Sunday, January 30, 2011

Work is calming

Tyler is typically a very fun, easy-to-giggle, happy little boy who loves to go off and play on his own, but ten days of exhaustion mixed with drugged hyperactivity from the lovely amoxicillin he's on, caught up with him for a moment last night. I was attempting to make dinner and Tyler wasn't in the mood for Mommy's attention to be elsewhere. I realized that he needed work, though I had nothing that I thought would keep his interest. I could tell he needed something new but not too difficult. Thankfully I had just read a post on the "Chasing Cheerios" blog about putting Q-tips into a hole in a container. Perfect! Thanks to my container hoarding ("I could use this for something someday, I'm sure...") I had a parmesan cheese container on my storage shelves and we were well stocked on Q-tips. In less than a minute the house switched from one full of whining chaos to silent focus.

Whew


As you can see by the amount of Q-tips, this went on for quite some time! He had great focus.


Realizing he could also use this as a soft sounding shaker


I admit I spent much of time that I should have used to make dinner, watching him and taking pictures. After he was finished he was calm and refreshed though, just as Maria Montessori promised! Making dinner was no longer an issue.


On our way to brushing teeth before bed, he noticed the work again and was eager to continue.


Impressive! I later counted 74 Q-tips in the container. This is certainly going on the shelf!




8 comments:

  1. SOOO cute!! i love that idea, and i'm definitely trying it out on my son! thanks for sharing! :)
    p.s.! he could not get any cuter! so precious

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  2. You're so creative. I love it! I try to do similar things around here. One of Delaney's favorites for quite some time now--and we just did it again tonight (it's morphed a bit in how we do it)--is that we had a whole bunch of old CDs that we didn't want and old software CDs and they are on one of those CD spools with the cover on it. She takes the big stack out, puts them all in the container and then on the spool, and now she tells stories about them, all the while very focused and intent on what she's doing. Sometimes we sort them. Sometimes we name colors. Tonight she "gave" one to each person in her life she loves (parents, pets, cousins, etc.). You wouldn't think something so simple could be changed and redone so many times to her delight. I highly recommend the CDs on the CD spool. It's been our favorite for probably 9 months now. Thanks for the post!

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  3. Thanks ladies!

    That's a great idea Corrine! Thank you for sharing! I'm going to have to find a place for our current un-burned cd's so I canuse the spindle...heaven knows we have enough old cd's that are too scratched to use!

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  4. I made this for my daughter today and she LOVED it. So simple, so great.

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  5. This. Is. BRILLIANT!! Thank you!

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  6. How old is he? Just wondering when I could try it. My daughter is 12 months.

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  7. Holly: Ty was 17 mos old at the time. You could certainly try and if she struggles just give her something with a wider opening. Have fun!

    Glad everyone is enjoying this!

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  8. This is such a great idea! I'm definitely pinning this and +1 it. Thanks for sharing!

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