Call me optimistic, but since making the decision to try some home learning (or "Totschool," as I have learned it's called), I have seen several areas of improvement. Because I am with him every day, and because I have been keeping up with my journal in the evenings, I have already noticed him making great progress in such a short time.
From my journal:
He is also enjoying spending time at his work table. He is loving the crafting we've been doing, and when I put worksheets on the table and turned to get crayons out of the closet, he was already at the table examining the papers. I love it. We still break to read off topic books and play with some toys, but even that he is doing less and less while there are things to do at his work table.
I haven't mentioned it here, but we are dealing with a speech delay. He is definitely making progress on his own though (we hope to get him articulation therapy soon), and this week he has developed a few new words. Where he insisted on making sounds to refer to animals he now will say their name. He is repeating us more, and putting words together more regularly. I have to believe that all the attention he has been getting and the tons and tons of reading we have been doing is a huge factor in that.
So here is what this week looked like:
Monday- I introduced the boys to their sensory bins. I'm definitely jealous of moms who's kids are entertained with these for upwards of an hour... I got maybe 20 minutes out of Big Boy, and less from Little Man.
*For future reference: the rotini I used in the baby sensory bin breaks into small pieces as it is banged and played with. Noted.
I used my Cricut Expressions machine to cut animal shapes for a collage. I read The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown to the boys while Big Boy worked on his art.
I put out lacing boards and a farm animal puzzle and Big Boy took it upon himself to explore them. I see this as a great demonstration of his natural inquisitiveness and ability to learn.
His counting worksheet was pretty much a coloring sheet, but I insisted he do some counting before we threw in the towel. Getting out wood shapes to cover the animals as we counted helped him focus here. While he used to count "1, 2, 3..." lately he insists on "1, 2, 5." We'll work on it.
Tuesday-
We read A Birthday for Cow by Jan Thomas. And discussed dairy products. He will now tell you that milk comes from cows. Bears drink it. And they also eat all their yogurt and cheese. (I told him to look at the pictures of the food in the diary section of his food pyramid which hangs over his play kitchen. All on his own, he fed his giant teddy bear dairy products...if that's not a demonstration of learning I don't know what is!)
I won't post a picture of our craft. It's not that cute. It's kind of cute, kind of gross. Since we focused on dairy I thought we'd make a cow (a large cut out from the Cricut), he'd color it (that part came out great), and then use his handprint to make an udder. That part not so cute. I guess I was focusing on tying everything together and reinforcing where milk comes from. I'm not gonna lie, udders are ugly when you think about it. And his handprint is just a little to big. Like my husband said- it's cute, but a little obscene. Oops. I'll stick to crafts from Pinterest from now on!
Wednesday- We didn't do any of what I had planned. We looked through the book I had picked out for the day, then went off to our Gymboree play class. After spending the day lunching and shopping with my mom and sister who came up for the day, my sister and I brought Big Boy for a follow up hearing test. He was tested about 3 months ago around the time we had him evaluated with Birth to Three to see if he would qualify for speech therapy. He scored low-normal on the hearing test (scored too high to qualify with birth to three, by the way), so the audiologist recommending a follow up in the summer months when there would be no colds or allergies causing fluid in his ears. This time he passed no problem. And he also scored 80% on a word recognition test that is made for 4.5 year olds. That's pretty awesome for my not-quite 2.5 year old. So it seems his speech delay is just a matter of timing. He is getting there... I am really looking forward to his evaluation with Yale's Pediatric Outpatient Rehabilitation Center so we can get him some articulation therapy.
Though we didn't do what I had planned, I think his experience with the audiologist was enriching enough, and he did manage to get in an art project: a collage for his Nana's wall.
Thursday- Big Boy had is School Skills class at Gymboree. This is his third consecutive week, and from what I can see he seems to be falling into the rhythm of the class. I find it adorable. And heartbreaking. My baby is growing up. In School Skills, Big Boy made a dinosaur tooth necklace and traced numbers. He had help with "10," but I was told he did "9" on his own... which I find impressive and exciting as it opens up a new world of activities for us to do together. He also started saying his teachers name...in his own way.
Little man and I stayed at Gymboree for the open play gym hour. He is getting around pretty well- crawling and pulling himself up where he wants to.
From my journal:
I love seeing him throw a ball (his favorite thing to do) and crawl around. Just like I used to love that Oliver would crawl away from us in music class, I feel it is proof we have children who are comfortable being independent, confident, and curious. It assures me that they will be active learners pursuing their own interests.
We did lots of reading together, including a book called Egg to Chicken by Camilla de la Bedoyere. He totally gets that inside an egg is a baby chick. In fact he insists on calling the egg baby.
Friday- We re-read Egg to Chicken. Big Boy is very upset by a picture of a baby chick lying on its side coming out of the egg. "Uh oh. Baby fall." I assured him the baby didn't fall, but was resting because it was hard work getting out of the egg. Then we pretended to hatch out of an egg ourselves. We used a towel as our egg shell. He surprised my by sitting still until I told him to hatch. Out of his shell, he scratched the ground with his foot like a baby chick looking for a yummy worm to eat.
We colored in a chicken life cycle worksheet and the horse counting work sheet that was supposed to be done on Wednesday. With no instruction, he announced he would color the trees green, the apples and the barn red, and the star (which is what he insists on calling the sun...he's right though, isn't he?) yellow. I was so impressed and overjoyed at this. The horse is blue.
His baby chick craft came out adorable.
He loves these laminated placemats I picked up at the Christmas Tree Shop. They were 3 for $1! He loves to color over them with dry erase markers. They are great for him to practice tracing, and I'm sure we will find lots more use for them in the future.
Another purchase I am super proud of is a giant Thomas and Friends activity pad. It comes with water colors and tons of stickers. Its a $10 book I found on clearance at AC Moore for $2. Big Boy is so happy with this! He asks to paint constantly. Now finished with his fourth picture, I can see progress in his painting skills. Maybe I am looking too hard... but here is his progression throughout the week.
His first painting of Percy. He pretty much stayed focused in one area, not paying much attention to the picture itself.
Because he insists I paint too, I did help him a bit here. I did some of the red... but he did a bit of red to. See how the other areas of color seem to follow the shape of the train better?
Here I painted the steam puffs coming out of Thomas' funnel, and I made a picture of the sun. The rest was just about all him.
I played no part in this. At first he was coloring Cranky the correct green color. When I looked again I saw he changed his mind and went for purple...which I think may be his favorite color... but I was impressed that his painting stuck to the shape of the picture.
Feel free to disagree... but I see this as progress made.
All in all... a great week!
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