Button Snake

In my Pink Week Tot School Post, I mentioned that one of Xander's trays was part of his button snake.  I didn't go into much detail there, so I decided it needed its own post.  One of Xander's Christmas presents this year was a "button snake."  Basically, I took a piece of ribbon and sewed a big button to each end.  Then I cut shapes out of different colors of fleece and made a slit in each one.  The idea is to have him practice buttoning.  I used the large variety of shapes and colors so that I can use it in a variety of ways in the future.

Right now Xander is only 14 months and cannot do the activity alone.  What I have been doing is having him sit in my lap.  I put the button part way through the hole and have him grab it to pull it through.  He really likes this part, but doesn't really like taking them off, so I do that for him.

Uh Oh!

Xander has been saying "uh oh" for a few weeks now.  Most of the time he uses it appropriately.  However, this is now one of Xander's favorite games.

Tot School - Pink Week (14 Months)

This week's color was pink.  Goodness, this was a hard one for us!  We just don't have that much pink.  His bin was a little sparse, but it contained balls from his ball pit, the pink parts of a tea set that was in our bin of toy food (from when I had a step daughter), a balloon filled with flour, a maraca, wooden crafting balls and spools I painted, a beaded necklace, the pink things from his IKEA dishes, and some measuring spoons from the dollar spot at Target a few Valentine's Days ago.

We put stickers on pink paper and colored with pink crayons.

I didn't have a pink dry erase marker, so instead of laminating his Pink Color Books, I just printed them to color in crayons and markers.  You can download the English and Spanish books here, or from my downloads page.

We also did our normal Color Theme activities.  I showed him the color card flashcards and read him some of our color themed books.

He particularly likes this foam puzzle from the dollar section at Staples. He pushes all the crayons out and I tell him the name of each color as I put it back in for him.

 I had completely forgotten about our Leap Frog maracas.  I got them at a garage sale last summer, and recently found them in one of our toy bins.  The one maraca lights up in different colors and says the color name in both English and Spanish.  Xander got a big kick out of them and played with them almost every day.

I show him these foam cards like flash cards, but he also likes to play with them.  In this photo, he was picking up a card from the stack in front of him, and whipping it behind him as far as he could.

More mitten matching!  He still likes to play often and is getting better!  Exceeding any expectation I had for him.

Because we are doing color themes, one of Xander's trays has been replaced by the bin of colored objects.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of him with this week's puzzle.  It was a little tough for him anyway since there were no pegs on the pieces.

One of the trays this week had his button snake.  Eventually I will do an entire post on it, but for now, I just set it up with the pink pieces.  He needs a lot of assistance with it, but is very interested in the activity.

Another tray had his pound a peg (there is a similar one here).

This weekend I wanted to mop my floor.  However, Xander discovered the mop and refused to let it go!  He insisted on doing it for me.  Eventually, I had to pry it out of his hands, to many tears, so that I could get the job done.

For as long as he has been able to turn his head, this kid has been OBSESSED with vacuums.  He was trying to vacuum for me.  When I actually took the vacuum from him, he followed me around as I cleaned the carpets on the entire floor.  Let's home he is still interested when he is actually strong enough to do it for me!

Kid Start Spanish Review

Update:  Reading Amigo has changed their name to Kid Start Spanish, so I updated the review accordingly.  You can check out their facebook page here. Also, my son, who has become SUPER picky about movies and videos, still enjoys and asks for his Reading Amigo videos.  

Recently we had the opportunity to review part of the Kid Start Spanish program.  After being so disappointed by the Wink To Learn Spanish set (you can read my post about it here), I had very little expectations of this new program, but ended up being pleasantly surprised!

Our Kid Start Spanish came with four disks, a music CD, four sets of flashcards, a book of opposites, and a set of playing card type flashcards for a memory game.  There are also interactive features for an ipod or ipad.  However, I haven't used them, since we have neither.

