Tot School ~ The Letter G

Miss E ~ 27 months

You know, something about this week had me feeling lazy. I just wasn't excited for the letter G. It's funny how things work out to exceed your expectations sometimes. This ended up being one of our most fun and productive weeks for Tot School! It just proves that you don't have to have anything elaborate planned to do Tot School, just dedicate some time especially for structured learning. Toddlers are great at leading the way. And I just love watching Miss E learn. She's awesome.

And seriously. How cute is she?
This was taken after our new "quiet time." She was
so proud of herself for sitting while reading
books independently. It was a victory for all.

So once again, I just couldn't pick one central "G is for..." item. So we went with gorillas and goats, but as you'll see, there were other things that just happened to pop up. I just went with it...

First, Miss E did her tracing. She loves to do this, but other things got more exciting this week, so it only happened once.

I'm trying to show her how to trace the letter,
but she just hasn't gotten that quite yet.
That's ok. She'll get it eventually!

 Then, she checked out her book basket containing her "G" books. Turns out we talked a lot about bedtime, because most of the G books we have in our house begin with "Goodnight..." She got a kick out of it though, and often put all of her books on her work table to read them.

Checking out Sparkly Garden

 Of course, she loves doing Do-A-Dot artwork! I know I've referenced it before, but I just love the Tot School printables. Miss E just loves them, too!

Since I was feeling particularly lazy, I just did internet searches to find activities. Since Miss E loves painting, we decided to do a foot gorilla, which I found here. I'm pretty sure we could do something like this every day, and Miss E would be thrilled. Here's the basic sequence of the activity. The project was completed over the course of two days:

She was SO proud of herself!

Turns out, Miss E LOVES to glue things! I think I'll start having her glue her name onto her projects instead of me just writing her name. That way, she'll start to recognize more than just the first letter of her name. It will also give her more ownership of her work.

Glueing our gorilla led to Miss E asking for more glueing. Which meant that I really had to think on my toes. This is what happened next!

Basically, I got really good at cutting things out quickly. I used some of our scrap paper, cut out shapes, letters and numbers, then drew/wrote where they should go on pieces of construction paper, kink of like a puzzle. I really think we could have done this all day!

Miss E has her shapes down pat, but definitely could use some work on letter and number recognition. We'll be doing this again!

We added puffy balls for 1:1 correspondence. She loved this!

Glue madness! Such a hit.

Not bad for a week I wasn't excited for, huh? We actually got interrupted by a snow storm, which inspired a final winter activity for the year (and thanks to my awesomely creative friend who gave me the idea!). I'll do a separate post on our winter theme, but because it was so much fun, I'll give you a hint now...

I mean seriously. Can you stand the cuteness???

That pretty much sums up our week! It was so much fun, and I learned a lot about what Miss E and I are capable of, even with little to no planning. Yay for productivity!

Until next time,

Mrs. Kuda

The In Between

Sometimes with Miss E I feel like we're in between. In between time periods. In between life's stages. She's almost a kid, but still has the emotional maturity of a, well, two year old. I struggle when to let her be and when to intervene. When to push her, and when to give her a hand. And because of the way her personality is, I never know how she's going to react. She gets frustrated VERY easily, and really needs to be pushed to try new things. And I'm not just talking about brussel sprouts here.

My point is, I think this is where my struggle lies as a parent of a toddler lately. I want to provide the right amount of support without being over-bearing, but also letting her know she's her own person.

The other day was cleaning day, so I had the kids in their room so that while I cleaned the upstairs, I could quickly tend to, oh I don't know, Miss E trying to suffocate Mr. C.

Yes. That happened. Twice.

Anywho, once I was finished I needed to go downstairs to start dinner, so I grabbed Mr. C and told Miss E to come along. She said, "No."

And it wasn't a defiant "NO! I AM NOT DOING WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME TO DO BECAUSE I'M TWO" kind of "NO." This was a matter-of-fact, casual conversation kind of, "No."

And because I'm really trying to give her more (controlled?) independence, and because I really needed to get dinner started, and Mr. C fed, and well, you get the picture, I said, "O.K. Call me if you need me."

?!

Of course I leave her when I need to change out laundry or go to the bathroom, or I don't know, take a shower? But this is the first time she independently requested alone play time without my direction. It felt really weird.

I go on about my evening and probably 20 or so minutes later I realize that it's silent upstairs. Like, the eerie silence you could only expect all of the clothes from the closet strewn across the room. Or all of the toilet paper thrown all over the bathroom. And then the realization hits that the diaper pail is no longer locked because of those stupid springy things that broke, and OHMYGOODNESS THERE IS POOP ALL OVER THEIR ROOM. And anticipating this I grab the camera (of course), then RUN AS FAST AS POSSIBLE up the stairs...

"Mommy, I practice buttons."

My sweet, sweet girl. Playing by herself. Because I let her. Love that kid.


Until next time,

Mrs. Kuda