Tot-school | Week 15 | Letter OJanuary 29, 2017
This past week’s tot-school…
…was our refuge.
December and January are riddled with events for us, plans are only good until the next event approaches and messes everything up. This week ended in Slava, a Serbian Orthodox tradition that’s highly valued and holds as much religious significance as the hosts wish. For the layman it’s basically a day long feast table, it’s also a great chance for Adam to practice his social skills.
Meanwhile, tot-school prep feels like it’s been dominating the little time I’ve got for me. As a result the packs are definitely already starting to see a thinning down. This week I tried to use less home-made and more resources I’d sourced and it made a real difference. We also cut down to 3 days of tot-school, or really 2 as one day we only did one activity. While I had made up extra resources I feel Adam really got the concept of the letter quickly, so rather than squeeze in more we threw any screen time limits to the wind and let our overtired and well socialised boy vegetate. (yes terrible parents I know!)
The pack I’ve made is available for download at the end of the post.
This weeks read more questions:
The Mr octopus craft was probably our favourite, we returned to play with it again later in the week too. The ‘O-key-toe-puss’ was a favourite word most of the week!
I’d hoped to use the idea of O for Oven, but Adam just called it a kitchen or a cooker, so, while he loved the image it actually proved a distraction.
This was a cup of hot water with a good dollop of hand soap. Mix with an electric whisk until you get a thick foam. I repeated the process and filled a large shallow bowl – the mixture does reduce when played with. Hot water makes the bubbles warm to the touch, washing up liquid would probably yield more bubbles if you skin can take it.
Tot-school | Week 14 | Letter NJanuary 24, 2017
This past week’s tot-school…
…was our normality.
Embarking on the second half of the alphabet Tot-school has become quite a part of the life of the house. Adam’s desire to learn more and more is evident in his choice of video material and in the snippets of the alphabet song he sometimes sings at nap time. He’s long enjoyed sifting through magnetic letters and now he names both numbers and letters, lifting up ones he doesn’t recognise for us to identify.
For the letter N I initially chose to work with nails and nose. What emerged quickly was that while nose worked nails didn’t. Sighing at the shelved paperwork I tried our secondary concepts of nuts and necklaces and both went swimmingly. This week I made less pages for the pack but still had spare, it’s a balancing at I’m still wobbly on.
The pack I’ve made is available for download at the end of the post.
This weeks read more questions:
The big taped latter on the ground, N is a brilliant shape to balance along.
Nails. I had great plans of exploring real nails but i left sourcing them to too late and with our love of throwing right now it felt a foolish choice.
I coloured half a bag of large macaroni using a few drops of liquid food colouring and a tablespoon of white vinegar, repeating with the other half and a new colour. I’ve tried this and rice before but this time I used a Tupperware tub rather than a plastic bag and it was so much easier and less messy.
Tot-school | Week 13 | Letter MJanuary 16, 2017
This week’s tot-school…
…was stir crazy!
For much of the week temperatures outside regularly dropped into the double figures and our poor little guy had to do with being cooped up all day, sometimes only exploring one room at a time as the doors conserved heat and the hallway linking them turned into a fridge. Totschool was therefore both a release and a chore, something new to explore but one of limited options. Monday went really well but the next 2 days struggled.
Letter M is a great one to explore and we really dwelled in the monkey theme. However the most beautifult moment for mummy came when he was working with the M craft. He took the pieces of map and as they came together he declared with real surpise ‘Look a m!’
The pack I’ve made is available for download at the end of the post.
This weeks read more questions:
The mask was a big hit again, though the hat was a little more hit and miss. The crafts were probably the best learning moments even if the monkeys limbs are all backwards.
The caps page just didn’t hold his interest, perhaps we’ve overdone buttons and stamps and other placement bits and he’s looking for something new.
looking back it must seem like totschool is a big part of our day, but it really isn’t. It’s probably more part of my day as i find activities and ideas but for Adam isn’t often shorter than a couple of his favourite cartoons. It’s rare to be longer than 30 minutes.