July is Penguin Month!

In the spirit of keeping my child entertained, I have put a whole heap of new things on her shelves this month.  Most of them are Montessori-inspired - largely because she keeps telling me to make her "jobs like I used to do," and also because she likes to have a choice of things to do.  I do still very much enjoy the Montessori-style activities, especially when I can see how much Niamh loves to do them.  I suspect our learning style will end up a bit ecclectic, at least in the early years.

Anyway, here's what we have to play with:

Sticker number matching.  She loves these foam number stickers (and we also have letters and animals), and rather than just allowing her to plaster the house (which she was doing), I came up with this little number matching game.  It's not about number recognition (though she does ask and recognise the numbers) but more about making the correct match with the stickers provided.

And here's her trying it out (Mess?  What mess?):

 A spooning activity:

 A tonging and colour separation activity:

Very Montessori - introduction to decimal system golden beads:

Glass bead pattern and shape matching (this one is a big hit - especially when we made penguin shapes out of them!)

We also have play dough, stacking boxes, lego, wooden food and cutlery sets, wooden blocks and a whole heap of other things.  We also tried cutting an orange and squeezing our own juice today using a hand-juicer.  She barely ended up with a mouthful, but she had fun, so I'm sure it'll be something she'll ask to do again (in fact, she already has...but 3 oranges is probably enough for one day!).

Oh!  I nearly forgot about Penguin Month.  Each month, we are going to look at a specific topic (we even have a little box...I will take a photo and post it later).  This month is...surprise surprise...penguin month!  We have already made a world map showing where penguins live (I'll post a photo later), made penguin play dough shapes, and of course, there is this month's sensory tub:

In this tub are:

- White, black and yellow pompoms (looks a bit like a penguin colony on snow)
- 8 penguin buttons
- 3 ice blue and 1 glittery "snow flakes" (pompoms)
- penguin food (fish, squid and krill made out of clear plastic and silver pen)
- ice cubes and water droplets (glass beads)
- sticker spelling game - she needs to find, match and make the words "egg," "chick," and "penguin"
   using the foam stickers in the tub
- photos of a penguin egg, chick and adult penguin


Here's what it looks like all crammed in:

Doing the penguin sticker spelling:

We are heading off to the museum tomorrow to see a dinosaur puppet show, which I am hoping she will enjoy (even though it's not penguins).

A Colourful Birthday

Phew!  Why are children's birthdays always so crazy?  The last few days have been a bit mad around here...and it's not like we even had a big party to celebrate Niamh's 2nd birthday.

First, a recapitulation of the last few day's activities for Niamh.

Cheerio chicken feeder:

 Someone told me about this fun little activity, so we decided to give it a go - especially since we've had a few rainy days, and the younger chickens had to stay in their little house to keep dry.  I thought these little feeders would be a good distraction for them.  Basically, it's a threading job - you knot the end of a piece of string, and feed a row of Cheerios on.  All went well, for the first one.  Then Niamh ate the rest of the Cheerios herself!  Oh well.  She did enjoy the activity, and I'm sure we'll tackle it again...though next time I will wait until she has already eaten.  (For those of you worried about our poor chickens being neglected, be assured I made them a little feeder and they loved it!)

Then, birthday morning!  Happy birthday to my sweet, TWO year old girl!  How those years have flown by...and I wouldn't have missed a second of them.  Here is the birthday morning carnage:

As you can see, she was rather spoiled.  That's her Daddy, putting together her balance bike, which we found HERE at Hip Kids.  We chose it because it has the option to put the pedal crank on once they have mastered steering and balancing.  Unfortunately, the bike is too tall for her!  Her little feet hang several inches off the ground, which makes the whole point of balancing either a) pointless, or b) really, really relevant.  But she loves sitting on it while we push her around (and that's not going to get old at all...right?).

She received the stacking puzzle she requested, which I found HERE at Modern Teaching Aids.  And she also received a fairy game card pack, which lucky Mama found at a one-off sale.  Included are some lacing cards, a memory game, a picture matching game, a number match game, a game of rainbow "go-fish" and a 50 piece jigsaw which I will put away for when she is older.  The pictures on the cards are beautiful, and she already loves looking at all the fairies and asking what their names are.

Now for the things I made for her.  I have been wanting to make her a sensory tub for AGES since I first saw them HERE at the wonderful Counting Coconuts blog.  I couldn't decide, however, whether to make her a rainbow sensory tub (since it is Colour Month), or a number "2" sensory tub.  Then I thought, why not combine the two?  So here it is, my first ever sensory tub in a colourful number "2" theme:

Inside are:
- 2 glittery green 2's
- 2 purple frogs
- 2 large green sparkly pompoms
- 2 pegs
- 2 large wooden buttons
- 2 small red beads
- 2 medium blue pompoms
- 2 small red pompoms
- 2 large white pompoms
- 2 small white pompoms
- 2 iron-on flowers (which I can no doubt use later in sewing!)
- 2 magnifying glasses
- 2 small yellow pompoms
- 2 long yellow beads
- 2 small pine beads
- 2 small dark wooden beads
...and a whole heap of rainbow rice.

