Monday, January 24, 2011

New Stuff

Whilst shopping today I found this ice cube tray with small cups. I had an idea that the small counting cubes would fit in there. The best part...only $2!
It took us quite a while to fill the tray. It also fits marbles in it.


Thursday, January 20, 2011

Where To Begin

I am a mostly stay at home mum with a little boy, who is almost 22 months old. We are having another baby at the end of March this year. Over the past six months, I have been experimenting with different ways of keeping my active toddler busy as well as teaching him all the things he needs to learn, but in a fun way. I have had a go at a few different things, both structured and unstructured, but nothing was working the way I wanted it to. Then I discovered a fantastic website about Tot School whilst searching for some activities for my son. This made a lot of sense to me, and was what I was looking for. I have adapted it to suit our needs, and 2 weeks in, it is working really well. I can already see the differences in my son. He is picking up lots of new words, and really enjoying the activities and experiences set out for him each day.

I set about putting together a program for him which is made up of 5 daily activities. I set the activities up for him and he chooses what he wants to do. Generally, he selects everything at least once. The activities are planned to offer 1 fine motor, cognitive, creative, language and 1 gross motor experience per day. I only plan 2-3 gross motor experiences per week and repeat them for 2 days. All the other experiences are offered daily, for the day. We generally complete the activities in the morning, but it does depend on our plans for the day.

So far, it is working for us, so we plan to stick to it, at least up until the baby is born. Then, who knows...