Daily Toddler Task

We are still using our favourite educational app OSMO. It is helping P create, practice and remember his letters.

Once he is done that, his reward is the story time! Each outfit or accessory helps to solve a challenge/problem. This helps him practice his problem solving skills, use his creativity and refine his listening skills.

“Frappe le mot” this idea came straight from my classroom! Ee call this “frappe le mot” (I teach French) this translates to “smack/hit the word”. In this case we will “smack the letter”

How to play:

•write the letters your child is practicing on cue cards/small pieces of paper

•have two fly swatters (spatulas would also work)

•say a letter out loud

•the first person to “smack the letter” first wins that round

•winner can collect their winning cards as you go

•the one with the most cards at the end wins

This game can be played with MANY concepts, for example: colours, numbers, phonetics, letter recognition, sight words, small words, math equations, etc.

Let me know how it goes! Happy “frapping”

•Beginner letters for letter recognition and phonetic practice•

This is a fun one for P. I hid 7 lower case letter i’s and 2 capital letter I’s along with random letters. He needed to find all the Is and tally them up. Each time he found one he would say “I makes the sound /ɪ/“. I uploaded the prep video in the next post - super easy and quick. I used the new joynote letters I just bought.

•Letter Recognition• my son is working on his letter recognition skills. We are focusing on S,A,T,P,I,N, these are high frequency letters. Eventually you will be able to combine them to start the reading process, such as: at, it, is, an, pin, etc. will be showing lots of letter recognition and beginner readers activities in the near future, as this is what we are working on at home to support his school learning.

In this activity I drew a shark mouth (I will upload a time-lapsed video in my next post) and on the teeth I drew letters. In hindsight, I should have only put the letters we are working on - next time! Finally, I had Pearson identify and colour all the letter T’s 🦈

We finally bit the bullet! With three kids (5,3 & 1) we wanted and alternative to the stroller for beach outings, baseball games and long walks. We researched for awhile and found the price range was between $200 up to $1300 👀. We finally found the which was in the mid to low price range and ohhh is she fancy! It was so easy to put together and seems to be made with quality materials. As we venture out with our new addition, we will be you posted about our likes and dislikes.

Magnet tiles on your fridge/dishwasher/laundry machine. A nice and easy setup that gives you a minute to have a tea ☕️ Great for fine motor skills, creativity & problem solving.

Pregnancy update! Can you believe it? Only 10 weeks left. I really wanted to savour this pregnancy as it may be my last but it is just flying by. I am so excited to meet our first baby girl but there is something so special about pregnancy (if you have minimal symptoms 🥴). I want to be able to remember everything about my children in my belly and out, sigh. I just love them all so much.

🍌🍞

Hello! For today’s we baked banana bread. Baking is an AMAZING real life learning tool.

Here are some advantages to making a bit of mess in the kitchen:

• learn the skill of cooking or baking
•Math and number talks
•Patience and focus
•It’s a sensory experience
•fine motor skills
•problem solving skills
•scientific talk (mixing/measuring/hypothesis)
•language and vocabulary development
•it’s delicious 🤤

Bruxie (23 months old) is practicing the life skill of pouring. This is also a sensory and mindful experience which promotes:

-focus
-patience
-problem solving
-vocabulary development
-gross and fine motor skills
-hand-eye coordination

Tools: water, soap bubbles, food colouring, jars & scoops

Activity: 20 minutes

Phonetics (learning the sounds of each letter)

Good morning! Here I drew six pictures and displayed three different letters on the side. We would talk about what the picture is, and then I would make the sound of each letter. Pearson would cover the correct letter sound for each word. The first step for learning to read or write small words is identifying the beginning sound/letter of the small word. This is currently where Pearson is developmentally, with my guidance and support.

Activity: 5 minutes

☕️ Good morning!

The last few days have been really trying in our house are losing a lot of our listening skills and we didn’t have a routine in place from last summer and I just see such a big difference. So for today’s We are going to get back into routine starting with my rice sensory bin. Sensory play as a really important aspect of child development just because you use all your senses it’s also an activity that’s very mindful so they practice focus and patience and problem-solving I had also helps to develop Neurological connections/pathways. This is really going to be the first somewhere where Brux (2yrs) Is experiencing a sensory been in the way that his oldest brother(4yrs) does so there are a lot of “back to basics” going on in this house.

Each summer it takes me a few weeks to develop a routine that works for the family. In Canada the last day of school is June 25 and it is July 19 now and only now are we really getting into a routine that’s going to work for our family. I notice when the house becomes frustrating and people are getting cranky and there are tantrums being thrown and I’m beginning to yell (which I try really hard not to do) that something needs to change.

We are definitely in that space right now so we are stripping everything back: no TV, no iPads, no screen time and really getting them into a routine where they know all of the expectations. I noticed that with my kids that there is a lot of screen time that’s when their behaviour starts going off the wall, so that’s done for now and we might start re-introducing it in small amounts in the next coming days but for now there’s nothing like that just until the kids get into their new routine.

I am also going to add a “reality” picture because I know Instagram can look unrealistic, so the last picture that I post on each series is going to be just a picture of what it looks like in my house. You’ll see in today’s picture there are towels down to help Brux contain the mess and my broom that I have used 4 times already (reminder that this is Bruxs first experience at the “big boy” sensory table so there is more mess than usual).

Activity time: 30 minutes