Tot School: Week of July 19-23

Tot School

Emma is 18.5 months old

Emma has always loved books, so one of the ways I've been working to increase her attention span and ability to sit still is by having her read a book next to me while I'm reading my own book. She is doing great at this! But having a longer attention span has also meant that she would sit for an hour straight and have me read TO her! WHEW! I have to cut her off most days. She's also moved on to picture books that have many more words. We recently enjoyed The Big Honey Hunt (my favorite growing up), One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. I had to take Railroad Toad back to the library because Martin and I were quoting it to each other while falling asleep the other night!

This is a great Melissa and Doug piggy bank that Emma never seemed to care about much. I spent some time with her this week showing her how the coins come out and stuff back in, and she had a great time!

This week I also pulled out some Mr. Potato Heads that Emma had never gotten to use. She is fascinated by the little pieces and does a great job getting them in the holes on the Potato Head. She's done a great job playing with this on her own.

Since her fine motor skills seem to be growing by leaps and bounds lately, I pulled out her beads (that we normally just scoop) and gave her pipe cleaner. At first I held the pipe cleaner and her hand to get the bead on, but after she saw what we were doing, she took off with it - no help needed!

Originally I had been turning the bead so that the hole was easier for her to find, but she ended up getting her own beads out of the bag and doing the whole thing by herself. I was really impressed!

After a solid 30 minutes of threading beads, she ended up enjoying the texture more than anything else, and proceeded to bury her hands in the bag of beads and wiggly them around.

We also had fun with textures outside using shaving cream. I'd done this before with Emma and she always cried and tried to just get that stuff off! But this time she really enjoyed playing with it (even though she looks a bit apprehensive).

Well, its looking like Emma prefers the girly side of being a girl! One of her favorite things to do now is to carry her purses around full of stuff! She walks around the room putting little objects in her bag, and then carries the bag off somewhere to examine her treasures. She doesn't have a strong preference for her purse....a bucket will do!

Emma also took a trip to Mommy's nail salon! Such great life skills she's learning!



Big sister training continues with Emma's friend, Kellen. This particular day she wanted to hold him, so they sat on the couch with me and snuggled mostly with each other. Emma loves to give him kisses and hugs and Kellen is enjoying pulling at her hair and sometimes giving kisses back! They are really beginning to play well together!



Mom's Favorite:

Emma is my little tomato loving kid! She would just eat tomatoes if we let her! She has really enjoyed taking a look at our garden every day, helping to water it, and especially checking to see if the tomatoes are ready to be picked. Every time we look at the tomatoes she says "Done!" meaning, they're ready to be picked and I want to eat them!