Tot School: Week 18

One of the best things about tots is their growing imagination.  I love, love, love what they come up with!  To illustrate, I’ll begin this Tot School post with a question.  To find the answer, you’ll have to scroll all the way to the bottom of this post.  ; )

Question:  What do these 2 items have in common?   The first item is an old-fashioned pop gun.  The second is the lid to a pop-up hamper.

Okay, now for our Tot School week:

1.  Tweezering (is that a real word?) rubber pom-pom things (the package didn’t say what they were called) into plastic tumbler things…or maybe they’re plastic shot glasses, I don’t know.  If anyone knows proper names here, please do let me know! 

2.  Nesting blocks.  I showed Gabriela different ways she could play with these, and then I let her do her own thing.  She particularly enjoyed walking her little ponies on them!

3.  Button Board

4.  Sorting novelty back scratchers (at least I think that’s what they are).  I wanted her to sort them by color, and I even demonstrated it to her.  However, she ended up coming up with her own ideas….which is normal.  : )

Okay, here the back scratchers have become bridges and people:

I left Gabriela to play with these while I attended to the older two kids.  After awhile I found her staring at tray of back scratchers like this:

Assuming she was bored or tired, I asked, “Gabriela, are you finished with them?”  “No,” she replied, “they’re asleep!”  Of course…silly me.  She watched them for several minutes before informing me that they were waking up!

Finally she was finished playing, so I requested her to put the back scratchers back in the cup.  She did, but her method was interesting.  Notice one back scratcher is a bridge, and the others are “people,” walking up the bridge to get inside the cup! 

5.  Play dough—I didn’t have any real theme for play dough this week.  I had made some new play dough with another mum.  I made yellow, and she made blue.  Then we divided them, so we’d each have a container of each color for our kids.  The blue is scented with vanilla.  I had Gabriela cut different basic shapes.

6.  Melissa & Doug See & Spell—I set out 2 puzzles at a time with only the letters she would need.  She does this very easily, so I tried to make it more challenging by adding in some extra letters.  She didn’t like that idea and obviously thought I had made a mistake, so she just threw the extras back in the box like she was disgusted!

7.  Stacking Peg Board set—she wasn’t too interested in this activity this week. 

8.  Road puzzle—She was more into this one!  I found this puzzle 5 or 6 years ago in a charity shop and bought it for Isaac.  I was thinking about getting rid of it since he doesn’t play with it anymore, but I thought I’d try it with Gabriela first because she really likes transportation toys.  I’m keeping it now because she LOVED it!

9.  We took a field trip break part way through the week to visit Beaumaris Castle in North Wales.  We toured the castle, and Gabriela was very impressed.  She has a toy castle she plays with, so she was happy to see a real one.  Of course we have taken her to castles before, but she was quite a bit younger.  This was the first time she recognized what a castle was.  The good thing about visiting this time of year (in cold weather), is that we normally have the entire castle to ourselves.  How fun!!

We also walked to the beach area near the pier.  Beaumaris is on the Isle of Anglesey, so it’s right on the water.  The beautiful Snowdonia Mountains are on the other side of the strait, and the scenery is awesome!  Anyway, the kids had a blast scouring the beach for shells, pebbles, and pieces of glass or pottery that had been made smooth by the water.  I should mention that Moriah, pictured on the left, doesn’t ever seem to feel the cold.  It was very cold that day, and she was rolling her pant legs up like shorts! 

Beaumaris Castle has a playground and picnic area right by the castle walls:

10.  I let Gabriela play with our white play dough and some of the shells we found on the beach at Beaumaris.

Moriah, Gabriela, and I all worked together to make these shell people:

11.  I also let her play with just the shells, rocks, and pieces of pottery and glass (which were all smooth, not sharp) that we found on the beach.  It’s a nice collection with different textures and colors. 

12.  Floor Transportation Puzzle—She likes this one!

13.  A sneak peak at our new sensory tub!  Isaac and Moriah mostly put this together, but I told them ahead of time what I had in mind.  I’ll do a separate post on it later because I have a few more things I want to add, if I can find them…

Okay, now the answer to the question at the beginning of my post:

Answer:  They’re both umbrellas! 

Unfortunately, the pop gun doesn’t have a top to protect her from the rain, but Gabriela doesn’t mind.  The handle that pulls down is enough like the bottom of an umbrella to her.  The lid umbrella doesn’t have the bottom part, but that doesn’t stop her from turning it into an umbrella.  I probably ought to buy her a real little umbrella of her own, since it rains a lot in England!

For more Tot School posts, visit 1+1+1=1!