The instructions from Kid Start Spanish recommend spending about four weeks per disk, watching it once or twice a day.  They also recommend using the corresponding flash cards twice a day, pointing to the from words left to right and very quickly.

For the most part, the videos are very similar in format to Your Baby Can Read.  They are entirely in Spanish, with native Spanish speakers.  First they show the word, pronounce it a couple of times, and show a corresponding video clip.  The word being shown is pronounced slowly enough that a parent that doesn't speak Spanish would still be able to learn it to do the flash cards.  I was a little unsure what Xander would think, since I never really speak to him entirely in Spanish (I know, I know, I should).  He doesn't seem to mind that the video is all in Spanish, though.  Every few minutes there is a song, which really helps keep Xander interested (he LOVES dancing).  Some of the songs are really catchy, and are included on the music CD.  He has been watching it once a day, several days a week.

I am really happy with the video!  It shows quite a few words, and changes it up enough to keep Xander interested.  They also repeat many of the words over the course of the video, which I think is good for reinforcement.  They second showing of the word is far enough apart from the first, that it isn't annoying to watch.  My only complaint would be that for some (not all) of the words, they repeat the same video clips for the second showing.  Most of the words are things familiar to a young child.  The ones I can think of off the top of my head are nose, ears, head, arms up, ball, circle, clap, kick, bird, chick, yes, no, and dinosaur, as well as various colors (all in Spanish, of course).  They even show some images of famous landmarks like Machu Pichu and the Sphinx.

Below is a picture of some of the flash cards from the first set.  One side has just the word, and the other has the word with a corresponding picture.  Honestly, we have not used the flash cards much.  Xander would probably like them if I did a few at a time, but there are just too many to go through all of them.  I will say that the cards are made from durable material.  It seems like they should stand up to the normal wear and tear of toddlers.  I think I will probably use these a lot more in the future when Xander has more verbal skills and we can make a game out of it.

Here is a shot of the book.  It is entirely in Spanish and lists some opposites and some colors.  The pages are pretty sturdy, although not indestructible.  I haven't worked much with Xander on opposites yet, in any language.  I know this book will be a good asset when we get there!

These are the memory cards.  I have to say, I am very excited for when Xander is old enough to use these!  There are a bunch of them, with picture and word pairs.  They are designed to play memory, but they also seem great for matching games and bingo.  Because they are playing card size, they would be easy to throw into a bag for on the go activities.

All in all, I am happy with the program.  It is so much better than the other Spanish programs we have tried!  Not only do I like it, Xander is interested (which is really all that matters).  While we do not use all of the components exactly as intended, I still think Xander will benefit from it.

Reading Video

I took this video of Xander the other day.  He LOVES this book.  It was from the dollar spot at Target, go figure.  He actually knows all of the actions, but will only perform some of them on any given day.

Tot School - Orange Week (14 Months)

Originally I had planned on going through the colors in a more "normal" order.  Red, green, blue, and yellow being the first ones.  However, the more I worked on organizing our color themes, the more I realized how hard some of the colors were going to be.  We just don't have as many toys/tools in the other colors.  Therefore, I have decided to break up the blue and the green.  This past week our color was orange.

As usual, one of our Tot Trays was replaced with a bin of colored items.  The objects varied a bit from the last two weeks.  We still had ball pit balls, play food, and dado squares, porcupine balls, but I had to use some other objects too.  I painted some wooden crafting balls and spools orange, I took the wooden rings from our sorting stacker (similar to this one), and I included Megabloks, a toy car, and a balloon filled with flour.  This week's big hit was an orange beaded necklace.

I made another color book in both English and Spanish.  I laminated it and we colored it together with a dry erase marker.  You can find it on the downloads page.  I also frequently showed him our flashcards for orange (also on the downloads page).  Because he did so well looking at the orange cards, I sometimes showed him the red and green ones again, from our previous weeks.

We also colored with orange marker...


