Toddler Activities: Week in Review 6.29.13 (2 years, 0 months)

Scribbling with both hands at the same time is his newest thing

Damien was 2 years, 0 months old this week

Quote of the week, after he stole an entire red bell pepper off of my friend's counter:

"Oh, don't worry about it. He can have it if he needs it."

To which he interjects, "I need it!" (and ate the whole thing)

Here is our week in photos!


Watching his flash card playlist during breakfast. This baby loves his flash cards!

Damien's flash card playlist included:

The 50 State Locations 

Addition +1's video 

Learning basic numbers 10-20 

Learning basic numbers 20-30 

Notes of the 4th Octave 

Presidents song

The playlist is 8 minutes long as he usually asks to watch it during breakfast, lunch, or snack, and sometimes before bed (good old delaying bedtime technique, no?)

He often asks to watch or listen to big brother's timeline song, too.


Presidents again, again please!

He was absolutely obsessed with presidents this week. He asked to watch the presidents video dozens of times, and begged me to teach him all of the names on his president placemat. Even though I only wanted to teach him the first row, he kept pestering me for the names of all the other ones, too.


When I first showed him the bones of the skull he wasn't very interested, but then he changed his mind and started asking for them over and over

His other encyclopedic knowledge for the week:

The Beatitudes (KJV, first verse only: I would say a few words at a time a couple of times a day and he would repeat it) 

Music by Chopin (during nap time, I would say, "This is music by Chopin" and the CD would play while he slept) 

The bones of the skull 

Counting to 40 on a number line 

Counting to 100 on abacus (did a couple of times the whole week)

We did the bones of the skull cards (it takes a few seconds to look at them all) during story time while we read board books.


Planet obsessed

He was quite obsessed with planets this week. In addition to regularly asking to read his planets book, he did this puzzle (can't find the link online - sorry!) over and over and over again.


Sudden interest in this board book

At this point he knows a bunch of states by shape and location. We occasionally point out states during meal and snack time. Although I didn't plan on using it, he has been getting out his state lift-a-flap book (from Target dollar section) a lot and naming (or asking me to name) all of the states.


Reading a homemade planet book

This week in reading we did:

The planets book (learning planet names, ordinal numbers) 

Color couplets (we used this to work on reading color word sight words) 

Pronouns (only did these for a few days, then he wasn't interested anymore)

We didn't get to the family verb book or the Spanish colors yet this week, but we'll probably do those next week.

We didn't do much in phonics this week, except the occasional self-initiated letter play, such as naming letter sounds with the foam letters in the bathtub (he does this on his own) and spelling out nonsense words with his alphabet puzzle (one day he was making a bunch of different words starting with HO, such as HOP, HOT, and lots of nonsense words likes HOF, HOS, and would ask we each time he spelled one, "How 'bout dis one, Mommy?")


Spirals and swirls

For writing this week we intended to do shape copying, mazes, and journaling. I actually couldn't find our maze book so we didn't do that this week, and for some reason journaling fell by the wayside.

We did get to shape copying, where I drew a shape and asked him if he could draw it too, but he mostly just drew spirals when he attempted to copy the shapes I made. He really did seem to be trying to make the shape, but would kind of just keep going with it (hence the spiral rather than just a circle or other closed shape). Then he started to just make a bunch of swirls and spirals, so I rolled with it and let him do his thing! He loves scribbling.

He did name all of the shapes I drew and asked me to draw certain shapes (he asked for a triangle and a parallelogram).


Back floating practice in the tub

One thing we have been doing to help with his swimming is to practice certain things in the bathtub. In this case, just back floating (or, at least, getting comfortable being on his back in water). All week he still wasn't a fan, but on Friday night (the third night this week we practiced) he finally was able to relax and actually said, "I like it!" and started singing the Scientific Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with me (our "back floating" song).


Cross pattern crawling: good for the brain!

He has had a lot of fun with his active balance activities (somersaults, log rolls, and balance beam walking) and cross-pattern crawling exercise (through the tunnel). His big brother (age 8) loves to do these activities with him!

He can't quite do the balance beam without help yet. We did just get it out for the first time this week, and I think he will be able to do it soon, he just has to slow down, as he tries to go to fast and ends up with one foot on the ground. I'm also thinking about raising it (it is just a sanded, painted 2x4 laying on the ground) so the concept of walking only on the board, not on the floor, will be more apparent.

Of course, he spends 95% of his waking hours in free play! Here are some playing pictures this week:

Unexpected sensory "play" with blueberries.

Last week I posted about how to teach your little toddler (ages 1-2) how to do jigsaw puzzles, well he obsessively repeats this one Mickey Mouse 12-piece puzzle, and doesn't need my help anymore! The techniques really do work. He chooses to play with this puzzle at least twice a day.

He gets out his shape matching game regularly (printable coming soon).

Banging on pegs.

Wrestling time with Daddy and brother.

Snuggling on Mommy's lap while she makes my books.

And of course, trains! This baby loves, loves, loves his trains.

Here is the link to last week's activity plans. We got to most of it, including water play, which I didn't take pictures of. Still writing up my activities for next week (about half of the materials will probably be repeats from this week, with some new ones added).

Damien is currently 24 months old

This post is linked up to Tot School, For the Kids Friday, Preschool Corner, Montessori Monday, & Show & Share Saturday!