Monday, May 14, 2012

Shapes: Triangle

Xander is 18 Months
Shape: Triangle


 We are currently working on shapes, devoting one week to each while also reviewing those already learned.    The themes just add a fun element to the shapes lessons. I added a page to gather all of the Shape Posts and Printables to make them easier to find.  For our overall Tot School goals for our shape units, see my Goals post.

While it was very difficult to put away our Ball Theme Activities, Xander still really enjoyed this week's Musical Instrument Theme. I used our Montessori style 3 part shape cards.  We also used  nomenclature cards from the Musical Instrument Tot Pack.  He still absolutely loves it.



We also used some 3 part cards and pocket chart phrases from our Triangle Printables.  The concepts on these cards are pretty advanced, but he has been exposed to all of them on his Your Baby Can Discover movies.  Also, while I don't expect him to remember the difference between scalene and isosceles triangles right now, I believe the vocabulary and and reading practice certainly can't hurt.  He really loves doing these activities and gets upset (sometimes quite vocally) when I put them away.


I made a tracing page (in the Triangle Printables  ).  We use all of his tracing materials in either page protectors or his Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center.  He is no where near ready to trace on his own, but I have him hold the marker and I hold his hand.  We trace together and I talk about what we're doing.  He really enjoys it.  He is also really proud to erase all by himself when we are done (although I do some touch-up erasing).

Here is a tracing page from the Musical Instrument Tot Pack

I had not originally planned to include a mini book with the Musical Instrument Tot Pack.  However, Xander liked the last two so much I went ahead and made one.  He loves it and wanted to read it frequently throughout the week, often many times in a row.  I don't know why he thinks they're so neat, but I am happy to give him the extra reading exposure!


Lately I have been trying to include a song with our themes.  To go with the music theme we sang the main part of Do Re Mi from the Sound of Music.  Xander isn't very good at following along while I point to the words, but he really likes me to sing it to him.  In fact, sometimes it is the only thing that will make him happy in the car.


On Wednesday I will do our regular Tot Tray post, but one of them was a bin of all of Xander's musical instruments.  He has loved music and dancing pretty much since he was born, so we have been collecting instruments.  The bin included maracas, egg shakers, tambourines, jingle bells, a toy drum, a lollipop drum, a xylophone, a triangle, baby instruments, Leap Frog Maracas, and a bunch of homemade shakers.  I didn't always love having them tossed about the room, but I am happy Xander enjoyed playing with the different sounds.  We also played the piano together, which he enjoys.  



One day this week I woke up to him having soaked his sheets.  To change them I took the mattress out of the crib and Xander thought that was great fun.  Here he is doing the puzzles from the Musical Instruments Tot Pack on the mattress (with clean sheets and mattress pads).  He has really impressed me lately with how well he does matching the puzzles.  He doesn't line them up but he knows which ones go together and gives them to me to line up for him.  You can tell the piano is his favorite... he always does that one first.


Keeping with the music theme, we watched plenty of Trebellina.  It isn't the best animation in the world, but he absolutely loves it and wants to watch it all the time.  He even likes doing the flash cards with the piano.  He also gets plenty of music exposure from his Your Baby Can Discover DVDs.

A while back I was lucky enough to find a Tag Jr at a consignment store.  I found a great book lot on ebay and he has been having fun with it.  One of the books I got was this Cars Shapes All Around Book.  It took him a little while to figure out how to work it, but he is getting pretty good at putting it on the right shapes.  I see it as a good motor skill activity in addition to reading exposure.


This Week's Books:
We read other shape books too, but couldn't find the links on Amazon.


    
 
 

Continuous Tot School Activities:
We are using Little Reader to work on reading skills and Little Math for math skills.  My goal is two Little Reader lessons and one Little Math lesson daily.  Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.


Check back on Wednesday to see this week's  Tot Trays!

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