Emmett and I are having a great summer! I have started doing something with him called Tot School. I got the idea from a blog called 1+1+1=1. I have these 4 black buckets at home. Each day I put some sort of activity in them. This is our Tot School. The buckets are a variation of tot trays. I only do four and am very loose about it. If he doesn't want to do a box or starts and doesn't want to finish it's fine. The point is to offer him some structure play different from his toys which he gets bored with. The stuff we do during this time is for this time only as to limit over use and eventual boredom. We've only been doing it a week, and it's been really awesome. I switch the activities out every day during nap time. It takes like 3 minutes. Emmett looks forward to it because it's new stuff for him and it's his special one on one time with mom. We start as soon as Eli goes down for morning nap and are usually done before he gets up. We spend about an hour on it a day give or take. Time really depends on Emmett that day if he's really into an activity it takes longer. Some days he breezes through all 4 boxes quickly or chooses not to do all of them. I picked a letter to focus on for the week, a theme, and a color. This week it was A, apples, and the color red. We also have a memory verse we are working on. This week we are doing Psalms 17:8a. I am getting all our memory verses here. It has little songs that go with it which is helpful. If you start him off he can finish it. It's so awesome! Kids are amazing. He blows my socks off. Now, I know my 2.5 year old is not going to reach mastery, but exposure won't hurt him. He likes it a lot right now and that's all that matters.
I will post more activities from the week in a later post. Here was one of our boxes today that made a big splash.
Because its been so hot here (100+) our outside activities are limited. If we haven't made it out by 9:30am it won't happen until after 4pm when our back area is shaded. However, even then it's still too hot, but we do it for the kid. I made a water play box today, and because I'd melt outside, I set it up in our kitchen. The first box Emmett picked today had plastic measuring cups a spoon and a watering can. I filled our sink with water and added some red food coloring. I pulled up Emmett's stool, and he had at it. He had a lot of fun. He liked just transferring the water from one side of the sink to the other. There was very little mess which was great. He was also able to practice his pouring skills. He was pouring a lot out of the side of the containers not the spouts. I showed him how to do it correctly which he tried a few times then reverted back to pouring out of the side which was fine. It was fun to watch him and hear him self talk.
I have a lot more to share so stay tuned!
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