Tot School: Letter Ff and Training the Tot

Our princess is currently 27 months old.

Tot school has been limited the past few weeks.  I will admit, with this pregnancy winding down, I have not been doing the necessary planning and preparation for Tot School.  There is so much other stuff to do.

We have done a little more work on "Training the Tot".  Click here to read about the first few sessions.  The princess did so well in our last session last week.  I don't know if it was due to being indoors rather than out, or if it was the new toys I gave her to play with, or simply her mood that day.  But she sat on her blanket and played with 2 dollar-store finds for 25 minutes.  25 minutes!!!  So close to our goal!

I found a bag of beads at the dollar store, and she loved putting them on pipe cleaners.  I also found these link-together toys (supposed to be used to make jewelry), and she enjoyed putting them together and taking them apart.

 Look at that concentration!

 The only other day we did Tot School, we used some Ff pages from 1+1+1=1.  She colored some objects that start with F, and we practiced our "fffff" sound.

 I taught her to trace the Ffs, and she did pretty well at that.

 She colored the capital Fs green and the lowercase yellow.

 She is getting the hang of tracing from left to right, and she stayed on the lines really well this week!

 Finally, shapes.  She did better with these, though she needs some work identifying the more obscure shapes.

I will admit, I do not have any Tot School plans for this week yet.  I'm tired.  Maybe I will work on that tomorrow.  :)

Training the Tot: Outdoor Fun

I am attempting a lofty goal.   This week, my daughter and I began some more "Tot Training".

Our church has outdoor evening church services every summer, and last year was difficult.  The princess loved to run around during the services and play.  That's to be expected from a tot, but it can be quite distracting to those around her.  I also believe children meet the expectations that are set for them.  That's why we began training for outdoor evening services this week.  (The weather was actually warm enough to do this!!!) 

My goal is to train my daughter to be able to sit on a blanket and play quietly outdoors for 30-40 minutes, regardless of what is going on around her.  On Wednesday (our first practice session), she played with an old sensory bin for 9 minutes without attempting to get up!  I was so proud of her.  I tested her after about 7 minutes by walking away and weeding the flowerbed that was nearby.  She was interested in what I was doing but continued to sit for another 2 minutes before getting up. 

Today was session number two.  She played well for about 8 minutes before beginning to get a bit antsy.  At that point, I suggested she sort some objects by color.  She did this and ended up playing quietly on the blanket for a total of 13 minutes.  Again, I was a bit surprised and impressed.

My goal is to increase her time by 2 minutes or so each session, until we have worked up to 30-40 minutes. I know this is a lofty goal and will take a lot of discipline on my part, but I really think she can do this. We'll see! :)


Have any of you attempted similar training with your tots? What were the results?

Training the Tot

I recently read a Clariity blog post titled Forming Habits in Our Children.  I have read a few posts by this author, and I love the ideas she presents.

As a result of reading this article, we have begun habit training at the Farley Funhouse.  The first habit I have begun to address is listening to Mommy and Daddy.  Specifically, listening and responding whem Mommy or Daddy say "stop".  Our little princess loves the wheelchair ramp at church that leads from the fellowship hall upstairs to the classrooms downstairs.  She loves to wander away when we are in the fellowship hall, and she makes it halfway down the rather long ramp before one of us can catch her.  At a get-together at the church Saturday night, I practiced "Princess, stop" with her.  When she listened, we had a little clapping and hugging party.  When she didn't, we had a "talk" about Princess listening to Mommy.

Sunday we repeated the training.  9 times out of 10, she obeyed by stopping immediately and clapping for herself.  She sees this as a fun game right now, but I am convinced that with repeated practice and training, this will develop into a habit.  I feel this is an important first habit to teach, because it involves safety.  She needs to learn to listen to "Princess, stop" regardless of the circumstances, because she is too young to understand the difference between running away from Mommy at a safe place like church and running away from Mommy at an unknown place like the mall.

I encourage you to read this article and consider what the author has to say.  Forming habits is going to take a lot of work...but I am convinced it will pay off in the long run.