Tot School

Well, we are one month away from our official first day of school on August 23, when Elinore will be three years and 2 days old. She would have graduated from the Infants and Toddlers program, but Maryland is at present the only state to use an extended version to ensure continuity in instruction.


For speech therapy, Elinore is working on asking questions. She can now hide something behind her back and ask, "Where is it?" And for the first time she asked, "What's this?" and I told her it was a carpet cleaner and she repeated it, and asked again! Now I know almost 3 yr. olds ask a lot of questions, but this is unquestionably progress for Elinore! We are also tackling concepts, such as size and color.

Comparing animal sizes

Rice bin

Popping bubbles with daddy

For Tot School, we painted, read Bible stories from Bible Stories to Read (Rod &Staff), used ABeka's language cards,visited the Starfall website, sang the alphabet, put N on our coconut tree, worked on sizes, made blueberry pie, used pencil erasers for stamping, did a body parts race, explored what magnets would and would not pick up, practiced fine motor skills with tongs and pom-pons, and covered poetry with A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Wow, that sounds like a lot when I write it all down!

These are the squares I made for comparing sizes. This is actually my second set. I didn't laminate the first ones, and they got ruined. I just used my handy-dandy paper trimmer, and laminated. Right now, we use the ones with the most size difference, and identify the colors. The biggest one is ten square inches and the smallest is one square inch. I want to make a set of circles, too, when I feel like digging out my Creative Memories circle cutter.

For the body parts race, I just used pictures of body parts. She identified them, or repeated after me, ran to put them on her table, then threw herself on the couch. Repeat. This gives her some of the sensory input she needs, as well as a little exercise since we have had record high temperatures this week.

Sadly, we have not done any Tot School printables because we are out of ink. The Do-a dots are Elinore's favorite.

I am still not accustomed to using Hannah's camera, and most of my shots come out blurry. I hope my camera turns up soon.