Tot School!

We’re officially going to give “tot school” a shot! I’ve been thinking about doing Tot School at our house for quite some time—and figure that now is as good a time as any! Ella just turned 2, so she’s really at a perfect age to start.

What is tot school? Well, it’s basically just specific activities that will foster learning in a toddler. It can be something simple like seeing what happens to sidewalk chalk if you get the ground wet first, or activities that involve matching and sorting. It can be art, music, reading books… anything fun! And that’s the key—it has to be FUN. Young children learn through hands-on play. It’s not about memorization or flashcards. It’s about exploring their world. Learning happens naturally as a result! Tot School is also about the parents being intentional in how they interact with their kids. It’s my job as her mom to provide her with opportunities to learn and explore!

For more information, visit http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TotSchool.html

So, for our first week, we did simple things. I actually didn’t photograph a lot of things (like playing in the rain, and then later rain puddles!) because some things happened completely spontaneously and I didn’t have time to grab the camera. But a few things we did were:

-Library Story Time. Our local library has the BEST story times! I’ve visited some other libraries and story times (even other libraries within the same system) and Ms. Karen by far is the best story time leader! Ella is a very quiet and observant girl—so even when all of the kids are jumping, she’s just watching everyone and not participating. Usually by the very end, she’ll start smiling more and will even wander away from me to chase after the bubbles (every story time ends with bubbles!). We’re making it a habit to go every week instead of just every once in a while when I think about it.

-Shape sorting/peg board. I can’t remember what this toy is actually called, but it’s basically a peg board with 4 shapes on it (circle, square, rectangle, triangle). Each shape only fits in a specific spot (the circles only fit in the spot with one peg. The square only fits in the spot with 4 pegs, etc.). I got this out a few months ago, and she wasn’t able to put the shapes on by herself very well. However, this week, she was able to put the shapes on in the correct places all by herself! It’s amazing what just a few months of growing up will do.

A local parenting group that I am a member of has started a rotating “tot school,” where it is at a different person’s house each week. I was the first to host 2 weeks ago (and of course didn’t take any photos!) and we went to another friend’s house last week. Again, I didn’t take hardly any photos, but here, Ella is sorting pipe cleaners by color into separate containers. She really liked the sparkly purple ones!

I found these really cool “paintbrushes” a while ago and got them out to try for the first time. Unlike traditional paintbrushes, these look more like cleaning tools! They’re very big and bulky, and leave different textures and prints on paper. Ella had fun trying them for the first time. Next time, I should use really big paper (I didn’t have any this time). Using great big strokes with these painting tools would be a lot of fun!

Over the weekend, we went to a family reunion and Ella was able to use some “gross motor” skills to climb, run, slide, and play!

And lastly, today (before it rained and we got soaked playing in the rain and jumping in puddles), Ella used a spray bottle to spray the walls, some flowers, and even my feet! This seems like such a simple concept—but it really works a lot of hand muscles, teaches her about watering plants, and social concepts, like how it’s only ok to spray people if you ask them first (and don’t squirt faces!).