Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Tot School-kinda

Monkey is 2 +4 months

We believe in homeschooling from birth so even when we're not "officially" doing Tot School we're still doing Tot School.  I'm just going to talk about our week this week in this one post and add details as we go.

Monday
We were able to have Daddy home with us Monday and Tuesday this week.  Monday we decided to read a few books but Monkey wanted to run around a lot instead after having a busy weekend with the grandparents and seeing cousins the night before (I think he still had to run off the cake and ice cream from Sunday night with the in laws :) ).  SO we tried to read
 





Little Bear-but it didn't work out so well.  We got through the first story of his mom making his outfit to go out in the snow but Monkey closed the book and said "The End" (he normally loves to sit next to me and read but he was a wild Monkey!).  We decided then that we'd skip












And we'd go straight for











We had read the previous book before and I didn't think it was the most interesting Little Bear book.  Monkey really enjoyed this one however (as much as a wild sugared up 2 year old does).  It was a fun book about Little Bear's visit to his Grandparent's house and the stories they told him.  I would highly recommend this one to young toddlers up through learning to read (it's a level 1 reader).





Tuesday
We got to see Monkey's little brother (who does have a name but I don't have an "online" name for him yet so I won't be sharing that until we know) via ultrasound in the morning.  Monkey had a lot of energy and had a lot of fun seeing his brother and saying "Baby K" (insert baby's name in for K) over and over.  He enjoyed seeing all of the baby's parts but especially his face and little fists up by his face (this was also Monkey's favorite position as a newborn baby).  I saw a Perinatologist because of my three losses and my preterm labor with Monkey beginning at 32 weeks (fortunately Monkey held on until 39 weeks though and he was born healthy and happy).  Everything looks well though and we're just going to wait and see how it goes.  He did say that in many cases he'll recommend a special weekly Progesterone shot that helps prevent preterm labor and is pretty successful but because I'm no longer in school (I graduated with my Bachelor's degree 2 weeks after Monkey was born-I was in 20 credits the semester that Monkey was born and spent the majority of it on bedrest and had to complete 3 of my classes after graduation).  We're praying for a healthy rest of my pregnancy with no preterm labor so that we will be able to have a beautiful birth using Hypnobirthing.

In the afternoon we gave Monkey a bath.  He's been having some issues with his skin, especially in his diaper/underwear area.  He's potty trained during the day but still has a diaper during his nap and at bedtime but will keep them dry 25-50% of the time.  He woke up crying because he was in pain so we gave him a bath instead of waiting for pre-bedtime.  In the tub he did something new-he counted his two rubber duckies!  Previously he has only counted 1-10 but hasn't actually counted objects.

When night time came I decided to pull out my Barrel of Monkeys: Blue from my childhood.  We linked all of them together (I held and helped Monkey figure out how to hook their arms) and counted them.  Then we put them back in.  I then directed him to pull one out (he pulled a handful out).  I put all but one back.  We laid it on the floor and I counted it.  Then he counted it.  I said "Let's add one more."  Then we each counted the two monkeys.  We then added one more and took turns counting.  When we got to the fourth he decided he'd point and I could count.  We continued this through all 12 of them.  It was a fun activity and he enjoyed his "Special Game" a lot.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a busy day planning so we didn't get to our reading.  Our air conditioner broke (NOT FUN in Utah in 90+ degree weather when pregnant) so it was a pretty relaxed lay-around day.

Thursday

We read two chapters of Ralph S. Mouse so now we're on chapter 7.  We read in the morning because yet again the high was in the high 90s so we had to leave our house in the late afternoon.  We went swimming though at Monkey's grandparents' house and Monkey thought he could swim all by himself so he kept trying to flop out of our arms.  THAT was pretty scary.  He got a few mouth-fulls of water and still kept trying to get away but never succeeded (I know that some 2 year olds CAN swim but since he's only been swimming a couple times this summer and up until this time has been freaked way out by the water I know he's not ready plus he refuses to put his face or ears in the water).

I worked more on our Tot School preps.  I only get a few minutes here and there to do anything so I plan to work on it more on Friday.  I've decided to pick all of our themes and get all of our ideas together then each week I can print out what I need (though I'm planning on what I'll print out now so it's as simple as just printing or going to a print shop) and read through and make better plans of what specifically we'll do each day.  We're using the outline of Brightly Beaming Resources Preparatory combined with Brightly Beaming Resources Preschool because Monkey fits right in between the two-he can recognize many letters but not all and he can recognize most of his shapes and colors (but again not all).  I like the idea of doing a learning poster so we plan to use that and we'll also use the Preparatory Curriculum's schedule of numbers and colors/shapes.  We will be focusing on a rhyme of the week but it will fit with our themes rather than the ones in the Preparatory.  We'll be combining the two weekly schedules in to what fits us but we'll be focusing more towards the Preschool one for our letter of the week and following those outlines and using many of those ideas.  We'll pretty much always do a topic related to the letter of the week but there are a few that we will do the letter but do a theme that "begins" with another letter so we can do our feelings theme and a few other ones.

Friday

Man it's a bad sign when your house starts out at 80 at 6 AM!  It was an awfully hot day.  We read more Ralph S. Mouse and I prepped more for Tot School.  I'm done getting themes together and know what I need to print each week.  I'll spend a little time each week preparing for the following week so we have a plan in place especially arranging around library days, play groups, doctor's appointments, and other obligations.  I tried to plan too far out last year and found myself frustrated when we couldn't get anything done SO this time I have ideas of things we want to do each week and the week before I'll figure out what days to do each thing.  I look forward to actually starting our first real week of Tot School of the school year next week! 


For more information about Tot School and to see other great Tot School blogs click the button below

Tot School

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like a fun week! Especially seeing baby brother.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with your "totschool" philosophy. My kids are getting lots of play time, learning time, and learning play time -- far more than I post about as well. Mostly my "tot school" posts are documenting the times when I get to spend 100% with that one child.

    I hope your air conditioning isn't out too long!

    ReplyDelete