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.

Boys will be Boys... Painting

A few weeks ago I ordered Xander a Crayola art smock that had full sleeves.  I had been wanting it for a while so that we could do more art projects.  We decided to try it out over break.

I gave Xander some red paint to finger paint with.  He would dip his finger in the paint, touch the paper, and dip again.   I was glad he was so focused.

Then apparently he got hungry.

And then rubbed the paint on the only part of him that wasn't covered by the art smock.  Next time I need to buy one with a hood...

Mitten Matching

Since the Christmas Light Game was such a hit with Xander, I decided we needed another one for after Christmas.  Hence, Mitten Matching.  We have already played a few times.  Once again, my emphasis is on introducing him to the terminology of the "same" and "matching."  He really surprised me, and was able to find the matching mittens for me some of the time.  Maybe it was coincidence, maybe not.  Regardless, I know we will get there eventually.  You can download the PDF here, or from my downloads page.

Tot School - 13.5 Months

Between Christmas, being home on vacation, my mom and brother being on vacation, and having a good friend in town, I decided that a normal tot school week probably wasn't going to happen last week.  Instead of moving on to a new color in our color themes, I just mixed together the red and the green.  It ended up being really nice having two.  We were able compare objects and colors.  I will likely do mixed weeks again in the future.

Here is the basket that we used instead of one of his tot trays.  Mostly the same things I described in our red and green weeks.  Once again, this bin got a ton of use!  Xander is currently really interested in putting things in other things.  He constantly put various items in those cups and stacking bowls, then shook them out.  I also got out the English and Spanish color books I made (you can find them on my downloads page), I just didn't get any pictures of it this week.

We were able to pick up some these color books at the library.  Xander loves the Green book, particularly the caterpillar page.  The Happy Baby Colors from our collection is still a favorite.

     

We also had to expand the little bin I had with our color theme supplies.  We still have the Leap Frog Car Wash, the color books, English and Spanish color flash cards (available on the downloads page), and play dough (click here for our post and recipe).  We added some books, a foam color puzzle from the dollar section at Staples, and a multicolored ball.  We also got a great deal on a Crayola Dry Erase Center, which we have been using with the appropriately colored Expo Markers.  Xander particularly likes erasing.  We also added a mitten matching game (post here).

One of Xander's trays has a small container and some mini colored popsicle sticks to put in.  He thoroughly enjoyed this activity.  In fact, he would frequently go over and pull down the whole tray himself.  This is how I found him one day.

Unfortunately, he really enjoyed tasting the sticks.

Our puzzle of the week.  He can't put the pieces in, but often tries with the correct one.

One of our good friends got him these Melissa and Doug Nesting Blocks for Christmas.  He loves them, particularly knocking them over.  We still need to work on the stacking part.

When we went to the library, I showed Xander how to put the books in the return slot.  He mastered the skill quickly and was upset when we were out of books to return.  For some reason it reminds me just how big my baby is getting.

Play Dough

For some extra sensory play, I made Xander some home made play dough.  I had no idea what he would think of it, but I figured it was worth a shot.  The first batch I made in red to go with our color themes.  I used a salt dough recipe from the internet and used regular food coloring.  Unfortunately, it ended up pretty pink (what you see in the pictures).  The next day I was able to pick up some of the gel food coloring I love and got a much richer color.

To start with, I put the dough in front of him and showed him how to cut it with a plastic knife.  Eventually I rolled it into little snakes, which were much easier for him to cut.  I also showed him how to roll the dough into little balls.  Apparently, they too closely resembled food, because he tried eating the balls.

For the second week of our Color Themes, I made some green dough using a recipe that used alum (from here).  This recipe stayed softer and felt better, so I will probably be using it in the future.  The recipe is as
follows:

1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon powdered alum
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons vanilla
food coloring

Mix all dry ingredients. Add oil and water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until reaching the consistency of mashed potatoes. Remove from heat and add vanilla and food coloring. Divide into balls and work in color by kneading the play dough.

Being a bit more experienced with play dough, Xander had much more fun with it during our green week.

He really enjoyed putting little pieces of dough in the container and shaking them out.

Squishing it in his fingers.

Tasting it again, just to be sure it is still yucky.