tot school - almost Christmas!

Noah is 15 months old.

We've had such a fun week this week! Everyone in our house is really gearing up for Christmas, so this made for some great learning opportunities:)

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Color Theme: Red

I didn't do anything specific this week regarding our special color, but Noah played in his color box a lot. He also consistently identified the color red many different times throughout the week when asked, so I feel my color boxes might actually be teaching him something after all:) I'll be changing to the color green next week.

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Seasonal Theme: Christmas

Well...I broke down at the last minute and got Noah a tree for his room. After seeing SO many adorable kids' trees, there was no way my decorating-obsessed heart could be at peace without a tree for my Noah. I tried to convince myself to wait for after Christmas sales, but I just couldn't do it. Still, I was very proud of myself...everything I got was on sale, including the tree (it was only $25!) and several of the ornaments we already had. I also used one of his handmade baby blankets for the skirt, so it was special all around!

And after seeing Noah's reaction to it, I am so glad I didn't wait until next year:)

Of course, now he wants to pull everything off and stick it back on in random places. I guess it at least makes for good fine motor work!

Another fun thing we did this week was grow Rudolph. We got one of those "grow-your-own" sets in the dollar section at AC Moore several weeks ago, so I pulled it out for something different for Noah to explore. And "explore" he did! This is Rudolph prebath...

Rudolph postbath was not such a pretty sight. I didn't get a picture before he was tossed, but Rudolph was limbless! Apparently Jimmy thought it would be funny to pull a leg off the poor little reindeer while he gave Noah his bath, so Noah followed suit with the other three legs. What is it with boys and destroying things???

I was SO inspired last week by Susan from Chasing Marcus to let Noah begin working with numbers! We have lots of number books, and I'll count things occasionally to Noah, but nothing too focused. I decided this week to really focus more on introducing numbers. We read lots of number books, including:

Counting Christmas by Karen Katz

Number Munch by Charles Reasoner (couldn't get an Amazon link...we got it in a pack at a book fair)

John Deere's Farm 123

Eric Carle's 123 by Eric Carle

Winnie the Pooh's 123

I also made a very simple number activity using some of the leftover mini Christmas balls from Noah's new tree. Very simple idea...

He did okay with this. Mostly he liked to throw the little balls around his room since they are plastic and will bounce. But he did do it correctly several times without my help, so at least that's a start!

I also pulled out more of the Christmas Tot Pack from Carisa this week, but I only got pictures of one activity. Other than pictured below, Noah worked on matching the trees (he's VERY good at this now), coloring the presents, and looking through the Christmas ABCs which I hole punched and put a ring through to make it easier for him to carry. I'll share all of our work with the tot pack next week once we get through everything.

What I did get pictures of, though, was Noah completing the "Happy Birthday Jesus" dot page. First, we worked with Cheerios after breakfast...

Then that evening, Noah glued pompoms to the dots. He got very good at using glue! This was also a great activity for teaching sequencing...first pick up the pompom, then dip it in the glue, then stick it to the dot. It was also a good opportunity to talk about colors...Noah was able to pick out all of the red pompoms without my help too:) And excuse the random pattern...I'm running low on pompoms!

The other craft we did later this week was make a handprint tree. We did this after the Happy Birthday Jesus picture, so Noah knew exactly what to do with the pompom!

He is also really coming around to finger painting. He really enjoyed making the "ornaments" on his tree:)

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Miscellaneous Tot School

Noah did quite a few activities that weren't themed this week too. He played with puzzles, and was finally able to fit them into their places without help! He has known where they go for a long time now, but wasn't able to fit them into their place.

Playing with pompoms in general is always a hit with Noah. He does really well putting them into small spaces, like an old formula container..

He also does well putting them into an ice cube tray. He really wants to be able to do it with the tongs, but his little hands just aren't strong enough yet, so he loses interest quickly.

Noah also played in the kitchen this week. He had fun stacking plastic containers..

He also enjoyed matching the lids..

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Snow Fun!

Noah wasn't terribly fond of the snow at first, but he is definitely coming around now!

These pictures were from last night...we ventured out to eat for a while, and Noah had a blast sliding around on the icy-topped snow on our way back inside!

I have LOTS more pictures to share of the snow, so that will be a separate post later on.

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But that's all we've got for this week! See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at1+1+1=1!