Henry is 33 months old.
I'm going to start my recap of all the tot school letters I haven't blogged about at the letter z because it was the last letter we did and all the materials are still available. Needless to say the last few letters in the alphabet are pretty tough to come up with themes that completely fit the letter. Since Z was so close to Christmas it was sort of a half and half theme -- a Christmas Z. Doesn't totally fit, but, hey, the kids had fun.
The first tray was a practical life tray -- transferring mini Christmas bows between two wooden bowls with a pair of tweezers. Henry actually really liked this tray and it was one of the first times I've seen him use the tweezers to transfer without frustration.
The second tray was a zoo tray. In the wooden box, I placed some large classic zoo animals {borrowed from our toy library} and some smaller matching animals from our own collection. I also included some matching flashcards.
The goal was to match the big and small zoo animals to the cards. It's a simple activity that Henry really loved. The box ended up being a little heavier than I liked, so he did require some assistance taking it out and putting it away. But, he still had a ton of fun with these.
The final tray was a letter Z made from a bunch of smaller red and green circles. Then, I included a bunch of wooden red and green beads. It was a good color matching and fine motor tray that helped start to show how to make the letter Z shape.
Henry didn't really have much interest in this tray, but one little boy (a little older than Henry) in the co-op sat and used it for nearly the entire class. It was great to start to see repetition in the work and was a great sign that the kids are starting to find their own groove in the environment.
Other smaller trays for this week included:
Counting zebras: This small tray included some foam squares with numbers 1 to 5 written on them, and a bunch of small zebras. The idea was to count the number of zebras needed for each foam number. This was another one of Henry's favorite trays. It was interesting to see him start to make the connection that each number is not only a different shape, but means a different number of objects.
Letter Z Magnet Tray:
Letter Z Sensory Bin: We actually had a surprising amount of letter Z objects. I was pleasantly surprised.
Zipper Tray: This was a simple tray with a practical life puzzle piece from an old Melissa and Doug puzzle. It is just a small coat that zips. Henry still struggles to zip, so I was hoping he would like this work. But, he ignored it.
Make your own snowman: Just a Christmas/winter tray where the kids can make their own snowman. I don't think Henry ever tried this one. {Until after I wrote this post and was taking pictures! Then he did if for an hour straight!}
