Peaceful Parenting

A Culture Box from Japan!

2012-03-01T15:55:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, Lulu, a fellow mom and blogger from Cherry Blossom Adventures (check her out!), contacted me and asked if I thought Tyler would like a box of items from Japan where she lives (though she actually grew up in Australia...so interesting!). She was doing a continent/cultural exchange with other bloggers and wished to send a box to us as well, with nothing expected from us in return. I was overwhelmed by the generosity and of course accepted! Though we just received this today and haven't had a chance to do much with the contents yet, I wanted to share with you and to publicly thank Lulu and her family for their kindness!

The package arrived in two days! I can't believe how fast it go to us here to our southern/midwest US state!

Wow! We were so excited by the contents! There are coins (including one with in a hole it which is said to be lucky), traditional toys, training chopsticks for toddlers and regular chopsticks, food and candy, tea, stickers, a "maneki neko" or "lucky cat" which brings a household wealth and luck !), a neat traditional craft (Teru Teru Boza) with instructions that is to be done during rainy times to make the rain stop, a little flag, origami cranes, origami book and tons of papers, postcards, cute erasers, adorable mini cupcake holders, photos of Laura and her family, info on their culture, interesting facts about Japan (did you know there are four types of characters in the writing system to learn?!), and their family's story.

Trying out the training chopsticks. It will be a lot of good work for him to learn to use these, likely for eating as well as activities!

Here he is with some of the traditional toys. In his hand is a dendama and on the floor in front is a spinning top called a koma.

The adorable erasers were a hit!

Tyler's favorite item is the maneki neko, or "lucky cat". I've seen these before somewhere but never knew that they bring luck and wealth with their raised paw until I read her note. How neat!

There were some beautiful post cards included

He saw me using the chopsticks (I was actually able to pick things up!) and wanted to try.

Seaweed and rice crackers. I tried one, but all he did was sniff it over and over. I hope he will give it a shot eventually!

It doesn't matter what language the packaging is in, little kids know candy when they see it! This was a grape taffy-like candy. We split a piece and it was so flavorful and good! Tyler wasn't in the mood to try new things but I guarantee he will eat some later.

These little cupcake holders with different animal pictures in them are so cute and durable! He really enjoyed these.

This is a Japanese flag sticker, though when he first saw it he assumed it stood for the quantity "one" like his math cards.

Someday, when we're able, we will certainly be sending a box in return! I'm quite excited to do so, really! What a wonderful idea. Thank you again to our new friends Lulu, Shun, Noah and Shion in Japan!

Stereognostic Sense: Mystery Bag

2012-02-29T20:53:00.000-05:00

The Mystery Bag is a classic Montessori Sensorial activity, used to train the ability to recognize objects by touch and movement alone (without the eyes). While we didn't do the exact lesson, it is quite Montessori-inspired.

The first bag we did used shapes as Ty is certainly familiar with the basics. We examined and felt them then placed them in the bag. I did a quite exaggerated demonstration first, wiggling my hand around, exclaiming that I had found something, then letting Ty know that I was moving it around in my hand to figure out what shape it was. After my guess I removed each shape and confirmed...or found a mistake. Once in a while I do like to purposely make an error to give Tyler a sense that it's okay to not be perfect. He delighted in this, saying "Silly Mama!" with a big smile.

Then it was Tyler's turn. Sometimes he pulled shape right out, sometimes he guessed beforehand. I playfully asked "What did you find?!" when he had hold of something to serve as a reminder to feel and name the object first. It worked.

The next set of objects was much more fun. We used items that Tyler handles on a daily basis or objects that he is very familiar with. He was excited by them all and couldn't wait to get them into the bag.

After a little practice with the shapes, he was much better about feeling and naming before taking the objects out. They were also easier to discriminate than the shapes.

We used these objects at least four times, with Tyler excitedly putting them back in the bag to play again each time he completed the work. This will be one to do again and again with various objects for sure!

Odds & Ends

2012-02-29T10:56:00.000-05:00

Here are a few activities that I thought may be of interest to others. They didn't really warrant an entire post by themselves, but I didn't want them to slip through the cracks either!

Tyler has been quite into tracing feet and hands, so I decided that we could put large sheets of paper together to trace his entire body. He was game!

He found his outlined body quite interesting

Ty was sick and pretty unfocused so he didn't really feel like trying to make any sort of face, but that was of course fine. I just let him go.

We then hung it on the wall and he added to it over the course of several days. He also wanted us to trace him again and again standing up, as you can probably see!

This is just one of those moments you walk into that make you smile and feel glad that you let your child use materials freely. His play dough press wasn't put away after earlier play, and when doing salt writing, so he decided to see what would happen if he filled it with salt and tried to "press" it. I watched him for a good while.

We've been using all sorts of blocks with our animals to create play scenes.

Since Tyler has been so into numbers, I was curious to see if he wanted to learn to write them by tracing. I wrote them lightly on a piece of paper then tucked it into a sheet protector so that he could use markers over and over again while trying. He liked it, but didn't always follow the lines and just thought it was neat to marker on a different surface. I'm not sure he's ready for this activity, but it may be a nice way to save paper for drawing at times as we can simply wipe and start again! We used regular, washable markers and it worked fine.

I put letters 1-9 on Tyler's magnetic board to see what he would do. He enjoyed sequencing them as I figured. Anything to do with numbers is sure to delight him right now!

We've used elbow macaroni to practice pouring between small glasses.

This has been one of Tyler's favorite activities the last couple weeks. I really thought it was a random activity that may last a day or two if that as it seems like a "younger" activity! His work is to put popsicle sticks into the jar, dump them out into the old play dough cup, and pick up any sticks that miss. He does this at the table while listening to his favorite versions of "The Twelve Days on Christmas" on our laptop (yup, still!), which is useful only as a CD player at this point. It shows the old Windows Media Player visualizations as it plays, which our mildly-sensory-quirky, highly visual Tyler likes to look at on occasion to self-regulate. We also switch out puzzles and shape sorters for him to do as he listens.

I've noticed Tyler looking out the windows at the birds and squirrels a lot lately as our weather has warmed. A neighbor has also put plenty of bird seed in his feeders which attracts quite a nature show for us to relax with.

We tried Hopscotch with Ty for the first time seeing that we've had great weather! I knew he'd be into it as it involves numbers and jumping! He loved jumping forwards and backwards in sequence and calling out each number as he hopped.

Montessori kids have to be the only ones who get down and trace their hopscotch numbers with fingers!

I showed him how to throw a rock and see what number it would land on, for future skipping, but he didn't want to throw it too far. I think he was afraid it would go outside of the board and that was apparently not acceptable to him!

I taught him how to jump to keep his feet on different numbers. He doesn't fully have the movement down, and he liked to get creative as well, putting his feet at a diagonal, say with one foot on four and the other one five.

After his tracing session a few days before, he decided to try to trace all of the numbers as well. He did well with ten!

First Time with Cards and Counters

2012-02-28T21:04:00.000-05:00

Though we haven't worked with the Red Rods or the Spindle Box, I feel like Tyler has a really good sense of numbers and quantity and decided to start him on the Cards and Counters work to see how he would do.

We worked with five numbers at a time, 1-5 and 6-10. Digging into our "Montessori Stuff" box for possible counters, he became excited about a bag of rocks, so we used those. I put the exact amount of rocks needed into a small basket and we lined-up the cards. Though I went through a demonstration on where to place the rocks and in what fashion, I pretty much knew he would want the rocks on the cards. No biggie. I will keep demonstrating.

[If you're not familiar, this is how the counters are to be placed]

Ty's work was to use one-to-one correspondence to count the correct number of items for each quantity represented by the numerals. He made a few errors but mostly did really well with the work. He made mistakes that really surprised me at times, like skipping the number six, and he over-counted when he got to nine and ten at times (which wasn't as surprising).

This work really excited him! He wanted to repeat it over and over again.

The cards that we used are also the cards that I made for our What's Missing game, which range from 1-20. Tyler picked-up on this and wanted to do higher numbers. Here he chose 11 and 13. He also decided upon 19, which he truly shocked me with. No over-counting or errors and he wanted to do it again and again. I literally had to stop observing and leave him with his work so I could start dinner or it would have been a very long night!

Negative Space: Dry Erase Board Painting and Prints

2012-02-28T13:30:00.000-05:00

If you follow along, you have probably seen how Tyler enjoys scraping his nails over his paintings near the end to see the paper or dried colors underneath. A while ago I set him up for a simple easel paint session and let him go. The first thing he did was to excitedly combine his yellow and blue to make green.

The side of the easel that has the paper holding clips for paper is also a dry erase and magnetic board. After doing a couple paintings, Tyler decided to flip his paper up and paint on the dry erase board. He looked back at me a few times to be sure it was okay, and knowing the paint would come right off, I told him to go for it.

After covering the board, he used his fingers to scrape the paint, then a paintbrush, sponge and one of the cups holding his paint. It had a dramatic negative space effect. It was also nice because after scraping and dragging his fingers down the paper, it sometimes rips...not so of course on the board.

When he was finished and off washing his hands with Daddy, I grabbed a piece of paper and pressed it to the board to print what he had done. It was pretty cool, and Ty thought so too.

This was our first result (minus some paint that it came across the next day) We planned to go ahead and paint on the dry erase board again very soon.

So of course we did so the next morning!

He decided when he wanted to make the prints. This was one of them.

Neat! I secretly adore how it looks like a lowercase "b".

He used different sized paint brushes, q-tips and of course his fingers to create the negative space.

Something about the prints that just struck me...

This is just one more reason why I tend to let him go and do as he pleases with art. There is no specific product or way to do it. As long as he isn't running around painting the walls or the furniture, his explorations often lead to cool discoveries! I have to trust that he knows what he's doing.

Warm Griddle Coloring

2012-02-28T10:53:00.000-05:00

I did this activity long ago with my first toddler class, lugging my own griddle into school, but had forgotten all about it until I saw in on Pinterest. I knew I had to try it with Tyler!

We simply set our griddle on warm (not enough to really burn unless you lay your hand on it for a few seconds...supervision required!), measured some paper to fully cover the griddle (my husband reminded me of what a pain it was to removed crayon from this years ago), and grabbed our crayons.

After experimenting with his first pictures, we noticed that Ty's fat toddler crayons worked the best versus the regular sized ones. It was also easy to see that black, his favorite color, melted exceptionally well for some reason which he adored.

This was a huge hit with Tyler! I'm sure we'll be doing it again soon!

We hung his art in the windows, which made them look even more interesting and bright as we used thin paper. Tyler was most excited that he could see the white crayon this way! He often tells me that you can't see "white on white" (though he always tries anyhow), but we could here!

Tonging out of Water

2012-02-27T09:35:00.001-05:00

Ty was so excited to use tongs a few months ago and was doing well, but his interest completely dropped around Christmas-time. I would really like him to work on his grasp, so (after several weeks of working up the courage to do water indoors with our floors) I decided to see if he would tong objects out of water.

He loved it! We used pieces from Toppletree, a balancing game he received as a gift from his Aunt and Uncle. He worked on 1:1 correspondence, placing each piece into it's own space in an ice cube tray.

His focus and determination for this activity surprised me. He was really into it!

Tyler seems to really enjoy being responsible for his spills lately. Yay!

When Ty became bored with tonging, I gave him a large slotted spoon to practice scooping the pieces out and into a bowl. This was tricky...too tricky. The pieces moved around a lot in the water and seemed to avoid the spoon at all costs, so he ended up putting them on the spoon by hand and then dumping them in.

I ran and grabbed him Duplos to use instead and he had a bit more luck, but the object size didn't matter as much as I thought; it was still difficult. He wasn't nearly as into it as he was with the tongs. We will repeat the tongs again for sure!

Linking-up with the fabulous Living Montessori Now and 1+1+1=1

Literacy Extension: There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

2012-02-24T12:25:00.000-05:00

Last week during a big book rotation, Tyler rediscovered our "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" book in one of the boxes. It was one of his favorites months ago and it has quickly become so again!

Seeing that we had all of the animals in the book, I figured that I'd create a literacy extension for him. I gathered all of the creatures (we got the spider and fly in the favor section of a party story last year if you're wondering where you may find them) and set them on his homemade ramp (which has been unused for at least a month) so we could work on sequencing the animals. Our version of the book is by Child's Play, which has holes that make it even more fun.

Tyler apparently already knew the order quite well, so my plan was then to create an old lady out of a box or a bag, cutting a large hole for her mouth so that he could put the animals in.

Tyler, being the fabulous child that he is, decided to cut me a break on creating the old lady, becoming "old Tyler"...and stuffing each animal down his shirt as he goes through the book! The only animal he won't "swallow" is the horse, as the old lady dies after doing so in the book. Sad to know that he knows about death after our two precious kitties passed away last year, but I think it's rather smart of him!

He then started to chew on the animals before stuffing them (to "swallow")...and chewing rather hard. I admit I was a bit disturbed at first! I should mention that we've also talked about whether or not you could really swallow animals like a cat in real life. We decided you could swallow a spider or a fly and possibly a bird, but certainly none of the others.

That's one lumpy shirt! He goes through the book and stuffs his shirts at least twice a day, often giggling the whole time. The other day we arrived at the library for story time, his coat came off, and we noticed that he had something in his shirt. We were late and story time had already begun so we tried not to laugh too hysterically as we pulled a fly and a bird out of him!

Speaking of our local library and story time, they once used the above product when reading this story. They sell The Old Lady and the bean filled animals on Amazon for a pretty decent price if you're looking for something more beautiful than a homemade box lady for your child! It looked pretty easy to slip the animals into her mouth and to retrieve them.

Scratch Coloring

2012-02-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

If you've been following along, you've probably read about Tyler's love for scratching away paint with his nails when doing art work. I decided it was time to introduce him to one of my favorite camp activities as a child...scratch coloring!

