R for Rhino

We are currently working on our Mommy and Me ABC units.  We covered the letter R and rhinos over the last couple of weeks.  Unless otherwise specified, all of the printables are from my Mommy and Me ABC Printables, which are free as we complete them (for a detailed list of all the materials in the printables, check out this post).

 This was his desk setup. On the left is his magnetic calendar.  His white board had some alphabet magnets, and his fridge phonics set.  The shelf had some Rs, some rhino books, and some toy rhinos.

Letter R Alphabet Sensory Bin

  R and Rhino Puzzles
We did both printable and store bought puzzles.  (Who says you can't do Tot School in a diaper?)

 
The safari puzzle had a rhino, so it was perfect for this week!

Letter Clipping

 Painting
He finger pained an R (from 1+1+1=1).  After a little while he decided a brush would be better.

 
 Letter Maze
He LOVED his letter maze again this week.  He used a Do-A-Dot marker and had him mark all of the Rs to make a path from the baby to the mommy. 

 Stamping
He stamped some uppercase and lowercase Rs with our see through stamps.

   Building Letters
We built some Rs using Handwriting Without Tears pieces.  He was so proud of himself.

 Rhino Size Sorting

 
  Case Sorting
Sorting letters into capital and lowercase.  For some reason he really struggled with R.

 
 Lacing

 

  Dot Magnet Rhinos

This week he asked to do his dot magnet pages with the bingo markers and wand.  I'm impressed with how carefully and patiently he places the bingo markers before he collects them with the wand.

 
Other Tot School Activities

Like mother like son!  This week I learned that Xander likes "to do" lists.  On a whim I wrote out a list of activities I wanted to accomplish with a dry erase marker.  I told him that as we finished each one, he could erase it.  Never has that kid been more focused!  He wanted to go straight down the list, even though I told him he could go in any order he liked.  He was also so quick to go between tasks!  We might have to make it a normal part of Tot School!

Calendar

He is still enjoying his calendar!  We only do it a few times a week (to be honest, I forget til he reminds me), but he gets excited about it.  He particularly enjoys running to the window to check the weather.

Block Building

By far, the favorite activity of the week was matching the block templates I made for him.  Now that I know how much he likes it, I will need to try to incorporate this type of activity more often!

Floor Puzzle

This week's floor puzzle had a bunch of animals with their names.  Every time we put it together, he wanted to go through and name all the animals.

 

 

Block Building Templates

I know today is my normal day for a Mommy and Me ABC post, but we have been so busy with other fun things that I will do one post for letter R that covers a couple of partial weeks of Tot School.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share a new activity we tried this week.

For a while now I have been eyeing some visual/spacial sets on Amazon.  I really like all of the ones below, but did did not feel like Xander was ready for any of them.  Other than magnetic pattern block templates and his construction sort and match set, we have not really done many activities where he had to match objects to a card.

 

As a practice step before I invest in any of the toys above, I made him some template cards to use with our Melissa and Doug wooden blocks.  I started out with just 8 cards, starting pretty simple.  If Xander likes them and/or others would use them, I'd be happy to make more.  You can download them here.

To introduce the activity I gave him only three cards and only the blocks he needed to build what was on them.  He struggled a little bit at first to figure out what I was wanting to do, but figured it out and was SO proud when he finished them all!  I think we will practice with these for a while before I give him harder cards.