tot school - Christmas has come:)

Noah is 15 months old.

Merry Christmas just a little late from our family to yours! We had a wonderful time celebrating, and I will share a recap of all we did for the day, but we took time to do a few fun Tot School activities.

---------------------

Color Theme: GREEN

In keeping with the season, I chose green for our next focus color. Here are some of the things in Noah's color box for the next couple of weeks...

Noah had lots of fun exploring all of the different goodies in his box. Given the season, there were also lots of opportunities to point out green all around him.

We got Noah two new videos for Christmas from a company I'm not too familiar with. It's called Preschool Prep, and their videos and other learning tools have won lots of awards. Supposedly, the videos can teach your child their colors, shapes, numbers, letters, and even sight words in only a few viewings! I'm super excited to see how these work out. We got Noah the colors and shapes videos to try. So far he has seen the color video twice, and he LOVES it. It's definitely not the most exciting video for parents to watch too, but I can see how the repetition will help.

Anyway, I'm hoping that this will be a great way for Noah to really grasp his colors (and later, shapes and more), then the activities like our color boxes will be good reinforcement. I'll be sure to let you know how the videos help...I'm optimistic!

---------------------

Theme: Christmas

Noah worked a lot with the Christmas Tot Pack from 1+1+1=1 this week. He has gotten very good and very quick at matching the trees...

I didn't do the matching exactly how Carisa showed, but I knew that if I cut each small tree individually that they would be ripped to shreds in no time. I plan to keep this pack, though, and use it again next year; hopefully by then Noah will be able to play with paper things and not tear them, or I will have a laminator:)

He had fun doing the Color the Presents activity, and worked on the various pages throughout the week.

I also hole-punched the Christmas Alphabet mini book so he could carry it around. He really enjoyed being able to carry the little book around!

I also printed out several of the other components of the Tot Pack (Where is the Present?, Christmas Shapes, making the candy cane, etc), but Noah wasn't too interested in those. I'll just save them for next year. But I was super pleased at Noah's abilities with our first Tot Pack! I hope to try making some into little lapbooks in the near future:)

Noah did a few art projects this week as always. First, he made the nativity scene out of felt stickers.

He loved taking the pieces off of the backing, but didn't care much about putting them on the paper. But, Noah LOVED looking at the picture all week long. I kept it on his train table instead of hanging it on the fridge and pointed out who was who when we read Christmas stories. I think Noah's favorites were the wise men:)

Noah also made a birthday card for my Mimi. Her birthday is December 22 (she turned 87 this year!), and we had a party for her at my aunt's house. He is enjoying fingerpainting more and more, and really enjoyed making these "balloons"!

Reading is still probably Noah's favorite thing to do, and he constantly brings books to me to read to him. Some of his favorites this week were:

Really Woolly - Baby Jesus is Here! by Thomas Nelson

Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck

The Day the Rain Came by Allia Zobel-Nelson

My First Read and Learn Bible (we focused on the Christmas story)

Moo Baa Lalala by Sandra Boynton

Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton

Usborne Touchy Feely Trucks by Fiona Watt

Dizzy Dragon by Roger Priddy

I realize that is a lot of favorites, but he brought ALL of those to me over and over and over this week. He is such a busy little guy...he really wears me out, but I wouldn't have him any other way:)

---------------------

Christmas Fun

I'll share just a few shots from Christmas morning/day. I tried to make sure Noah got some really wonderful Tot School toys for Christmas this year:)

By FAR the favorite toy of Christmas is Noah's new Elmo's Restaurant. He has never even seen Sesame Street, but Jimmy found this for cheap and couldn't resist it. Way to go, Daddy....Noah is OBSESSED with this toy:)

It is very cute, and I know Noah will have hours of fun with it, even if he has no idea who Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Grover are!

Noah also got a tricycle. We know he probably won't be able to ride it until summer, but I know it will be another toy he'll get lots of playtime out of!

I made it a point to get several Melissa & Doug sets for Noah. I think these are such well-made toys, not to mention they are all "learning" centered. Noah's favorite M&D toy of the day is his Band in a Box!

And from my Mimi, Noah got another Elmo toy. haha! But these are right up his alley! These are Elmo Tickle Hands, and they came with a short dvd that teaches a special dance. Noah LOVES the little Elmo gloves!

---------------------

All right...that's all we've got for this week! I'll do a big Christmas recap soon. See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at 1+1+1=1!