This and That

Little guy and his brothers. 

He wasn't so fond of putting on a costume, as usual, but I'm betting that next year won't be an issue.  We didn't have to walk up to any door with him once he realized there was candy involved...and though he wouldn't say Trick 'or' Treat...he did give a resounding "Thank-you" after most houses.  :-)

A few things T. enjoyed recently...

Letter Sort

Tiles in mashed potato flakes.  :-)  A little messy but easy clean up.

He'd dig through with the spoon but not really "shake off" the extra flakes.  That made too much mess for him since he couldn't control the spoons so well...so he ended up digging through with the spoon and when one got on top he'd pick it up and place it on the mat.  Mr. Perfectionist here...time to go outside (his favorite part of the day, of course) but he was missing 2 letters and COULD/would not go outside until someone helped him find them.  LOL

 

I think this little book was a birthday gift and we are just now getting to it. :-P Actually, I had to find time to tear all the pages out of the workbook and put them in plastic sheet protectors...to allow him to do it again and again. :-) I'm fond of the Kumon Tracing workbook. This one is nice also. It's called Fun to Trace the ISBN number is 978-1-60553-648-4.  Beginner lines, shapes, letters, numbers, and more "maze" like lines in the back. He loved it! And...this is the first time he actually did loops!

 

Now, this is a great picture of Mr. T! LOL Wonder what he was saying to me.  T. does not care for playdough. Really?! Yes, really. I can't get him to play with it at all. But, if I create snakes for him to cut, yes, that's okay. Got to love this kid!  :-)

 Should probably think twice about posting this picture.  I know there was quite the controversy over this not too long ago.  Yes, those are thumb tacks.  

I wouldn't say the process of this was his favorite activity.  It worked the muscles in his fingers and it took him 5 days to do (one day per letter) but the great thing about the project was that when he was done...he was very proud of it!  So, that in itself is a good thing to learn young...perseverance!  Anyway...please supervise if you are allowing your children to use thumbtacks.

 

Give him a tub of sand in the pool and will he explore?  Nope.  Give him some sand at the table with a spoon, funnel, bottles and happy as a pea.  :-P

 

If you haven't done this yet...please do!  :-)  Fill a clear jar over 3/4 of the way full, squirt shaving cream into the jar to fill to the top.  Two primary colored containers of water and two eye droppers.  The colors will eventually make it through the shaving cream and mix.

 

Another, "right up his alley" activity.  :-)  I didn't hide the tiles this time.  Just plopped them on a tray.  He loved it and even started singing ABC song.  The stickler...he actually started going from left to right and the pumpkins went in a vine like pattern left to right then right to left.  Messed him up...but it did show me that he's starting to internalize the left to right movements. 

 

He enjoyed the end product of his paper cutting pumpkin. 

I often had him snipping paper and then we'd paste it into a project.

 

 

 

Water Beads are always a hit!  These have been around for quite awhile.  They have even been outside in the garage in hot and freezing temperatures.  No mold (that's what I was afraid of) and did not freeze.  Cool beans! Oh, look at that...you have Tuesday on the left in the digger shirt and Wedneday on the right in the Thomas shirt.  LOL  Have you noticed all the digger and Thomas shirts?  No, these weren't taken on the same days.  :-P  And I promise they are clean...and on the rare occaision we talk him into a red or green striped shirt because the other two are in the laundry...he's not all that happy.  :-) 

 

Mr. T. has moved from 12 piece puzzles to 24 piece puzzles.  Um, well those won't last long either.  Next stop, 63 piece.  One benefit of the larger puzzles is that it gives me a few more minutes!  I particularly like these dollar store nursery rhyme puzzles.  The quality isn't the best but it's nice to reinforce the song.  T. hasn't learned them like the other kids did.  I think they are great for teaching phonological awareness.

 

 

Oh my, not very happy here...blurry pic, sorry.  This was his first "real" cutting project.  I put glue on the border to make it a little harder for him to cross over into the acorn...but it didn't help and heaven help us when he accidentally cut inside the acorn instead of outside.  But, he did pretty well and the next step was to crunch up leaves and paint/glitter the acorn...the really neat thing was that I thought he'd balk at crinkling up the leaves but he didn't!

I wouldn't say the end product was beautiful but the process sure was!  He's proud of his work and that's what counts!
 

And there he is!  Mr. T.  3 years 5 months...even had his first dentist appointment today and though he refused to talk to anyone...he did great.  :-P

Learning the alphabet...beginning with their name.

 

It's so important to begin learning the alphabet with something that is meaningful.  Yes, I use the HWT's order of alphabet for teaching children how to correctly form their letters.  And I use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson's  order for teaching the children how to read.  But what do I do with 3 year olds who are not ready for any formal learning of the alphabet?  I start with something that is MOST meaningful.  Their name!

 

At the supper table last night, Great Grandma (who had been away for a week and a half) was over for supper and was wondering what T. does when the other children are here.  So I just commented that he has his "school work" to do.  So we got talking about his name work he did last week...

 He told us without looking at any of his work, this was just a conversation at the table..."T, R....there are two Ts...at the end" holding up both pointer fingers.  He needed me to air write the E and the N and remind him what the E was but he got the rest of it.  I'm not quite sure whether he really knew the answer when Daddy asked "So what does that all spell?"  but I'm quite pleased with what he has already progressed in!

 

First off I should say that we also do a "tracing" name sheet each day.

 He matches the letter tile/manipulative and I trace the name with him.  With my young ones, I always trace hand over hand with them.  Doing this helps them get the correct letter formation engrained early!  The large blank area is a place to try to write it down himself. At this point he doesn't do much but he has moved beyond scribbling to creating somewhat of a closed circle!

And on this day, Mom was a bit slow in getting to him when he was ready and he decided to trace the letters himself!  :-)

  

  Below is an activity we did throughout last week.  It's simply a letter of his name created with 1" circles in Print Shop.  I added some block letters that he and I traced together while saying the word above them, emphasizing the beginning letter sound.

 

Since we've already worked with the letters in his name and posted it up on the wall...

 

I decided to give him a gluing activity that included the foam letters of his name and some big, medium, small shapes.  I was curious if he'd

1) recognize the letters as ones being in his name. 

2) Glue them in order.

There it is! :-) Obviously he wasn't interested in the letters of his name.  LOL (Whew!  I wasn't really ready to move onto the next step yet!)  However, he was very interested in gluing in circles-or the very least, closing up lines.  Very interested in that actually...

During his name writing practice he had that whole bottom section covered with lines that connected.  I think it was close to 3 minutes he spent on the bottom section, carefully drawing lines.  :-)  But what I wanted to share in this picture was the baby sock on his hand.  Perfect eraser for toddlers.  :-)  I use plastic page protectors and dry erase markers quite frequently.  This way he can actually erase his work himself, which is half of the fun ya know! 

 

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One other activity we did every day last week were our 12 piece alphabet puzzles.  I know I've posted about those before.  We purchased ours from Lakeshore Learning.  I had a gut feeling he could do these but I never really had time to find out for sure.  So I knew I'd have a bit more time on Monday (and had it again on Tues.) so I put out the T puzzle on Monday.

 

I needed to help him with almost all of it.

Tuesday...

I needed to help him get it started.

 

Wednesday 

 Letter E, all by himself!  And I couldn't really get a good picture because EVERY time he got a piece he threw up his arms and half yelled, "I did it!"  "I did another one!"  :-)  We had a smile-y morning that morning!

 

 So, Thursday he got the letter N and then back to T on Friday.  All's well!  He now can officially complete a 12 piece jigsaw puzzle all by himself!

 

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Hope you all have a lovely week!