I believe Crayola sells scratch paper now, but it was more fun to make our own, plus Tyler got to see and understand how it works. One day as he was using crayons, I took out my own paper and filled it completely with random blocks of color. You can make stripes, designs or whatever seems fun, but I went with what I tended to do as a kid. Older kids can of course do this themselves.

The next step is to color it over hard with black crayon. When I was done, I asked Tyler if he wanted to help a bit. He had been watching me and was quite eager!

Later, I gave Tyler some colored pencils with sharpish broken tips to use to scratch away the black crayon with.

It was difficult for him to apply enough pressure to really scratch away the black on his own, so we tried using other objects as scratching tools, including his scissors and his toddler knife (both way too blunt).

He didn't mind me helping him push down as he drew, but it wasn't ideal. The results were fun for him to see!

After his work had been hanging on his cork board for a few days, Ty came over and scratched at it with his nails. I knew he was due for a trim at this point, but it worked! He was able to scratch away a good deal and was quite pleased!

Six New Math Games & Activities!

2012-02-19T15:22:00.010-05:00

Tyler's interest in math-related activities has continued to push forward! Without being able to purchase supplies for even homemade Montessori red rods or a Spindle Box, I've been a bit frozen in fear (if you notice, we did a lot of art projects for a couple weeks!). I really don't want to go too outside of Montessori tradition with teaching him mathematical concepts, but I decided to get over it and keep him learning, doing the best that I can. What I've come up with is fun and he takes all of this off the shelf several times a day to work, so hey, must be I'm doing okay right?!

If you missed the last set of math games and activities, you can find them here.

"Get to Ten!" Caterpillar Counting Game

This is a game I thought of while creating another activity. It's been a huge hit!

The game uses two boards, one for each player, with a caterpillar that has ten circles for its body. There are twenty puffballs and just enough number cards to get two players to twenty. To strengthen his association of quantity to number, you can see that we're using the visual number cards I created for sorting a few weeks ago rather than numbers

We take turns drawing a card, then announce the number of dots on it.

We then place that number of puffballs onto our caterpillar, starting at one and working towards ten. The goal is to fill up your caterpillar.

Ty took to this game so well! He loved the concept and it was just easy enough for him to enjoy it. My goal is to show him, in a non-obvious way, how adding certain numbers together can get you higher numbers, more precisely, to ten. I've talked about it a little bit "You're half-way to ten!" or "You're on seven! You need three more to get to ten!". If he were a bit older I would have him write down each number and then we could look back to see how the numbers added up to ten.

Another way we may play soon will be to fill up our caterpillars and then subtract rather than add.

For fun, here's a video clip of us playing!

What Number is Missing?

This game is called "What's Missing?" a game inspired by a pin I came across browsing Pinterest. I made cards 1-20 (though we're mostly using 1-10 as that's most relevant to Montessori number line work), as I know he has 1-20 down really well. I place several them in numerical order, with one number left out. His job is to figure out what the missing number is.

When Ty figures out the number, I give it to him and he then places it in the proper place in line. The first time we played I left a little gap where the number was missing, now I don't. This game is working a bit towards taking a number line work out and lining up the numbers himself, as well as a bit problem solving.

I was tickled to see that he automatically started checking his work after placing the missing letter the second time we played, counting from start to finish to be sure it was correct.

Dot to Dots

The next activity combines fine motor and counting. Knowing how much Ty loves to both count and use markers, I figured working on dot-to-dots may attract him.

He did better than I thought he would! We started off doing 1-4 then 1-5 on his wipe board. I liked that we can do this as many times as we like without using up a ton of paper.

Quantity Boards

After many, many months of hiding out in our Montessori-inspired work box, I took out these cards out again. I can't believe how young Ty was when I first tried this (21 mos). He couldn't have gotten as much out of it as he is now! We used pennies then, but gems are more interesting to him at the moment, so we used them instead. His job is to place one gem on each circle which corresponds with the number.

This next work uses caterpillars again. Tyler's job is to put a puffball on each circle in the caterpillar's body, which matches the number beside it. It's much like the gem/number card work above it, though it a better visual for the concept of higher numbers meaning "more".

Learning Visual Numbers 1-100

One of Tyler's present for Christmas from his Grandmother was this awesome mp3 player, the SweetPea3. While I can't say enough good things about the product, it has also caused Tyler to be interested in learning a lot of high numbers, as all 167 songs that we loaded appear on the screen as numbers, in order. He enjoys being independent with his player so he naturally wanted to learn what numbers his favorite songs were past twenty. While he is able to read many of them, he has been eager to learn them all.

To help him learn to read numbers up through 100, I created a number line by tens for him. He has counted to 1-99 recently and can count higher, but had some trouble remembering a couple of his tens. I know that learning to read numbers and counting high without quantity meaning behind it isn't important in Montessori, but it's important to Tyler, so I have to follow his lead. He literally learned how to count by tens with or without the number line by the next day. I can't tell you how proud he is and how great he does reading numbers on his mp3 player for us now!

Updates & Changes From Our Last Math Post

We continue to play Go Fish with number flashcards 1-20. It is one of Tyler's favorite activities right now for sure! Though I keep switching-up the numbers we play with (we each get five and there are six in the go fish pile), he still knows almost instantly by the back of the cards (which show the quantity of the number on the front) what card is what. Though he thinks he's getting away with "cheating" by finding the match he needs by glancing at the cards in the go fish pile (or the cards in my hand), I'm quite happy that he is connecting quantity with number. The backs of the cards all differ in way of objects or trains, but from what I've seen he doesn't seem to pay a ton of attention to that when looking...it's more about the quantity of objects.

We continue to do our daily calendar work, crossing off the day before and naming the present day. Tyler knows where yesterday is, names the number that is the present day and counts off the days that are gone, left to right, top to bottom. He enjoys finding random days/numbers that haven't arrived yet and naming them, or finding a specific number. He can be found looking at the calendar by himself doing these tasks! I'm so glad we started this daily work. I feel like he has gained so much with so little "effort". We usually only spend about a minute on this together every day while he explores on his own and gets my attention if he needs clarification or to know if he's correct about something.

In the last few weeks Ty has mastered counting to ten on his fingers, but sometimes wants to count higher. I've shown him how if I add some of my fingers we can count higher together. I'm really working on the concept that he has ten as a base, and that we can add a certain number of my fingers to get to 11-20, which is a bit of a Montessori bead concept. We also count our hands by 10's and sometimes by fives. He wants to do this often.

Our jumping a certain amount of times game hasn't changed, but I did make him a die so that he could play by himself if my husband and I are busy. I simply taped numbers around the die we have from a Discovery Toys game with packing tape, but there are many ideas on the web for creating your own die if you don't have anything to use. Tyler likes when we give him two numbers to choose from, so each side of the die has two as well. He still almost always picks the highest number!

Math Understanding = Better Emotional Control

With all of this number understanding, I have to say that it's so much easier for all of us when Tyler has to wait for something such as dinner to be done or snack time to start. When we say that something will be ready "soon", he understands, but whining and crying around not getting what he wants that very instant has started recently. Now, if we give him a number of minutes rather than the word "soon", he instantly calms down. He gets that concept. He trusts it. It's much more concrete. We were trying to remember to count down for him every minute as we rushed about doing things, but now we simply set the timer on the stove for him to reference. It has been a fabulous tool!

Next I hope to make Tyler the Sandpaper Numbers. He tries to trace the numbers on all of his number cards as he's used to doing that with his Counting Boards with Sandpaper Numerals, so it's well past time to make them!

Please remember that this level of math isn't expected of toddlers or some of it even preschoolers. Tyler has a keen sense for math that is unusual at this stage. If your child isn't willing or able to do these activities, they are perfectly normal! Every single child is different. Please follow whatever your child is into.

Linking-up with 1+1+1=1, I Can Teach My Child, Teach Preschool and Living Montessori Now!

Happy Half Birthday Tyler! A Memorable Photo Post

2012-02-18T15:00:00.003-05:00

2.5 years old already... I know it's cliche, but where has the time gone?! In one way I can't believe he's this old and in another, I can't believe he's only this old. Happy half birthday Tyler "Bean"!

6 Months

"When you have brought up kids, there are memories you store directly in your tear ducts"

~Robert Brault

18 Months

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body"

~Elizabeth Stone

30 months

"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself."

~Joyce Maynard

Adult Board Games turned into Toddler Activities

2012-02-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

The other day, searching through our family's collection of dusty, lonely, old board games for some dice, a bit of inspiration unexpectedly struck, leaving Tyler with two new independent activities and a new game to play with us! Here's what I came up with:

This, as you may know, is Boggle. It used to be one of the few games my husband could beat me at on a pretty regular basis. For now it belongs on a tray for Tyler, who adores placing each cube in the tray (good for fine motor), counting each as he goes. When he shows that he's grown a bit tired of it I may use garage sale stickers to place numbers in the tray, 1-16 (left to right) so that he may place them in order and gain reading prep skills in the process. Though I'm trying to focus more on quantity rather than recognizing numbers, he knows 1-20 plus many up through 100 now thanks to his mp3 player, but that's another post!

This next activity uses Scrabble holders. Though it used to be our favorite game, my husband and I haven't played Scrabble since about thirty minutes before Tyler was born (speed Scrabble was an awesome distraction). When I first created it I used letters that look the same lowercase as they do uppercase (c, o, v etc) and was going to have him simply place them on the holders for fine motor work, then remembered the Sesame Street Memory/Matching Tiles that I made him months ago. Much more fun! He not only works to place the tiles, but decided to naturally match them as well. This activity also works a bit on visual spatial skills as he has to fit all ten onto the holders without much empty space to play with.

This is the special edition year 2000 Monopoly edition. It's shiny and "new age" and I was thrilled when I received it for my birthday twelve years ago, though it isn't exactly my husband's favorite game to play so it's barely been used. At first I thought I could just give Tyler the little houses to stack for fine motor work, then I developed a bit of a game.

To play, we put one house each on all of the properties and railroads. We put the property/railroad cards (we excluded the electric/water company as they're a bit challenging to find on the board) in the middle. We choose our pieces (Tyler is always the bike, not surprisingly) and place them on Go.

We take turn picking cards. Whatever card you end up with is the color you move your piece to, but not specifically that property. If Tyler picks light blue, he can move his piece to any light blue property. We then take the house that's on that space. The point is to get as many houses as you can. So if you chose a red card and only one red property has a house left on it, you would want to put it on that one. I figured Tyler would be motivated to get as many houses as he could so that he could stack them and make a tall tower.

Tyler is still learning this game and we haven't made it anywhere close to using all the cards (not shocking). The most frustrating thing about our game has been the houses getting pushed around accidentally when he reaches to move his piece, but it's fun and is teaching him more of those "taking turns" skills as well as a bit of problem solving.

On a bit of a side note, when at our local library for story time, we noticed that a large stack of games had been added to the children's area. Fun! We played Go Fish (with no numbers on them, a bit to Tyler's dismay) and I began teaching him how to play Candy Land, but Connect Four was his favorite. While I didn't talk much about putting four of his colors in a row yet, he did get a lot of great fine motor, sorting and turn taking practice!

I would love to hear from others who have adapted games for older children or adults into activities or games for little ones!

Toy Review: Arcobaleno by Learning Materials Workshop

2012-02-15T10:23:00.002-05:00

We've been so happy to have been asked to do our first toy review! I was especially excited that it was Learning Materials Workshop who asked. I discovered their products in December when a blog I follow hosted one of their giveaways and I immediately swooned over their products. It was exciting to be allowed to choose any toy I thought would work well for Ty, and that there were no strings attached other than writing a review here on my blog. No one told me what to say or include in my review post at all! I figured that most toy reviews I read are a bit "controlled" in content. Interacting with this company has been nothing but pleasant.

After watching the videos they have on their site for each toy (so helpful to see each in action!) and some tough decision making, the toy I chose for Tyler was Arcobaleno. He needs more work with his visual-spatial development and I was intrigued by the creative possibilities of this toy! I was impressed that it had won a Dr. Toy Best Classic Toy Award as well as a Parent's Choice Award, though many of the toys they offer have won awards! Learning Materials Workshop's description of this toy states:

"Arcobaleno ("rainbow" in Italian) is a puzzle and a construction set rolled into one. Children nest the asymmetrical arches into a round tray; solve structural problems as they build an inverted cone or a double tunnel; and tap their imaginations to create bridges, domes, towers, spiral houses, tigers with red tails, and fascinating forms."

While there are many suggestions for use, I purposely didn't read them until writing this review. I wanted our own creativity to lead us where it would for a while!

From the moment we opened Arcobaleno I could tell that this is a toy that will last for generations. It's made of quality wood, the pieces fit perfectly, and even after some of the pieces were thrown in toddler excitement, dropped and all of the other things an overtired, hyper two year old can do to a toy, it hasn't dented or scratched the paint one bit.

The first thing we did was to take the pieces out and form circles, noticing big, medium and small. We of course noted the colors as well.

We then decided that the circles would be cute little homes for some of our animal figurines. We put one in each, which also worked on 1:1 correspondence.

Making the circles on his own without the wooden pie-like container was tricky. Arcobaleno is interesting enough that Ty has been driven to practice and figure it all out, encouraging him to strengthen skills he'd otherwise rather not bother with as they don't come easily.

Look at that! Our circles also made great holders for sorting our color chips!

Using Arcobaleno to make an array of colorful arches has probably been Tyler's favorite activity. I'm sure we'll be rolling cars through and using them as tunnels soon.

Okay, so I've had some fun myself too! Tyler is a bit young to make designs like these, but the beauty of this toy is that as he grows, he will be able to do more and more with it. Arcobaleno isn't going to be mastered in a month or two and cast aside for sure.

