Tot School

In the last month or so, our days have changed quite a bit.  Colton has settled nicely into a morning nap routine from 9 or 10 am to 11 am.  Lunch and afternoon naps follow shortly thereafter, and so we don't get out as much as we used to for play dates and field trips.

I found some ideas online for "Tot School" and it has been super fun (and addicting!) looking into all the fun things Summer and I can do at home!  This gives Summer new things to do at home as well as some quality time with Mommy :-).  We had our first day of Tot School today for a half hour while Colton napped this morning.   It was a lot of fun!  Here is what we did:

First we practiced tracing the letter "A".  One great idea I found is to put a printout or paper inside a plastic page protector, and then use a dry erase marker to mark on it.  Then you can use the paper over and over again! 

Summer basically just scribbled, but enjoyed using the marker :-)

Then we practiced counting.  I put circles with the numbers 1-6 on a paper.  We talked about the numbers and then counted out the correct number of Apple Jacks to put in each circle.

Summer did great with 1 and 2...and then it became more fun to eat the Apple Jacks!

This morning I made pasta beads by following the directions here.  She had a TON of fun stringing them onto yarn!  There are so many ways we can use these beads, from sorting, pattern recognition, fine motor coordination, and just plain fun too :-).

Summer did a great job not getting frustrated when the beads didn't go on the string right away.

 Our last "lesson" was sorting her colored fridge magnet letters onto the correct color plates.

She did a few, and then had more fun stacking and unstacking the plates over and over again!

 Here are a few of my favorite websites so far....

1. I can teach my child
2. Keeping Little Ones Busy
3. Educational Activities for Toddlers
4. Fun with Tots 
5. Tools for Tots 

If you know of any other fun ideas or websites, feel free to leave them as comments below!