Tot School

We had a busy week of school and other activities last week.  So busy, I couldn't get to the computer to write about it!  So busy, in fact, I forgot to take a lot of pictures.  But I guess that's how you know we've been working hard!

This week I presented part of the "metal insets" to E.  We don't actually have metal insets, we are just using our geometric cabinet.  I discovered a few weeks ago that she could trace the inside of a stencil, so I wanted to pull this out for her.  She was so excited about it!  Right now, we are only working on the first step, tracing the inside of the frame. 

E also really likes the new language works I've put out this fall.  The Laurie word puzzles are her favorites right now.

She has also done some beginning sound sorting with our alphabet box and the alphabet cards from Montessori for Everyone.

She does not choose sensorial work very often.  I certainly hope that changes as she gets a bit older!  But this week she did choose to work with the matrushka dolls.  (Ours are from the Simpsons - ha!)

Practical life work this week included things like sweeping pom poms off the floor and helping to clear the table and load the dishwasher after dinner.

We started our apple unit this week, and did a couple of art projects.  E painted green leaves onto a tree trunk, and then glued red pom poms down for apples. 

Later in the week, we did some apple printing (though the final product doesn't really look like it!) and made a letter A for Apple Prints to hang on our alphabet wall.

You may remember one of my goals for school this year is to get outside more.  We had planned to go on a short hike in the mountians this week, but then there was this fire.  So we settled for taking a walk around a pond near our house and playing at the park.  Still lots of fun, and hopefully the fires (yes, now there are more than one!) will be calmed down by the end of this week and we can go to the mountians then.

I'll be linking this post up to Toddler Tuesday and Tot School.

First Day of School!

Today was the day!  I've been preparing materials, organizing shelves, and talking up "school time" with E for the last couple of weeks, and we finally started school today.  She was so excited to start!

E did great work today.  I am AMAZED at the change in just two months.  She is truely ready for these materials.  When we were working with our friend K, there was a lot of whining and "You [I] can't do that."  Today, E eagerly chose materials off the shelves and would have worked much longer than the hour and a half I had allotted, if we didn't have other places to be this morning!

We started our day with our Morning Song.  Really, we start every day with this song, singing as we get dressed. 

Morning has come, rise with the sun.

Come, now, and sing, everyone.

Morning has come, rise with the sun.

Give good cheer.

After our morning song, we talked about the weather using our chart from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

The first work E chose was her shape stacker.  She just played with it for a little while, and eventually we worked on fitting together the square shapes, and sorting the shapes into their correct piles.  We didn't work on biggest to smallest so much today.

After that, E chose to work with a new material - some CVC Laurie puzzles.  I have "cat" and "dog" out on the shelf so far.  We worked with one puzzle at a time and talked about beginning and ending sounds.  She's good with beginning sounds, but I don't think she really understands what I'm talking about when I ask about the ending sounds.

Then we did some geometry work - both the geometric cabinet and the geometric solids.  She chose the rectangle drawer and just did it like a puzzle.  We reviewed the names of the geometric solids, and I showed her the cards I made with pictures of other objects that match the solids.  Right now I have out rectangular prisms and spheres.  Together, we sorted the cards to fit with the correct solid.  Rectangular prisms were things like a tissue box and a train car.  Spheres were things like an orange and a soccer ball.

Some more sensory work followed, as we built a tower with the green knobless cylinders.  This required a lot of help from me, constantly reminding her what she was looking for (the largest cylinder).

Her best work of the morning was pouring lentils.  She must have poured for 15 minutes!  We also got to have a lesson (or three) with the broom and dustpan.  She was so proud of herself that she cleaned up her own mess!

While E was pouring, I pulled out a tweezing work - apple buttons into a flower ice cube tray.  Of course, she had to do the work after me.

To end our morning, we put together our giant Alphabet Train floor puzzle.  I helped with alphabetical order, but she found all the pieces and put them together.  And then had great fun pushing it along the carpet!

What a morning!  After all THAT, we went for craft time at church, and then out to lunch to celebrate our first day of school.  Now I think I need a nap.  :)

Linking up to Toddler Tuesday at One Hook Wonder

Friday's Book Basket

I have three gems to share with you today! 

First up, an old favorite.  Every week on Monday I ask E what kinds of books she wants to look for at the library.  We go to the library on Tuesdays.  This week she wanted pony stories and Elmer.  Elmer by David McKee is such a cute book.  Elmer doesn't look like all the other elephants and decides to paint himself elephant color to fit in.  E loves the last couple of pages where all the other elephants paint themselves up like Elmer!  Be on the lookout for a stART project soon using this book!

