Tot School--Back in Russia!

Isaiah is 47 months old

We are getting back into the swing of things in many areas as we have returned to Russia! While in the States official Tot School took a bit of a back seat while we were able to get Isaiah some intensive physical, occupational and speech therapy.

So now I'm trying to get us into a schedule that will help me stay accountable and productive as Isaiah grows and learns each day! My desire is to continue the work that we began in therapy as well as incorporate much of what we had been doing in Tot School before we had our 5-month stint in the States.

Here's a little bit of what we did this week:

We actually made it to the park with his new wheels! Something I'm hoping to do more of when it gets just a tad bit warmer, like above 0 F.

Working on hand strengthening for writing, we used puzzles, lacing beads, legos and play-doh. Isaiah's hand coordination is developing slowly but nicely. Thanks to some lacing beads that look like cars, he actually seemed to enjoy this activity that he often resisted in occupational therapy!

We worked on drawing horizontal and vertical lines and circles. Just opening the markers is a skill to develop hand strength. These were fairly new and not all of them have been used yet, so they were a little tricky.

A puzzle with trucks helped keep his attention.

We used legos to work on color recognition/identification and hand strengthening. First I held out 2 different colored legos, asking him to take a specific color. If he went for the wrong color, I prompted him to try again. He got 2 out of 4 correct. He does really well with green and blue, and red is finally starting to come into the picture! Then he worked on stacking them, harder than you think when you have to match up those little pegs. With a little assistance on alignment, he did a great job.

Isaiah seems to have ups and downs with self-feeding, which can give Mama some ups and downs, too! This week he was doing much better with the spoon, a definite up for both of us!

Next week we'll start with working on specific letter-themed activities again to help give us focus and to develop some of the skills Isaiah began working on in speech therapy. But this week we did general activities like watching LeapFrog's Letter Factory. I got so excited as Isaiah actually began repeating the sounds with the characters! He's never done that before.

He's getting much better at repeating letters as we practice his alphabet. He also will count 1, 2 on his own, and then I help him up to 10.

On Tuesday we had a special treat. It's been bitterly cold here, so rather than meeting a friend in a favorite park or something, we took the free bus out to IKEA! We had a great time catching up with Oksana and Slava! There are always tons of toys to play with at IKEA, which also provided time for me to visit with my friend!

Every day we review Isaiah's children's catechism. He has the first two questions down cold! With a little prompting he is getting the third one really well, too. After breakfast we read the Bible together, and we are working on teaching Isaiah how to pray. I love hearing him talk to God!

And our big news is how well Isaiah is doing in our "PE program". Thanks to the diligent work of his therapist and the man who made his new braces and the man who ordered his equipment, Isaiah is making strides in walking! I just had to post a video of this. His walker is about 14 pounds, more than half his weight (finally 23 pounds!). He is finally getting the hang of turning it on his own, which involves lifting it a little bit. Little Man is STRONG!

Be sure to check out the other Tot Schools at 1+1+1=1! It's good to be back!