Tot School--G Week II

Isaiah is 51 months

This week we finally got back into the speech therapy list for our alphabet school.  Since it's been a while, I'll just say that the use of the alphabet is more for me to have a spring board for activities to try with Isaiah.  I'm doing my best to make them interesting for him but also productive as far as the therapy goals that his therapists in the States gave me before we left.

We picked up with the next letter on our speech therapy list, which was G.  And G is for...

Green

I drew the big and little G on his drawing board in green crayon.  We found all his shades of green crayons and markers and he actually colored and did his horizontal lines very well!  I think it's more difficult for him to do his other lines and circles while standing as he has to work hard just on balancing at the same time, but he did great with his balance!  He was able to let go of his walker with both hands several times for several minutes.

Oh, and it was all his idea for his friends to sit with him while he worked on his drawing board.  I LOVE how he is getting better at telling me what he would like.

He also found his play doh several times this week and asked to play with it.  He would bring me the container and say All mine, which I thought was a creative way to let me know what he wanted.

Go

I tried to get him in his braces even more this week.  He did really well walking around our little space.
We were also able to go outside a lot more near the end of the week!  I had to take more sitting breaks than in the past, but as long as he could watch the cars go by, Isaiah didn't seem to mind one bit!

Things that Go

When Isaiah had occupational therapy, he HATED working his puzzles.  I hadn't pulled this one of some trucks out in a long time.  I just nonchalantly put it on the table to see what would happen.  He immediately started taking out the pieces and even tried to put 3 of them back!  One piece was almost in the right spot!  I was thrilled, so I told him to smile for a picture with the puzzle, and this is what he did...

Gathering

Ok, this is a stretch, and I don't think I ever said this word with him, but when he asked for his "colors", he did well moving them from one place to another, or gathering them. :)

But I did some gathering of my own.  I've been wanting to organize Isaiah's toys for a while now, and I finally had the energy and time (all at once!) to do a deep clean of his room and organize things a little better.  My preference would have been to get flat containers with lids to slide under his bed, but that would mean spending money, so I just used the crates that we had, and it works all right.  We have one for "Cars, Trucks, and Things that Go", one for "Legos" and one for everything else.

I was also able to finally get the posters up that our cousin sent us!  Unfortunately I can't get the glossy ones to stay up, but the alphabet one is doing well.  We look at it together, and I've found him looking at it when I get him up from his "nap".  Just some passive learning with it right now, but I'm sure it will be even more helpful later!

Guitar

And what would G week be without some serious guitar time?  Isaiah's little guitar finally met its end, so he had the special treat of getting to strum Daddy's guitar a few times this week.

God

We continue to work with Isaiah on his children's catechism questions.  We are having a bit of a dilemma however, and I would appreciate any advice.  For the past 3 years, Isaiah has been able to do the first 2 questions without any problems at all.  We added the 3rd question about a year ago, and all was going well.  Suddenly, however he wants to answer the first 2 questions with the answer for the 3rd question.  It's like it's stuck in his head or something.  We're having a hard time discerning if this is behavioral/needs discipline issue or a genuine part of some of the learning difficulties that Isaiah might have.  He does tend to get stuck on certain words or answers in other situations as well.

We are trying to develop some more interesting ways to review his catechism with him to see if maybe he's bored with the process.  I have to give my husband kudos in this area as he has been the main one to try new things.

But any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Glasses

And just in time a wonderful package arrived with some fun goodies for Isaiah (Thanks, ST!).  He seems to really like glasses, and I was thrilled to have some pipe cleaners, which I thought would be perfect for making him some play glasses.  My husband whipped some up in no time!

(my husband is less than thrilled with this picture, but it was the only one I had with Isaiah's cute play glasses, so sorry, honey)


Lord willing, we'll continue our alphabet school this week.  We're pretty much taking things one day at a time here as we wait for our Little Lady to join us in the outside world.

But be sure to check out the other Tot Schools at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School--G Week

Isaiah is almost 40 months old

For "G Week" we enjoyed games, gangs, gargantuous amounts of rain, and lots more, but here are some pictures from the week:

Well, actually first, our Bible verse and Bible story:

G is for God (of course!)--Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

G is for Gideon

We read about Gideon in our giant family Bible (ok, not really that big, but to Isaiah it is!) and in his Russian Children's Bible (again good practice for mama). And since mama also had 3 grueling language lessons this week, Julia came to take great care of Isaiah, and she was able to read to him about Gideon without the language limitations, so he heard it correctly in both languages. And incidentally, when I returned home from my lesson one day, Isaiah was only speaking in Russian! He did a great job, too!

I had hoped to do some crafts with the Bible story this week, but 3 lessons rather did me in!

Gang

But the peaceful kind! Tuesday Isaiah and I enjoyed hanging out with Oksana and Slava (Оксана и Слава, for those of you interested in the Russian spelling). This was fun for the mamas and the boys. We were able to take a walk in the glaring sunlight (the only day we had sun this week).

Green grass growing in the ground

On the way home from Oksana and Slava's we stopped off at our park. I had forgotten how gorgeous the color green can be! We gazed at the green trees and grass with gratitude to God for bringing spring at last!

And what could be holding Isaiah's attention so well? A big machine digging in the ground, of course! He watched this for about 20 minutes with occasional smiles flashed at me.

Grandparents glued under glass

Living so far away we take every advantage to make sure that Isaiah knows his family; praise God for Skype! But I thought it would be fun to add to our collection of family pictures, so I printed out larger copies of pictures of his grandparents. First we glued them onto brightly colored pieces of paper. For the first time I let him use the glue all by himself, and he did great! He didn't want to stop!

Then I cut the paper so that a small frame was still around the picture. For glass we used something akin to contact paper, but it was a little thinner and a little more difficult to work with than what I had been used to in the States. But it worked. To work on fine motor skills, I cut a small piece for Isaiah to try to peel apart the sticky side from the backing; here's his reaction: I don't think he's a fan. :)

He did however enjoy rubbing down the "glass" to try to make it smooth over his grandparents faces.

Then he loved on them with hugs and kisses. And now he kisses them goodnight every night.

Garage

We don't own a car here, so we don't have a garage, but Isaiah does! He got this little set for Christmas, but most of the smaller cars that came with it have broken. It's supposed to shoot cars out really fast, but Isaiah enjoyed playing with it like this:

The rest of the activities/songs/foods don't have pictures, because I was usually really involved in them and couldn't take pictures.

Gravity

We dropped his animals into different containers, and they always fell. Gravity is pretty predictable that way.

Grapes

Isaiah LOVES grapes and can even say the word fairly well.

Guitar

Isaiah also LOVES the guitar. Every day when we have family worship, Daddy lets Isaiah strum the guitar after each song we sing. He even tries to use the pick now! I do hope to get a picture of this, but usually he's in my lap for family worship, and then I forget later.

We sang lots and lots this week, but here are the songs that are G-ish: God is so Good; My God is so Big; No More My God; (sensing a theme?); The Green Grass Grew All Around; Great is Thy Faithfulness; The Graham Cracker Song; and I think there were some more, but that's all I can remember for now.

We sadly did not get to read very much this week beyond the Bible story. And we don't have very many G related books anyway.

We are jumping to J next week, since we recently did H and I. See you then!

For more Tot School fun, don't forget to check out 1+1+1=1.