Tot School: C is for Cupcake

We’re working on C from Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve this week.

The Letter “C”

In November I shared that Chloe didn’t know her ABC’s. Around that time, Chloe started expressing an interest in spelling her name and lately she’s been “writing stories” on her Manga Doodle. They just look like little scribbles but her interest in writing made me realize that we need to do some gentle introduction. We’ve been enjoying the Melissa and Doug See and Spell. We decided to start our Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve and we are starting with C. I thought we would try to learn the letters of her name first. I’m really liking the Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve package but Chloe definitely needs more letters to trace before catching on. I’ve been using this website which allows me to make an entire page with the same letter in dotted lines for tracing. {The only thing is that it has a watermark on the page unless you buy a membership. The watermark doesn’t affect whether or not Chloe can trace the letters though.}

Decorating our Cupcakes

Counting, Sorting and Shapes

The littles got a train table for Christmas from GiGi and Nana. While they play the traditional way, on the table, they also play with the trains in other ways. Lining them up, sorting by color, making them into shapes and counting them. It’s fun to watch them and see what they come up with! Chloe also enjoys her Lockagons but has yet to really build anything with them. She mostly likes to sort them by colors in to piles, then create roads and train tracks with them.

Always Building

Last week we got the M & D Wooden Nesting Blocks and Chloe kind of hogged enjoyed them last week. It seems that it is John’s turn this week. He hasn’t yet caught on to the concept of putting bigger blocks on the bottom as he builds but it won’t take him long; little ones are a quick study when something interests them.

We also played with the Lincoln Logs again but John had a new take on it and likes to walk around with it on his head, claiming to be a robot.

We have a lot of different blocks and such for building; always a hit with the little ones. It’s interesting watching them try to problem solve as they try to make their structures as high as they can without having them topple over!

A new spin on Lincoln Logs & A quick storytime with Nana

Books We’re Reading

That’s Not My Tiger was the new board book we picked up last week “for our new baby” they claimed. The above picture is Chloe getting Nana to read it to her – mommy’s read it enough for one day 🙂 I love the That’s Not My Series because they have fun textures on each page, a little repetitious so they know what’s coming, short and sturdy. Very elementary but my littles still enjoy them. I think they will also make for great books for first readers.

In A Minute! The children enjoyed this book but I think that the lesson was really for mommy! We picked this up at a local thrift store. The story is about big bear who is too busy doing chores to play with little bear. Little bear constantly hears “in a minute”. Finally big bear finishes the chores and tells little bear they can play. To big bear’s surprise, little bear wants to “play laundry and play sweep the floor” etc. Little bear really just wanted to help all along. It’s a very sweet book and I really enjoyed the illustrations as well. Though this is an out-of-print book by Virginia Miller but you can pick it up for about $5 including shipping through the link provided. A worthwhile read I’d say!

This is a sight that I see often and never tire of seeing. It’s not a mess but rather a little girl learning to fall in love with reading!!

What was your family up to last week?

• Chloe is 4 years & John is 30 months
• This post links to Tot School, Preschool Corner, Show & Tell Blog Hop, Tot Tuesdays, Kids Get Crafty, and Read. Explore.Learn.