Tot School - The Letter Z

~James is 29 months~
This week we focused on the letter Zz. I decided to mix it up a little and do the alphabet backwards - what can I say, I'm just a wild & crazy gal! :)
James knows the alphabet well, so for the most part this is just fun review for him. Here's what we did with Zz...

Gluing zig-zags on the letter Z. James' favorite part was dipping the Q-tips in the glue and then painting the paper.

James used the extra Q-tips and created a new task all on his own (love when he does that!) - he arranged the Q-tips into letters! I was so pleased when he made a Z and then pointed to the craft we had just finished and said, "two z's! Big Z, little z!".







Painting strips on the zebra. I cut lines into one sheet of paper and then taped that over a print out of a horse. James then painted black over the top sheet. When it was dry we removed the top sheet and voila! we found a cute little zebra!

We examined a zucchini, touched, smelled & tasted it and then shredded it to make yummy zucchini & chocolate chip muffins.

James worked on his zipper-ing skills. :)

I have a bunch of embellishments from my scrapbooking days and James had fun sorting through all the Z's. (So happy I'm finding uses for that stuff now - such a shame to see it all sit there collecting dust!)


We went to the Bermuda Aquarium & Zoo with James' friend, Zachary. Following our visit to the zoo, we played with this A Day At the Zoo playscene I found on Let's Explore (awesome store, btw!!). They're much like the colorforms I had in the 80's. :)



On our weekly trip to the library I found this book, Zen Shorts. It's a bit long and he lost interest halfway through, but it has a great message. I really liked it and I think I'll put it on my wishlist for later.




It wasn't ALL about Z this week - here's what else we did...

::Tried out our new see & spell puzzle boards. The lady at the store told me James is too young for these (box says 4+), but I begged to differ. :) He had no trouble with these whatsoever.
::I saw this activity on a few websites. It took two seconds to make and James really liked it.

::Sorting marbles into the little suction cups on the back of those bathtub sticky things. :) James LOVED this task and it kept him busy for nearly 30 minutes!
::I planned to use these for making popsicles, but James got a hold of them and began counting and matching colors. I wonder what other good ideas he has?!
::He plays with these sponge letters all.the.time. Here he's arranging them in a line, talking to them all the while ("uh-oh letter T, don't fall!"). So cute! This was one of those times he didn't know I was watching.

::This geometric stacker was a BIG hit.
::Got this idea from the 1+1+1=1 website. Cheap, easy to make. Love it. James did too.

::Another great idea - this one I found on Spinner's End Nursery School, one of the many wonderful tot blogs out there. Searching for "treasures" (shells) in a bucket o' beans. James' favorite type of activity usually involves sorting, so this held his interest for a long time.
::Those blasted ants are STILL terrorizing my home and I found them crawling around James' playmat. (He never eats in there, so I'm not sure what they think they'll find.) Anyway, I cleaned the mat and James had fun helping me put it back together.

So that was our week! It was busy, but lots of fun! Click the button to the left for more great ideas!