She LOVES it.  She has a blast burying everything, then using the magnifying glasses to find them hiding in the rice.  She has spent hours sitting there so far, just running her hands through the rice.  She is also doing very well with the tub rule - the tub and its contents must not leave her play area.  I can't wait to plan the next tub.  They are seriously addictive!

I also made her an "eye-spy" bottle (the idea of which I also discovered on COUNTING COCONUTS (did I mention what a great blog it is??).  Again, in a rainbow theme:

For this one, I didn't take photos of what went inside - I was too busy getting other things ready for Niamh's birthday.  But I think, for the next ones, I will.  I like the idea of using them to play "eye-spy bingo."

And some more story sticks (or rhythm sticks, if you feel like tapping out a tune):

I chose a wintery, snow theme - not that it snows here - but it is winter, and Niamh is really into snow at the moment, after reading the very sweet WINTER STORY book by author Jill Barklem.

I also made a pair of story sticks, and another eye-spy bottle for Niamh's cousin, which I put into her party bag rather than stuffing them full of lollies:

And now for the all-important birthday party!  We had a rainbow party at the park (thank you, weather gods, for holding back the rain!).  For food, we had red strawberries and cherry tomatoes, orange carrot sticks and mandarines, fresh yellow pineapple, green avocado dip and fresh snow peas from the garden, blueberry muffins, indigo/violet cherries...and a few other yummies like home-made sausage rolls, meatballs, garlic hommus, and rainbow cupcakes.  The cake was a rainbow cake (of course!).

Here are a few photos.   Enjoying a sweet, orange mandarine:

Blowing out the candles ( you will note there are more than 2, but she wanted ALL the candles):

She is now running around the house, waving the pretty rainbow ribbon stick given to her by her Aunty E-K, and yelling, "I'm two!  I'm two!"  So I think she had a good weekend ;-)

Thanks for sharing, and a special thanks to everyone who made Niamh's birthday weekend so special.

Colour Is...

Today, Colour is many things.

Colour is painting with bath paint:

 There is something...hmm, mama-ish? about me that has so far prevented her from actually using these in the bath.  I remain unable to reconcile getting clean with painting in your bath water.  Also, there are no ingredients listed on the paints, and I am not about to coat my child's skin with whatever is in those paints.  Yes, they are made for children...but there is nothing on the labelling which says "non-toxic."  So I shall remain a meanie, and confine her to using them on paper.  Which she loved, anyway.  (Just don't tell her they're meant for the bath...)

Colour is finger painting:

Not a huge hit.  It appears she can tolerate play dough on her hands, but not yet finger paints.  Ah well.  We have taken the first step, anyway...

Colour is stamping with sponges:

Colour is choosing our clothes for the day, all by ourselves:

Colour is sliding on a red slide:

And colour is riding on a red and yellow horse:

Colour is swinging in the cool air beneath a blue sky:

Sometimes, colour is just sitting and watching the world go by:

All in all, a colourful day.

Oh, and I solved our snack station problem.  An old bedside table, with drawers to keep the snacks safely away from the dogs:

She used it several times today to get out her own bowl, knife and snack, which she then took to her table to prepare.  So it works!  And I noticed she already remembers to go and close the drawer.

Sunny Sundays

Welcome back to Colour Month.  No rants today, I promise :)

The brunt of today's colour took place at the park, sans camera, which we forgot to bring along.  But I thought I'd share a few activities Niamh undertook today during those brief moments where she was actually inside.

A little fine motor activity - putting different-sized objects into a container (the buttons are tricky, because she has to twist them the right way for them to fit):

What happens when you let adults loose with play dough:

We did try to share with Niamh, I promise.

A little later, Niamh asked to cut up her own snack.  Brilliant!  A perfect Montessori opportunity.  She had been asking about knives earlier, after sitting on the bench next to the knife block while we dried the dishes.  I showed her the parts of the knives and yes, I let her handle them very carefully.  I think it piqued her interest in knife-handling, because she hasn't really been interested in cutting jobs up until now.  So, following Maria Montessori's "Follow The Child" philosophy, we set her up with a mushroom and a butter knife and away she went.  Here's how a nearly 2 year old uses a knife:

As you can see, she is being closely supervised, but she is managing very well on her own.  She then asked for some crackers and dip.  Here she is, using the knife to make her own snack of mushroom, hommus and crackers:

Using the knife to get dip from her bowl:

I love, love, love the concentration on her face.  She is utterly absorbed in her task.  Don't you just love those wonderful learning moments?  She was so proud at her own independence and her achievements.

Tomorrow, I think I will set her up with her own little "snack station" - something I've avoided until now, mainly due to the dogs being able to get at anything I put at her level.  I think I might have come up with a solution, though, so...we'll see.

In closing for today, I would like to thank you all for reading so far and for joining us on our journey.  I finally figured out how to check my stats, and I am thrilled to bits to see I have visitors from the USA, UK, Turkey, Belgium and even Lithuania!  You are all so welcome.  Thank you for coming!

