Tot School--W Week

Isaiah is 48 months old

We had a lot of fun with W this week, and Isaiah's pronunciation of the letter definitely improved, though it still needs a little work. I was surprised that W was on our list so soon, but we decided to go with it and have fun!

Watercolor

We had tried watercolors before, but Isaiah didn't seem to understand the process. This time for several minutes he understood that you take the brush (as opposed to your fingers) from water...

...to paint...

...and then to paper! I was so excited that he did the complete process that I forgot to get a picture of the last step. He however decided that his fingers worked better, of course, and tried to pick up water and put on the paint then rub his fingers on the paper. It worked, and he had fun doing it.

Wave

And with paint on his fingers, it made his hand show up better when waving bye to Daddy.

Writing

While Isaiah is still working on lines and circles, he steadily shows improvement in his pre-writing skills. He found a pencil and actually asked to use it with paper! Scribble on, Little Man!

World

We don't have a globe, but we do have some resources. I found a free printable world map on this site, which has tons of maps that you can print out in all kinds of sizes. We had a blue balloon that would suffice for water for our globe. I cut out the map and helped Isaiah glue it onto the balloon. Then I traced my hands and cut them out for him to glue on the back of the balloon, and we sang He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. Isaiah really, really liked this activity and asked to play with the balloon a lot this week. We do have to be careful with his exposure to latex though, so he didn't get to play with it as often as he would have liked.

But, lo and behold, that very same day we received a package, complete with an inflatable globe! Great timing, Grandma!

this is Isaiah's funny face, which he often does for the camera these days

White Ws blowing in the Wind

While working on Isaiah's walking and balance, we also experimented with windy conditions and the letter W. We glued white Ws onto strips of crepe paper, which I then tied to the light fixture in our living room. We tried blowing on the paper, then using my hair dryer and finally a big fan. The beginning of this idea started when I read online the suggestion of hanging the letter of the week from the ceiling in a classroom so children would often see it (I can't find the link now, though I thought I had bookmarked it). But it grew from there to include some W-inspired activities.

Woosh

Isaiah definitely preferred the woosh to the wind, though.

Oh, and I almost forgot that we rolled worms and formed Ws with play-doh and had lots of fun teaching Isaiah how to answer what questions, like What are you?

So that's what kept us occupied a good bit this week. Enjoy visiting the other Tot Schools at 1+1+1=1.