tot school - fall fun:)

Noah is 12 months old.

This week was lots of fun:) We focused on fall and a little Halloween and finished up with the color blue. Next week we will be moving on to a different color.

Noah had fun at my mom's house over the week, especially play with his cousin Abby (5) and my brother's girlfriend's son, Ian (4). He REALLY loves both of them, and particularly enjoys giving them lots of hugs and love:)

We enjoyed some outside playtime with the *big* kids, blowing bubbles and playing with foam noodle pieces. Those were used to position Noah's carseat when it was turned backwards, but have since been repurposed as swords:)

Noah also had fun exploring in the mulch..

And enjoying the mums:) He had to learn about looking and NOT picking the flowers, too!

We spent a good bit of time outside at our house this week too, but I didn't get any pictures. He learned about leaves, trees, pumpkins, and mums/other flowers again, as well as played on his castle.

We also brought the fall theme inside with art this week. I decided to try using torn paper and Noah really seemed to enjoy it:)

He didn't really understand putting one piece of paper on the picture at a time, so he liked getting a big handful and sprinkling them. Which would have been great if I would have had glue...but I didn't, and the sprinkled pieces didn't stick so great to tape, so I had to help him quite a bit. But the tape did make the art more 3D which was neat:)

I got the idea for this picture from this Totally Tots crafts post. I obviously helped Noah a lot with this picture...once he understood that he had to stick the pieces on one at a time, he did much better but still had trouble getting the tape side down. So I let him decide where to put the "leaves" and then I stuck them down...teamwork:)

I also sang the song/did the finger play Totally Tots shared in this post while Noah sprinkled. I told him the paper pieces were like little leaves:) These leaves look a little funky, again because I had to use tape. But oh well...Noah liked making the "leaves" fall dow!

For our books this week, I traded out some of the general ones in his bag to fall/Halloween themed books for a couple of weeks. Here are the ones we've been reading...

Welcome Fall by Jill Ackerman

Five Little Pumpkins by Harper Growing Tree (no author)

Where is Baby's Pumpkin by Karen Katz

Here Comes Halloween! by Caroline Jayne Church

Spooky by Roger Priddy

Afraid of the Dark? by Treesha Runnells

He particularly likes Here Comes Halloween!...and Spooky has been a long time favorite:)

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We also finished up with the color blue this week. Noah seems to be getting bored with the same objects in his color box, so I think its time to move on.

We finished up the color hunt through our house, finding things like bibs, socks, and washcloths to identify. We didn't keep these in the color box, though, since they are needed elsewhere!

The other thing I planned for Noah, and was SO excited to try, was a sensory/color activity. I filled a bowl with uncooked rice and hid blue objects in it for him to dig for. Here he is looking for some blue pompom balls...

Unfortunately, he HATED this activity! He has a thing about getting stuff on his hands (remember his reaction to his birthday cake?) so when the rice stuck to his fingers, he flipped out. I was so disappointed:( But I think I'll try it again another time with something bigger, like pasta or marshmellows, so they won't stick to his hands..

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And last but not least, Noah is finally up and moving on his own:) We haven't had to coax him at all this week to walk around.....and of course, he's even more into everything! He can already move pretty quickly, and I have yet to get a good picture/video of his accomplishment. By the time I got this one snapped, he had already made it across the room to me!

Now the real fun begins...right? :)

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See what others are doing for Tot School, and share your own experiences at 1+1+1=1!