The most obvious use for Arcobaleno is as a puzzle! Ty needs help to complete this right now which I figured, but it's unique and attractive enough to make him want to try. Though this toy is recommended for ages 3 -8, I know some clever, puzzle-loving toddlers who could likely figure this one out!

After watching me make a rainbow with the arches, Tyler had to try too. How wonderful for a little one to be able to create a rainbow just by judging sizes!

In the website video, the arches are laid on their sides and stacked. Tyler struggled with this. The focus, fine motor control and eye-hand coordination necessary for this task is beyond him now, but again, something for him to grow into later!

We also discovered that by lining-up the larger arches we could roll a small ball through one side and out the other! I can just imagine a little game of indoor croquet with these someday! Tyler also discovered that if the ball knocks down one of the first arches that the rest fell like dominoes. Quite a delight for him and he wanted "more dominoes!" after that, so we started doing it on purpose.

With Tyler's math interest at full speed, I've started to show him fractions in real-life situations, such as taking a whole slice of bread and cutting it in half at lunch time. The smallest piece of this toy has worked perfectly for showing half and whole at any point in the day. He's been intrigued!

All in all (in case you couldn't tell) we have really enjoyed this toy so far. I'm sure that we'll continue to find even more creative uses for it as we go along as well as start using some of the suggestions provided by Learning Materials Workshop. I appreciate that are so many things for Tyler to learn with this toy. The growth potential is large! Though it's a bit of a pricey buy, I do think that it would be worth it in the long run. I truly feel like it's a toy that is classic and built well enough to pass down through the generations!

A big thank you to Learning Materials Workshop for sharing such a fabulous toy with our family!

Our Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Since Montessori philosophy includes celebrating cultural holidays, I thought I'd share our day with you.

Tyler was surprised at breakfast with heart-shaped cinnamon sugar toast, a lion stuffed animal (we actually gave it to him last year, but he didn't like it so we put it away for this year...), and a homemade card with a personalized poem that he really enjoyed!

While my husband gave Ty a bath, I hid hearts all over the house for him to find.

I gave him a little basket to carry around and put his hearts in. He especially enjoyed counting as he went along. Though he didn't find them all at first, he discovered them randomly throughout the day and straight up to bed time, which was fun!

Ty also made a sparkly hearts collage with a friend this morning. She had this cool bottle of Elmer's glue that looked like glue stick, but you squeeze it. Awesome for little hands!

During nap, I hid foam hearts in his sensory bin (filled with colored rice) for him to find. He did this over and over! I think the best part for him was dumping the hearts back in and going crazy with the rice to cover them back up. :)

I meant to gather all of his books with the child/parent love topic ("Guess How Much I Love You" etc) so we could read them together, but the moment never presented itself.

How did you spend the day with your little ones?

Four Art Activities for Valentine's Day!

2012-02-12T14:07:00.000-05:00

1. Sticker Resist Foam Hearts on Canvas

This project is much like the sticker resist on paper that we did a few weeks ago, but with much better results. With foam stickers that were easy to find and peel as well as canvas rather than paper (which of course doesn't doesn't rip) this was easy! Tyler first placed the stickers wherever wished.

We used many shades of purple, pink as well as white, but Tyler also insisted on using black. It was his art, not mine, so okay! I admit to not giving him much though. If he asked for more I would have obliged, but he was quite happy.

Hands are much faster at covering a large area!

As he's discovered in the past, rollers make a nice effect

Though not as dramatic of an effect as laying your belly over the paint! His methods are funny and he knows it, but he also likes what it does to his art.

You can see his belly print int he middle! He decided he was done after this and my husband whisked him off to the bath, but I had forgotten about the glitter! I literally held the canvas over the tub while Ty happily shook glitter on.

When it was dry (well, almost...whoops), Ty removed the stickers.

The finished result! He obviously got a bit of the wet paint on his hands and it ended up in the hearts, but it adds to the character. We hung it at eye level in our dining room and Ty has been quite proud to see there when he walks by!

2. Hearts Collage

I didn't think I'd post this activity so I don't have a lot of pictures, but it's pretty self-explanatory.

I cut several different sized hearts from paper, Tyler spread glue with a brush and stuck the hearts to the glue.

When dry, we hung it in our bay window. It looks quite lovely when the sun is shining in!

3. Multi-media Heart Collage

I've always adored setting-up collage projects for toddlers. I try to offer several different mediums to create with and let them do as they will. Here I provided Tyler with crayons, pink glue (dyed with a touch of paint) and a brush, glitter, all sorts of paper cut-out hearts, pink and red tissue paper, several different kinds of heart stickers and three large hearts cut from heavy white paper to glue everything on to.

Not surprisingly, the glue and glitter were big hits!

He also discovered that crayoning through the glue made a neat negative space effect. I wondered how the crayons would write after this, but discovered they were just fine after a simple wipe with a cloth.

His table typically stays in the kitchen, but I pulled his table into the living room for this project as the sunlight coming through our side window was just lovely on a very cold afternoon...

After he had finished, I asked if I could poke a small hole in each heart and put them on a string when they were dry. He was excited by that! It may seem silly, but I don't want to mess around with his work without asking first, just as I wouldn't want someone to do that to me! He decided we should hang it over the couch, so that's what we did.

4. Toilet Paper Tube Hearts

This idea has been all over Pinterest and various blogs, but I'm posting it here in case someone hasn't seen it!

All you need is an empty toilet paper roll, paint, paper, and a shallow container for the paint. Simply bend the tube to the shape of a heart, tape it to allow it to keep it's shape, then let your child use it as a stamper!

Before we even started, I kinda knew that Ty would probably just stamp a few hearts then want to paint with his hands, but we gave it a shot! After he covered the paper, he did go back to the heart stamper for a moment.

He had more important things to do, like his signature scratch painting. :)

I have to end this post with a thank you to my Mom and Dad for knowing how much of an art lover Ty is and spoiling him by sending him a large box of awesome art supplies for Valentine's Day. Much of it was used in the above projects!

Four Fun Ways to Recycle Paper Bags

2012-02-10T14:15:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I started on a bit of a mission to recycle all of the paper bags we've acquired from Whole Foods. While we found several ways, I have been lazy about writing the post. Thanks to finding the Tinkerlab blog and her Paper Bag Creative Challenge, I have been motivated to get it done!

The first way was a classic: Paper Bag Vests! I remember asking for paper bags at the grocery store for weeks so that the children I taught in preschool could each make a vest years ago. I turned our bags inside out as they had a lot of writing on the outside, then cut spacious holes for his head and arms. I let him try it on before we decorated so he could understand what we were doing. Ty simply decorated his vets with markers and crayons as I knew he wouldn't have the patience to let glued pieces or glitter dry before putting it on, but you could get much more fancy!

He was pretty happy with himself! He took his vest on and off many times, which eventually required taping as it ripped in places, but he didn't seem to mind.

The second way was simply using our bags as paper. Since it was so large when cut it open and lay out, I taped it to the wall for vertical work. I provided marker and crayons and let him go! I was surprised to see him tracing the creases in the bag. I don't recall ever seeing him trace something before.

The next way also includes using a paper bag as paper. One evening Tyler got quite into practicing cutting strips of my old scrapbooking scrap paper. We typically glue the pieces rather than throwing them away, but not only did I need a big surface area for him with so many pieces, but something thicker than the large paper we have as he tends to rip right through with the glue. Paper bag it was!

The paper bag had no trouble handling all of the glue he spread on!

We all have enjoyed the final result. This art hangs over his play kitchen and I notice him looking at it several times a day. We will certainly be using paper bags for gluing more often!

The final use for our paper bags isn't a brand new idea for us, but I had to take some photos and show you since I was creating the post. We like to take empty boxes, containers and Tyler's play fruit and set it up somewhere in the house. He pretends to go shopping, putting all of the items he wants (he wants everything) in his bag.

We then carry it to his kitchen and put it away and/or start some "cooking"!

If you're looking for more ideas for paper bag recycling or to wish to share your own, be sure to check out Tinkerlab! There's also a list of the upcoming challenges. Fun!

Also linking-up with The Imagination Tree

Reading to Children...with a Cognitive Twist!

2012-02-08T14:36:00.004-05:00

"Polar Bear, polar bear, what do you smell?"
"No, [laughter] hear!"

"Flamingo, flamingo, what do you hear? I hear an alligator braying at me"
"[giggles} Noooooo...zebra! [giggles]"
　
I very much enjoy making mistakes in books when I read to Tyler. I'm not the first person to do this, but I truly delight in it...and so does he.
　
Sometimes he laughs, sometimes he just corrects me:

"Some big dogs and some little dogs going around in airplanes"
"Cars"

"Now it is night. Night it not a time to eat. It is time to sleep"
"Play"

"Look at those dogs go! Why are they going slow in those cars?"
"Fast"

Then there are the times when I get tricky. When I really want to see if he's paying attention. I don't think he's let me slip once, even when about to pass out with exhaustion at the end of the day:

"...But Nicki wanted snow-white mittens so much that Baba made them for her"
"Noooo [giggle] him"

"A hedgehog wanted to get warm. The mole and the bunny made room for him"
"Rabbit!"

I even try to get him in his longer books...the ones with at least a couple full paragraphs on a page:

"If I didn't have to run, run, run for every single bit I get, I'd be fat as biscuits and sleek as satin..."

"No...Butter!"

"Sure enough, there was the rabbit's house, with a big pot of carrot soup bubbling over an open fire"

"No... [pause, thinking of the word] stew."

Sometimes it's not words in the book I flub, but in pointing out illustrations.

"Do you see those birds way down in the tree?

"Up tree"

"Look, at the man laughing. He seems sad"

"No, happy!"

Making mistakes in books has been game we've played often over the last few months. Back in the summer, when we were trying to get more speech out of him (he was quite delayed), I had different tactics. I messed-up singing songs. His own perfectionist tendencies didn't let this stuff get by, so I was sure to get some laughter and words out of him. I still do this for a giggle. If not to get him thinking, it acts as an instant mood lifter. Humor is powerful!

"Old McDonald had a Farm, ee-ii-ee-ii-ooo, and on that farm he had a sheep, ee-ii-ee-ii-oo! With a quack, quack here and a"

"[laughter] Noooo! Baaaaa! Baaaaaa!"

"Look at that kitty in the neighbor's yard! Woof, woof, woof!"

"[Looks at me like I'm crazy] Meow!"

As he colors with an orange crayon" "Oooh, look at all the red circles you're making!"

[Looks down at the crayon for a moment then up at me with a smile] "No, orange!"

It's become a game with us. Mama acting like a fool and Tyler correcting me. He seems to know I'm joking, though perhaps he also takes me to be a bit mentally challenged. Either way, it gives him the power to correct an adult, to feel smart, to know that he can catch me just about every single time in our little game. I feel it also sharpens his attention. It gets him thinking. Most of all, it makes him laugh, or at least crack a smile at his silly, silly Mama. To me, those moments golden!

Wordless Wednesday (well, sort of)

2012-02-07T14:13:00.001-05:00

Keep your face always towards the sunshine

and shadows will fall behind you.

~Walt Whitman

Chocolate Play Dough

2012-02-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

I owe this post to The Imagination Tree blog! We have been due to make new play dough and I knew the instant that I saw this recipe on their site that this would be it. We had everything on hand (well, except for the vegetable oil I discovered...thanks to my friend and neighbor Mandy for saving me on that one) and we were actually playing with it in less than ten minutes.

Chocolate Play Dough

2 c flour

1 c salt

1/2 c cocoa powder

2 T cream of tarter

2 T vegetable oil

2 c boiling water

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl

Stir in vegetable oil and mix thoroughly

Stir in boiling water

Knead the dough until it loses its stickiness

Words can't explain how amazing this dough smells. It was the perfect consistency as well!

Ty was a bit tempted to eat the dough, but thanks to his texture/eating quirks he didn't. He was sweet enough to let his giraffe friend have a taste though!

He thought that making chocolate worms was quite funny!

I know what you may be thinking here (gross!), but if you smelled this stuff the thought wouldn't even cross your mind!

Making chocolate waffles has been his favorite, though he also really thought that we should pop them in the toaster oven, heehee.

This has definitely been our favorite recipe so far!

Salty Painting

2012-02-04T14:07:00.001-05:00

To mix-up one of Tyler's recent painting sessions, we added a good amount of salt to him tempra paint. This is said to make the art work sparkle when it's dry.

Ty noticed a difference in the texture as soon as he put his hands in it. The rough, grainy feel on his hands was an unexpected sensory experience! I was a bit doubtful that by the time Tyler was done going over and over the paint with brushes and his hands that it would look as it was supposed to, but at least he would get a little sensory experience extra out of it! Ty also discovered that the paint colors he chose (purple, pink, black, gray) made a pretty gray color when mixed together.

In the end, the paint looked a bit sparkly when directly in the sun, but otherwise it was rather dull. Ty wanted it hung right next to his table. He likes to remember what colors he mixed to make gray and really enjoys running his hand over the rough surface!

Linking-up with It's Play Time!

The Importance of Sorting Activities: Why & How : Montessori & Traditional.

2012-02-02T11:34:00.010-05:00

Why Sorting?

Children have a natural desire to make sense of their world, to create order in a world that seems largely out of their control. For that reason, sorting activities often attract children. In fact, many children will start sorting things without even being taught. Many parents have likely walked into a room to see their young child putting their blocks or other toys in piles based on color or some other category. Montessori sensorial sorting work takes this inclination a step further, teaching the child to organize their world using all of their senses while also working of course on careful discrimination. So why is all of this so important you may ask? Maybe, for example, your child already knows his colors and his shapes. Outside of the Montessori philosophy (we'll get to that in a moment) why is it so necessary to sort them?

