~ Caden is 20.5 months old~
Tot School was rather frustrating for me at the start of the week. I had planned many activities about a month ago only to find out the Caden was in no way interested in them. So I decided to focus on fine motor skills with him and incorporated some Montessori elements. I had high hopes that Caden would do great with the activities that I had planned, and he did, but he quickly lost interest and then went on a path of destruction!
I tried to include him in the clean up, but it only created more of a mess. I’m not sure what went wrong, if there is anything I can do differently next time? If you have any tips to share, please do.
After I cleaned up that mess, I decided to put the beans away and Montessori on the back burner. The rest of the week we just had fun!
Tuesday was the start of story time at the library. I was unsure of how he would behave during this time. Last year Caden would not sit & listen for more than a minute, but I would let him be and crawl around. But this year he can walk and open doors. He decided he was done with story time after about 15 minutes. Actually he wanted to leave much sooner, but I kept bringing him back and encouraged him to stay and sing songs and listen to the stories. I am just happy that he sat for five minutes or so. Hopefully next week will bring a smaller crowd and he will be more comfortable. Then we can work on sitting longer and enjoying story time more next week.
After story time, we stopped at the playground and played on the big kid side (since all the big kids were at school)! We climbed the ladder to the top of the big tunnel slide and slid all the way down together! It was FUN!
As far as the farm theme goes, I made a simple sensory bin. Basically it is straw in his water table with the Little People farm set. Caden played with it a bit, but because it is nothing new he wasn’t too interested in. We did talk about the farm animals and their sounds while he played. He pretty much knows all of those farm animals now and the sounds they make. I’d like to get him some new animals to learn about. Maybe for his birthday.
We also did two farm themed art projects, in one sitting! He really enjoyed painting and asked to do more, hence the two projects at one time. First we painted a cow, you can find the templates for this project at Creative Preschool Resources. Caden painted the parts of a cow, once it dried I cut the pieces out and helped him glue it together. Caden really wanted to use the glue stick himself. Maybe next week I will give him a simple glueing project and let him have a go.
We also painted a pig with “mud”. You can find this printout at Lawteedah. We talked about the pig being messy. Caden is well aware of messes and often points them out, saying “mess, mess”. Usually they are his own messes.
We had a good time in the kitchen this week, which is something new for him. Now that I feel more confident he can safely stand on a chair at the counter, I am letting him help me out with preparing food and washing dishes.
One afternoon after lunch, Caden helped Grandma mix up some cookie dough. He is always very serious as he watches Grandma measure out the ingredients. He really enjoys dumping the measuring cups and spoons into the mixing bowl. Sometimes he tries to scoop out the ingredients or mix it up. Caden likes baking so much and I know he is learning a lot, especially how to focus and pay attention. I think I will make this a weekly activity; baking with Grandma!
On Friday, Caden and I made pizza together! He was a bit distracted by the toaster oven, but once we got started he really enjoyed it. He helped to spread the sauce, and added the cheese and pepperoni. He was very excited to watch the pizza baking in the oven. I turned the oven light on and he would peek into the oven and say ” ooh. yum! yum!”.
I try to get Caden outside to play everyday. Usually I just let him play in the backyard with his toys, but sometimes we do something special. On Monday we went on a family bike ride after Daddy finished working.
Caden really likes to dig in the dirt. One afternoon we were digging in the garden and found a big ole earthworm. That thing was huge! I picked it up for Caden to get a better look at it. He said ” Hi ant!”, we need to work on our insect names.
On another morning we dug up the carrots from the garden and Caden helped a bit with that. He put a couple into the bowl and then was off exploring the yard.
Another afternoon, we play outside at Grandma’s. Caden chased the dog around the yard and dug in a little patch of dirt left from the fire pit. He got good and dirty that afternoon!
Next week we will continue our farm theme and hopefully go on a field trip or two!
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He sounds perfectly normal for his age! I would try doing more gross motor skill activities and see if he’s more into that. Magoo has only been interested in fine motor work the last two or three weeks (at 21 months). Do you have trays/activities set up somewhere so Caden can pick what he wants to work on? That may help if he’s picking and you’re not pushing something on him. It will get easier!!
He is very much into gross motor activities- running, jumping, climbing etc. C will be 21 months tomorrow & I sense a big language burst coming for him. I will try a few tot trays next week, maybe put some crayons or markers out for him. Hopefully as I keep introducing new activities he will become more interested. Thanks for your encouragement!
That’s amazing that he knows what an ant is (although it was an earthworm he was talking about haha). My daughter still gets mixed up with animal names – a cow is “moo”, sheep is “baa” & cat is “missy” (our next door neighbours cat haha). Sounds like he had lots of fun helping you make the pizza 🙂 wamumma.blogspot.com
This sounds like a great week! My son, had a hard time last week, but we kept with it, and this week, he loved his trays. I think thats just normal toddler behavior! Love the straw with the farm!
Fun! I think I’m going to do a farm theme next week, great ideas! Just keep with it. Some weeks will be messier than others, just go with the flow. Sensory bins were a big fat mess for us in the beginning, but now I rarely interfere with play and Logan does a great job at keeping things inside the bin. The mess is all a part of learning 🙂 Some of my planned activities are also fails, so I just save them and introduce them at a later time (usually with success).