Toddler Beginnings 04

 

For language, I would read Goodnight Moon to Vito at night. He is starting to identify the book so every morning he would pick this from our shelf and give it to me to read.  The Baby First book, I only added this because we are having the “green” theme and the cover is green LOL.         

 

I love giving Vito these activities and he loves them as well!

Craft sticks sticking on playdough.  He loves the activity, but he loves squeezing the playdough more. 

               

Vito can now snap the Duplo together! Yehey! Such a milestone! His finger muscles must be developing well!  He loves snapping and removing the Duplo parts.

                 

And puzzles and meant to be eaten.  Yes, he still mouths most stuff!  He can grip  the holder properly (and remove the parts) but cannot put the pieces back yet. 

See, he can even grip perfectly the small holder of the puzzle LOL

We love these spools and we use it in our transferring activities.

 

                                

Our music exploration these days are merely listening to nursery rhymes and doing action songs at home. We use anything that  we could find in the kitchen to create music and I guess this would be enough for now. 

I can’t wait for winter to be over so we can explore the outdoors already.  I am not willing to set up a sensory bin as of the moment as it takes a lot of time (and planning) to prepare the bin and would require a great amount of work. 

Hope you like this week’s totschool series!

More toddler activities in my Pinterest board.

Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Toddler Activities on Pinterest.

Pincer Grasp Activities for Tot Schoolers

I am working on a list of fine motor skills that Vito has to practise on.  First on the list is the pincer grasp.

Vito recently turned 1 and I’m starting to introduce him to a routine of activities which include developing of fine motor activities, language (reading books and baby signs), nature exploration and more. 

Now, this post is all about his love of dropping cereals and GeoMags in a container. One of the most important fine motor skills that child should develop early on in life is their PINCER GRASP (picking up small objects using index finger and thumb).  This is a basic skill needed to be able to hold a pen, feed themselves, using scissors, manipulating small objects and more.

It started with the cereals (he eats this every morning) and I gave him an empty water bottle and demonstrated how to drop that cereal in the hole.  He was taken right away.  He started mimicking my actions. A few tries, he failed.  But I find it so amazing for this little fellow to try and try and finally succeed!

So cute, how he opens his mouth as he attempts to drop the cereal.  As you can see, I am holding the bottle at first.

He grabbed it from me and attempts to hold the bottle in one hand and using his other hand to drop the cereal.  I was amaze that he’s able to control the movement of his hands for their individual task!  Right hand is in control of the bottle, making sure it doesn’t move so he can drop the cereal easily, and the left hand is in control of the cereal as he try to focus dropping it on that small bottle mouth.  And I have to say, good hand and eye coordination practice as well!

See here, his hands switched roles!  And he can do the job in either hands!

 

Oh and here, doing it again the next day :D

 

Wow! You can’t imagine how happy I am that he was able to do that! And he was so happy as well, and kept on clapping his hands for his major achievement. He’s hooked whenever he works on this activity.

Then a few days, I tried to challenge him by giving him GeoMags.  Now this one is not as small as the cereals and they are of different shape.  It’s tricky for him as he has to position the magnetic stick to a correct orientation so he can drop it.

 

Last material we used is the buttons (from Galt Fun Button).  We these buttons! They’re big enough for little hands to hold.   See in the pictures below how I need to position the tub in different orientation so he can drop it easily.  He cannot do it yet with the tub standing upright.

 

I love that he pushed the buttons more!

 

More tot school activities in the next few days!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Share It Saturday
The Natural Homeschool

Early Childhood Activities (14 to 18 Months)

Hi everyone!  As promised, I am sharing with you the early childhood activities I gave to Mavi when he was about 1+ years old.  We started at 14 months and I was just giving him random activities that I know of.  It was then around 16 or 18 months that I learned about the importance of fine motor skills which they will eventually need in their preschool years and beyond.  So I made some research and started our journey in “home” schooling.

Reading Books

Now this is what we did since he was months old.  At first, we started with books for babies… simple stories, books with large pictures to capture his attention.

Pre-writing Skills

A very basic activity but very important.  This will introduce them to writing, papers, and pens.  I bought Crayola jumbo for him for this activity.  Because I started Mavi early on in writing, I never had problems with him when it came to the proper holding of a pencil or pen.