Tot School

Isaiah is 36 months old

This week was short again, since I had 2 language lessons--this month has been crazy busy!

But I have big news: Isaiah started drawing!

Thomas found this Draw 'n Glow Super Set for Isaiah's birthday, and it was a hit. I didn't know if he would be interested or not, you know he loves coloring so much and all (insert sarcastic tone here). Almost as soon as I put it in front of him, he started scribbling away! I naturally grabbed the camera and started snapping away.

I pulled out the crayons again on the off-chance that he might be more interested in coloring now that he enjoyed the drawing set so much. In fact, for about 2 minutes he tried to color with the crayons before the "hand the crayons to mama" game. That's 2 minutes longer than any other time. I also used that time to start working on the letters in his name.

These cups are probably one of his favorite things to play with. He'll stack them and unstack them and restack them and put things in them and take things out (usually some kind of food). He's getting really good at this! I started asking him to "put the blue cup in the green cup" (for example), and he can do it! He's starting to repeat the color names a lot more, too. Oh! And in his bath he started handing me the colored item that I asked for--correctly!

Aunt Beth, Uncle Jason and Jake gave Isaiah these neat puzzles for his birthday. He really likes the one of the baby face. He'll point to the facial feature on the puzzle and then point to his own face (in the right place!). We're working on putting the puzzles together, but I think that's going to take some time yet, so we'll just keep trying.

Isaiah still really likes his peg board, too, which I think is starting to help his fine motor skills because he's getting a lot better with utensils! He did a great job with some breakfast sausages and a fork, and he was quite proud of himself.

The family album is a hit. He loves looking at the pictures over and over again. He gives them kisses and practices saying the names of the people in the pictures. I just love how loving he is.

So that was our week. It was busier than I thought. This week will be short again because we're heading to Krasnoyarsk, Russia for our missionary field conference. I'm sure that there will be plenty of learning going on there, too! Isaiah will have 3 other little boys to play with, so if you feel the earth shake for no particular reason, it's because Isaiah will be laughing so hard!

Be sure to check out the other Tot School fun at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School--Celebrations!

Isaiah is 36 months old

This week I had two Russian lessons, a doctor's appointment and a birthday party from Wednesday to Friday, so we didn't do a lot of concentrated Tot School, but we enjoyed what we did get to do! Wednesday he got to spend the whole day with Aunt Luda, so he had Russian practice that day, too!

I pulled out the crayons again so that we could work on colors and maybe at least see the number 3, since Isaiah turned 3 on Friday. He seems to enjoy taking the crayons out of the box and setting them to the side. When they're all out, he then wants to hand each one to me to put back in the box so the process can repeat itself. He's still not really interested in drawing. So I just reviewed the colors with him while we did this little game.

I then drew some 3's on the paper and we worked on him saying "I'm 3!", which he did very well. I helped him draw some 3's as well, but he's still not super interested in drawing or writing.

He still loves his Machines book that a friend sent us last year. He loves to point to the different machines, which right now are all "cars". I ask him to point to the different colored cars, and he's getting much better at this activity.

Friday was a big day! We went to see my doctor and "meet" our new baby. Isaiah was a trooper as it took me a while to find the clinic. He talked a lot to everyone around and made lots of new friends at the clinic. After the appointment and a special birthday lunch, we headed home to get ready for the party! We had a couple of other tots and their parents over for a supper of hotdogs and hamburgers. Isaiah received some great Tot School tools like books and drawing tools and even a math game! I made this album for him of all our family members in the States that he will see regularly when we go back for visits. I hope too, when we get to the letters their names start with to use their pictures to help him have even more of an association with certain letters.

We love our 3-year-old!

Saturday was thankfully a little slower. We did actually do some Tot School stuff, though I didn't get pictures. He is really into stacking cups right now, and he's getting really good at it! We also worked on a toy that he received for Christmas but I hadn't pulled out of the box yet (yikes!). It's kind of like a lite-brite (is that what they're even called?), but it's all just plastic, no electricity involved. There's a plastic board with holes in it and different colored plastic pegs to put in the holes to make a picture. It's called a Mosaic Toy here, but it would probably be called something else in the States. I didn't get pictures this week, but he seemed to like it, so I'm sure we'll do it again. It was great for working on his fine motor skills! He also just really liked shaking the bag with the pegs in it, which he did for a long time later that afternoon when he found the box and pulled out the bag.

So those are the few things that we did this week. Check out 1+1+1=1 for other Tot School activities.

Oh! And Carisa at 1+1+1=1 has also started a blog with some other moms that's designed specifically for moms and their tots. Be sure to check out, Totally Tots for some really great ideas and to meet some other cute tots!