She made a boot!

It's "A. and Daddy day" Yay! You may remember we started having the weekly special day for them as inspired by the "Pee Pee Protest". So I'm home alone (relaxing sigh) and I just remembered that A. made a boot. Maybe it's just our household which includes extended family (A.'s Mama and Papa); and what grandparent isn't impressed with everything a grandchild does) but we were blown away by what she did. She was doing her cutting activity which involves just getting out the scissors and cutting away at the paper I have provided at that time. It usually degrades into paper tearing but oh well. She says to me "Mommy I'm going to make a boot". Well, I just thought Ok, sure that probably won't happen because you aren't even 2.5 years old yet, but of course I said " OK, I can't wait to see it!" So a few minutes later she excitedly is trying to get my attention (because I admit I find it hard sometimes to observe her doing her activities at all moments) "Mommy look at my boot, I made a boot". And here it is. I was shocked! She was so proud she went to show everyone and they were all shocked as well. It's so cute that little green boot!

Pickle Pinching, yes you read that right!

I was digging through "the drawer". You know, the one that is so full of junk that you can barely open it. So when you finally do open it you have to make sure nothing is sticking up in the wrong manner before you close it which would forever prevent you from opening it again?! Well, I came across our Pickle Pincher. That is the name it is marketed under! It is of course, for getting pickles out of jars and it works really well but we don't eat enough pickles for it to have a coveted place in the utensil drawer. I thought I'd try it out as a motor skill transferring activity. You have to press the red button plunger on the end of the pincher which causes 3 little metal prongs to protrude outwards. You then have to line up the prongs around the object and depress the plunger to grasp the object. I wasn't too sure if it would be too challenging but she did it without too much difficulty.

She preferred to place the object from the first basket onto the table with her fingers and than to "pinch" it with the pickle pincher to transfer it.

Aa. was into it for the first go around but it has sat on the shelf since. I have realized that I'm failing in the area of re-demonstrating activities.

I'm thinking of making a chart of all of the activities we have on the shelves and then marking when they are used so I can keep track of what is being accomplished (or not) and what I need to do to facilitate or extend the activity. Does anyone have a chart like this? If so I'd be interested to know how you set it up . If you don't have a chart how do you keep track of what's being used, learned, mastered etc.? Please share!

Crafty Camping Day 2

Camping day 2 involved a challenging hike to the top of Yeoward Mountain in Beautiful British Columbia, one craft activity when we limped back into camp and then going to bed at the same time as Aa.-girl. Worn out indeed!

We were up at 6am to try to beat the heat on our long hike. This was a change from the last 2 weeks as Aa. has been sleeping in to ~8am (so wonderful after the 5:30-6am awakenings before that) (I can't complain too much though because Aa.-girls Mama lives upstairs and more often than not she'll just go straight up and wake up Mama for breakfast) Love Mama! So either Aa. is in Vacation Mode or she's having a growth spurt.

We started the hike at 8am and promptly became separated from the group due to some mis-communication. So with 30 lbs of hiking pack and 2 year old on my back I was plodding as fast as I could to try to catch up with most of the people I figured were ahead of us. Some backtracking and attempt to use tracking skills from watching "Mantracker" on the National Geographic channel occurred. It was quite frustrating and a little unnerving not knowing which paths to follow. Some ground would not give up it's secrets as to wether any hiking boots had tread upon it. I became reserved to just hike alone with Aa.-girl and find our own way to the top. (There was some two finger loud whistling and some yelling at the top of lungs but to no avail) At last we came around a corner and there was Grandma and some of her women friends taking a break! Yay, yay yay!! We had gone the correct way! We then had a well deserved break and Aa. hiked for about 20 minutes on her own two legs which was a welcome rest for me. I felt as light as a feather after lugging her around up the mountain for an hour at top speed.

A couple of hours later found us in an alpine meadow teeming with beautiful flowers. So wonderful! The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Epic Sky

After a well earned lunch atop some lichen covered rocks, we made our way ever upwards, Aa. hiking on her own again. She became inspired to frolic in the flowers.

A little further up and we came to a patch of snow! Aa. was so excited and didn't want to leave the snow to finish the hike. We inticed her by suggesting that there may be more snow patches up higher on the mountain... and there was! At the very top was another patch which was special because it was watermellon snow. This is snow that has a pink tinge from an algae that grows on it in alpine regions and smells like fresh watermellon. I'd always wanted to see it and there it was. It smelled wonderful and made me wish for some watermellon to eat. When we pointed out to Aa. that the snow was pink and smelled like watermellon she exclaimed her patented "YEEEAAAAHHH!!!"

The view from a few hundred meters from the top.

We marked our accomplishment with an inukshuk.

