activities.

Caden has been very interested in play dough lately, so much so that I have set up a play dough station with some cookie cutters, a silicone cookie sheet mat, a rolling-pin and a container of play dough at the kitchen table. Caden started Monday morning off with some play dough fun, even before Daddy left for work.

Then we moved on to the art station which I have set up on the other side of the kitchen table. I have taped down some brown paper from a paper bag to protect the wood table. I had set up a do-a-dot page and a dot marker the night before, as well as some crayons and a coloring page. Caden has gotten the hang of the dot markers recently and started this activity right away. Then he colored a squirrel. His coloring abilities have improved recently as well. The other day he started making circular shapes instead of left to right marks.

After getting dressed we headed into the living room and Caden got the acorn sorting tray off the shelf and began sorting the acorns into the ice-cube tray. I showed him how to do it with the spoon. But Caden is much to impatient to use a spoon to fill the tray and decided dumping the tin bucket was a much more efficient way to sort the acorns. He then used a pincer grasp to pick up the acorns on the floor and put them into the ice-cube tray. I talked with Caden about how squirrels eat acorns for food and Caden pretended to feed his stuffed squirrel some acorns.

While Caden played with the squirrel and acorns I read him a little story about squirrels and used to felt board as a visual. I found the story and the graphics at Story Time Secrets. He wasn’t very interested in the felt board, but I thought it was cute!

It is very hard for Caden to sit and listen to a story unless he has is a little sleepy or eating a snack, so I try to save the stories for those times when he is ready to listen. I read a couple of books to him while he ate his lunch. I also try to read to him before naps and bedtime.

Monday afternoon we headed outside! We raked up some leaves and played in the pile!

Tuesday is library day. We went to the library and played a little at the playground before heading inside to play. Caden is beginning to socialize more and more. We go to the library for story time  but Caden isn’t a big fan sitting so we go to play with the other kids and to pick up some books. This week we left with a bag jam-packed with books about squirrels, raccoons, owls, and bears.

The rest of the week was pretty low-key. I did manage to get some art and craft projects in there. One morning Caden painted a paper plate and made a big mess! Later in the afternoon once the paint dried Caden glued on some pieces to create a raccoon. Or his interpretation of a raccoon. I helped in the end when Caden lost interest with the one ear on top. 😉

Another afternoon I gave Caden some Halloween stickers to use to create a birthday card for his cousin. Caden did very well sticking the stickers on the paper but needed help peeling it off the sticker sheet.

Most of the time we just played. Caden likes to dump his bin of containers out and plays with them almost everyday. Here he is putting pompoms into an old creamer bottle.

Caden played with the shape sorter again this week. He was able to get the circle and the rectangle with one and two holes on with a little effort, but got frustrated when he couldn’t get the shapes with three or more holes and dumped the whole board!

I had also printed out an animal matching game from 3 Dinosaurs’ Woodland Tot Pack. Caden is good at these games and enjoys playing them from time to time for a few minutes. I also printed out the two piece puzzles from 3 Dinosaurs’ Woodland Tot Pack and used them to create a felt board. Caden did very well with these too, he even matched up the puzzle pieces to the matching board. The two piece puzzles didn’t work out well as a felt board. I think next time I will attach magnets to the pieces and create a magnet board game instead.

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