Tot School - 17 Months

H is 17 months old.  I have to gush about the photo above - aren't those sweet little hands just the cutest?  The learning spurt is still in full swing and we've been doing many different activities to stimulate all the senses and practice fine motor skills...

Playdough is always a favorite, especially when I add straws or other objects to press into it.  He also likes me to make playdough balls to squish and snakes for him to pull apart.

 H loves playing with his older sisters' magnets.  I take out a couple at a time and name the objects as he places them on the magnetic board.  Then I ask him for a specific object and he (sometimes) finds it.  I'm also trying to get him to continue learning new words.  His vocabulary was rapidly increasing for a while but recently hasn't changed much - I think because he knows that grunts and gestures will get him what he wants most of the time.

I'm trying to get together collections of objects that are not choking hazards for H to explore.  He really likes these large plastic buttons.  He put them in and out of various containers, and when we're playing together we count them and point out the shapes and colors.

I'm trying to be creative with practice for one-to-one correspondence so I try to give him different types of snacks in a variety of trays, always placing only one item in each spot.  Sometimes I give him a bowl of crackers and he put them in the spots himself (if the spots are small enough he usually only puts one in each space).

This week I introduced an activity that involves putting plastic coins into the slot in a metal coin bank.  It takes a lot of concentration to pick up the coins and orient them correctly so they drop in the container.  It's interesting watching H's learning process as he figures out a technique to do it by picking a coin up with one hand and then passing it to the other so it is positioned correctly.

H is getting good at color sorting (and naming).  I try to switch up the activities so he stays interested (but I often forget to take pictures).

He's mastered a lot of letters and their sounds thanks to his two older sisters who are learning to read, as well Leapfrog's Letter Factory video and the Starfall website (he is absolutely giddy when the Starfall homepage comes up and I ask him if he wants to "learn some letters").  H is also getting more coordinated and can throw a ball overhand pretty well.

H loves to help out and become more independent.  Of course, along with this he is becoming more opinionated about what he wants and doesn't want and the fits are starting.  I'm pretty lucky, though, that H is a very easy-going kid 95% of the time.  I've been having so much fun lately with my little dude.

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