Happy Monday to all! My not so little Vito is starting to show signs that he can do a lot more with fine motor skills now than before! How cool is that? And for this series, may I say that he has his own favourites already? Come take a look!
We do endless reading at home. Was surprise that he chooses his own book now. And obviously, based on the pictures he enjoys reading the Spot series with me! These books are from the library but you can get them from Book Depository[aff.link]. They’re so easy to read and engaging. These are lift-the-flap books and yes he enjoys lifting the flap! He would nod his head if its not Spot :) The Animal book is a board book which I got last year. Vito loves animals and I just have to include this board book for animal recognition. He would say “raaawrr” whenever he sees animals on books, pictures or toys!
For our colour basket I’m featuring the red colour because of Valentines Day. A discovery basket of all something red that Mavi could find in the house. It got socks, shirt, a feather, LEGO and just about anything. Of course, I have to include my homemade colour card. The book was also purchased from Book Depository [aff. link].
So what do we do with our red discovery basket? Well, Vito loves tinkering things and this is what I would give him whenever he needs something to touch and play with. Every time he takes an object, I would describe it and always mentioning the word “red”. Like red socks, red feather, red barrel. Then I would line them up and would say “look Vito they have the same colour… they’re all red”. I would at times encourage him to say the word “red” as well.
Our shelf also contains the following toys for practicing fine motor skills.
Mavi’s fishing game toy which he got from his birthday. We never used this until I recently discovered that Vito can use this for 1:1 correspondence. Later on, we realized that the game itself was fun after all!
This barn puzzle is a miss. Vito is NOT interested at all. I got this because it was on sale. I talked about the animals in the puzzle but he doesn’t mind. What he loves to do here is actually removing the pieces and placing them in the basket.
Again, scribble scribble scribble. This is what he loves as of the moment. I guess he sees his big brother and I write all the time and that’s what he also wanted to do. He just imitates, which is good! He’s good holding a pen actually and here he enjoys scribbling on a piece of paper using all three crayons.
We finally get to use this Classic Pop Up toy from Galt. It was in the cabinet for almost a year and now he’s more than interested. He loves pulling out all the tubes, putting them back again, and pressing the little people (the tubes has faces!). Later on we’ll use this for colour matching :D He still mouths objects though, so there are instances that he would put the tubes in his mouth. So parents, be warned!
We have this soft rubbery blocks which we used for counting. I introduced this for stacking but he wasn’t interested. What he loves to do with these blocks is to mess them, and put them back in the bag. And I find his choice of activity much better! Early start for tidying up! 
We also use them to count. We count a lot at home: counting fingers, toes, kisses, buttons… and this one I showed him how to associated counting with symbols. Yes I know, too early… but he loves the numbers more than the blocks!
We skipped painting this time and decided to do something different. In our Art basket, we have here materials for our collage activity which is composed of tissue paper (red hues) and a contact paper.
Easy activity. Vito couldn’t tear up the tissue papers yet (he can tear up the kitchen towel and toilet paper though), so I did it for him. Then I showed him how to drop or place the pieces into contact paper. He didn’t like the sticky contact paper at all! He loves dropping the paper but would not touch the contact paper. I encouraged him my placing his hands on it. This is to take away of his fear and that it’s a safe object for him.
I displayed his art work in our window and he was so fascinated by the contact paper that he keeps on going back to touch it!
Oh we have two songs for this series: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and When You’re Happy and You Know It. We sing it in the afternoon, dance with it and create actions which Vito loves to do. Vito, just like his older brother loves to dance as well and he enjoys doing this activity in the afternoon before Daddy gets home. This is a good way to practice their gross motor skills!
Oh yeah and we had a beautiful weather last week and we grabbed the opportunity to go out in the yard, explore the grasses and the rocks! Vito was running around, climbing up the steps, crawling in the grass and playing with our neighbour’s bicycle!
And that’s it!! Watch out for our next post on Toddler Beginnings as I’m going to feature simple activities for St. Patrick’s Day!