Sorting is a beginning math skill. It may seem that a big chunk early math is about learning numbers and quantity, but there's much more to it. By sorting, children understand that things are alike and different as well as that they can belong and be organized into certain groups. Getting practice with sorting at an early age is important for numerical concepts and grouping numbers and sets when they're older. This type of thinking starts them on the path of applying logical thinking to objects, mathematical concepts and every day life in general. Studies have even been shown that kids who are used to comparing and contrasting do better in mathematics later on. I'll talk about the seemingly endless ideas for general sorting in a bit.

Maria Montessori's sensorial work uses "sorting" in specific ways that work to use all of the child's senses, one at a time, in order to refine them. The goal is to train the brain to create more organized thoughts and ways of retrieving information. Montessori also recognized how much children appreciated order in their worlds (a large piece of her main philosophy) and how important it was for them to create this order independently. While the works given to the child are teaching them valuable skills, they don't seem to notice what they're learning. It is delightful work for them. Montessori also believed that when children are given a work that uses senses that they hadn't noticed or are new to the child, the learning and awakening that occurs is just as important. What is learned isn't just kept in isolation with a singular work; the child uses the sensory information and intelligence gained and applies it to other areas of his life, furthering his adaptations and experiences within it. Beautiful!

The categories formed by Maria Montessori for sensorial works are based on thermic sense (detecting differences in temperature), tactile sense (touch), auditory sense (discriminating sounds), olfactory sense (noticing differences between smells), gustatory sense (refining and discriminating taste), baric sense (refining differences between weight or pressure), stereognostic sense (judging shape and size through touch alone), and the visual sense (detecting similarities and differences using the eyes which also develops muscular sense). For a great list of these official works and how to present them, I suggest The Montessori Primary Guide.

While We have some of the more official visual works in our home such as The Pink Tower and (mini) Cylinders, like many other Montessori at home parents, the vast majority of our works have been homemade and Montessori-inspired. While I wish that we were able to have more official work in our home at the moment, I'm happy with what we've come up with so far!

How To Start Sorting

To sort, you child needs at least two different types of objects. A younger child will likely require less categories (sorting by two types) while an older child often can handle three, four or more. Some concepts may be more difficult for a young child while others too simple and uninteresting for an older child. Know where the child is and what they're capable of through observation and of course, trial and error.

Slowly demonstrating each sort for the child before they try it on their own is important. After observing what you've done, the child is free to try on their own. In Montessori, the child's errors are not corrected by adults, though you should observe to see if the sort will need another demonstration next time the activity is done. The child may not immediately catch their errors, but likely will in time, especially if the work is as self-correcting as possible. This helps the child develop decision making skills and confidence. As long as the child seems eager to try and isn't throwing or abusing the materials (a sign that the work is too hard or too easy), let them work. There is much to be learned from noticing and correction your own errors. As hard as it is not to step in and correct (I struggle with this too), much of the value is lost when an adult intervenes.

To mix things up, encourage your child do some of the more tactile works blindfolded. Other sorts can be combined with fine motor work utilizing small object pincer grasp, tongs or tweezers. Your child can put the objects into sorting trays, bowls, cups, egg cartons, divided containers, paper lunch bags or simply line or stack them up. It's suggested, but not necessary, to label each category with a word card. You may discover, especially in the younger child, that your child prefers a certain way of sorting over another. For example my child greatly prefers to sort into some sort of container. Go with what works and attracts your little one!

If you wish to make your sorting more Montessori-inspired, be sure to isolate the one category in which the child is to sort by. For example, if the child is to sort by color, make all of the colored objects the same type of object (i.e. just puffballs, not puffballs, M&M's and marshmallows). Trying to use pleasing objects that are wooden, well-made and in good condition are preferred as a way to attract and entice the child. If possible, try to use something new that the child has never come across before in order to expand upon their experiences. Try to keep the sorting containers identical in size, color and shape.
　

Ideas For Sorting

What you use for sorting all depends upon the age and ability of the child, as well as their interests. You often don't need to buy anything fancy either! If you have "real" items, such as animal figurines or food, these should typically be used rather than magazine cut-outs or photographs or online games/apps. Sorting which allows the child to use their hands to handle real-life objects is much more beneficial for all-around learning. If using photos (which do have their own importance for pictorial learning), making (link) or purchasing (Montessori Print Shop) nom-enclature cards can be extra-beneficial due to their aesthetics and the bonus of the word being printed underneath.

First, here are some of the ideas we've implemented in our home so far:

Color Baskets

Sorting by Warm and Cold with Rocks

Sorting Wooden Cubes and Aliens by Color

Sorting Shapes

Sorting Short and Tall with Straws and Playdough

Sorting Animals

Sorting Paint Chips

Sorting Buttons by Size

Sorting Laundry

Sorting Coins

Sorting Jars by Temperature

Sorting Objects by Weight

Sorting by Visual Quantity

Here are just a small fraction of the many other ways your child can sort:

Ideas for items to sort by color:
Lacing beads
Legos
Duplos
Puffballs
Buttons
Dyed macaroni
M&M's
Colored Marshmallows
Crayons
Animal counters
Poker chips
Deck of cards by black/red
Sort laundry by lights, darks and whites
Pipe Cleaners
Garage Sale stickers
Socks　

Ideas for items to sort by shape:
Unit blocks
Shapes cut from cardboard or paper

Ideas for items to sort by size:
Puffballs
Buttons
Sort towels, dishcloths and washcloths
Cut pipe cleaners or straws (length)
Dowels (width)
Socks
Clothing (baby, child, adult)
Balls
Rocks
Leaves　

Ideas for sorting by temperature:
After a trip to the store, empty the bags and let the child sort by temperature (freezer, fridge, pantry items)　

Ideas for sorting by weight:
Fill same size containers with different amounts of liquid
Choose objects from around the home to sort by heavy/light　

Ideas for sorting by sound
Fill canisters or jars (contents concealed) with various objects (two of each)
Fill balloons with different sounding objects (two of each)

Ideas for shorting by category:
Pictures of Living and Non-living items
Different types of seeds or grains
Different types of beans, pasta or nuts
Types of plants
Silverware
Types of stuffed animals (cats, teddy bears etc)
Water, air or land animals
Types of dinosaurs
Sort real or plastic food by food groups
Sort by a few specific numbers or letters
Photos of day and night scenes
Sort playing cards by suit
Types of toys (puzzles, art, blocks, animals)
Sort trail mix contents
Healthy food/junk food
Food we eat with fingers vs silverware
Any kind of stickers
Books (animals, numbers, letters, vehicles)　

While I am not a Montessori teacher or professional, all of the information above has been taken from my own reading and researching on the Montessori method. The non-Montessori information comes from my training/education, general knowledge, and experience working with young children.

Linking up with Living Montessori Now and 1+1+1=1

Painting with Stencils

2012-02-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

Tyler really enjoys drawing with his circle and square stencils for beginning tracing/writing work, so I figured he may get a kick out of painting with them as well!

I taped the stencil around the paper on all four sides, taped the stencil to the table a bit and let him go at it with different sized brushes and sponges.

Ty painted inside the shapes, dragged the brush around the edges, used his whole hand to fill the bigger shapes, and traced his fingers around the smaller ones. The paint seeped under the stencils, but it wasn't about a perfect looking piece of art.

He also brought back a little trick he did back in December...belly prints. He would lay over the paper then carefully peel himself (well, his shirt) off, laughing the whole time.

Ty enjoyed this simple painting project quite a bit. I'm sure we'll be doing it again soon!

[Blue paint tastes the best by the way...]

Five New Math Activities and Games

2012-01-30T22:47:00.012-05:00

I haven't been able to create new posts in twelve days (the others were automatic posts) but Tyler's work and passion for numbers has continued to take off during that time. Before I get into what he's doing, I want to say that he is not a typical 29 month old when it comes to this subject (or a lot of things). Most children his age will probably not be ready or interested at all in the following activities. If your child isn't here yet, they are not all behind! Every child's developmental process is different. [Toddler Early Math Milestones] It is typically a slow process for a child to learn the correlation between number quantity and it's suggested to start with a good deal of 1:1 correspondence work and the sandpaper numerals. If you'd like to see some of our favorite early math activities, you can click on the "math" tag from the subjects in the left panel of my blog to find them.

To backtrack, Tyler has had 1:1 correspondence down for some time and has understood at least how to pick three books before bed time. He knows at least eight shapes, the differences between heavy/light, big/small, long/short, can sort by size, can match objects to patterns and has recently learned to recognize numbers 1-12. He has been counting out up to eight objects in a book correctly since last summer (before he was two years old) as well as up to 12 real objects. He can stack 16 cubes or unit blocks. We have used toys such as shape puzzles, sorters, sandpaper numeral peg work, an abacus, used different sized measuring cups and spoons in sensory play and baking, and I have counted things for him and talked about numbers in a natural way since he was a baby.

As of my last post a couple weeks ago, even though he's been ill this whole time, Tyler is now counting to 29 on his own. Needing help with 30, 40, 50, 60 (as he doesn't know his tens) he counted up to 64 last night before getting bored (a similar video is shown above). He is counting backwards from 10-1, occasionally skipping 4. He is able to look at a number of objects (1-3) and know how many there are quickly. He is.understanding quantity not only with tangible things (objects) but will jump, kiss me, pat my nose or do other actions a certain number of times when given a number. He has also been showing early subtraction knowledge. If he is playing with a number of objects and we ask for one object then inquire on how many he has left, he instantly has the answer. Addition has been easy adding with one, though we haven't done more than plus one. He loves to listen to "The 12 days of Christmas" (yes, still...in January) and grab each number from his numbers puzzle as they go up. To him this is fun. It's what he likes. The following are the activities that we've done in the last couple weeks to keep his passions going!

Go Fish

Since Tyler learned his numbers and was so excited by them, I figured we would try to play "Go Fish".
Though we have a deck of cards, I wanted something with bigger numbers and less distractions for the game. I found these Thomas The Train flashcards in the dollar section at Target and purchased two sets. We used numbers 1-6 the first time and I only dealt four cards to myself and four cards to Tyler so he would have less to keep track of.

My husband and I took turned helping him play. He quickly picked up on finding matches of numbers and putting them down. He needed help learning how the game works and the rules of course, but after several games he got the hang of it. My husband then had to cook lunch so I figured that would be the end of playing, but Tyler wanted more. I didn't really think it would work well, but Ty is always ready to prove me wrong lately! We played for at least half an hour.

Ty had trouble holding the cards when he had more than two, so he lay them on the floor as I kinda expected, though sometimes now he will lay them in his lap or hold them. Tyler took to asking me for certain numbers quickly, though once in a while he asked for a random cards without looking at his own. When he got a match, he asked more for more of the same number. It was cute and he didn't mind being redirected and helped a bit. He was okay with handing his cards over to me when he had them. He sure did like telling me to go fish though! He now fully understands the game and needs very little redirection other than convincing when it's time for him to "go fish". He knows he doesn't want more cards!

The only trouble I can spot with this game is that Tyler quickly recognized the correlation between the number of trains or other items on the back of the cards and the number on the other side. One of the first times we played, he grabbed a card with one train on it from the go fish pile, saying "one!". I often found him studying the backs of my cards as well. For this reason I've started to use some higher numbers so it isn't so easy for him to figure out what he's looking at, though it's good practice for him to recognize quantity too, so I do use a few lower numbers he can figure out!

If your child doesn't yet recognize numbers but knows colors, shapes or letters, you could play with those types of flashcards or make your own! I do suggest buying a true set of Go Fish cards if you're able though.
　
Matching Numerals to Visual Quantity

Seeing that Tyler decided to learn the names of numbers 1-10 from his caterpillar puzzle, I knew I needed to get him started on the important stuff a bit more, learning quantity! We'd been using his sandpaper numeral peg boards, but I wanted to mix it up and get the concept into his brain in several different ways. This is a more visual and less "hands on" way to see that, for example "three is MORE than one or two", but it works and will be important in the future for reading a dice.

Using stickers, I made cards with either one, two or three dots on them. I also made cards with the numbers 1-3 to correspond. Tyler's work would be to match the number of dots or stars he saw on the card to the correct number.

This isn't a work that Tyler is ready to do by himself yet, mostly due to maturity. Though his likes this work, laying out cards to match to label cards isn't something he cares to do by himself. He wants me to make it a bit of a game. So, we lay out the numbers, then I gave Tyler one card at a time, asking how many dots he sees. He surprised from the first attempt by shouting out "one!" and "two" correctly right away. With three he sometimes has a bit more pause and I encourage him to count the dots if needed, though other days he's quite quick.

The only "issue" we had with this work (and I noticed it when we did heavy/light and warm/cold sorting), is that Tyler likes to cover the label or number rather than placing them above or below it, making it difficult or impossible to see where the next item may go. I decided to tape the numbers to cups so that he could put the cards inside next time. Though it's ideal to control things such as cup color (keeping everything the same except what is to be focused upon), following the child meant having to push that rule aside as I don't have three same cups or small bowls to work with! He doesn't seem too distracted.　
　
Number Work with Playing Cards

Just before he showed us that he had truly mastered recognizing 1-10 with his puzzle, I decided to get a deck of playing cards out to see if he was interested. He immediately enjoyed finding the numbers and noticing that some were red and others were black. As I sorted through to get rid of everything but the numbers, he became interested in learning the different suits. I knew I had to figure out a way for him to use the cards.

I soon decided to give him cards 1-10 in clubs (I taped over the Aces with 1's) to see if he could put them in numerical order as he does his caterpillar puzzle. He needed a bit of help with the concept and he got to six or seven before getting a bit overwhelmed and moving on to something else. He also kept getting 6 and 9 confused, even though I suggested he count the clubs. He just didn't want to take the time. I decided we would only work on putting 1-5 in order next time.

After putting them in order the next day, I then had 1-5 in hearts ready to go, and asked if he wanted to match them to the clubs by numeral. He was cool with that.