Lazy Saturdays

I love lazy Saturdays.  I know I should feel guilty - a whole day wasted when the garden needs doing, the house needs cleaning, etc, etc...  But you know what?  :-P~~~~ to all that.  :-P~~~~, I say.  Sometimes, the world needs lazy Saturdays.

It wasn't too lazy.  I think a load of washing or two went into the machine (and amazingly, even got hung out to dry AND brought in again), the garden got watered and the crumbed lamb cutlets and cauliflower-potato puree we had for dinner were made from scratch.

Niamh also got a new job (mostly because I had made some more coloured rice, and needed to justify it).  So here she is, playing with her new pouring job.

First, she needs to use a spoon to get the rice into the funnel:

The funnel had a very narrow neck, so if it was over-filled, the rice wouldn't pour through.  But you could use knock the spoon on the funnel to help unstick the rice:

The yellow funnel has a wider opening, so you could spoon more rice in at once:

Bah - just use your fingers:

I love this photo because it really shows her concentration:

 Then pour it all back into the container:

Then, some reading from our old favourite, Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox.  She reads it herself, these days:

Later, we made music with Daddy:

 All in all, a quiet, lazy Saturday.  Just how I like em.

More on Colours...and some science thrown in at the end...

I hereby dub July, "Colour Month."  Okay, maybe as a choice of name, it is a little counter-seasonal.  It is winter here, after all.  (Counter-seasonal...is that a word?  Words?)  Anyway, since winter here in sunny Western Australia is hardly dull, drab or grey, I think Colour Month is a fitting title.  And grey is still a colour...

Following on from yesterday's revelations on how to make colour a more interactive, tangible experience, today, we had great fun with the colour pink.  Borrowing THIS wonderful Montessori-inspired idea from the brilliant Totschool blog, I made Niamh a little water activity.

Here, she is using an eye-dropper to drip water I coloured with pink food colouring onto wax paper:

 A bit hard to see, but I had drawn some little circles onto the wax paper, with the aim of getting her to try to drop a single drop into each.  A bit ambitious for a first try with the eye-dropper, maybe, but it did give her the idea...although it was instantly WAY more fun to make BIG pink puddles, rather than little ones:

 It was fun to make little dots onto pictures:

You'll notice she is not wearing an art smock (but is wearing her PJs - really, sometimes that battle just ain't worth fighting first thing in the morning), and we are using a glass for our pink water and not a paper or plastic cup.  I really wanted her to a) engage in having fun without all the cumbersome bulk of the smock, and b) to work with real materials in order to learn both care for her clothing, and her tools.  If the glass had fallen, so be it.  If things break, we clean up the mess.  (The glass is still in one piece, by the way.  Even 1 year olds can learn to be careful with things that break.)

She loved, loved, loved this activity!  It was enormous fun to watch the water beading on the wax paper, and to break it up into smaller and smaller beads just by giving it a little push with the eye-dropper.  It was hilarious to suck the water back up into the eye-dropper (complete with slurping noise - think spaghetti, but pink).

Dyeing our fingers pink in the droplets was fun too:

 Next, we experimented with different kinds of paper and a paintbrush, as well as the eye-dropper:

On plain white paper, you could paint the dots into stripes and blobs, which was lots of fun.  Or just make really big, wet, pink puddles:

On paper towel, the drops made blotches which spread out:

It was just as much fun for me as it was for Niamh, I assure you.  We spent nearly an hour just playing with pink water, an eye-dropper and a paint-brush.  How's that for cheap entertainment?

After I finally won the day's "Ye shall now be dressed," battle, I was thrilled when she immediately asked for more painting, but this time, "a different one."  A week or so ago she had started to paint a little wooden jigsaw puzzle (a great idea - you buy the puzzle in plain wood, along with paints, then decorate it yourself - you can find them Here), and I suggested we finish it.  She agreed.

You'll note the art smock this time.  She was wearing a fairly new top and, well, the "mama-hates-a-washing-challenge" panic button over-rode my higher philosophical ideals...  Glass and pink dye smashed all over the floor is one thing.  An impossible washing challenge is something else entirely.  Ah, sweet, merciful, human fallibility...thy familiar embrace is a warm, numbing comfort.

When the painting was done, she immediately requested MORE drawing.  Here she is drawing some stripey balls with crayons:

The balls are actually in black on her left, and the stripes are separate on her right.  I love it.

After the artistic frenzy (seriously, 2.5 hours doing nothing except drawing and painting!), we headed to the park for a picnic and some fun with her favourite thing in a whole world - balls.

Running down the hill (she is "very fast"):

 Rolling the balls down the hill:

Uh-oh, better catch them!  (I love the look of concern - those balls are getting away from her.)

 I asked her, "Who goes faster, you or the balls?"  A rather stern look in return.  "The balls."  Duh.  Obviously, mama.  "Do you know why?"  Another look (you know, the one you get when you're an idiot), "They're round."

Wait...is that...physics...coming from the mouth of a child not yet 2??  Dagnabbit.  How dare she learn naturally!  I was probably in high school before I had that one spoon-fed to me.

Later, we made a slide for our fairy stick people to play on:

(I might not know physics, but I can ram a couple of sticks through a leaf.  Take that, science!)

Roll on, Colour Month!