Saturday, February 16, 2013

Tot School {The Mitten + Valentine's}

Last week Addi loved Mitten week so much that we continued, but added more books for expand on it.  
We found some books that we're about love and Valentine's Day that included woodland creatures. 
Each week I do a calendar time including the weather, ZooPhonics card, and a weekly song.  
I found the cutest mitten song to the Farmer and the Dell.  
Addi put the animals in the mitten for each verse of the song.
Addi has been obsessed with putting money in her piggy bank lately, so we give her all our change.  
On her own she has started to line them up, count them, then deposit them into her bank.
This girl hasn't been able to get enough books lately, so we just run with it.  
If we do no other "learning activities" other then read the mountain of books {after Disney Junior} I'm ok with it. Yes, she watches cartoons in the morning.  More then I would probably want to admit, but this mama doesn't really function before 9:30AM.
Sometimes I grab the school bag and Addi tells me she doesn't want to do school, but then five minutes late she comes to me begging to do school.  I don't want to ever push learning activities on her.  Just develop a love of learning.  The last few weeks I really seen a huge difference that if I let her do something on her own, she gains so much more confidence and understand.  That includes initiating school when she's ready.  Also, I don't do school with her two or three days a week.
In honor of Valentines day we did a few heart activities and read Valentines books.  
So far she has loves Clifford Valentine and Max & Ruby the best.  
It's fun to see her actually grasp something from the book on her own.  
After we did all the Valentine's activities, we went to tell her grandparents Happy Valentine's day.
On her own she went to get each of them one of her sheets to give them. It was so cute! 
Then she only wanted one Valentine:  Daddy! 
This week I read a post about what another families reading time looked like, it was liberating! 
I don't want to sit there with my two year old and expect her to listen to ten books on end.
Yes, she loves certain books and will "read" them with me, but I want to read her longer books too.
Now I'm ok with her playing with play dough or lacing cards, she's still hearing me reading to her.
She is still hearing stories and learning more concepts and language skills.  
Sometimes she stops what she's doing to listen, other times she just quietly plays and listens.
No more struggle to keep her hands and feet still to listen to longer books. 

{Addi is 31 months old}


3 comments:

  1. I love all the Valentine Books you read! All of them were gone by the time we got to the library! I think I need to buy Clifford's Valentine though :)

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    1. Those were all that were left by the time we went too. Except I bought the Clifford one, which she LOVED! It was actually a combo of two books in one.

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  2. Where did you get that clever dry erase frame? I love the idea of just slipping in a worksheet and letting them use the dry-erase markers! That is so clever!

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