Toy School Tuesday

We're still working hard on Big Brother Time and Stone received some new birthday toys that are really keeping this time fresh and fun!







Stone loves his Grasshopper Kit and it's added a lot of variety to our time together. The kit was developed by a pediatric occupational therapist that specializes in pre-writing skills. Perfect for little ones like Stone who struggle with fine motor skills.



Stone also spent a lot of time this week playing his Cranium game. This was also a birthday present and a new spin on another Cranium game that we own, but have sadly misplaced most of the pieces.



We continued work in our curriculum book and have almost worked our way through the entirety of the colors section.



We worked on a numbers maze...



And daddy helped challenge Stone with sequencing by covering the cards and making him remember the order. His memory shocks me!

I'm working hard on ideas to revamp Tot School. Cash just can't handle it in the afternoon. He has too much on his brain still from speech school in the mornings.

I spent the summer making plans, fully intending to use this curriculum. Now that we're here, I just don't think it's going to meet our needs. Cash is my sleeper and, in hindsight, I should have expected his new schedule to be really hard on him.

Do we're refocusing and going with a lot more of a play-focused approach that all four cuties can participate in. It's not what I wanted, but I've learned with this lot of littles that creativity is key.











I personally think that learning to follow directions is one of the best skills for a little. It's paramount to their success in school and life. We used some of our outdoor time this week to focus on following two-step, unrelated directions. I just drew a series of letters, numbers, shapes and objects out on the sidewalk using chalk, then the kids listened to follow my silly directions: run to the tree, spin to the letter A, hop to the circle, etc.

So many times I find myself focusing on sitting down, written schoolwork, when in all actuality some of the best learning comes in unstructured times.







The weather was a bit cooler this week, so while the big boys were at school, the littles and I headed to the park. We scooped and measured sand...



Made some sand pictures (this is a rainbow, she did this all by herself, what a creative little mind!)...







And worked on our pouring skills. All using found objects!



Of course, there was lots of exploring and looking for colors in the world around us. In fact, color was our loose theme for this week. We read How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors? and spent a lot of time with our color cards matching, sorting, labeling and naming. (these are just paint chips from Lowes)











Join us next week as we do more to navigate this wonderful world of learning!