Colton

I have been LOVING (seriously LOVING!!) all my special time with Colton lately.  He is so much fun, such a sweet boy, so smart, and has such a fun sense of humor.  With his big sister at school, we converse so much more, just the two of us, and we get special Mommy-Colton time each day while Larkyn naps.  I am seriously cherishing EVERY SECOND of this time with him, as I know the two years I have with him before he starts school will go so fast!  Colton and I have a lot of similarities in our personalities, and I have always understood him really well - how he ticks, why he responds how he does, and the like.  He and I get along in a really special way, and I truly love spending time with him.  Here are a few snippets of life with my lil dude over the past few weeks, starting with some stuff we've been up to and ending with some things we have been working on/learning in at-home preschool.

Visiting the Lutz Railroad Garden -  We only had 45 minutes, but he was completely mesmerized the entire time!

Checking out a new regional park 20 minutes south of us - whitetail regional park.  They have an awesome "natural" play area including areas to build forts.

Inside the fort

Looking for frogs at whitetail regional park with buddies Kellen, Zander, and Corbin

As part of the natural play area at whitetail regional park, there is a sand pit along with pumps to get water from the ground and make channels/etc.  Colton loved it!

Playing basketball at open gym

Legos at LegoLand Mall of America

"Doing drills" with MN soccer team (MN United) coach as part of Toddler Tuesday at Mall of America

Taking a tour of our local fire station - Colton was intently listened to everything Fireman Pat said!

Colton with other members of Mom's Club at the tour

Colton's thank you note he mailed to Fireman Pat (the red picture is a firetruck!)

Explorer Colton, hiking

Love.

Colton bikes with us to drop Summer off at kindergarten each day, and then bikes home with me.  Biking over a mile each morning provides the perfect way to release his energy right away in the morning!  He has been focusing and learning so much in our preschool together and I think that this is definitely a factor!

One activity we have been doing in preschool is a sorting game working on the difference between b, p, d.  Just for fun I also made one "q" who we fondly call "Q-man" because I made the cards out of snowman post-its (so that we wouldn't have the trouble of flashcards rotating).  Colton loves Q-man and always looks for him first!

 Q-man Video

We have been doing many different games with our calendar pieces, sorting them, playing search and find games, etc.  Colton can now name all of the months in order and knows some fact about (almost) every month.

 Months of the Year Video



Colton's art is... interesting ;)  He made this picture for Summer.  (He wrote Summer's name at the top...backwards ;))  I think he said it was "Summer and Colton eating a pickle" haha ;)

He gave this paper to me to give to Summer when I went to have lunch with her at school.

Colton has been working on which feet to put his shoes on, and he is getting better. However, I had to snap a picture this day because after being told he put his shoes on the wrong feet, he moved his feet and posed like this saying that now they were ok ;)

We have been practicing two speech sounds with Colton over the last few weeks...his "r" sound (which he pronounces as a "w") and his "th" sound (which he pronounces as an "f").  It is so exciting to see how much he is improving!!!  I have been loving an app I put on my phone called Articulation Station and it has flashcards and games like Memory that have him practicing his words (you can pick any letters you want to work on and just download those).  I have seen a dramatic improvement as we work on them and he loves to use my phone!!  I also have tapped into the "Grandma" resource as we work on Colton's speech.  Grandma Kirkwood went to school for speech pathology and audiology, and she knows tips to help kids make sounds they don't know how to make.  After struggling with how to teach Colton how to make the "th" sound, I printed out flashcards and made a game for Grandma and Colton to play when she came over.  Within no time Grandma had taught Colton how to make the correct sound!  (Thanks, Grandma!)  Here is a video of Grandma teaching Colton his "th" sound.

Here Colton was practicing writing the names of our family

Here Colton his working on one of his CVC puzzle books (he has done "at" words and "ap" words).  After cutting apart the pieces, he completes the puzzle to make a picture like a map, or a cap.  Then he sounds out the word below the picture, finds the matching word in his book, and tapes it in his book.

Colton has been doing amazing with sounding out words.  This week, for the first time, he started putting the sounds together all by himself to form words.  Here is a video from the first day he "learned to read".




We have been working on numbers 1-100 with Colton, and also counting by 10's.  He is starting to see patterns among the numbers and is starting to be able to read 2-digit numbers. (I really like this app for both lowercase letters and practicing 2 digit numbers, and Colton loves the space games!).  He counted to 100 for the first time this week, using his number chart... getting sillier by the number ;)

Video Counting:




I have always loved reading with the kids and we continue to keep our large library book basket in our living room full of roughly 30 books at a time ;).  I have to admit one of my favorite parts of reading with the kids is the cuddles:).  I love curling up on the couch with Colton and snuggling under a blanket together reading books like "I Stink" (about a garbage truck) or "Hot Rod Hampster" to name a few of his favorites from our current library trip.  I also have been having so much fun playing all sorts of games with Colton during Mommy-Colton time (while Larkyn his napping) such as Candyland, Kids Monopoly, Trouble, Cooties, and Guess Who.

I love this lil dude

 Well, besides library story time (Tuesdays), Cubbies (Wednesdays), and sports camp (Thursdays) that about sums up the last few weeks with my favorite Middle and me :).  Love ya, Buddy!