Saturday, June 5, 2010

Tot School-First Week

Lyla is 26 months old.

This was our first week at attempting tot school. Most of it didn't go anything like I expected. I have a 4 year old daughter who just started the Raising Rock Stars preschool curriculum and I have other planned activities to do with her at the table. Lyla wants to be a part of that (which I knew would happen) so we are doing tot school during that time. I sit between them and try to help both of them. It took a few days to figure it all out but by the end of the week it was going more smoothly. I was surprised at what Lyla enjoyed and what she didn't.

She usually loves puzzles, but not this week. Play Doh kept her attention for a whole 2 minutes.

Pouring rice turned into throwing rice, everywhere. Coloring lasted for 1 minute. Except with a pen she found, that she used to color her legs :) The bears and cups ended up on the floor and then she refused to pick them up!

But she did enjoy several other activities. She liked putting spaghetti into a salt shaker.

She loved putting stickers on a piece of construction paper.

She liked stringing penne pasta onto a chenille stick, but she needed a lot of help from me to complete.

Her favorite activity was tranferring pom poms from a bowl to a paint tray with tongs (she barely got the hang of those). She did this over and over. Then she counted them with me and identified and named the colors.

I got out nuts and bolts for her to play with and tried to show her how to do them but she didn't get the hang of it. Big sister tried to teach her how to do it too! So sweet!

She didn't like this puzzle earlier in the week but I brought it out at the end of the week and she enjoyed it then. She was pretty independent with it.

We put some of the shapes in an empty Kleenex box and she had fun pulling them out.

She is sitting in on the Rock Star stuff and is enjoying it. She sang songs with us and listened to the stories.

For fun this week we spent a lot of time outside in the water. We went swimming in big pools twice this week which she loved. She is quite a daredevil in the water!

But she also enjoys her kiddie pool.

She also likes helping me drown the plants, I mean, water the garden!

I learned a lot this week about planning and organizing. I hope the next week runs more smoothly but we'll see! I know that tot school is supposed to be one on one focused time but I just couldn't make that work. It worked better having both girls at the table working. I am going to try to make time for one on one play next week.

8 comments:

  1. Great first week of Tot School! My DD is not a daredevil at all in the water. Looks like she enjoyed some fun activities :)

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  2. Great activities for your first week!!! I love that she helps (drown)water your plants...Ryleigh does that too :)

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  3. My daughter is about your daughters age, and their have been moments over the past couple of weeks that have gone like some of yours. I hope it is just a phase. Keep with it, at least for my daughter, the more of the routine that I keep, the easier. Check out Giggly Girls posts as well...her daughter is about your daughters age as well!

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  4. Your daughter sounds EXACTLY like my daughter, so I had to giggle a bit. (Although my tot was waaay more uncooperative. LOL) It does get better though.

    You had some great activities. I'm going to check my cupboard for pasta so Kayleigh can try stringing some this week.

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  5. Great post, sounds like a strong-minded little one! i know the feeling...

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  6. Ugh, I know the feeling about a stong willed child. Mine won't color for anything...but I try!
    Nicole

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  7. Great first week and you always have activities that never go well...well at least I always do anyway lol!!

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  8. Sounds like you're off to a good start by getting a lot of the "bugs" worked out! The system sounds like it works well with the girls doing their school time together. I like your activities too, very good for fine motor skills. Thanks for visiting my blog too.

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