This is a work he has taken off of his shelf to do a few times, though he it isn't a favorite. I'm not sure what he does with it when I'm not around as I sometimes find it laying scattered on his rug with all of his other number works (he isn't as into putting everything back on his own as he used to be...), but something must intrigue him.

Active Numerosity Games

As mentioned near the beginning of this post, I've done a few active games with Tyler to see what he could do with numbers as well as to practice in different ways. Here are some that you may be interested in trying.

Ask your child if they can do whatever they love to a certain amount of times: Could you eat three Cheerios? Could you put two balls in the basket? Could you give me four crayons?

You can also work on intangible actions, asking: Can you stomp your feet six times? Can you give your doll two kisses? Could you pat your head four times?

While we mix it up during the day, Tyler's favorite thing to do is to jump, so I ask if he can jump a certain amount of times, usually no higher than twelve. He wants to play this game quite often! After a couple days of playing, I then added to choices, asking, for example, "Do you want to jump two times or three?" or "Do you want to jump four times or eight?". The latter game made me realize that he does know which number is higher or "more", as he almost always picks the higher number! He wants to jump as many times as possible!

Counting on our Fingers

Since becoming interested in numbers, Tyler has also wanted to be able to show a certain number with his fingers. He first wanted to count our fingers over and over and to push them down or bring them up while we said the numbers. He then started to work more on his own hands. He delighted in showing us a whole hand and saying "Five" then bringing out his other hand and telling us "ten!". Though it was tricky work at first, he is getting pretty darn good at showing numbers with his fingers, counting backwards and forwards with them. This is something he really wanted to master, so along with just helping him figure it all out, we worked more on finger plays with numbers to make it fun and get him that finger exercise to help his control. These are the songs we used:

Where is Thumbkin?
Five Little Monkeys
The Crocodile Song
Five Little Ducks
Five Little Speckled Frogs

Near Future:
I now want expand upon Tyler's subtraction (it's all been very casual), understanding quantity with higher numbers, using objects to show quantity, and simple fractions. I would love to create the traditional Montessori Red Rods and Spindle Box as I cannot purchase them right now, but haven't quite figured out a very low to no cost way to do it yet that I'm happy with. Here's to hoping inspiration strikes soon!

Linking up with the fabulous Living Montessori Now and 1+1+1=1!

Hanging Yarn Art

2012-01-27T14:01:00.001-05:00

This project was an old one that I did as a Preschool teacher years ago. While Tyler woke much too early the moring we did this and had a rather scattered focus, it was still enjoyable to create this unique art! We will certainly repeat this one when he's older!

Items needed:

Yarn

Wax Paper

Glue

Plate or disposable tray

Scissors

I first cut several lengths of string using the two different colors we happen to have. We then squeezed glue onto a plate and lay our wax paper on the table.

To create the art, Tyler dipped and pressed one piece of yarn into the glue at a time.

He lay each piece over the others on the wax paper. An older child may wish to make designs.

Sometimes we pushed the yarn down to be sure that the glue making the each piece stick to the others.

We then let it dry for several hours. Neat!

It now hangs proudly as an overhead table centerpiece!

Linking up with many great and fun ideas at The Imagination Tree!

Sorting by Weight

2012-01-23T13:20:00.000-05:00

Last week we sorted by temperature, and we're sorting items by weight. Ty has likes telling us when things are "heavy", though we haven't talked a lot about things that are "light".

This old cologne bottle seems kinda heavy!

This lock is certainly heavy!

This soup can is heavy while the puffball is light...

I made labels for each category to sort into, marking "heavy" and "light". He's getting more accustomed to sorting without putting the objects inside of something else and doesn't seem to have much trouble remembering which label says what. I'm making labels different colors right now to help him with that ,so even if he can't "read" the word, he can remember which color is connected with which category.

He thought he was very funny to pick up the tissue and call it "heeaavvvvy!". He enjoys playing jokes on me lately.

Items we used:

Heavy: Candle votive, can of soup, lock, empty cologne bottle

Light: Q-tip, plastic cocktail stirrer, puff ball, foam circle, tissue, soft baby block (to also show that something big can be light)

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King: Shades of Skin Collage

2012-01-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

Tyler, being a bi-racial child (as well as living in a highly diverse city), is no stranger to differences in skin tone. He's seen a sharp contrast within his own parents since birth. While of his grandmothers is about as dark-skinned as you can be, his other grandparents (as well as his mother) are some of the palest you will find. Though he has unfortunately faced discrimination already (from another child's parents), he was unaware of it. To him, there isn't much to think about the whole "skin color" thing yet. It's life. It's "people". It's quite normal. The walls of his large motor room are filled with multicultural photos as well.

While I felt that Tyler was a bit young (28 mos) to understand the influence Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has had on the world, and his own life, I wanted to celebrate in some way. Creating a collage full of various skin tones and hues and talking a bit about them seemed to make sense this year.

I gave Tyler a dish of colored glue (dyed with food coloring) so that he could see where the glue was on his paper. He used a large paint brush to spread it around.

During nap, my husband and I went through several of the National Geographic magazines I was lucky enough to win on Freecycle long ago, cutting out faces of every shade we could find.

Before Ty started, we looked over the many faces and talked very simply about how different people have different colors and shades in their skin. We talked about the differences skin shades seen in members our family as well as our friends and neighbors. I didn't talk about how we're all the same inside or trouble him with the ideas of racism. We just noticed how skin can be different.

Tyler noticed who had dark skin and who had light skin when I asked. He also noticed who was smiling and had a "happy face" or who was wearing glasses.

Tyler calls this his "faces" collage. It now hangs over his table. He often looks at the different faces while he eats snacks and meals. He likes how you can see the "blue-green glue". He smiles back at the big grinning man at the top. It's people. They are as they are.

Montessori Moment: A Fire Lit

2012-01-18T11:57:00.004-05:00

We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.

~Maria Montessori

Let's get right into it. Tyler received a caterpillar jigsaw puzzle from his grandparents for Christmas, with pieces numbered 1-10. Though I thought it was really cute and loved that it was handmade by a local merchant, I didn't think he was ready for it yet. At all.

With a lot of help, he put it together that day, but when it was time to reconfigure his shelves to accommodate all of his new stuff, I almost stored in away with the other toys that are currently out of rotation. With hesitation, I placed it on top of one of his shelves. This is where I keep work that needs to be demonstrated more before it's placed on a shelf. It's where work that he doesn't quite "get" yet lives.

I then forgot about it (or maybe ignored it). It sat for a couple weeks. Then, looking for something to do, I watched Tyler nose around the top of the shelves (he's getting a bit too tall I guess). He quickly spotted the bright, colorful puzzle. With excitement he brought it down and carried it to his rug. I admit that I kinda sighed to myself. He hadn't shown a ton of interest in numbers. He was much more focused on letters. Sometimes, as bright as he is, he has spatial issues when it comes to puzzles. This was probably going to be a lot of me doing the work and Tyler getting frustrated.

Though I had to hand him each puzzle piece in order, he was excited. He had much less trouble fitting the pieces in than I had imagined. Huh. It went on the shelf so he could find it again, even though I knew he would need our help. If he had interest, we would give it a go.

For the next few days I started to give him two number pieces to choose from. "You need number three next. Which one of these is three?" Sometimes he was wrong, but more and more he was correct. Huh. Okay then... I let him figure things out, helping when asked, though pushing his frustration tolerance just a bit.

He quickly showed that he could do 1-3 on his own, then 1-4 and certainly 9-10. He struggled in the middle. As I briefly mentioned in another post, I then made a sturdy guide for him that matched his puzzle for him to reference.

He sort-of used the guide. He needed a bit of assistance at first in learning how to "read" it. Turns out he didn't need it much anyway. It often became a cute little cardboard caterpillar used for pretend play.

Before Ty had been using the puzzle for two weeks, he woke up one morning and completed it for my husband several times, without struggle or the need to fix errors. He was incredibly proud. With a gleam in his eye and constantly looking up and me with a grin that said "Isn't this awesome?!" he showed me too, again and again.

He quickly started naming all of the numbers on the pieces aloud, something he doesn't always do. He can certainly be one to keep his thoughts to himself. Though Ty can count objects to 13 (something he learned naturally), I hadn't worked on number recognition past 1-3. That first day of mastery, he broke apart the puzzle, messed them up, then put them back in the tray in perfect reverse order, 10-1. Each time he put the puzzle together he would lean back, scrunch up his shoulders with pride and joy and gaze at his work.

Boy was I wrong, huh? Though glad that I didn't put the puzzle away completely, I felt just a tiny bit ashamed at the lack of confidence I had in my son's ability. Then again, it seemed like wanting to put that cute little caterpillar together struck a match in him. The fire for wanting to learn his numbers was lit in a way that I hadn't been able to do before. Perhaps now was just the perfect sensitive time. Who knows? Now that he can complete the puzzle with ease, he has much more interest in his sandpaper numeral and peg work. He's shown interest in numbers all over his world and is proud that he can recognize so many of them. The fire has been lit, and it grows.

If I was still laying out the puzzle pieces in a line for him to fit together, or continuing to hand him each one as he went along, he may have thought himself incapable of doing it on his own. If I didn't back off and start to realize that he was a real drive for becoming independent with this activity, I could have squashed it. I could have hampered the learning process...the trial and error that must happen for real learning to take place.

Days later he still gets immense joy in showing us (and anyone else who comes to our home) how he can put together his caterpillar. Before this, and for the last month, his sense of pride came from the his mastery with The Pink Tower. Not only would he eagerly grab it from the shelf to show us while we were working and playing, but he would carry it into whatever room we were in and build it at your feet, looking up with what seemed like happy little sparkles shooting straight out of his little eyes. If you moved rooms before he got more than one block out, he would pick-up and follow you again. At this point we knew to stop (what was so important?), get down on the floor, and watch, matching the anticipation in his face. The feeling of independence of pride when he masters something can't be beat!

You did it, kid. You really did. High-five!

Oatmeal Fun Dough

2012-01-17T14:28:00.003-05:00

One rainy day, Tyler (my little play dough lover) and I decided to make something a little different than our usual dough. We have a large canister of oatmeal sitting around that Tyler doesn't care to eat, so when I found a recipe for "Oatmeal Fun Doh" online, we decided to give it a try (be sure to read on...).

Oatmeal Fun Dough

2 cups uncooked oatmeal
1 cup flour
1/4 cup water

Add ingredients, mix and knead.

From the start, I was skeptical about this recipe. It didn't seem like there would be enough moisture to make much of anything.

Maybe I was just impatient with our kneading and already had the idea in my head that it would require more water, but it didn't seem to work. I added more water...then too much water. I added more flour. Maybe too much flour...

Our dough had an interesting texture that Tyler had to get used to (great for his sensory quirks) but it was also thick and tough rather than the pliable consistency you'd hope for.

Cutting with cutters required help from Mama, as did forming balls and worms.

Our play doh press requires a great deal of effort anyhow, but it was almost too much with this dough.

While the dough wasn't all that workable, we still played with it for about half and hour before throwing it away. I gave Tyler a small amount of water after a while to sprinkle and paint onto the quickly drying dough. That was probably the most fun for him.

After this failure, I researched other oatmeal dough recipes. They often look the same as the one I tried, but with much more water. Almost all of the recipes I found call for:

1 part flour

1 part water

2 parts oatmeal

Not sure how I lucked out with the bum recipe, but if you try this one, I'd love to hear how it went!

Sticker "Resist" Painting

2012-01-17T09:00:00.006-05:00

As I've watched Tyler attempt to draw on the clear tape I often use to stick his paper to the table with, and seeing him be so curious about why he can't mark on it recently, I realized it was time to pull some resist work out of my arsenal of art projects. We've started with sticker resist!

You can use any kind of sticker, preferably those with a good outline. Tyler has been interested in the night sky for a while now, so we used stars (and a moon I had to create myself) to create a night scene. We used card stock and he stuck them to the paper as he pleased. I told him we would be painting over them but then peeling them off again.

He got right to work covering the stickers with a brush.

Once they were covered, he used his hands to work on covering all of the yellow paper.

I could stop here and jump to the end, where we peel the stickers off, but I really enjoy Ty's art process.

One of his recent creative flairs has been scraping paint off with his nails.

I provided him with a roller and other items so that some of the paint would come off and I could find the stickers easier later. I was pretty certain he would go crazy with the amount of paint layers, and he did!

There are the stickers! Though his art isn't about me, I enjoyed the effect the roller had here.

I'm not sure what this paint tool is called, but it's from a home painting kit that we never used.

He also found a new way to scrape at the paint...with the end of a paint brush!

Ty then washed his hands and we worked at taking the stickers off. I couldn't remember if we were supposed to let the paint dry or not (I often just jot simple notes down as I go through activity books etc), but I felt like we needed to rescue the stickers quickly. It was quite tricky to get tiny stickers with difficult edges off the the paper, and sometimes the paper ripped. Next time we will certainly use something easier...and maybe different paper too.

This was our result! While it isn't "perfect" Tyler seemed pleased and interested in the results. I kinda enjoy its abstract side.

Linking up with The Imagination Tree

Montessori Monday

2012-01-15T14:03:00.004-05:00

Here's a collection of some random (mostly) Montessori-inspired things that we've been up to this week! You can find links to our other activities from this week at the bottom of this post.

Sorting wooden cubes by color with tongs

Playing "Memory" together with six (nomenclature) cards down. Not only is Tyler working on his memory skills exercising important executive function skills by taking turns and resisting turning more than two cards over at a time to find a match.

He received this wooden caterpillar puzzle from my parents, at Christmas, made by a man at a craft fair in Houston. He started showing interest a week and a half ago and loves it! Though this week I made a guide for him and backed it with cardboard so he could use this puzzle independently, he rarely uses it and is very close to doing it on his own now!

