New Materials

Yay for new materials (and a free moment to finally blog about them)! My order from Kid Advance Montessori arrived a while ago and Ty has had mixed reactions. I've found some are just too difficult for him right now and some he doesn't yet care for. I was overall pleased with the transaction and shipping time with this company and was delighted in a low (for Montessori stores) $10 shipping rate.

His favorite has been the cylinders, as I assumed. He stopped playing with the cylinder work that I made for him as it was too easy, so I knew he needed the next step up.This is a small set (very small) of Mini Cylinders that vary in diameter and height (four works total). I am somewhat pleased with them. They cylinders don't fit perfectly so I did have to sand them just a bit. Also, the cylinders that fit by height shouldn't also be different diameters as far as I am aware, so that was a bit odd and I should have noticed that in the photo online. Though their are four works, two are exactly the same as well.

It is quite a challenge for Ty to use the pincer grasp to place and remove the cylinders correctly (by the knobs) because of their itty-bitty size. They serve a purpose for sure, but I will be more excited to purchase the true, full-size cylinders as a second birthday present in August.

Another purchase was a Twist and Sort. He isn't too thrilled with this yet. He expected to be able to simply fit the piece onto the dowel and let it drop, not to have to turn the piece twice. After the first twist down he's had enough and finds something else to do. He tends to have preconcieved notions about things that are similar and this just doesn't fit what he expects. I'll introduce it again after a while.

This Airplane Puzzle by Guidecraft is expecptinally nice and he loves that it's an airplane, but it's too advanced for him right now. I admit to making an impulse purchase with this one and not really looking at it closely enough. It will be a great puzzle to pull out of the closet for him down the road a bit.

I bought him his first Dressing Frame (large buttons) in this order as well. I haven't really sat down with him to demonstrate this yet, but think he may take to it when I do. The fabric was very tight and even I had to struggle a bit to button, so I needed stretch the material a bit, which lukily wasn't difficult. I will likely make my own dressing frames for him in the future, but I wanted to see exactly how they're created first. This has given me a good reference point.

The Pink Tower has fast become one of his favorite things to do right now. With all of the pieces laid out randomly on the rug last week, I watched him walk into the room and stack them in the correct order, self-correcting and completing it in no time. Wow Ty! So glad my camera was close by!

Ty has had a bit of what my husband and I are calling a "brain spurt" the last several days and he shockingly isn't into stacking much anymore, but has moved onto other things of interest. He still enjoys the tower very much, but instead likes to lay them horizontally and have me talk about big and small while he points them out. Yesterday he took five blocks out of the box, lay them horizontally by size and seemed to give me a silent demonstration, sweeping his hand from big to small, pointing at each and looking at me as if to say "do you understand, Mama?". It was incredibly cute and rewarding!