Tot School

For Tot School this week, I decided to continue with A and Red, since last week was short with Thanksgiving and all.

Monday, however, was Russian day.  Isaiah's nanny Julia was able to come again at last!  She doesn't speak English, and we're hoping that Isaiah is picking up his Russian from her and our other Russian friends so that he doesn't learn our mistakes or our accents!  I joined them for snack time after their walk (this gives me some great practice, too!), and I was excited to see them interacting so well.  Julia would tell Isaiah to do something very specific, and he would obey perfectly!  What a smart boy I have--already becoming bilingual!

Tuesday we again combined therapy and school.  We (I) named things with "A".  Isaiah liked the pictures that I had prepared for him to color, he pointed to them and said "all done" very clearly after he wore them as hats.  

He still likes to color on his clothes more than any paper, so thankfully the crayons wash out very well. :)

We tried something new to help work on his fine motor skills since coloring isn't too interesting, apparently.  We have some colorful plastic cups that are great for stacking, or for talking into to make your voice sound funny, which is obviously the more important thing to do!

Wednesday we had a shopping date!  We bought Daddy a Christmas present, and Isaiah was a big help as we wheeled through the store.  He helped soften up the cashiers so that they were nicer to me.  We strolled through IKEA (gotta love it!) and pointed out all the "A" things like alligators and armchairs and art supplies and some other things that I forget now.  But, we scored a major find--the closest thing to construction paper that I've seen in Russia!  Woohoo!  Pretty colors and everything!  I snatched that package of paper up in my hands as if it were a bag of gold!

Never one to be put off quickly (just a nice way of saying that I can be pretty stubborn), we tried coloring again after his nap.  He had been using a mandarin like a crayon, so I asked him if he wanted to color.  He said, "Uh-huh" (which he says to everything like other toddlers say "no" to everything). He did actually color on paper a little bit--progress, perhaps?  Then I decided that we needed to practice for opening up Christmas presents, so we ripped and ripped and ripped paper--finally something he was much more interested in!  But I was so busy "helping" him that I forgot to get some pictures.

Thursday was my Russian lesson day (and a migraine, sadly), so no Tot School really took place that I remember.

Friday we had fun preparing for friends to come and play.  Isaiah had a blast playing with his little friend Slava who can crawl now.  Isaiah was so excited that he didn't even want to eat his pizza!  As soon as Slava was done, Isaiah quickly declared "all done" so that he could go and play.  I think Isaiah learned pretty quickly that he could roll a ball for Slava to chase!  Lots of laughter and good Russian practice for me with Slava's patient mother Oksana.

I'm so pumped about starting B next week because I have some fun ideas for ways to use my new colorful paper!  I even found some glue!  And I think that Isaiah and I might practice some of the craft projects that I want to try for the camp in January (and yes, please give more ideas!).

Check out what else is going on in Tot Schools around the world!