Monday Week 4-Ocean wrap up

We're back to potty training again.  Monkey's rash is gone and we're done treating it again so we're back to pottying.  We started yesterday and had a ROUGH day!  He went back to going non-stop all day and we had to break him of that.  We had 12-15 accidents yesterday and caught two.

For those of you who don't know we started out introducing the potty at 9.5 months because he was very curious about the bathroom and the potty.  He was army crawling really well at that point and would follow us to the bathroom.  We got him a little potty and started putting him on it before his bath and while we were going.  He started holding it until he was put on the potty so I decided to see if he would do it at other points in the day and he did.  By the time he was 1 he was fully trained with less than 1 accident per week but by 14 months life got kind of crazy and and he reverted back to more accidents.  We kept at it though until he broke out with a terrible rash about a month and a half ago.  We had to stop because we had to treat it and almost as soon as it was better it broke out again.  He was diagnosed with a skin condition that many kids get when they're in diapers (cloth or disposable).  It's worse with synthetics so we have been using prefolds and wool to keep his diaper area "in-shape" so to speak.  We just finished our second treatment so I decided to move with full steam to try and get him trained so we hopefully won't have to treat it again.

Today was MUCH better.  We didn't really start in trainers (we use the Gerber ones at home during the day and our Monkey Bunns ones when we go out) until after nap time.  We had 2 accidents fairly quick.  After we had dinner though I took Monkey to the bathroom...nothing.  About 10 minutes later he ran to the bathroom door (we keep it shut because we don't have a potty lock or anything) and said and signed "potty, potty!"  I of course ran to the bathroom and he went!  He did that again about an hour later and then had an accident while I was running his bath water about 15 minutes later.  I'm proud of Monkey though-he did a really good job today!

On to the books we read!
Ocean Friends by Robert Lyn Nelson-this book has GORGEOUS pictures.  It's about a dolphin and the dolphin's friends.
Rainbow Fish Counting
Rainbow Fish Colors
Rainbow Fish ABCs (really short-several letters per page, no poem or anything.  Basically just the alphabet song)
Rainbow Fish and the Blue Whale-great to teach how to face your problems and talk them out peacefully
Curious George Goes Fishing
Fishes in the Ocean-not really about fish but great to teach counting (level 1 reader)
Turtle in the Sea (we read this before)
Ocean Counting: Odd Numbers
Peanut Butter and Jellyfishes: A Very Silly Alphabet Book
Commotion in the Ocean-poems about various ocean animals
First Words at the Aquarium (Curious George)
Shapes with Ocean Animals by Melanie Watt ISBN 1553378334

And the past week we've been reading
Clifford's Bedtime
The Going to Bed Book.

Tot school themes for the year 16 m-2yr

I decided I should post my themes in case anyone else wants to do Tot School with us. As I have more time I'll update this thread to link to the lap books and folder games that we will do. I'll also post links to the threads for those weeks so you can see the activities we did. I'll include the link of where I got the idea for the theme. This might give you some good ideas of things your child/ren might like.

Week 1 Colors. Letters A and B. Making own lapbook with shapes in 11 colors (ten colors, one white) with pockets to sort the colors and pockets to sort the shapes. I'll make the pockets removable so we can start with sorting 2 colors or shapes at first. I'm also including the color book from here. I'll post pictures when everything is laminated. Intro, M, Tu, W, Th, F.

Week 2 Animals. Letters C and D. Making a lap book out of these books. Week 2 (find each individual day in that post).

Week 3 Ocean. Letters E and F. Lap book made from these two books: 1 and 2 hopefully ending the week with a trip to the aquarium. Week 3

Week 4 Feelings. Letters G and H. Lap book (this one is awesome!)

Week 5 Senses. Letters I and J.

Week 6 Water. Letters K and L.

Week 7 Farm. Letters M and N

Week 8 Shapes. Letters O and P. Lapbook with colors.

Week 9 Fall. Letters Q and R.

Week 10 Halloween. Letters S and T. Halloween on Saturday

Week 11 Animals (zoo animals). Letters U and V.

Week 12 Weather. Letters W and X.

Week 13 Winter. Letters Y and Z.

Week 14 Thanksgiving. Alphabet (week of Thanksgiving so we'll only work M-W)

Week 15 Christmas and Gingerbread Men. This is the end of November-beginning of December. We'll extend our activities for Christmas through the Christmas break.

Week 16 January.

Week 17 Snow

Week 18 We are all the same inside and Pirates (Martin Luther King Day + day after we'll do the first)

Week 19 Noah's Ark (as an alternate you can look at animals or something else-Monkey loves animals that's why we're doing so many animal themes)

Week 20 February

Week 21 Big Machines

Week 22 America (President's Day this week)

Week 23 Butterflies and caterpillars

Week 24 March

Week 25 St. Patrick's (the 17th is during Spring Break)

Week 26 Trains, Planes, Cars (after Spring Break)

Week 27 April and flowers and plants

Week 28 Easter

Week 29 Counting

Curious George again :)

We have several more George books but here's two more that are fun.

Curious George's Big Book of Curiosity
This is a must have! It is one of those books that labels things but it isn't just one subject. You will find body parts, emotions, family clothing, toys, things you can find in your neighborhood/town, jobs, homes (types of homes), grocery store, meals (including foods you might eat in those meals), transportation, farm animals and sounds, counting to 20, shapes, alphabet, opposites, superlatives (ie low, lower, lowest), seasons, weather, birthday party (things you'd find at one), colors, pets (in a classroom), playground, musical instruments, land/Earth features, bathroom, bedroom. This would be great to teach how to read since everything is labeled. It also includes most things your child will learn in preschool.

Curious George and the Rocket
A slightly shorter version of Curious George Gets a Medal. The one we borrowed was a board book though which is fun for little hands

The Complete Adventures of Curious George
The ultimate must have! This book has all of the original stories:
-Curious George
-Curious George Takes A Job
-Curious George Rides a Bike
-Curious George Gets a Medal
-Curious George Flies a Kite
-Curious George Learns the Alphabet
-Curious George Goes to the Hospital
All are really fun stories!