I remember a time in the not so distant past when getting Isaac to do anything that sniffed of learning was a task and a half!! And often if activities weren’t totally dismissed they were participated in for 30 seconds. Half heartedly.

Well haven’t times changed. I wouldnt say we’ve done an utter 180 but I no longer have a little boy who won’t look twice at anything that doesn’t have wheels!!! Its so exciting, not to mention refreshing!!

So yesterday we did lots of different activities including the most suprising of all; jigsaws!! Isaac has never been a fan of jigsaws even if I got really lovely vehicle ones!! But yesterday he sat with me for ages and completed lots of little animal puzzles, a police car and two twelve piece puzzles which is a really big achievement for him! I was so proud!!!

Next up we did some naming of foam shapes and then some sticking with them

He then decided that doing activities has to always include pouring water so i got some jugs etc to pour… seeing as I was hoping to work on fine motor skills I also got a small box of raisins and some chopstick style crab tongs!!! Voila.. Isaac uses them to transfer the raisins…. all be it into the water!!

Isaac then decided he wanted to do some letter tracing which is a really new thing for him to want to do. He traced lots of letters on wipeable phonics cards really well! He then traced his name on the white board and mummy was totally proud of how carefully he tried to do it and how it turned out!!

Well we decided to do some work on the ffffffff sound today.

First off we looked at some pictures.. naming the words that begun with the f sound. Isaac then glued lots of fish inside the outline of the letter f.

Next Isaac used the letter f stamp tp make some f pictures while repeating the sound of the letter and we looked at his mini f book.

Later on we will be reading lots of firefighter books to continue the theme of fffffff!!

We have been reading lots of dinosour books this past week to go along with out dinosaur theme.. Isaac enjoyed spotting the different species in this book

Isaac is very much “getting” humour lately.. he laughs when his favourite tv character does something silly or at funny books like Mr Magnolia which we read this week. It’s a good one for rhymnig in my opinion as the same rhyming sound is maintained throughout the entire book thus emphasising the rhyme… Isaac loves to join in with “ONE BOOT”!!!!!!

The last book Isaac really enjoyed this week was The Selfish Crcodile.. the pictures are great and it has a good lesson to teach..

Today we had some nice sensory fun that I’d like to share. Isaac doesn’t particularly like getting his hands messy when he s painting/sticking etc but he could not resist the smooth feel of the shaving foam on the tray today.

Even though play didn’t last more than about 10 minutes I think it was a good experience for him and he drew some lovely lines and even a person in the foam!!

Thanks to my good friend Shannon we’ve been doing lots of dinosaur activities this week.

First up we painted (really carefully infact) a dinosaur outline, then cut rough triangle shapes in green for the spikes to go down the back of the dinosuar which we then carefully stuck on! I was happy with how it turned out!!

We then listerned to our audio cd of this book and matched his dinosaur figures to the pictures!

We then on the spur of the moment decided to make a land for our dinosaurs so we looked at a non fiction book about dinosaurs to see what their habitat looked like and what they liked to do/eat and came up with this which Isaac absolutely loved doing!!!

We finished up the day yesterday watching our neighbour’s copy of Ice Age 3 Dawn of the Dinosaurs as my little man has a temperature and needed to chill!!!

Well seeing as I’m passionate about reading with little ones I can not wait off any longer to participate in this!!

Well we love books round here and this week has been no different.

The first book I’m going to talk about is one that became a favourite when we took it out of the library a while back and I have now purchased due to the huge enthusiasm over it!!

When I read it first I must admit it didn’t really appeal. It’s written in a kind of broken way, it doesn’t read totally coherently, to me anyway! But something about it really appeals to my son. My vehicle mad son!! Obviously the vehicles then, and I guess the really bold illustrations and, being a little boy probably all the smashing and crashing!!

The second book I’m going to mention is one I’d heard really good things about in a book about teaching your child to read (can’t remember the title sorry). It was a hit with my son right away from the first reading!

I think what initially appealed, apart from the lovely rhythm of the book, was the appearance of characters who were recognisable to my son due to his dual heritage (daddy’s family are from Barbados). The arrival of nanny and gran gran in the storyline delighted him as that is what he terms his two grandmothers! I think he also found the style and colloquialisms very familiar. Mummy was of course delighted at the read it again requests as the text is highly repetitive and in my opinion lovely for my nearly 4 year old!!

The last book I’m going to mention is a continuation on the theme really. My son found this book in the library yesterday by chance and as soon as I began to read it to him I recognised the style of the author of So Much (above) Trish Cooke.

I already think really highly of this book… the anticipation the author creates regarding the revelation of the HULABAZOO is something I have not seen in Isaac to this degree in a book for a long time. He could not wait to see what this strange character looked like!! The text is once again highly repetitive and overall a great read!!

Happy reading!!!!

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Originally uploaded by isaacsmum

So much of the beginning of this year has been spent being frustrated by being stuck home because of the snow but at least we managed to have some fun. Playing snowballs, building snowmen, sledging and even investigating an igloo!

But now things are getting back into a routine, Isaac is back at preschool every morning and playdates are happening again, I want to get more organised in blogging about my lil man’s life and the activites we do to get him ready for BIG SCHOOL this autumn!!!

Well it’s my favourite time of year. We have been busy putting up the tree and the decorations and watching the lights being switched on in town.

This morning Isaac opened the first window of his advent calendar and the countdown to Christmas began in earnest!

Today we have been listening to (and dancing to) some christmas music and made christmas shaped biscuits which we iced and plastered with hundreds and thousands!!

We have lots more planned for the seaon so watch this space!!

Well today we did the second page of our alphabet book…. first Isaac traced the letter B…..

He then found the spaces for the various b b b b b items and stuck them on…

I just realised I didnt take a photo of the finished product but you get the picture…

I also started preparing for some Halloween fun by making the Halloween sensory tub I saw over at my good friend’s blog Mommies wise little Bookworms.. I don’t yet have anything to scoop the stuff into and my search is not prooving fruitful so I might have to make something!! Watch this space…