Used our orange Do-A-Dot Paint...

Colored and put stickers on orange paper...

Played with orange play dough...

Wrote with orange expo markers (capped for photo taking)...

And played our mitten matching game.  He has surprised me with how well he can do with the matching.  He matches at least one or two sets per "game."

I found this great set of gears for Xander at a garage sale last summer.  Honestly, I had kind of forgotten about them until now.  To go with the color theme, I set up a tray using only orange gears.  He seemed fascinated.  Unfortunately, he could take the gears off the boards, but not put them on properly. I frequently rearranged them for him.

One of the trays had a paper towel tube, two toilet paper tubes, and some plastic spools.  I showed him how to put a spool in the end of a tube to watch it go out.  He was really good at it if I held the tube, but struggled a bit more if he had to hold both.  He also experimented with putting some of the items from his orange bin down the tubes.

This was Xander's puzzle for the week.  As you can see, he tends to mix his tot tray materials.  He likes putting various objects in those stacking cups!

Baby Brilliance

It has been a while since I have just written an entry just about Xander what he does.  Since my  main reason for blogging is to help me remember as much of his life as possible, I figure I am overdue.  Lately, I have found myself looking at him in amazement, both that I can possibly love someone so much, and at just how brilliant babies truly are.

Xander is 14 months now.  He is full of spunk and energy.  He can walk, sometimes very quickly.   He climbs the stairs with ease, although he cannot go down them.  I am extremely grateful he hasn't had a bad fall down them, however, I have had some saves that defied all laws of physics.  Whenever Grandpa sits down to put on his socks or shoes, Xander races over and puts his hands on Grandpa's shoulders, expecting a piggy back ride.  If Grandpa takes too long, Xander is nice enough to hurry him along by banging repeatedly on his back.  Xander also shakes his head at everything, not necessarily meaning "no."

Xander thinks he can do anything, and often tries.  He watches everything we do VERY closely, so we have to be careful what we let him see us do.  He bangs keys against doors, trying to get them to open.  He tries hard to get his own socks and shoes on.  He puts random (sometimes clean) clothes in the hampers.  He also likes to put various objects in other cupboards, drawers, and bins.  For example, I have found magnetic letters in the drawer under the oven.  He is also a whiz at finding and unlocking unsuspecting cell phones.  If it has a screen, he thinks it should be his.

He can only reliably say ball, book, hi, and uh oh, although he also says bampa for "grandpa" and he says mama to mean anything he happens to want at the time.  Regardless, his is still an excellent little communicator, particularly if he wants something.  He knows the sign for "eat" and isn't afraid to use it.  In fact, he tells me he wants to eat pretty much from the time he wakes up until he passes out.  Brice thinks he should be a professional eater when he grows up.  Xander also knows the signs for more and milk.

One of his favorite games is on my bed.  He loves to sit on it and throw a ball off, say "uh oh" and wait for me to throw it back.  Repeat about 40 times.  For the last couple of months he has been obsessed with lights.  He always wants to play with the light switches.  He often finds the lights in the room and points them out to you.  One of the only ways to get him buckled into his car seat without is to turn the dome light on and off at his command.  He loves reading books and will constantly bring me some.  However, he gets so excited about the new books he is giving you that he doesn't always want you to finish the one you're reading.  One day this week, I had about 15 books in my lap before I finished reading the first, plus a little boy that didn't understand why I wasn't reading ALL of them to him instantaneously.

Last week I got my first real kiss from Xander (talk about melting a mom's heart!).  Before, he had always just randomly pressed his mouth to my face, but this time, he actually puckered and made a kissing noise.

Anyway, I could write for days and days.  There are so many amazing quirks and mannerisms I want to just capture forever.  I try to soak it all in and enjoy it as much as possible.  He is changing and learning so quickly I worry about how much I am forgetting.  I am so incredibly blessed to be his mommy and pray that I will someday have more children as wonderful as him.