Setting Goals for Tot School

I know that setting goals is helpful.  With my educational training, I am consistently using a combination of informal assessments (mostly observational notes) to keep track of the skills my 25 month old has mastered, the ones he still needs more practice, and the ones I think he is ready for with adult support.  After babysitting for years, then teaching children in the public school setting for another 5 years and having my own,  this is just second nature to me. So, when I set down to write my goals for the next several months these are the 2 most important ones that came to my mind.

1.     Laugh more

2.     Have more fun

So why am I keeping these 2 goals in my mind?  Well, at 2 years old, kids are learning about the world around them.  Through their songs and games and explorations, they learn vocabulary and develop early literacy and math skills.  If I focus on enjoying learning with my son, then I truly believe that more learning will occur.  My goal is not to have him be able to do X, Y, and Z, but to foster an environment where the quest for knowledge becomes a daily task and that learning is an enjoyable experience.  I am going to work on smiling more.  I am going to try and be silly more.  I am going to try having more fun learning!!!

This week, with these goals in mind, I checked out, “The Books of Fingerplays & Action Songs,” compiled by John n. Feierabend from our local library. Nicholas went with me to the library and he was adorable reading his own books that he chose ripped off the shelf in his big boy voice on the little couches, I just wished he had a volume control some times.  Anyways, I am digressing. 
This book is designed for parents to use as a resource and is a no frills compilation of songs and chants along with the fingerplays, or hand movements that accompany the words.  It is a great hard-copy resource for a great variety of songs and poems to use with children.  This would be a great addition to any family library.  It even has the music scores for some songs and I when I find the keyboard plug in, we will start playing them!  For now, we have been choosing 2 new ones every day to add to our favorites.  I had forgotten about some that I just adore! I'm making a list of our favorites on a big piece of paper so we can hang it up as a reminder to say and do them together more often!

Nicholas really enjoyed the "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed."  He even ran to get the phone and pretended to call the doctor!  In a couple of days, I am hoping to add 5 little monkey finger puppets with the numbers on them so that we can act it out with props.  He is still having too much fun doing the actions that for right now, I am going to

1. Laugh more

3. Have fun!

Another favorite of his was "Grandma's Glasses."  He didn't want to participate in saying or doing the poem and actions, but as soon as I was done he would say, "AGAIN!"  It was too cute =)  Although it is not much fun doing these silly little poems and chants myself, I am reminded of my goals

1. Laugh more

2. Have fun!

So I did!!!  And I do make a great impression of Grandma's glasses!

Another one that Nicholas really liked was the "Wheels on the Bus!"  It is such a classic, but for some reason, I can't remember singing it in the last couple months.  Since trains is his new favorite, we changed the words to make it our own. Our verses...

The wheels on the train go round and round

The bell on the train goes ding, ding, ding.

The whistle on the train goes WHOOO WHOOO.

The train on the track goes clickety clack.

I also make sure to include a book with each toy bin.  Right now in the Trains Box, I have the National Geographic Trains.  That way, literacy is available and the learning has added meaning when combined with play. It also helps me with learning the train specific vocabulary (I am NOT an expert in this field and learn daily!)  Having it right there makes it very easy and convenient to add literature and beginning reading concepts to train play!  I also try to have "extras" that are not necessarily part of the set, but encourage more kids of ply.  I keep a wooden train whistle, 2 bells, and a conductor hat in this box! As he gets better at not writing on my walls, I will introduce making signs for the trains.  What I really should do is add some paper tickets! This morning, we also brought out the globe and looked for the places our train will travel and talked about different countries that use trains to get people and products from place to place (I know it is most of them, but we just hit a few). That means that this little playtime was really geography, life skills, pretend play, beginning math concepts and early literacy skills - YEAH FOR PLAY!!!!  Then - keeping in my tradition of having fun and smiling more - we donned our conductor hats and Choo-Chooed around the kitchen!

Chug-a- chug- a Choo- CHoooooooo!

Have a happy learning week!