Tot School (January 31st, 2010)

B is currently 28 months old.

Well, I've got lots of pictures to share this time! (Not all of them are from last week, though. Time to play catch-up!)

JIGSAW PUZZLE MANIA. Although he has enjoyed them before, B has recently caught the puzzle "bug" and wants to work on them constantly. The rest of us have been doing some 500-piece puzzles as a family, and B also likes to sit on someone's lap and put together a few select pieces. He seems to get more satisfaction from doing these 24-piece ones, though. It's fun to see him improve rapidly in his skill level.

WATER PLAY. After a few too many late-night bathroom sink fiascos, I decided to make sure B gets a healthy dose of supervised water play every day. So far, we've stayed pretty basic with the toys and containers and stayed at the kitchen sink, and he has enjoyed it. I'm looking to expand the variety this week, though--I'd love some ideas if you have any!

PAPER AIRPLANES. This is fast becoming an obsession for B. I'm planning a post with more fun details and a tutorial for our favorite airplane pattern, so stay tuned!

JUMPING. B is a very active boy, and loves, among other things, to jump. The weather hasn't been very conducive to outdoor jumping lately, but we always enjoy creating an indoor "obstacle course" with pillows (that's him in mid-air in the first photo). He also loves jumping off the bottom step of our staircase over and over again, which is a very fun and kinesthetic way to practice counting. ("How many jumps me jump, Mom?")

LIFE SKILLS: USING A CAN OPENER. We have one of those fabulous can openers that doesn't leave sharp edges on cans. Although B can't actually open a can on his own with it yet, he loves to turn the "crank" and move it around and around the can. Great motor skills practice! Because the edges on opened cans aren't sharp, I can also give him a clean, opened can to pretend with. Of course, he loves to really open cans (with help) best of all.

LIFE SKILLS: KNEADING BREAD DOUGH. If you've never made homemade bread with your toddler, I highly recommend it! I am amazed at how persistent B is with the process of kneading and how much he just loves working together with me on something "real". Of course, tasting the dough is the best part (so make sure it's an eggless recipe)!

TELEPHONE PLAY. These are some older pictures I found that I hadn't posted yet (as you can tell by the weird pink streaking from my old camera.) This is an old phone we had that we cleaned up and removed the cords from. B loves pretending to call people, and is getting quite good at mimicking real conversations.

So much fun! To see what other tots are doing, visit 1+1+1=1.