Sunday, February 15, 2009

Letters and Love!

Tot School

The past week and a half or so we have been incorporating lots of ideas I have found on my favorite Tot-Schooling blogs: 1+1+1=1 and Totally Tots! I love the constant inspiration I get from these blogs and it helps to keep Roman's interest as well!

Our first new activity has been pages for a letter notebook. Basically, what I do is make a page with a certain letter and pictures of words that begin with that letter. I then tell Roman to find the different pictures which he then "circles." So far, we have worked on letters "O" & "L". Along with letter recognition this has been a great way to work on his speech. Granted, he is not even three yet, but it was the perfect time to get him to say his "L"s better- we had him stick his tongue way out when he said the names of the pictures so that he made an "L" sound instead of a "W." He especially loves having his work up on the fridge to show off! Much to my surprise he even traced inside the lines of the "O" all by himself!
Another way we worked on letters was with these Thomas the Train flash cards my grandma just gave us (one of the many awesome learning hand-me-downs we just received from her that belonged to my cousin!). Roman's favorite activity with the cards is to hammer them! We set a bunch of cards out and I call out a letter- he then tries to find the letter and hammer it before I grab it away. He loves this game- just the kind of high-activity thing he needs to stay interested!

Our other main tool this week has been our LOVE poster! We got this idea from this post on Totally Tots. We have 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 hung above the poster and an envelope with a bunch of hearts- each of which has a different aspect of love written on it as described in the verse. Every day (or every other day) Roman gets to choose a new heart out of the envelope and paste it on the poster. We then talk about what that heart means and review all the others. We try to do some practical activity to demonstrate what the concept means and continuously talk about whatever concept we are working on throughout the day. Much to my surprise, one night before bed Roman actually told me that he needed to be patient for morning so he could do the next day's activities! I guess something is getting in that little head! It is always nice to have those rewarding moments when you know all you are working with them on is not in vain!

This next week I am very excited to work on a few other awesome ideas from the blogs I have mentioned above, including lacing cards, stringing beads, pouring things and transferring! Stay tuned!

2 comments:

outdoor.mom said...

wow! those are great ideas :-)

Carisa said...

I am so honored, you really spoke highly of our sites, THANKS!!! I am so glad you are being inspired by them, and I love seeing your posts!
:) Carisa