Tot School – The letter B 28 months

What learning looks like at my house with a 28 month old.

My son is 28 months old and really enjoys learning.  He is a very active boy who loves to climb, run, jump, and explore.  We do tot time at home using a combination of structured and more free choice, child directed activities.  In the last month, he has started to put words together to make sentences and is more eager to  “watch me” or “watch my mouth” to see how I form certain words with my lips.  He then copies me and usually begins to say the word more clearly!  This week he went from saying “Mopen please” to “open please.”  Although I will miss these cute little toddler words, having him better able to communicate his needs and wants creates a much calmer home!

This week we worked on the letter b and the sound /b/.  I try to make sure we vary the types of activities we do to develop fine motor, gross motor, vocabulary development and much more.  As my little guy learns best with songs, stories, and hands on activities, there are some of the things we did this week.

1. Doodled!  I picked up this large magna doodle up at a local consignment store this week for $2.50.  We have had the small travel sizes, but this one has been SO much fun this week.  Nicholas just sits and writes and writes.  He draws circles and scribbles and tells me that the scribbles are his name.  I have been writing the letter B and saying “This is the letter B.  It makes the /b/ sound like you hear at the beginning of the word ball.  Listen, /b/ ball.”  He still says every letter is “his name,” but it will come someday!

2. We have also brought out our home-made Handwriting Without Tears blocks to build the upper case B’s.

3.  When we went to story-time at our local teacher store, she was reading books about bears.  What luck =)  I do so love when learning weeks come together like this!  The kids made paper bears after listening to several stories.  I was SO proud of Nicholas.  He sat and listened attentively the whole time!!! (this is a first for public story times!)  Although all the other kids went home with a “cute” bear with their appendages all in the right places, I thought his little “bouncing” bear was quite cute.  Sometimes I like to give him directions, but let him do it HIS way!

4. We have been biking every day!  He got a Strider Bike for Christmas and has been a zooming machine ever since.  He is starting to really glide and it makes my heart skip a beat, but I know it is great for balance! When we go out to the garage, I remind him, “We are going to bike.  Hey, did you know that bike starts with b too?  Listen, /b/ bike.”  This way, I am connecting the letters and letter sounds to things he really enjoys! I think I should make the word BIKE on a card and put it where he “parks” his bike to add environmental print to our garage!

5. This week, I am working on finishing a series of canvas paintings to the theme of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I think it is important for my kids to see me using my creativity!  In my education courses, they stress to MODEL, MODEL, MODEL what you want kids to do, so I try to take time for me stuff too.  I just have the Papa bears walking cane to finish and they are done!  I started them for our nursery, but have since moved on to other themes.  Any idea what I can do with these?

6. Last, but not least, and TOTALLY unrelated to our theme, Nicholas and I have been having sticker fights with our left over stickers.  We have had SO much fun chasing each other around the house and sticking stickers on each other, rolling on the ground laughing, and just having fun!  If you haven’t tried it, it is a great way to get some energy out and get giggling!  My rules are to be kind and no stickers on anything but people!