Tot School

We've been introducing a few activities every week that have more structure and are intended to specifically develop skills with Emma. We've been doing this for a while now, but I was inspired to record it better because of the blog 1+1+1=1 and the Tot School feature.

Emma is 16 months, and here is what we did last week:

Emma loves books, especially her alphabet Baby Einstein books. She enjoys going through the books on her own, but she will also point out pictures she knows to us. She has memorized the books that have certain body parts (nose, hands, and even hat) and will point to her nose, etc, before we turn the page.



She has learned to take the books out of the little box, but does not do as well putting them back without help. Cleaning up is a skill we are working on too.

Emma also enjoys when I make a "reading nook" for her with blankets and pillows. She nestles in and will go through a huge basket of books, reading and talking to herself.

I've been trying to think of activities that will help her develop fine motor skills for eating, so we worked on scooping beads with measuring cups. Mostly Emma picked up the beads and put them in the scoops with her hands.

We also used cups to dump the beads, but she didn't enjoy that as much as having all the beads in a large bowl to start off.

Emma is getting very good at doing puzzles. She has several Melissa and Doug wooden puzzles, and is best at the shapes one right now. She can almost always match the piece to the right spot, but is not always able to get it in the hole. We've seen a lot of progress with this lately, though, so it won't be much longer!

Emma loves music, and has started recognizing different instruments in books and then signing music. We've done this project a few times: I put on some music and write the word music on a paper. Then she picks out some foam music stickers to put on her paper. She loves sticking the stickers down.

Mom's Favorite from the week:

I love how much she loves to read and be surrounded by a pile of books. Since she's content to sit and read on her own for a time now, we can sit and read together :-)