While he seems to be remembering what order the numbers go in with the above puzzle, I'm not sure familiar with quantities he is past three. I brought out the Sandpaper Numerals work I created, using 3-5 for the first time. The important thing for him to learn isn't the name of numbers (though it's neat!), its quantity. You can see him tracing the numbers as well as placing the pegs above.

Ty continues to love stickers and is very interested in using scissors! He continues to improve slowly, certainly needing help getting his fingers placed in the scissors properly.

He continues to enjoy drawing as well, but loves to scribble everything out after he makes it. You can see a happy face in the bottom right here...

He told me this was a bear, and I can see it. I had drawn a bear for him the night before. He pays careful attention when I draw so I'm trying to remember to do a lot more drawing for him!

Ty has enjoyed hand tracing as well, something my husband thought of one night. He still needs a lot of practice but he likes to work on it. I love his ambition!

He also wanted to work with the square stencils. These have naturally been easier than circles.

He markered on damp paper which made the lines and colors bleed a bit. As I figured though, he wasn't so gentle after a while, even with hints that the paper will rip otherwise, but it was still interesting for him.

Ty has really become a kid who doesn't mind cleaning up his messes, whether it be marker on the table, mess from an activity, or meals. He seems to enjoy the result!

Cooking anything, big or small, means that Tyler must be involved these days. I love it! If he sees us working in the kitchen or if we announce that we're going to make a meal, Ty often pulls a chair up to the counter and waits for instructions!

As a new gross motor activity, we're jumping off of chairs onto the couch. Tyler approved for sure!

If you missed our other posts this week, you may be interested in:

Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiments

Sorting By Temperature

Practical Life: Water Jug

Linking-up with Living Montessori Now and 1+1+1=1

Practical Life: Water Jug

2012-01-13T15:34:00.001-05:00

This activity is one that I discovered well over a year ago when beginning my Montessori journey with Tyler. It's from one of my first Montessori blog discoveries, The Wonder Years! If you check-out her "toddler" tagged posts, you'll find even more simple yet lovely ideas.

Though I've kept this activity in my head all this time, I haven't done it because we don't drink cow's milk in our home, so we haven't had a big milk jug (or anything like it) to use as she did. After needing a bit of milk to make Christmas cookies, we were left with this smaller container. It worked just fine!

To prepare the activity, I simply cut a large hole in the container and filled it with water (colored with a drop of food coloring for fun). I located a funnel and provided a wash cloth for Tyler to clean-up any spills on the tray (or elsewhere). I slowly demonstrated, and then it was his turn! I must say that he's becoming more patient while I demonstrate rather than grabbing and jumping in. It all comes with time!

Tyler's work was to scoop water from the container and pour it in through the funnel. Funnel work isn't new to him, but keeping the small measuring cup steady and level while raising it to the funnel took focus! Here he cleans up a small spill.

I quickly realized that the spilling wasn't from any kind of "error" on his part though. It was occurring when the water splashed down into the larger body of water. It came right out of the hole and onto the tray every time. I apologized to Tyler for not realizing this, told him that the spilled water wasn't from him and asked if we could put the washcloth underneath to catch the water for us. He agreed!

Taking a moment to admire the green water. He also noticed how once in the cup, it looked blue.

I don't remember Ty being too upset about the water splashing, but he doesn't look amused here! Going back to the post from The Wonder Years after all this time, I noticed that she had the jug placed in a basin. Smart.

Pouring with an air of confidence. He also removed the funnel several times and poured without it to experiment.

Ty also spent a lot of time moving his hands around in the water. It was warm, which he simply can't resist!

Sorting by Temperature

2012-01-12T14:51:00.000-05:00

Tyler has become quite interested in the differences between "cold" and "warm" for probably over a month. I let him explore with items from the freezer and ice to feel things that are cold, as well as run warm water for him to play in and talk about how certain foods are warm or cold. We shared our first hot (warm) cocoa last month, which was the first warm drink he's ever enjoyed. For some reason it didn't strike me to create an activity using this interest until now. I recently gave Tyler a jar for putting gems into (an old activity he wanted to do again), and the jar was still quite warm after running it under hot water to scrub the label. He immediately noticed and appreciated the warmth. A few days later, he grabbed the jar from the basket and asked me to make it warm for him again. He did this twice during the day. Then, a few days later, while scrubbing labels from glass seasoning shakers to make sound bottles, it finally occurred to me that he could sort items by temperature...and that the jars would be a perfect way to do it!

I put several of the jars into a bowl of water and placed them in the freezer for about half an hour. Just before we were ready to start the work, I soaked the other jars in a bowl of hot water. I also created labels that said "warm" and "cold" on them (in different colors to help him remember the words). I demonstrated the sorting, then allowed him to get to work, which he was quite eager to do!

Something about this work made him so happy! He had no problems distinguishing between the temperatures and enjoyed sorting, saying "warm" and "cold" as he went. Though I demonstrated putting the jars above the labels, he really enjoyed covering them with the bottles. Not having a real "place" to put things when sorting (basket, tray, paper bag) bothers him a bit, so this gave him that control. I was glad to see him problem solve so he could do the work he so clearly wanted to complete.

He then returned the jars to the tray and started again. He did the work at least six times before the jars had returned to room temperature and were difficult to distinguish between. He asked for more, but we didn't have the time to re-cool and re-heat the jars before our bed time routine, so I promised he could do the work again the next day.

So of course we did! It looks like my sound jar idea is going to have to wait. I don't think this work will be going away anytime soon!

While writing this post, I remembered some other warm and cold activities that we tried almost a year ago. I flubbed on the presentation of the hot and cold sort and apparently forgot all about it after that!

Fizz, Fizz, Bubble, Bubble! Classic Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment!

2012-01-10T16:45:00.002-05:00

I knew that someday during Tyler's childhood we would create a big volcano together and make it erupt with the classic flour, oil, salt, baking powder, and vinegar ingredients, but after seeing this more simple activity on several of my favorite blogs in the last couple months, I knew I had to give my little scientist a shot at it too!

With an anxious Tyler waiting (he can tell when we're about to do something cool!), I first colored some vinegar with food coloring. I put some in small cups for using droppers and more in a small bowl for spooning. We used a plate and a bowl on the tray at first, then ditched them, working only on the tray.

He chose spooning the vinegar first. It made quite a fizz and he seems to love the color green lately so he was very happy already!

He then decided to add the baking soda to the bowl of vinegar! Whoa! Big reaction!

He did much more of that later, but next he decided to try out the droppers: "More colors!"

Adding baking soda by hand to the glasses. Sometimes they bubbled right over!

He then decided to spoon it in. Eventually there was too much baking soda and the reaction dulled, so I quickly rinsed everything out and we started again. He often asked for more baking soda and more vinegar as well. We ended up using it every last bit!

Dipping his fingers in to feel the fizzing

I just adored how carefully he was watching the reaction! I didn't exactly go into a chemistry lesson about it, but simply told him that when you put vinegar and baking soda together, they react to each other in ways that causes bubbles and fizz. If you're working with an older child (or your preschooler is a chemistry genius), you can find the scientific explanation here.

Then, the moment I had been figuring would come much sooner than it did. The big vinegar dump!

Ty then experimented with the goopy mess, first by drawing.

Then by trying to fill the cups with it, hoping something cool would happen. He then asked me for more, but we were out of everything. Another day for sure!

Linking-up with The Imagination Tree

"Instructions for Life"

2012-01-09T15:34:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, this list was passed along through emails as a chain letter you were asked to forward for "good luck". It was also said to have been written by the Dalai Lama which is apparently quite false. Curious, I've even done my own research and cannot find the Dalai Lama connected to this at all. Despite that, the rules really struck me. I have visited them again and again in the last few days and am even considering purchasing a poster with these instructions on it as a daily visual. It's all a bit off-topic for my blog, but as times are hard and rather confusing for so many, I wanted to share. For me, it has struck a cord at just the right time.

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

Follow the three res. Respect for self, Respect for others, and Responsibility for all your actions.

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

Spend some time alone every day.

Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.

Be gentle with the earth.

Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

Catching-up on the "other stuff".

2012-01-08T13:49:00.000-05:00

It's been far too long since I've done a large post...since the end of November actually! As I've moved towards one subject posts, there are some things that slip through the cracks that I still wish to remember and document here on Blogger. Perhaps some of you may be interested in or inspired by pieces of these random moments!

We tried coin sorting with pennies, nickles and dimes. While he likes playing with the coins, Ty wasn't all that interested in sorting.

Ty received this Stacking Shapes Pegboard by Learning Resources last Christmas and has never been interested in in. I've rotated it in and out several times this year and tried many different shelves and places with no luck. Putting it on this table somehow made it more interesting to him!

I had these puzzles in a pile on the floor, ready to bag and sell on Craigslist the night before...and forgot to put them out of reach. Ty found them the next and the pieces were everywhere! It proved to be a nice little challenge for him to find where all of the pieces went during clean up!

Ty received a late birthday/early Christmas present from a relative: Melissa and Doug play dough toys! They really increased his interest in playing with play dough! I loved how so many of the pieces are wooden too.

This is just a peek at some of our pretend play. While I've shown the basket of pretend items for play with his stuffed animals, this is what we're using with his figurines. This play follows a familiar night- time routine. A bowl with dry pasta and a pumpkin for the animals to eat, a small glass for them to drink from, a basket and an old sock that works as a bath and bath mitt, then a small dish towel for a blanket to send them to bed.

Ty decided to tong everything he could find one night. Bean bags, animals, jingle bells...anything. I helped him with his tonging fever by searching around and providing him with more items.

We used paint markers to "decorate" a Christmas tree

We visited a Children's Art Museum. Using the light projector was his absolute favorite part! Oh how I wish we had something like this at home!

This was a neat toy at the Museum. Reminded me of the bead toys I made for him back in the spring.

The Museum had two light tables! This one was fun for both of us to draw on this with wipe board markers. The other had magnetic translucent shapes which Ty wasn't interested in, but I like playing with it for a bit!

We've been playing with shadows on sunny afternoons...

I made another open and close basket for Ty, using a couple of the same items from the last basket and couple with more difficulty. This has been out for about a month now and it's still one of his favorite activities ! He loves finding the little treasures hiding inside and remembering what in each before opening. I put colored wooden cubes inside the pill container in a blue/purple pattern.

While at the Museum, Ty's block stacking interest came back to life. Daddy helped steady this one a bit and I had to pick him up, but I love the shot.

I had recently rotated his unit and alphabet blocks back in and after his museum experience, he excitedly got to work again for about two weeks. He's over it again now, preferring The Pink Tower. His new record with both unit and alphabet blocks is 16. He makes it look easy! Pretty sure he'll be out-stacking me in the near future.

I demonstrated building a pyramid to see what he'd do. This was often his interpretation.

Heeeheee, this one is for fun...classic "toddler discovers a brand new box of tissues" moment...

We made Christmas cards to send to the grandparents

Along with some salt dough ornaments we baked, painted and covered with glitter.

He experimented with new brushes and sponges

Then figured out that all of the colors mixed together to make his favorite color, black! He was quite excited! He then added lots of orange and discovered it turned brown.

We haven't done a lot of pouring work lately, so I gave him decorative wood chips and two measuring glasses with handles. He's done well and from the first try, he picks up any spilled chips and returns them to the cup.

Digging into his sticker box has become a favorite recently. Great fine motor work!

It seems like many of his stickers come in pairs, which is nice for matching when he's done!

After seeing Ty so disappointed about a somehow wet sandbox (and it being too cold to take his mittens off anyhow), I decided to bring the sand inside. We had birdseed in the table before, but he had grown bored with it of anyhow.

It's been a lot of fun so far and not as messy as I imagined! The sand is taking forever to dry out, but it's great for sand molds and castles.

Mid-November, Tyler grew tall enough to reach the pedals on the trike I bought him for his birthday in August. A few weeks later he was riding like a pro! The last three days he's gone all the way around the block (7/10th of a mile), apparently motivated by the Sesame Street music blaring from his new SweetPea3 mp3 player hooked around the handlebars. We timed him today at 35 mins! Watch out Lance Armstrong...

Ty has also become quite the pro at somersaults. At times he tries to do them off of the living room furniture, or on the hardwood floors. We re-direct to the floor bed!

He's now moving on to wanting us to help him do handstands. If we're not available, he's figured out he can back up and use the ottoman to do a semi-stand. Nothing stopping this kid!

All Morning at the Work Table!

2012-01-07T14:28:00.001-05:00

While I feel like Tyler has become quite a bit more active recently (seemingly constant somersaults, running, jumping, and general loud excitement), I've also noticed that he's into many more table activities. His favorites at the moment are play doh, coloring/drawing in whatever manner possible, and really any work that requires him to sit in his chair. He used to be much more of a sit on the floor kind of kid, but that seems to have changed a bit. Yesterday morning we literally spent a couple hours at the table, with Tyler asking for more and more to do. Here's what we came up with!

We started with scissor practice. I feel like we've really abandoned scissor work (okay, maybe I forgot about it after he completely declined one day months ago), but Ty was quite eager to give it a try. He still needs help getting his fingers in the right place, but he has the motivation to learn, so we kept at it for quite a while. He made some decent cuts!

I then decided that instead of throwing away all of the strips he cut and cut into, we could glue them onto paper to display his hard work. He chose some gray paper (he also chose the green paper to cut -- I always let him choose) and was excited to get to work. It was interesting to me that he put them all at a diagonal.

He wanted more to do. I took a look into our art supply closet and realized that we hadn't done pastels since we bought them in August. Whoops! While he doesn't fully grasp the concept of blending etc, they do make strong, beautiful colors and write so easily, all which he enjoys. Being able to really color over each color with others seemed interesting to him as well.

