Tot-school | Week 21 | Letter VMarch 12, 2017
This past week’s tot-school…
…rolled slowly across the finish line
Letter V didn’t pick up the pace much after last weeks poor show, I’d say we got though roughly half of the possible material, and did no 3d craft. Van’s was clearly the favourite word and having a new toy van to play with did cause a little distraction and it manage to live most of the week outside of it’s letter basket home. The more the week progressed the less we did as nap times fluctuated and became erratic – Friday Adam slept from his usual wake up time all the way through till his evening meal!
However, even with such a brief encounter the letter still seemed to stick. Thanks to Bing Bunny we often call our vacuum ‘voo-voo’ and not a hoover like I had during my childhood, but many of the other words weren’t already familiar. Vase (I don’t seem to use them recently), vegetable (he named the individual ones or the container) and violin (guitar?) didn’t go down so well. I’ve found more and more that the typical items we use for the alphabet can actually be rather confusing. While building vocabulary is a great bonus I’d rather it not be at the expense of the key element – the letter.
The pack I’ve made is available for download at the end of the post.
This weeks read more questions:
The Van, it’s already made it’s way into general circulation, mummy loved the van craft, probably because she spent far too long hand drawing the background!
the sheer lack of stuff covered. I’d really hoped to make a vase out of dough and had looked out some plastic flowers. Overall, tot-school felt like a passing activity rather than a dedicated table time this week.
If I’ve printed material and find an appropriate time to use it up on Saturday then I do, but it’s not part of the plan. Tot-school is never a priority if it’s missed then that’s ok by us!
Tot-school | Week 20 | Letter UMarch 3, 2017
This past week’s tot-school…
…was a damp squib
After the last few weeks of R, S, & T the letter U came as a bit of a shock to the system. While the trusty umbrella dominated we attempted to add in the unicycle and ukulele but in all honestly mostly failed. We ended up with a very weak show for tot-school and while there are crafts left to be completed I’ll probably leave them for the next trip through the alphabet.
After 20 weeks the idea of a shape representing a number or letter is firmly implanted and Adam knows most of them. He’ll correctly identify all numbers and most letters, even ones we’ve not yet covered. He also recognises the idea that names/words start with a letter. He happily points out letters in words though he shows no signs of accepting decoding let alone doing so, he was quite adamant that the car wash sign said ‘C’,’A’,’R’ and not ‘car’ – in my opinion he’s far too young for decoding and I’m not going to push it on him early.
The pack I’ve made is available for download at the end of the post.
This weeks read more questions:
The foam letter tiles were a beautiful and quick activity that really caught Adam’s interest and showed us how well he could remember the letters we’ve covered over the past weeks – this is a review tool we need to use more often.
Everything but umbrellas. While Adam identified well with the idea of the other items beginning with a U he just didn’t identify with those things.
I’m still debating this one though I’m aware it’s now on the horizon. I’d thought of doing colours or numbers but really he’s got those sorted by himself, I may do a focus on sorting or sequencing but I’ll probably head on back to ‘letter A’ quite quickly.
The Car WashMarch 1, 2017
“Oh no, it’s mucky, needs to go Carls car wash!”
The phrase is as familiar in our house as can be, and even though Carl’s car wash is only one of many videos including car washes Adam has watched, somehow every car wash is Carl’s in his head!
So we become resourceful, we drape fabric and grab train tunnels and everything else that can be a car wash until we get a spare nappy box for mummy to make into Adam’s own car-wash.
We’ve been having lots of fun playing with it. I don’t know how long it will last but there isn’t anything precious about it. I like that the handles are still intact for carrying it about and the section at the back is perfect for storing vehicles in. It was also a quick project that I could work on while Adam was about.
Basic instructions are as follows :
1. Gather materials – nappy box, scissors, craft knife, double sided tape, suerglue, acetate, bubblewrap – for extra decorations see number 12.
2. Open up flaps on both sides and break the glue line to flatten
3. Use superglue to reseal so the box is now inside out
4. Refold base then cut off the flaps on the top side (I left half a long flap behind)
5. Use a ruler and pencil to mark 2 opening flaps on the ends of the box
6. Mark 3 windows on the front
7. Cut windows
8. Cut 3 sides of the openings on the ends – leave the side furthest away from windows intact
9. fold back flaps and attach to the long flap piece you removed from the top of the box
10. Outline the inside of the widows with double sided tape.
11. Cut and stick windows, 2 from acetate and one from bubble wrap.
12. Extra decorations were made from straws and pipe-cleaners (water-jets), a toothpick and spring (air drier) cardboard (floor) and printout of words (sign)