We made! 3.5 hours and 2130Meters up! Now we have to go back down! I'm quite proud to say I carried 30lbs of kid all the way up the mountain. Many people asked if I wanted help but I was headstrong and determined to do it. (Boy did I pay for it later... and the next day and the next day and....)

Gorgeous Alpine flowers

The most precious thing about having Aa-girl with me on the hike was that; unlike me who has my eye on the goal ahead, she never forgets to stop and smell the flowers...

Once I limped back to the campsite (literally) we decided to do an easy and fun craft again from the book "Camp Out" while dinner was being prepared. It is called "Fern Smash T-Shirt". One plain shirt, a piece of cardboard the width and length of the body of the shirt to slip inside of it, a few choice leaves, a piece of paper and a blunt rock for smashing and you're ready to go.

You just slip the cardboard in the shirt to prevent the back of the shirt from being printed, lay some fresh leaves in a nice arrangement on the front of the shirt, lay a piece or paper over the leaves and start smashing the leaves with the rock while making sure to smash each part of the leaves while keeping them from moving around.

We were surprised at how well it turned out. I neglected to suggest to Aa.-girl that she wear her art smock while doing our camping art activities and she got paints from the leaf printing onto the shirt. It turned out to not be very water soluble paint so now she has a fern smash t-shirt with some leaf print paint dabs. It will be a fun reminder of a wonderful camping trip!

Out on the range and making rainbows

We're on our visiting spree which may sound hurried and whirlwind, but we are definitely stopping to smell the roses (and the sagebrush)! Aa.'s Grandpa J's girlfriend needed to collect some sage to decorate the front porch of the General Store on the ranch where she works.

Aa.-girls first foray onto the rangeland. We were enveloped in a warm fragrant wind and accompanied by cattle dog Ricky. It doesn't get any better than that!

After a few days on the ranch which were predominantly spent outdoors, we made it to Grandma and Grandpa T's. Being in a town (and having access to a computer that wasn't on dialup internet; the ranch is wonderful but it has it's downsides too) meant I could go to the dollar store and create some activities. We colored some rice (highly recommended by Jen from Montessori beginnings so we had to try it out!) using primary colors only. This was Aa.-girl's first (I think) (maybe she has done something similar at preschool?) exposure to what color components make up different colors. I made up a chart of the three primary colors and then the combining of the primary colors to produce the secondary colors as well as the order of the rainbow colors. We ended up with 6 colors of the rainbow (we didn't make magenta) and then followed in Jen's footsteps (we do that alot!) and made a rainbow bottle by layering the rice. I extended the activity later by giving Aa. playdough balls of the three primary colors of playdoug and getting her to match them up to the chart I had made.

We then squooshed and squished the dough colors together to make green, orange and purple. She then matched them up to the chart as well.

We finished by lining up the colors according to the rainbow.

Both the "colored rice activity" and the "making playdough colors activity" were great as they required all aspects of Montessori philosophy: sensorial (looking at the different colors), motor (mixing and squishing), cognitive (understanding how colors are made as well as matching up colors) practical life (clean-up was extensive with the rice; I shook a rice bag too vigorously and made a mess! That's OK Aa. loves to sweep!) Language (naming the colors) social (we had to work together to create our colors) We loved these activities and we're looking forward to making more colored rice to use in craft projects.

A few more days here at Grandma and Grandpa T.'s and we'll be off camping. First time putting Aa.-girl in a real heavy-duty hiking carrier. I can't wait to be surrounded by the calming energy of the forest trees while we hike along together. Every day with Aa. is better than the next. Her language skills are blowing me away and we have extensive conversations now. Bedtime gets longer and longer because that is when we have our most intimate chats. It used to be that I'd want the routine to be fairly quick so I could get everything done so that I could move on to finishing household chores and then relax with my husband. I now soak up every precious moment while Aa. recaps with delight what we did that day and who she is grateful for. Sigh... my little love!

Walking on Water and Mentioning the Unmentionables!

Today we started out by extending A.'s scissor cutting activity(Motor activity,S ensory). I added thicker pieces of paper, thin plastic squares, stiff ribbon, raffia and some yarn. When I was putting it all together I tested out all of the materials by attempting to cut them with her scissors myself. I tried to emulate what I thought her skill and technique would be like and found all of the objects to be cut quite easily. A. had a different experience however! She was getting very frustrated and started to tilt her scissors to the side and rip everything apart. The stiff ribbon , thick paper and raffia seemed to have just the right balance of being challenging but not to the point of frustration. Yarn and plastic were verging on tantrum level frustration so those will be saved for future use! Lesson learned: start off easier than you think they may be ready for because you can always increase the challenge. Now I may have alienated her from cutting with her scissors for a while because I made it too challenging. ;0(

I remembered that A. had lids with built in stamps from a paint set that had long ago been used up and discarded. (Sensory, Motor) We pulled them out and she created for a while. I watered down some paint and poured it into a sponge set on a plate. She learned to gently press the stamp onto the sponge to pick up a bit of paint and then leave her mark. Not bad for a first try. Next session I think I'll make two different colored sponge pads for a more dramatic effect!

