Tot School: Fasteners & Letter I

Last week, despite being very busy and feeling very frazzled, I managed to do some Tot School stuff with the boys. It was a good thing that our theme for the week was fasteners because I was able to rely on some of our Melissa and Doug toys and I didn't have to make anything myself.

Houses with Latches Puzzle

Undo the latch... open the door... see some animal friends inside! Say "Bye bye"... close the door and latch it again :)

Dress the Bear Puzzle

I was impressed at how well Calvin did with this. He can do the snap, the zipper, the buckle on the wrist, and he can thread the lace, but not tie it. He can do the big button with some help. 

Lacing Cards

These wooden lacing cards are also by Melissa and Doug toys. I let him work on threading the lace through any hole without worrying about any kind of pattern or order. Great fine motor work for him, and also good for working on concentration and patience :) 

Pack for a Hike

We packed for a pretend hike and an indoor picnic on a rainy day. This CamelBak backpack was great for this activity because it has so many different fasteners: zippers, snaps, buckles, and velcro! As we packed our items into the many pockets, Calvin used the fasteners to close the pockets up. Then we pretended to hike along a beach, though we were actually walking in circles around our apartment :) When our "hike" was over, we stopped and undid all those zippers, snaps, buckles, and velcro to unpack our things and we enjoyed our indoor snack picnic.

Our letter of the week was icy letter I! Here's how we Investigated I...

Words with I

Round-up of all the Items I could find with names that start with I. 

Ice Play Sensory Bin

Since I was our letter of the week, I took it as an opportunity to let Calvin and Henry play with some ice. I put a bit of water in the bin and added ice cubes, plastic ice cubes, frozen teething rings, James' whiskey stones and a couple of pitchers for pouring. Calvin loved it! For Henry, I gave him an ice pop made of frozen coconut water to gnaw on :)

Ink Stamp I

I have a set of small alphabet stamps, so I pulled out a big ink pad and let Calvin stamp away with the letter I. The small stamp was a bit difficult for him to manage, but that made it a good motor-skill exercise too.

Ice Painting

I added food coloring to water in an ice tray to make some gorgeous jewel-toned ice cubes for painting! I was worried that they'd stain Calvin's clothes so I let him do the ice painting in his birthday suit :) The ice-painted letter I turned out very pretty!