Tot School--N Week

Isaiah is 48 months old

As we focused this week on the letter N, I decided to take this opportunity to work on numbers with Isaiah. Coincidentally, we also started reading Numbers in our family Bible time each day. "Thrilling" you must be thinking. :) We just read a short section from the OT in the morning after breakfast and another from the NT before bed time. We use this time to teach Isaiah his catechism and how to pray. I love hearing him talking to God!

I wrote the capital and lower case Nn for Isaiah on some construction paper. I cut out the numbers 1-4, and Isaiah enjoyed gluing them down. For the first time he put the objects to be glued on the paper all by himself, exactly where he wanted them. He told me where he wanted them, and I made sure that they were facing the right direction in his hand (glue side down), and then he put them down and patted away! This would be why they are in a pile, but hey, he did it himself!

And then he played peek-a-boo, still a favorite in our house!

Every morning we then looked at his letters and traced them with his fingers and said words that start with N. His pronunciation improved throughout the week. Naturally, his favorite N word is "No" in all it's variations...no, nah, nope. I think nope is my personal favorite. He says it very clearly!

I made these number cards for him. While I'm no artist, he recognized the little pictures at the top for what I had intended them to be--cars, of course!

I made these with different colors, but we're not using the colors as much right now, at least not on purpose. Every day we reviewed the numbers, focusing on the number 1. I would hold one card up at a time, and we would trace the number and touch the cars. A few times I held up the number 1 and number 2 cards and asked him to touch a certain one. He did it correctly a couple times but not consistently.

We also used a "needle" to work with his lacing beads (shaped like cars) again. He is getting better and better at this! This takes a lot of action on my part, too, though, so we never do get a picture. But speaking of needles, Isaiah helped me on a sewing project this week, so we talked about the needle on the machine going up and down, which seemed to give him a thrill.

We also worked on writing, which requires some hand-over-hand action as well. This week, however he didn't put up nearly the fuss, and he actually wrote a lopsided kind of N!

I am really trying to focus on life skills with Isaiah more and more. He is actually starting to show interest in some things that he hasn't up to this point.

Isaiah is fascinated with cutting things with a knife lately, so we cut play-doh with a plastic knife.

And he helped me cut biscuits one morning!

We have been pleased to see increased strength in Isaiah's legs. Six months ago he could not have gone from this...

to this...
in the small braces that he is wearing. Thomas is only helping him balance, which means that Isaiah's knees are actually getting some strength! Praise the Lord for development in so many different areas!

Be sure to check out the other great Tot Schools at 1+1+1=1.