Those Pesky Blueberries!

As I mentioned in an earlier post L is really big on dental health and brushing her teeth at the moment.  She is paranoid about getting cavities.
The other day she had lunch with my mom and had some fresh blueberries for dessert.  After lunch she went to the toilet and while she was washing her hands she looked at her teeth in the mirror.  Well she came out of the bathroom to my mom and her face was a study.  She was horrified and said " Granny, I have cavities in my molars!!".
My mom tried not to laugh and suggested she brush her teeth and see what would happen.
Phew crisis averted it was only bits of blueberries!

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You know your child is Montessori when....

I recently posted about L's fish Charlotte that she got for Easter.  The other day we were talking and I asked her how she liked having her own pet which was her responsibility to feed and look after to which she replied, "I'm going to show Charlotte how to look after herself" !

I couldn't help but laugh.

The influence of Daddy and ......

As many of you know the Montessori Method is all about keeping children in reality.  I am kind of on the fence on this one I guess.  I really like a lot of the ideas in the Waldorf philosophy as well and the former blog Childhood Magic really helped me see the benefits of children having fantasy and imaginative play in their early lives.

So like I said I'm on the fence.  L doesn't watch TV or cartoons.  We do however have a few DVDs that she watches such as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and The March of the Penguins.  Some reality based and some not.  We also read her a variety of both kinds of books.  I think L has a pretty good understanding of real animals and pretend cartoon ones.  We also watch a lot of videos on Youtube.  I think this is a fantastic learning tool.  We've watched Kookaburras laughing, African dancing, children's songs and many other things.  I do however preview all of the videos before we watch them together and am very strict on what she can watch.

My husband on the other hand really doesn't understand why I don't want L watching TV and any video she wants.  After a long battle I think I've finally succeeded on the TV thing.  Youtube however is another story.  Somehow he thinks if it's on Youtube it's not the same as TV.  Hmmmm.

Anyhow the other day when we were leaving our music class about Australia and didgeridoos L said next week I'd like to do music from Antarctica.  I said well since nobody lives there there isn't really any music from Antarctica.  L replied "Yes there is Papa Pinguin!".

ARRRRGGGGG!!!  DADDY!   I admit it is a catchy song and we've danced to it before but I wouldn't show her the video.  I tried to explain that it was just "pretend" and that there is no real music from Antarctica and as we were driving away I heard her say "I'm sure I saw snow there."


Check out this great article by Pilar Bewley on Keeping it Real Montessori Style
What do you think?

What we heard this Christmas.....

L has been saying and singing some super cute things and I just wanted to record them before I forget...

There was a man on Christmas Day and Santa was his name-O! S-A- auntie-O!

I hope our Santa is small so he can fit down our chimney!

Last night both my husband and my mom were out (which is a very rare occurrence)so I put L to bed and as I was about to kiss her good night she said "Mommy what are you going to do now? Talk to yourself?"

Jingle bells, Jingle bells jingle all the way oh what fun it is to ride on a one horse slope and hay!

Daddy-L what would you like for Christmas this year? 
L-A present.
D-What kind of present?
L-One with paper on it.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

I just wanted to get down a few things L said this week so I can remember them later!

When she was looking at one of her wooden doll puppets from Hungary. "This doll is similar to Mary Poppins.  They both have rosy cheeks!"   My question is when did she start saying "similar"??

After a friend had come over to look after L for an hour while mommy and daddy were out
Me "How did things go with MJ?"
L "Well...it's complicated"

Last night while I was reading a book to L before bed and I had an attack of about five sneezes in a row.  L said "Mommy, cough away from the book!"

Check out what other littles are saying at Not Before 7!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

L has been saying some hilarious things (at least to us!)lately and I wanted to record them before we forgot.

Having a conversation with Granny
G-where does Aunty S live?
L-in England
G-and what about Aunty K?
L-in Canada
G-Yes and what continent is that? North America
L-Good thing they don't live in Antarctica.  They'd be freezing!

L out on her bike with me walking beside her.  We stopped to chat to a couple of ladies along the way.  After a minute of questions L looks at me and says "Mommy, lets take off!"

Driving home from swimming in the car
L-Where are we going?
Daddy-We're going home.
L-I don't want to go home.
D-Would you like to live on the street?
L-Well, I might get flattened by a car!

Talking about going hiking
Me-I hope there are no bears there. (kind of serious comment actually)
L-Maybe we can all grow wings or buy some and then we can fly away like birds........or fairies.

Check out what others are saying at Not Before 7.
(I'm not sure how to get the picture to link directly by clicking on it. If anyone can help me I would really appreciate it. I'm pretty technically challenged )

Early green thumb and the crappy side of Montessori!

I am so lucky that my mom has been able to share her love of gardening with L.  In the spring the two of them planted their little vegetable garden with peas, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes,broccoli, cauliflower and two strawberry plants.

This has been such an amazing learning experience on so many levels. 

L can see how plants grow and produce food.

She learns to tend and take care of plants.

She learns the patience of waiting until something is completely ripe before picking it and eating it. 

Every morning after breakfast L checks the garden to see what is ripe and ready for the picking.  Lately it's been peas which she picks and we all eat from the shells.

