The first week of "Tot School" here at the house has come and gone and all is well. Things didn't always go according to plan or schedule, but baby steps were made in the right direction and I'm pretty sure Little Man learned something and that's what's important!



The theme for the week was the letter A. I didn't do a lot of focus on the actual letter (though Little Man does recognize the letter now and can point it out) but it helped to have a letter so that I could pick activities with a general theme. Even though I know that letter recognition is important, it's not my emphasis for Little Man just quite yet. Since he's only 2 years old right now, I'm focusing more on gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and his social/emotional skills, as well as developing his speech.

Allow me to cover a few housekeeping tidbits, since this is the first post of the series, then we'll move onto the fun! Throughout the next 26 weeks, you'll find that a lot of the activities I picked are geared towards 2-year olds and those 3 specific skills. I do include a couple activities that involve that actual letter itself but that's all. All of these activities can be easily adjusted to fit the needs of different age children. On occasion, I might mention a few variations for a particular activity. However, my main focus will be on 2-year old "tots".



Each month, I'll be featuring an e-book that has helped me with ideas, activities, concepts, and organizational strategies for teaching your child, or children, at home. I'll also have a link set up in my sidebar. These are affiliate links which means that, if you choose to click on the link and then purchase the ebook, I will receive a small compensation for referring you. All earnings will go back into "Tot School" and be used for purchases related to my Little Man's education!

If nothing else, this series will help me to keep my thoughts and ideas organized so that I can just refer back to my own posts for next year! If I'm going to try and organize my thoughts, I might as well share them with you and allow you to glean whatever you might find useful (or add ideas in the comments section!) So without further ado, let's move onto week #1 of Tot School!

The very first thing we did for the week was make an alligator for the letter A. For the first day I let Little Man carry it around and growl at everything. Later, we hung it up above the chalkboard wall so that it didn't get torn up before the week was over with. It was fun to ask him "Where's the A?" and watch him point to it and growl.



Some other fun activities that we did which were specifically related to the letter A were arranging almonds on the letter A and gluing apples with the letter A onto an apple tree.


The final activity each day usually involved pulling out the sensory bin. For this week's sensory bin I used oatmeal and filled it with the letter A, some apples printed with numbers, muffin cups, and spoons to scoop the oatmeal. If we were in the States, I might add some acorns too.



Word to the wise (or maybe just those who decide they're going to get up and do something else for a second and leave their content and happy toddler to explore on his own...ehem), don't let your toddler pour water in the bin when you're not looking. Sigh...he's a curious boy.

Before nap time, we liked reading "Ten Apples Up On Top" by Dr. Seuss.