I showed him how to clean the pastels when we were done, which he liked. He is getting more and more helpful around the house and is starting to truly enjoy more of our practical life type work.

He wanted more, so I asked if he wanted to paint with water colors. Of course he did! I figured that since he was so eager to learn and do, that I could let him mix his own colors with a dropper first. I filled the cubes in about 2/3rds of the way with water and put one drop of food coloring in each. He was delighted to mix! I noticed that his grip was more of a whole hand grip for some reason (it hasn't been in the past if I remember correctly), so we're going to do more of this for sure.

I gave Ty some of the new paint brushes he received for Christmas, which he used for a while. Then he started to use the dropper to not only drip the colors onto his paper, but to drag it hard along the paper as if to paint with it. This made holes, and eventually one big hole, but he was cool with it. I mentioned that he was gettting holes in his paper due to being rough with the dropper just as an "fyi", then let it go. His art work, not mine!

Still eager for more, I decided to make the homemade pita chips with him that I had planned for the afternoon. Since baking so many Christmas cookies a couple weeks ago, Tyler is very into cooking and baking. It's not a choice to leave him out when we're cooking, which I love! First we brushed olive oil over the pita bread.

We then added salt and pepper. I was going to have us make cinnamon sugar pita chips, but italian herb pita bread was bought by accident, so we went with it, making something a bit different!

Next was the parmesan cheese. Yum! The first pita got just a bit too much, but he used sone of that cheese to sprinkle over the others. May camera died here, but we baked them at 375 degrees for seven minutes and they were delicious!

Next was lunch and nap...and a nice break for Mama. Ty really keeps me extra busy lately, which I really do love! I don't know what I'd do with a "boring" child being so "Type A" myself!

Concepts of Time: Journaling and Daily Calendar Learning

2012-01-04T21:54:00.002-05:00

Daily Calendar

We've added two additions to our daily routine that Ty has been pretty excited about!

Introducing the concepts of a calendar has been on my mind for a couple months. I naturally include the days of the week into our conversations ["This is the way we brush our teeth so early Tuesday morning!"], talk about what we have done in the past ["That's a picture from when we went to the park yesterday. Do you remember that big curly slide?] and what we will do specifically in the future {"Tomorrow Grandma is coming to visit and stay at our house."]. I feel like having his own calendar as a visual tool will be beneficial and that he's ready to be introduced to the concepts of "time" in a more sophisticated way.

Tyler's calendar is from the dollar store and displays photos of cute, familiar animals that he adores. You can also make your own so that your child can personalize it, or there are many calendar printables online.

To introduce the calendar, I told Tyler that we were starting a whole new year, 2012, and that this was his calendar that would let him keep track of each day in the year. We flipped through and I first named the months for him. I then pointed out the days of the week and listed them all several times, pointing as I went. We then counted all of the days in January, slowly, touching each number. We talked about the concept of a "day" from wake-up time in the morning to falling asleep at night and waking up to a brand new day.

As they come up, I'm labeling special events on the calendar for Tyler so that he can anticipate what is happening in his world, as well as to cement the idea of things happening on each "day". You can use store bought labels for this (it may be prettier than ours), but so far I'm simply cutting bits of construction paper, writing the event and taping it on. We have several events that happen each week, so I will keep those events the same color. Tyler will likely be able to tell what's coming up just by seeing the label's color and it will help with his sight reading ambitions as well.

Each morning after breakfast, we head to the calendar and cross off the day before, naming it "yesterday". He loves to help me do this! Soon I imagine he'll be able to cross each day off on his own without drawing all over the calendar. This morning he pointed to yesterday on his own and said "Bye-bye!". Something is sinking in! We then look at "today" to see if there are any events to look forward to and looked at "tomorrow" to see what may be happening soon. He gets quite excited looking at the special events coming up. He has been excited by the idea of going to story time at the library on Thursday all week!

Journaling

From fourth grade until I was about twenty one, I kept a journal. After that my journaling became sporadic and I've pretty much given up on the idea, other than writing notes here and there about Tyler and being his mommy. It's something I wish I was better about doing, but I really treasure looking back on all of the important and random moments, feelings and experiences that I do have documented. I would love for Tyler to have journals to look back on someday. I also feel that it's important to reflect on what's happened in our lives through writing, and I'd love to get him in the habit now.

At the moment, Ty's journal is simply an old, but perfectly nice spiral notebook with the few pages in it that were used torn out. My husband had a habit of buying big notebooks for note-taking back in college...then only took notes for a week or so! I've saved them all for years, figuring we could use them someday, hating to waste the paper. The time has finally come!

Keeping tabs on what we've done throughout the day isn't a new concept to Tyler, though it's mainly been though verbal and visual recording. I've talked about what he did that day before bed since he was an infant, and we go through recent photos and videos together onto jog his memory on occasion as well, either on the same day or sometime later.

To introduce the journal to Tyler, I told him that the notebook was his special place for us to write and draw pictures about what he did each day. I make a big deal about checking the calendar, then write the date and day of the week, reading it aloud. I then ask Tyler what he's done that day. Whatever he tells me I write in quotes to make it clear that I'm recording what he said, though right now most of it is from my own words, which I also read aloud as I write. Ty sometimes has troubles verbally expressing what he's thinking, though I think this will be a great way to help him improve those skills. He's already getting better as understanding what the question "What did you do today" means and how to answer. I also give him prompts like "What did you eat today?" and "What did you do with Dee-Dee when she came over?" to help him think.

I then tell Tyler that he can draw a picture about his day (though this has tended to occur near the end of my writing, as he gets bored). This doesn't look tend to look like much yet (to me anyhow...it may to him), though it will be neat to see how his drawing progresses from the start of the journal to the end! As we continue, he will also start to get a stronger understanding that pictures can represent ideas.

After he grows accustomed to journaling every day, we will start to go back and read the entry from the day before or random days that he chooses. This will continue to give him a sense of past and present.

Teaching Tyler about time using a clock will be the next step in this area, though I'm going to let him grasp the bigger concepts first!

Linking-up with Living Montessori Now, 1 + 1 + 1= 1 and It's Playtime!

Literacy Extension: "The Color Kittens" by Margaret Wise Brown

2012-01-03T23:39:00.000-05:00

Ty has been quite into many of the Classic Golden the last few months, and when I browsed Amazon for additional stories to add to his collection, "The Color Kittens" by Margaret Wise Brown looked like a sure winner. Kittens, paint and color mixing?! Yes, that would suit Tyler very well! Grandma and Grandpa were wonderful in purchasing it for him for Christmas from his Wish List, along with several Classics. If you don't already own this one, you can't beat the $3.99 price on this book, and any other Golden Book Classic out there!

The story is about two kittens named "Brush" and "Hush" who love to paint and mix colors. One day they decide that they want to paint with green, but they don't have any green, so they have to figure out how to make green by mixing their colors together. They make several colors before figuring out how to make green, showing the child, with lyrical verse and lovely illustrations, that colors can come together to make others. It's truly a delight and now one of my favorite books by Margaret Wise Brown.

Our literacy extension was easy as well as really fun for a kid who adores paint and mixing colors! We simply grabbed our box of paint and supplies, the book, and transformed ourselves into pouncy little Color Kittens!

The first color the color kittens make is pink..."Pink as a rose or a baby's nose...". We looked in the book and found the colors needed, then Ty got right to the fun part: mixing!

The second color the kittens make in an attempt to create green was orange..."Orange as an orange tree, bumblebees, orange as a bumblebee..." Ty washed his hands, found the next two colors we needed, and happily got to it!

Hmmm...still no green! Ty washed up once again and we tried red and blue, as the Color Kitten did. No green silly kittens...purple! Purple "as violets, purple as prunes, purple as shadows on late afternoons".

Will the color kittens get it right this time? Grabbing yellow and blue, just like in the book...

Yellow and blue make green! Green as "green leaves on a tree, green as islands in the sea"! Yay, we did it! Tyler actually knows this next one not only from the book, but from doing color mixing with a dropper a while back as well.

Tyler also remembers that not only does he like to color mix on paper, but his hands as well.

Now, in the book, the color kittens get so excited about making green that they knock over several buckets of paint: Blue, red, yellow and black. Uh oh! What happens?

Well, you get something that's supposed to be brown, but not quite. We added more and more of colors we thought would help, but it didn't quite turn out to be the "brown as a tugboat, brown as an old goat" we were looking for. I think we will experiment and do this color over again soon.

Ty smartly remembered that the last time he painted he mixed colors and made a lovely brown though, and he saw that it was still on his paint shirt. If only we could repeat exactly what he did that day!

I later hung each color he made, with the colors it took to make each above the painting, and the name of the color he created written below.

You could easily buy a pre-made poster that shows what colors make what, or you could create a little display with colored construction paper, but what is on this wall was learned with hands on experience. It's much more likely to be remembered and understood than by simply memorizing facts (and way more fun)!

Ty did remember! Nearly every time he walks down our hallway, where this display is hung, he excitedly stops to point at and name the colors above and talk about what they made. I randomly asked him later, "What do blue and red make when they're mixed together?" and he proudly answered "Purple!"

. Reading "The Color Kittens" will never be the same now that he's acted it out...in a wonderful way! Of course if you don't have the book, doing color mixing with paint is still a fun and easy activity!

On The Road to Reading: Eight Months of Montessori-Inspired Literacy Work

2012-01-02T09:16:00.006-05:00

Ty hasn't really taken the typical road to Montessori literacy, mostly because he started on the journey himself, and continues to do so. I'm trying to get him on track a bit more with traditional Montessori practices, but while following his lead as well. This has been our journey so far and where we we are today, including new activities we've started working with to further his interests. There are many videos, mostly for myself perhaps, to log Tyler's amazing (to me anyhow...I'm his mom!) progress. The majority of toddlers aren't ready or interested in what Tyler is up to and that it 100% normal, so please don't feel that you need to push your child in this (or any!) area. I've simply followed his lead.

This post became much larger than I thought it would be at the start, and I ended up separating it into the categories below. If you've been following our Montessori journey most of the year, the "old" work may be somewhat of a repeat. It also may seem odd to some that both writing and phonetic sound works are included when dealing with literacy, but in Montessori, the two go hand in hand!

Older work with phonetic sounds

New work with phonetic sounds

Writing Work

OLDER WORK WITH PHONETIC SOUNDS

At 20 months old (now 28 mos), Ty was telling me the sounds that many letters make, having never been formerly taught. This was a surprise to me. It all started when I randomly told Tyler that he was holding the letter "H" at a children's museum one day and he immediately made the /h/ sound. Over the next week I started asking him about other letters and he quickly knew twelve. For fun, the following video shows some of them:

For the next month I contemplated buying him the traditional sandpaper letters. Was he really that interested? Would this be pushing rather than joyful learning? He had the capacity to learn for sure, but did that mean he had the desire? Eventually I purchased the letters, knowing that if he didn't care about them that I would at least be wise enough to just put them away and not force anything. He would let me know.

I started Three Period Lessons with the sandpaper letters with Tyler when he was 22 months old. I made sure to educate myself on the primary sounds for each letter as they that are taught in Montessori Education, as many letters make more than one sound. [Letter names are of little importance for reading or in Montessori philosophy. If you're looking to learn the proper letter sounds, this Video by Virtual Montessori or this great lesson from Montessori Mom are quite helpful.] I tried to stick to the general order that letters are introduced, while also trying to use letter sounds that Tyler could make at that time.

Ty showed a real interest in the letters for a while and did well, then became less and less enthused. I stopped letters lessons all together for a while due to his waning curiosity and drive.

At 23 months old, Tyler fell in love with a book from the library called "Sleepy ABC's" by Margaret Wise Brown. Unfortunately the letters were uppercase, but Tyler learned what sounds went with which letter quickly. After he had showed letter sounds knowledge a few months before, I began saying letter sounds rather than the letter names in many of his books. In the video below, Tyler correctly makes the letter sounds for 17 letters, often before I even asked. Tyler has a speech delay which was quite pronounced back then (his progress the last few months has been astounding!), so it was impressive to me that he could make so many sounds accurately.

I knew that it was possible that Tyler simply had the book memorized, so I checked with other books to see if he knew the letter sounds. He was pretty accurate with those as well when he wished to show me what he knew. He isn't often one to "perform" when asked.

In September, (24 mos), after seeing so many letter trays in my favorite blogs, I hesitantly created one with the letter "b". I wasn't sure how much Ty would get out of this. I can't explain it, but it's just not the way he learns. He enjoyed the objects, but I didn't see a ton of attention paid to the fact that they all began with the same letter, so I haven't made any othres. Perhaps when he's a bit older he can help me go around the house and create his own letter basket. That seems more his style.

I also used alphabet mats with a few of the letters that look the same lower and upper case, and the corresponding sandpaper letters, together. His work was to place each letter piece into the correct mat, then match the sandpaper letter to it. I would do a quick three period lesson to be sure he remembered what each letter said beforehand. He enjoyed this! Of course the letters we could use were limited. Bummer!

Around this time, I tried Three Period Lessons again with varying success. I didn't know if it was because he already knew the letters and was bored (though I wasn't too sure about him knowing them all), if it just wasn't reaching him in the right way, or if he didn't care enough. I secretly breathed a sigh of relief at times when he had no interest in the lessons though. Since he began showing knowledge of letter sounds without being taught and at such an early age, I was a bit nervous about the Tyler and the label "hyperlexia", which often is associated with the autism spectrum. Luckily had never been obsessed with letters or reading and there's no real concern; he simply knows his stuff and picks up on these things quickly, but naturally the concern would crept into my head.

In November, Tyler became interested in an alphabet book (Leap Frog's "Animal Orchestra") that showed both lower and upper case letters for each. The book had been around for at least a yerar, though Ty never cared for it until one day when he was supposed to be picking up his toys and suddenly went for the book instead (in an atttempt to distract me...it worked). He quickly learned almost all of the letter sounds in conjunction with the letters (I forget how many exactly...22 perhaps). The day I tried to sneakily get video was the last day he wanted to read this book to me. Ever. Lesson learned.

