Tot School - The Letter R

~James is 31 months~

In addition to our usual fun, we focused on the letter R this week.










Art & Music:

We had fun making this rainbow R out of tissue paper. James has gotten much better with his gluing skills (i.e. he doesn't pour half the bottle on the paper anymore!).

I was thrilled to the gills to walk into our art class last week and find out we were going to learn how to make felt! It was a really interesting lesson (though I think James might disagree). We made a small square piece, but I'm thinking a little kid or kitty ran off with it because I can't find it now. :(

Earlier in the week we made a rainstick! This was an art & music lesson all in one. I can't remember where I found the tutorial to make this, but it wasn't very good anyway. The directions were really vague and I had to wing it quite a bit. As a result, the instrument doesn't sound very authentic, but we had lots of fun making it and that's what counts, right? Process, not product.

We danced to Bob Marley and James sang about his two kitties. :)

Letters & Numbers:
We read this book from our AlphaTales series and James worked on his R drawer from our alphabet box (rhino, rock, ring, ruler, rocket, rabbit & ribbon).

We had so much fun with these number bean bags. We played catch with them while calling out numbers, we tapped on them with rhythm sticks, we even played hide and seek with them. I left them out for James to enjoy throughout the week and one afternoon I was pleasantly surprised to see he had done this:
Notice how the numbers are arranged in sets - 8 and 18, 5 and 15. I thought that was pretty cool!

I found these cute acorn calendar thingys (my technical term) and James had fun sticking them in the pockets. It was a great way to encourage number sequencing.

Science & Nature:
We took a trip to the Royal Naval Dockyard one day. We had a wonderful time, just me and my boy. We watched the dolphins, shopped, and walked around enjoying the sites. James was ecstatic to find a rooster and a kitty wandering around.

On our way home from the Dockyard, we saw this beautiful rainbow. Honestly, it was the most vibrant I've ever seen. It was such a treat to see one of these this week considering our featured letter and the rainbow craft we'd already done.

Like his daddy, James is really into space & astronomy. We watched the launchings of the Saturn 5 and Apollo 11 rockets on YouTube. James was using his little toy rocket to mimic what he was seeing. It was SO cute!

Practical Life:
We made rainbow rice! James had fun shaking the baggies to mix the colors. After it dried, I put together this pouring work for him, which he LOVED!

Spooning rocks. Another favorite this week. Don't you just love that little ladle? So tiny! James did a fantastic job and, to my surprise, had the patience to scoop out every last rock in the bowl.

Grace & Courtesy:
We've been noticing a lot more role playing in James' world lately. For example, the other day I spied him serving food to his teddy bear and he was saying, "Is that good, Teddy?" Another time he was talking to his (fake) gecko, and showing it something out the window. I guess whatever he was showing him was a bit scary because James said, "No worries gecko, James right here". Melts my heart, that little guy.

Other activities:
James picked out this coconut at the grocery store and it made for a fun sensory lesson. He wasn't thrilled about its hairy exterior, but thought the sound of sloshing milk inside was pretty neat. And when I asked him what it smelled like he casually replied, "cookies". :) Cracking open this puppy wasn't at all easy. I had no luck with the more refined methods, so I finally decided to open it up the old fashioned way - by throwing it against the driveway. James thought this was the BEST!

We collected red items for the I Spy book I'm going to make (idea from 1+1+1=1).

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