Saturday, November 3, 2012

Wesley's Tot School (27.5 months)

We had a fun week with many great activities. Letters and numbers continue to be big hits this week. We also had a lot of Halloween fun.

Wesley got out these fraction puzzles and enjoyed putting them together on multiple days. At first he used his hands, but then, "OH! I HAVE A GOOD IDEA!" (cue the pitter patter of feet running to his truck bin). He could pretty consistently identify which piece went into the whole/half/third/quarter section, but he would often turn the piece pointing out, or a more common  mistake was to have it on it's side...the dimension (laying flat) was the hardest part for him.


We went to our park and raked leaves on a couple of occasions. It was so fun! He really liked it when I'd make a big pile of leaves that he could then rake away. New meaning to the phrase "rake a pile of leaves".



Our friend Liz at Harpsichordian knitted legwarmers for Wes when he was a little guy, and a hat that fits him this season. When I told Wes that, he said he'd like to learn to knit, too. I saw this little weaving loom and picked it up for him. We enjoyed working together to pull the loops across. I imagine it will be a couple years at least before we can fully weave something, but it was good precision work.



And there was jack-o-lantern making...

Drawing the face
"scooping guts!"
Matching starting letters is now very easy and seems less exciting to him this week, so we have moved on to ending sounds.


After playing the ending sounds matching game a couple of days, Wesley's ability to hear the ending sound of words took a huge leap. At first it seemed like he didn't understand what I meant by ending sound, but after just a couple days he could hear words much better. 

I just choose random objects within reach and "magenta pick-up truck" delivered them on the ABC road to their ending sound, per the telephone request of Ankylosaurus (Anky for short) and Antelope (pictured below). This pic is of him delivering a bolt at the start of our play session when we were doing first sounds...


This puzzle was a hit this week and got a lot of play, though less as a puzzle and more as a prop for word building and "starts with" thought experiments...


He liked making words with the letters, and is starting to hear some word sounds that are not beginning or ending sounds if we say the word slowly.


I love how it's his little guy (Dark) who unloads the pick-up and returns the letters to their spots...


Brother Bear, looking at phonics blend cards...


Wesley became really excited about "Marker-y Time!". That basically means tracing worksheets in a page protector (so we can do them again). We haven't done tracing for awhile, and his motorskills have dramatically improved since we last did it. He can trace on letters and numbers so that they are recognizable. He loves this work.

I have a "Get Reading for Pre-K" binder I bought at Costco with a bunch of activities, which is great, because it would have been unlikely for me to be able to find and print all the stuff in there. Wes likes flipping through it and choosing a page.



I love it when Wesley serves me tea. Today he was more interested in filling up the sugar with water and pouring it into the teapot. It is challenging to pour from a container that has no spout, which I think is why he liked it as he's not as challenged as he once was by the teapot or creamer.


My mother-in-law brought back this amazing Van Gogh memory game for Wesley from a trip she took. It's a stunning game involving matching Van Gogh's paintings. Wesley was up for matching them, but didn't like the memory component of flipping them over. We may have started with too many pairs (too hard or confusing), or he may not have been interested at that time. I am sure he will be, though. I love this set!


We collected leaves to make a leaf identification book. They are pressing now. Wesley routinely asks "what's the name of this leaf" on walks, so we better study up.


We also did some pumpkin printables from the pumpkin pack at 1+1=1. He liked the letter maze best and asked to do more like it. (which I need to try and find). He followed the numbers from pumpkin to pumpkin, making sure not to mark any letters. He could identify letters vs. numbers, but I had to help him with the concept of a connected path. So we filled in gaps by my asking "is this a number? how about this one?", etc.



Visit the other great blogs at 1+1=1 for other Tot School fun...

4 comments:

  1. Looks like you and Wesley were busy! 1+1+1=1 has letter mazes in a lot of the packs I have seen. There are some different style ones at http://bogglesworldesl.com/Alphabet_mazes.htm

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the link and the info. I'll definitely check it out.

      Delete
  2. So excited to finally spend some time with you all this weekend! This warms my heart.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So excited to hang out with you all this weekend! This warms my heart.

    ReplyDelete