Last 21 month post (Practical life)

At the beginning I was all gung ho with the practical life monthly update posts. I still am but don't have as much to tell as I listed most of the things L does in the first couple of posts. This has been a hard month for me for a number of reasons so it feels like I've let some practical life things slip. Sometimes I just think it's not worth the energy if she isn't into it. One of those things is clearing her table. She still sets it but as there is not incentive to clear it she just wants to get on with other things(don't we all!).

Some things that she has been doing are:

Practising putting lids on and off of jars. She's had this activity for months and always comes back to it. She loves getting the treasures out and always remembers which jar they go back into.
As I mentioned in a previous post she's also been cutting some of her own food. I'm hoping to get around to showing her how to spread soon as well.
We are also working on getting her own toilet paper and pulling up her own pants which is difficult because they keep getting stuck on her bum!

She also puts her shoes away. Sensitive period for order anyone? : )

Some potty anecdotes: (don't worry not too gross!)

For Christmas we got L a doll that came with a small potty and sink thinking it would come in really handy when potty training. It turns out we didn't use it for that purpose but now that she is potty trained she loves to have all of her dolls and babies sit on the potty and then flush it (it makes a really satisfying flushing sound). A few weeks ago I was in another room and L was playing "potty" with her dolls. I could hear her saying "now doll do a pee", "now L do a pee" but didn't think much of it until she came to me with the tiny doll potty full of pee!! She was so proud of herself and of course there was pee everywhere. One of those times when you don't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry. Anyway we had a conversation about where L does her pees and where dolls do their pees and haven't had a repeat thank goodness!

It seems like since she's been potty trained L's favorite pastime is having all of her dolls, animals and everything else go to the bathroom. Everything that is dirty seems to have poo on it and if she is convinced that any of her clothes have poo or pee on them (which they don't) there is no way she will wear them until they are washed.

Yesterday when I was out I got L a package of 12 little tropical frogs. She was having a blast playing with them and I wasn't paying much attention when I heard "go pee". Turns out all of the frogs were having a turn doing a pee on her caterpillar pattern block frame and then getting pretend toilet paper to wipe and wash their hands!!! Don't ask my why that was their toilet. Too funny!

Nature's Rainbow

Today L and I went out for a long walk at our favorite park. It was a beautiful day but I can already feel the air changing from summer to fall. It seems like the summer has just flown by (at least the weather part!). Life sure changes when you have a young child. We were up and at the park by 9am on a Sunday morning!
I have been excited to try out this idea I saw on a number of blogs at the beginning of the summer but have been waiting until L was a bit older. Today was the day. So simple yet so cool!

I painted on the colors ahead of time. We'd been to this park recently so I knew which colors we would be sure to find. At first I had to point things out to L but she soon got the hang of it.

I think I enjoyed this activity even more than L and I can see us doing it again and again. Once she's older it would be great to just find all different hues of green or all fall colors. I'm going to have to get some more paint as I only have white and the primary colors and I don't think my mixing skills extend that far!

Puzzles, puzzles all day long

I found these animal puzzles and also some construction vehicle puzzles at the boot fair for 50p! They are 3,4,5 and 6 pieces and L can't get enough of them. This is the first time that I have really seen a sensitive period so blatantly in action! She does them over and over again. I like these puzzles because she has to first sort them into piles and once she has done one she has to push it off of the mat to clear a space for the next one. They are not only teaching her about puzzles but also how to organise her work space.

I also made up this song for cleaning the puzzles up. Something along the lines of This is the way we.... but we would sing L.... is putting the elephant away, elephant away, elephant away, L.... is putting the elephant away into the box. I've also tried it in other areas like clearing her table and it seems to be transferable. Woohoo! Simple but it works a treat at the moment and I'm milking it for all it's worth while I can!

I also found some great African animal cards at the boot fair for 10p. They have very detailed descriptions on the back which we can use later on. After looking through them L matched her animals to the ones on the cards. There was a similar activity posted on The Wonder Years a little while ago.

Problem

I was just checking out The Artful Parent and she's got some great art activities that I want to try out with L. That brings me to the point of this post. There are so many amazing blogs out there. Too many amazing blogs!! Does anyone else feel totally amazing blog overloaded?

I'm finding I just can't decide if I should follow or bookmark. How many blogs can one follow? How many bookmarks can one have? I'm already getting confused with the ones I have. I'm trying to keep everyone straight (who has how many kids, where they're from, if they're teachers or homeschoolers etc. ) and then I go and stumble across yet another amazing blog that I just have to follow in fear of loosing it again in cyberspace oblivion!

I can't believe that I've only just come across such blogs as Adventures of A Rainbow Mama and DomesticallyBlissed. Hello where have I been? Then there's the fantastic new blog Sunrise Learning Lab and the lovely Anne at itty bitty love who's posts always put a smile on my face. Of course there's also my all time favorites, Making of a Montessori Mum, The Wonders Years and Chasing Cheerios who I'm always excited to read new posts from. That's only the tip of the iceberg. There's soooo many more!

OK I think this has ended up turning into a bit of a blog love fest! Anyway just wondering if anyone else is amazing blog overloaded and how they are dealing with it?

What we did with the cutouts

This is what we did with the cardboard cutouts from the pattern block frames I made. Glued pom poms to them! L was a lot more interested in putting the glue on than the pom poms.

We used the rest of them to reenact The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

We inserted some healthier vegetarian options for some of the food and were having great fun until L decided to pull all of the pom poms off of the butterfly. I have to say I got quite frustrated and had to step back and remind myself that this was supposed to be for her and not me! : ) We can always glue them back on (I'm sure she'll love that!)

More cardboard creations

I've been picking through our recycling pile again to make these recent activities. L is big time into puzzles at the moment so I thought I'd try and make some personalised ones. This one is of her and her Dedo who lives in Macedonia. I found a four piece puzzle template here, glued the picture onto a piece of cardboard and then traced the template onto it and cut it out. It's a bit fragile (just like most of my homemade things!) but I figure it teaches her to be gentle and take care. I would like to make lots of these puzzles with her far away relatives on them but I think we'll have to get a new ink cartridge first.

I saw these pattern block mats on a blog somewhere (sorry can't remember which one) and thought I'd try them out with L. I got the templates from here. First of all I just printed them off on paper and let L try them. They were a bit too slippery so I made cardboard frames so the pieces stay in place more easily.

She especially likes the caterpillar.

As you can see because I made them myself they are not all uniform and I will have to cut down some of the shapes so they fit in the frame better.

Cutting Food

I just have to mention this amazing site that my mom found that is filled with any type of coloring sheet you could imagine. I love it because most of the pictures are very realistic. Check it out here if you haven't heard of it before.

L got the Melissa and Doug cutting food for Christmas and has always enjoyed playing with it but last week I actually gave her a lesson on how to cut the food properly. I was surprised that she picked it up so well and follows all of the steps (including cutting it on the chopping board).

After a week of practice with the play food I decided to try her with a banana. I put some small guide cuts in to show her where to put the knife.

She got the idea and was soooo proud of herself for cutting her own banana. I think we'll practice with a few more bananas and then I'll move on to some other soft fruit like strawberries.