Letter J (and other toddler activities)

:: Luke is 2 years and 3 months old ::

Luke and I are progressing steadily through the letters of the alphabet. Since my last post on Letter C for caterpillar, we have done Letter D, E, F, G, H, I and this week we did Letter J.

The first activity we did was something I thought of on the spot. I wrote a few upper and lower case Letter J on a piece of A4 paper and I offered 1 do-a-dot marker to Luke. I asked him to dot the Letter J on the paper using the marker and say out the name of the letter. It was a really easy and quick activity to prepare and it was an activity which Luke enjoyed. The novelty of the new markers definitely helped capture Luke's attention in this activity.

I also let Luke try the glue stick for the first time. I cut out small pieces of coloured tissue paper and wrote the Letter J (upper and lower case) on a piece of paper. Then I showed him how to use the glue stick to apply some glue on the tissue paper before sticking it onto the Letter J.

I didn't realise how much fine-motor coordination is required for this task until I see Luke tried to hold down a small piece of tissue paper and apply the glue at the same time. Definitely a good practice for the fine-motor skills but a little too challenging for Luke at the moment. After a while, I figured that it was easier and more achievable for Luke to apply the glue onto the Letter J and stick the tissue paper on instead.

We also did some threading practice using pipe cleaners and coloured beads. Luke really enjoyed this activity today and I could see the great sense of achievement on his face when he finished threading.

We also used soya beans for some activities today. The first activity was to put soya bean into a container with small compartments. This activity is to practice picking and putting down small objects. First, I asked him to put 1 soya bean in each compartment, then I asked him to put 2 soya bean in each compartment.  This was to incorporate a little counting practice while he played with the soya bean.

While he was doing that, I had another idea. I took out my Post-It pad and wrote 1 number on each Post-It from 1-3. Then I drew a corresponding number of small circles (roughly the size of a soya bean) on Post-It and pasted a piece of double sided tape over the small circles so that it could stick the soya bean. Then I counted together with Luke and asked him to stick the soya bean on the small circles.