1st day of toddler school...

Today was our very first day of toddler school! I've decided to do it on Mondays this year so I'll have a little time to plan something short on Sunday nights. I'll be doing homeschool prep on Sundays anyway in the future, so I'm training myself with this. I just got out some books and craft materials and put them where they'd be easy to reach.

I've decided that our "school" schedule will look like this for now:
- Devotion
- Playing the shapes game where I throw them around the house and he brings them to me and identifies the shape and color
- Reading a book or two on the theme for the day
- Craft time
- Music and movement- I have a few good kids cds with music and movement on them, notably "Kids in Action" by Greg and Steve and one by good ol' Hap Palmer. =)

Now, we do some of these things on other days, but the combo at one time is what I'm looking for, and we usually don't do a craft, so that's different and special.

Today's craft was a tearing paper craft. I would not recommend this until your child is old enough to understand the difference between tearing construction paper and tearing book pages. =) I took out a few pieces of paper, got them "started" for Seth, and watched him happily rip away. We did a few different colors (colors practice), and then he glued the pieces, collage style, to another piece of paper. Good motor skills practice. We'll probably do this again periodically until he can rip without me needing to help him start off.

Seth always asks to listen to music now while he's eating, and I love what he's listening to. I can't recommend the Seeds Family Worship cds enough. He has started singing them with the cd now, and it almost brings tears to my eyes to hear my toddler singing God's word to himself. Today he was singing "Do not be anxious about anything..." If you buy directly from their website, they give you two cds, one to keep, and one to share with a friend, so I did that. I think I'll be getting the whole collection over time...

And I would also like to highly recommend our little daily devotional. David and Seth read children's bible stories at night, but its harder to get him to sit still and read with me for long during the day. That makes the Blessings Every Day devotional perfect for us. I found out about it from another blogger on Works for Me Wednesday, and its great. You find the date in the book, and there is one short page with a Bible verse, a short devotional, and a short prayer. It talks about things that are right on their level, asking them questions about sharing and forgiveness and getting angry. If you have a 2-year-old, you should try it...

And for those of you who are wondering about napping boot camp, I started him off easy since he got completely off schedule this weekend. He's recently become willing to nap in the swing, so I put him in there at the designated times today. We'll do this a few more days before we transition to the crib only. I think its helping him learn to find his fingers to self soothe. I want to get that down and stop swaddling him for naps when we start real boot camp. =) So far, so good today. =)