Yesterday it was the prized strawberry she's been checking on for weeks.  She was soo proud and savoured every last bite!

Today she came into my bed(I was lucky enough to have a lie in)and woke me up showing me her very first teeny tiny carrot that was shaped like an L.

Next year L and her granny have even bigger plans and will be researching ways to keep slugs and other pests away from their prized plants!

*Warning talk of poo coming up*

With it being summer all of us have been enjoying all of the wonderful fresh fruit.  Especially L.  This has lead as you can imagine to some seriously soft bowel movements! The other day L had an accident in her underwear so my mom took her to the bathroom.  While L was on her little toilet my mom rinsed out her underwear first in the toilet, then in the sink and hung them over the bathtub to dry.
Well my little Montessori girl watched the whole thing with wide eyes.  Next day at around the same time L was in the bathroom and all was quite.  I went to check on her to find her underwear hanging on the side of the bathtub again.  I asked her what she'd done and she said " I had an accident so I washed them in the toilet then hung them up"
Yikes! What can you say to that!! The next day it happened again and I realised I'd better nip this new not so desirable activity in the bud.  We've cut down a bit on the fruit and go to the toilet together at "poo" time now!

Another cute little poo story.  L always likes to sit on her little toilet and read books while she's doing her business.  The other day she told my mom she was going to do a poo.  She sat down on her toilet and said" I'm just going to read my Poocock book" not realising her slip.  A second later she did realise what she said and fell about on the floor in a state of giggles.  So did my mom!

Not much to tell...

Well this week has been a little skimpy on anything too interesting. L and I have both had bad colds and haven't really been doing too much. We have done quite a few practical life things like cutting up and serving cantaloupe and washing the car. We also had a wonderful playdate with one of the children from the Montessori school L will be attending and his mother. I can't wait for her to be able to socialize with all the children in the fall she is soo ready.

Now spring is here L is helping Granny in the garden and we are starting to plan what we are going to plant in the vegetable garden. This is a good thing because today we were walking on the board walk along the beach and I asked L what she thought it was made of. She said wood so I asked her where she thought wood came from. "The wood store" was her reply. Hmmmm Vegetable garden is definitely the next thing on my list.

Not Long Now!!

Thanks everyone for the great advice. In the little spare time I have I've been making some projects up for the trip. I will take my camera and see if I can get any pics along the way. We're leaving on Thursday and still have TONS to do. My next post will probably be from Canada! Yippee!!
Poor L. The other day she was doing some baking with Granny and went to get her dustpan and broom to clean up a spill. Of course it wasn't there and she said "Oh no! It's already in Canada!"

Fruit or Vegetable Conundrum

When I first bought the Amazing Sticker Book one of the activities I'd imagined doing with L was classifying fruits and vegetables. One night I got to work putting all of the stickers on cardboard backings and cutting them out. I thought I'll just check on a couple to see if they are actually classified as fruits or vegetables. WELL little did I know what I was getting myself into.

Scientifically speaking according to botanists a fruit is anything that has seeds. So this makes many of our well loved vegetables technically fruits!

“To really figure out if a tomato is a fruit or vegetable, you need to know what makes a fruit a fruit, and a vegetable a vegetable. The big question to ask is, DOES IT HAVE SEEDS?
If the answer is yes, then technically, you have a FRUIT. This, of course, makes your tomato a fruit. It also makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and walnuts all fruits as well. VEGETABLES such as, radishes, celery, carrots, and lettuce do NOT have seeds (that are part of what we eat) and so they are grouped as vegetables.”Read more: http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/fruit_or_vegetable_#ixzz0SgDdoUWr

Of course in the culinary world the classifications are completely different. So I'm thinking where do I start. My daughter isn't even two! Do I really want her to go to school telling the teacher that a cucumber and pepper are actually fruits? No. I took the easy way out and decided we'd just look at and name them all and leave the classification to someone more qualified in these matters ; )

Silly mommy! When we got to the aubergine(eggplant) L asked "what is this?" so trying to be smart since we are moving to Canada I said it's an eggplant. L replies "oh, is it like an aubergine?". Hmm I think this goes into the ever growing outsmarted by a toddler category!!

Europe, Africa....

About a month ago I was reading a post on Chasing Cheerios about her daughter learning the continents and singing the Continents Song. My first mistake was listening to the song on YouTube with L right there. She loved it and asked for it again and again. Now any time I'm on the computer she asks for the Continents Song. We've played it so much that we all know it by heart. She also watches the graphics on the screen and any time she she's a map or globe she starts to sing Europe, Africa...

Last week when I went to the boot fair I found this for only 50p!

What a find! It's like a continents Twister game. At the moment she just loves to dance all over it while singing the song but I'm sure she'll soon learn where all of the continents are. I know it's plastic and doesn't have Antarctica on it but for now it's just for fun. Once we really start to learn about continents and maps etc. I'll paint Antarctica on or something! We also put all of her stuffed animals onto their home continents and although she didn't really understand we had a blast doing it.
I fished out a little Koala bear that I''ve had for ages, because we didn't have any Australian animals. It has a hat and a boomerang. She was very interested and so we went to the computer to look at pictures of real Koala bears. L looked at me and said, "those ones having no hats"!