It should be noted that while reading familiar books to Tyler that I would sometimes drag my finger below the words as I read, and while I haven't done this often, it's something I do practice more and more as his interests peaks. I started this when he was an older infant and he was interested in me reading the Cheerios box to him every morning. I tend to follow the words in familiar books with fewer words on the page, never slowing drastically or speaking in a staggered way. My only goal has been to show him that the "stuff" on the page is telling me what to say as I go along. Recently I point out words that may look familiar to him.and Tyler will sometimes drag his finger under the words himself as I read, left to right, sometimes happening to follow right along.

NEW WORK WITH PHONETIC SOUNDS

Ty's interest in letters peaked again about a month ago (but still not so much three period lessons) so I thought I'd show Ty how letters come together to form words. I had shown him this before in random situations, but I knew we could really go after it now. I demonstrated for him that changing the first letter in a certain word could make a different rhyming word. I showed him things like "cat / mat / hat / rat" and "dog / fog / log" He seemed quite intrigued, but not wildy. Whenever I asked if he wanted to work with letters he gave an excited "yeah!" and we did the work together. I then put these letters on his shelf for him to work with one his own, one rhyming set at a time. He never touched them.

Tyler now knows eleven colors easily, has had the Pink Tower and Mini Cylinders mastered for at least a month, knows about eight shapes, and can create a square and a rectangle with cubes, He has been fond of noticing and labeling sizes, taking the tiniest bite of a food he doesn't totally care for and finding the absolute biggest Christmas cookie on a tray, even in it's by the smallest hair difference. He can find a sticker that is different in line of quite similar stickers and balance a lever. This may not seem to have any relevance (and seem like bragging), but all of these activities practice the art of visual discrimination, a skill that is needed for recognizing letters and words and telling them apart. Along with Tyler's love of books and the ability to sit and listen to stories with hundreds of words on a page, it made sense that Tyler's next interest would be sight reading.

Last week, a few days before Christmas, at 28 mos, Tyler sight read aloud for the first time. As I wrote about in a recent post, I started writing the word "dog" and "cat" with Cheerios as we ate them, which Tyler became really interested in. Many times he could even tell me what sound came next as I configured each letter. After asking me to write "dog" several times at breakfast, he sat down and drew the letter "d"...then scribbled over it as he tends to do. Excited (maybe a bit too much), I wrote down his name "Tyler" as well as "dog" and "cat" on a piece of paper and gave it to him along with paper and a pencils so he could have a visual of the words in case he wanted to write them. It was way too much to expect, but you just never know with Ty, so I grabbed my video camera. Instead of catching some amazing leap in writing, I watched him scribble out each word, reading it as he scribbled out each..."Bye-bye dog, bye-bye cat, bye-bye Tyler". I didn't know he could read them until that moment! I knew I hadn't read the words aloud to him that I wrote on the paper. He truly read them! I'm amazed how calm I kept myself in the video below...I really wanted to scream in delight!

Since then he has been asking us to write the words "sun" "dog" "cat" "Tyler" and "Mama" all over the place...on his new Magna Doddle, on paper, on a steamy mirror...wherever. The interest is absolutely there.

Then, the day after Christmas, Tyler attempted to sound out his first word. He had acquired new spoons in his stocking which said "LOVE" on them, all in capital letters, though we hadn't gotten around to mentioning this fact yet. During lunch, Tyler started inspecting the mysterious word and tried to sound out each letter, left to right. While it was difficult to hear what he was saying and I don't think he was too correct with most of it, he did sound out the letter "V" correctly! He then looked up at us with a big smile! He knew that he had just attempted to do something really neat and had done one letter correctly! The fact that he recognized "Hey, this is a word...wonder if I can figure out what it says" is such a huge milestone! This, along with the sight reading, happily kicked my Montessori Mama butt (which had been taking a relaxing little holiday vacation) into high gear.

One new game that I decided to introduce to him was an "I Spy" type of game, and a rather traditional one in Montessori education. I chose several of his animal figurines (it could be any group of random objects) that made the "correct" phonetic sound, called him over and asked if he wanted to play a game. Ty almost always eager for new activities, so he ran over and sat down. I then put several of his animal figurines in front of us and said "I'm thinking of an animal that starts with /e/ (for example). Then on to the next until we had gone through all of the animals.

He understood this immediately. The second time we played I wasn't fast enough between questions and he started playing by himself, grabbing the cat, for example, and saying "/c/, cat" and putting it aside. I then grabbed more animals and we tried again, as the below video shows. I was a bit surprised at how easy this was for him and will likely start playing a letter sound hunt game, asking him to find something in the room that starts with a particular sound to make it more challenging.

What I decided to do next was to expand upon his work with the sight words he wanted us to write out for him. I drew pictures of each then wrote the words, lowercase of course, for him to match underneath each picture.

After a couple days of not being the least bit interested, he gave it a go and did great! There was real pride in his face as he matched each correctly. True Montessori would use nomenclature style cards for this activity for self-checking and correcting, which I plan to do next time I have access to a copier.

Using the Melissa and Doug Magnetic Letters that he received for Christmas, I also thought my little magnet lover may enjoy matching the magnetic letter to the written letter on his magnet board. Really, the best thing to have would be the Montessori Moveable Alphabet, especially as I'm not 100% satisfied with the appearance of some of the letters, but these will have to do for now.

That said, Tyler has had no interest in this activity so far. He wants the letters to lock-in, like a puzzle. Instead of the magnetic letters I guess I should have gone with the Melissa and Doug See and Spell puzzles. I will try this activity again soon.

WRITING WORK

Tyler went ahead of me a bit with this whole writing business, starting to draw some letters in the late spring/early summer (21-23 mos old) after watching me draw them with chalk in the driveway. He would sometimes draw "T" (for Tyler) and "H", another important letter for him. If you asked him "would you like to draw the letter "T?" he would sometimes do it, but he's also a child who knows when someone wants him to do something...and therefore won't. You often have to catch him in the act! He drew a "d" just a week or so ago and has gone through many, if not all, of the primary "scribbles" that children progress through.

Circles are currently his favorite thing to draw, though he has recently drawn faces with eyes and a mouth, and names his drawings at times. I was delighted one morning, a month or so ago, when Tyler told me that he was going to draw a giraffe, then drew something that could certainly pass for a giraffe (in my eyes at least) and then did the same with a football (both shown in the photos above)! His hands seem ready at times to exhibit the control needed for tracing.

To follow his lead, I've recently introduced the idea of tracing with shape stencils, which prepares a child for writing letters. With an especially keen interest in coloring lately, this seemed to be the perfect time. While the Montessori Insets are typically used when children are beginning to learn how to write words, I don't have the funds to buy the fabulous geometric cabinet, and I wasn't lucky enough to win any in any recent giveaways either! So, instead, we have use thick plastic stencils that I have from my scrapbooking days for now.

I have started Tyler with circles as it's his favorite right now and a natural shape for toddlers to draw. While a Montessori child is typically shown how to hold the stencil with one hand and trace with the other, I knew the work would be tricky enough for Ty without this worry, so I taped the paper and stencil to the table for him. I demonstrated the work, then took his hand and showed him how it felt to push the pencil along the edges of the circles. This hand-over-hand work isn't typically done, but I knew it would benefit Ty at this young age.

Tyler really enjoyed this work and has wanted to use the stencils over and over! He certainly has a ways to go, but of course his interest and motivation is key! Below is his second attempt.

To prepare Tyler for tracing and inset work, I have also used puzzle pieces (shapes) to allow him finger tracing and pencil pressure practice. Again, this is traditionally done with the Geometric Cabinet, but the above puzzle worked quite well. I demonstrated how to hold the piece with the pincer grasp with one hand and to trace the perimeter of each shape with the index finger on his other hand. We're not sure which hand is dominant for Tyler yet, it seems to depend on the activity, so I let him guide me.

So now, enter in the Montessori-style salt tray. Though this all may be too much work to introduce in such a short period of time (less than a week), I'm curious to see how he does with each. Introducing and observing gives me a lot of clues on where our journey needs to go next, even if it means heading backwards.

I had done salt writing with him once in the spring, though not in hopes of him drawing letters. Back then it was simply an intro to the concept of drawing with fingers in the salt. This time we had more of a purpose. The goal was to work on drawing the letter "c" which is in one of his sight words, "cat".

After demonstrating, I had him trace the letter several times to get the feel for how the letter is formed. He then gave it several tries, often saying the "c" sound or the word "cat" as he traced.

First attempt at drawing "c". After a while it just became fun to play and draw random shapes in the sand, but that's fine. I will demonstrate again and again before I place this on the shelf.

Amidst all of this pressing on along the literacy path, I feel like i need to go back with Three Period Lessons (if he's willing...) and be sure he knows all of the sandpaper letters. The "problem" with that is that he isn't always keen on telling me something if I want him to tell me, even if he knows it. He is a child who makes me work a bit harder than most, but I'm always up for the challenge! Knowing if he's ready for the next step can be tricky because of this though. It seems I constantly find out what he knows by accident. Hopefully we're on the right path!

Linking-up with Living Montessori Now and 1+1+1=1

New Years: Party Hats, Costa Rican Traditions and a Balloon Drop!

2012-01-01T17:24:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year everyone! While our family didn't prepare a five course meal and set off fireworks, I thought we'd share how we celebrated in our own fun and traditional way.

After nap on New Years Eve, Tyler made his first party hat! We used card stock rolled to make a cone. Tyler decorated it with markers, stickers and glitter/glue. We also talked in a basic way about the end and start of a new year.

We then wrapped pipe cleaners around a pencil to stick in the top for an additional decorative touch. Though that was tricky for Tyler, I included him in helping me wrap pipe cleaners around a pencil to create a spiral shape. I later tied on a chin strap with thin ribbon.

The finished product! I can't say that the hat stayed on long as he didn't like the strap to be tight on his chin, but he was happy with how it looked!

Tyler went to bed at his usual time, but my husband and I stayed up to follow an old Costa Rican tradition! My husband's mother grew-up in Costa Rica where twelve grapes are eaten between 11:59 and midnight on New Years night. This is said to give you good luck for each month of the new year. Though doing a little online research it seems that the grapes are to be eaten at midnight, we follow what has been passed down from his mother. Eating twelve grapes in one minute makes it an interesting challenge! If you're curious about other Costa Rican traditions (many of which my husband was unaware of), take a look at this site.

Though Tyler's balloon obsession has died down a bit, he's still quite a fan, so we created a balloon drop for him on New Year's Eve! We did this by lacing yarn through an old sheet and taping it to the ceiling before stuffing it with balloons.We had glorious plans of surprising him with balloons showering over him in the morning after breakfast and Tyler dancing around with his arms up, shouting with glee. What an amazing childhood moment it would be!

Well, Tyler noticed the bulging sheet hanging from the ceiling as soon as he entered the living room upon waking and quickly spotted the mass of balloons within it tool. In the few moments of coordinating video cameras and still cameras with my husband, Tyler became frustrated that his precious balloons were so out of reach (a Montessori child isn't so accustomed to this!).

While he thought the actual drop was pretty neat, he mostly just relieved that the balloons were finally about to be in his possession. Not exactly the memorable childhood moment we had imagined! We had to laugh.

That said, Tyler did really enjoy being surrounded by all of the balloons, especially the black ones, as they're his favorite color. Now I have to get creative and figure out what to do with them all!

I think we may keep this one as a New Year's tradition. We have a whole year to figure out how to make it more of a true surprise!

What New Year's traditions do you follow in your home?

Blog Stats 2011: Who, Where and What!

2011-12-31T15:47:00.003-05:00

I thought it may be interesting, at least to me, to take a look at my blog stats for 2011! Well, really they're my blog stats since starting my blog at the end of November 2010, but there wasn't really anyone aware of my little blog until later, so while the stats are skewed with that last month included, it's very slightly. I think this will be neat for me to look back on next year to see how much this site has (hopefully!) grown and changed. Here goes!

Peaceful Parenting is read in so many countries around the world, often in places that surprise and delight me, but these are the top ten, in order. I truly love how Montessori connects us all!

United States

Canada

Australia

Poland

United Kingdom

Germany

France

Indonesia

Italy

Czech Republic

Thank you so much to everyone who has pinned my ideas, shared my blog on BabyCenter, Facebook, in forums and your own blogs, as well as those hosting link-ups! The top sources of traffic from specific websites are as follows, in order:

Facebook

Google

BabyCenter

The Adventures of Bear

1+1+1=1

Living Montessori Now

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Discovery Days and Montessori Moments

The Work Plan

The most popular blog posts on Peaceful Parenting this year, in order of popularity, were:

Our Montessori Home with 2,196 views!

Infant and Young Toddler Montessori: Part Two with 1,024 views

Work is calming with 779 views

Classic Game Week! with 771 views

12 new Montessori-inspired works...and other thoughts. with 705 views

DIY: Counting Boards with Sandpaper Numerals with 520 views

Shapes, Colors, Sizes and Patterns! with 495 views

New on our Montessori shelves with 446 views

Common Montessori Myths with 425 views

Interactive Montessori-Inspired Christmas Display! with 423 views

Other Stats:

The total number of hits Peaceful Parenting had in 2011 (this is amazing to me...): 39, 217

Total number of followers with Google Friend Connect: 142

Total number of "likes" on Peaceful Parenting's Facebook page: 292

I have been pretty terrible about advertising the Twitter account I started in late October, so I currently have only 30 followers.

Thank you all so much for reading as well as for keeping me motivated to write and prepare more fun and educational activities for Tyler! Happy New Year and all the best in 2012!