Another favorite this week was Inch by Inch  by Leo Lionni.  We love Lionni books at our house.  This one is about a clever inchworm who escapes being eaten by several different birds.  Inch by Inch was our book for our letter I playdate this week.  We made inchworm breadsticks for a snack and made our letter I for ice cream picture a la No Time For Flashcards.

E's favorite book this week was Sylvie by Jennifer Sattler.  This was a new one for us!  Sylvie the flamingo asks her mom why flamingos are pink.  Her mom tells her it's because of all the little pink shrimp they eat.  This gets Sylvie thinking . . . what if she ate something else?  E especially loved the page with the paisley swimming suit (of course). 

Do you have any favorite books to share this week?  Leave a comment!

Craft Corner: Train Table

Once upon a time, there was a very ugly table.  A VERY VERY UGLY table.  With fake wood veneer that was buckled and peeling off.  But it had cute legs - isn't that always important?  And it was a good size, and pretty sturdy.  And so it sat in the storage room, getting dusty and spiderwebby, waiting to be thrown away or turned into something awesome.

Then E needed a train table for her tracks, and I thought of that UGLY table again! 

So I peeled off as much of the veneer as I could, and hot-glued some felt to the top.

Trimmed up the sides and glued them down as close to the edge of the table as I could. 

And voila!  Just like new, but better, because it has a purpose now.  And I still have felt leftover to make a felt board.  (The original reason for purchasing navy felt.)

We Play: Outside

We had some outdoor fun last week with my sister.  She has a wildlife biology degree, and had a good time teaching E about some of the plants in our area.  E learned about gumweed, wild onions, gullys, and got to smell a ponderosa pine tree.  (What - you've never done this?  It smells like butterscotch!)  She got pretty good at spotting the onions and gumweed!

Off we go on the trail! 
Don't ask me why she's wearing
stickers as bandaids, though.

Looking at some plants with Auntie

Smelling a Ponderosa

E the hiker!

Friday's Book Basket

Welcome to week two of Friday's Book Basket!  This week, we have a lovely version of The Ugly Duckling to share with you!  Retold and illustrated by Rachel Isadora, it is set in Africa.  E and I loved looking at all the different animals that lived on the farm - giraffe, lizzard, meerkat, monkeys.  The Ugly Duckling grows up to be a black swan!  I always loved looking at the black swans at the zoo when I was a kid.  The illustrations are very colorful and remind me of Eric Carle.  We've had some good conversations about speaking nicely to other people, and how it feels to get your feelings hurt as a result of this book. 

One of E's favorite books this week was Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale by Marcus Pfister.  We love the Rainbow Fish books around here.  Yesterday, E told me Rainbow Fish was one of her favorite things in the whole world!  I guess that's a pretty good endorsement.  If you haven't happened to read any of these books yet, start out with The Rainbow Fish.  After that, there are a bunch of adventure stories featuring the same characters, and this is one of them.  I love that the author uses lots of different words.  The fish were terrified of the whale, they ate krill, when they were angry they spoke hostile words (the book is about an argument).

 
Babies by David Bedford and Leonie Worthington is a cute, simple lift-the-flap book.  We got it because of the meerkats on the cover.  E has a thing for meerkats.  It's a simple poem about what different baby animals do.  E loved to pretend to dress herself in the meerkat's swimming suit (does anybody else's kids do this?  Hillarious!) and play the fox babies' maracas and tambourine.  This week we just read the book and enjoyed the pictures, but I can see it as a good jumping-off point to learn about these different animals (especially the turtle babies, who "know the way back").

A Quick Question

I've been curious about E's language development recently.  She has her pronouns mixed up!  Instead of "I", when talking about herself she says "you."  And when she is talking to someone, that person is always "I" or "me." 

I understand where the confusion is coming from.  I am wondering how to correct it.  Or do I just ignore it and she'll figure it out eventually?  I have tried correcting her language, saying "Say "I" want a snack," or "Say, do you like pink, mommy?"  This just makes her mad!  She knows I understand what she's talking about!  I've also tried explaining to her (as much as you can explain to a 2 year old) that E is "I", and mommy and daddy are "you."

Any suggestions?  I'm not too worried about it at this point, more curious.  I do wonder if she will correct herself eventually, but she's so STUBBORN about it sometimes!