Inspired by Jen at Montessori Beginnings, I made up A. a fishing hole. (Motor) So Cute! It consists of:

A plastic tablecloth cut out in a pond shape, sea creature finger puppets with paperclips slipped onto them, A dollar store fishing rod with a magnet "hook", Basket for the creatures, Tray

She caught them all in no time, probably helped immensely that she can walk on water!

I attempted to extend A.'s Sorting By Category activity (Cognitive) by adding another category. She now has pompoms, balls and clothespins. Well that was done in about 15 seconds so I think I'll either have to add about 3 more categories for a total of 6 or start doing a category matching activity such as match the baby animal to the mommy animal. It was interesting to see A.'s developing Order of Mind. She chose to pick out one category and put it in a bowl and then move on to the next category and the next after that. I wonder if this means she will start to finish one type of food on her plate and then eat the next one in succession. I myself like to sample a bit her and a bit there!

A couple of months ago I introduced lacing beads to A. (Motor)She seemed interested but grew frustrated easily. I think part of the problem is that I neglected to reintroduce it enough times. So I've backtracked to using a chopstick instead of the lace as suggested by my inspirational friend Jen. It was a great hit. Soon We'll get back to the laces and if I do it right I'll be hearing "A. did it!" instead of "It's too hard, it's too hard!!!" accompanied by wildly flapping arms.

This is not a practical life activity as endorsed my Maria Montessori! When I state that I'm going to go get dressed A. likes to race ahead and pull out my "unmentionables" and give them to me to put on. Today I neglected to tell her I was going to get dressed and she came in while I was half done. Not seeing how she could help, she proceeded to put on most of my underwear. She managed to get one on correctly and the rest ended up on her hips.

To understand the amount of underwear she managed to get on (18 to be exact) check out the wad on her backside in the mirror! My underwear never looked so cute. I also just noticed that it looks like her feet are disappearing into the carpet! wooooaaaahhhh.....

Cutting it up with the Juice Queen

The day before yesterday was a beautiful day. Now don't get me wrong. Everyday is a beautiful day, however yesterday had that flow that happens when your child/children are happy, easygoing and self-motivated. Happy Happy day! We woke up and right away A. pulled her paper cutting activity (motor skills) down and set to work. I didn't have the heart or inclination to stop her so that she could get dressed and eat breakfast. If she wants to work on something and we don't have any pressing plans then she can go to it. (please pardon the low photo quality. Camera was out of batteries and this is what you get when you try to use your cheap webcam for photos!)

Little tummy soon realized it was hungry so still not dressed she had her fruit. I then asked her if she would like to glue the resulting small pieces of paper from cutting that we had been collecting in a container every time she did the paper cutting activity (motor skills, creativity). By this time it was overflowing. That sounded like a good idea to her so with gluestick in hand (we tried the squeeze bottle but it was almost too difficult for me to get the glue to come out) furious pasting ensued. And I'm not exagerating, it was a furious pace with quick gluestick strokes and paper slapping down onto the artwork. I guess creative inspiration took over for the methodical, thoughtfull approach.

yeah, batteries! Camera in fair working order. Here's the resulting masterpiece. It of course had to be put up on the fridge asap! ( In this collage I see a man rowing a boat, a chicken, and an old lady holding a machine gun. What does that say about me I wonder?) What do you see?

Later in the day, did I say it was a beautiful day? Sunny on the inside and sunny on the outside, we went out to do some gardening. After watering which A. is gloriously happy to do (haven't met a 2 year old who isn't) we decided to harvest some herbs.(motor skills, sensory, practical life) This required giving the oregano plant a good haircut and smelling it's scent for future identification. Aayla ran into the house and came back with her paper cutting scissors so this was all her idea. Way to go mom, why didn't you think of that?! This is actually a picture of her trimming the oregano plant the next day after the newly exposed underleaves had scorched in the sun. She wanted to clear the plant of it's damaged leaves so one by one with meticulous care this time she did just that.

Today, alas, it's a rainy day. Even so I keep hearing "Playground"?, "Go to the playground"? Wet playground equipment may need to be experienced to be a deterrent. However maybe she'll like it and then I'll be in trouble! As on most mornings A. makes her own "juice"(practical life, motor skills). It's a great activity which she is very exuberant about. She has her cup, a packet of powdered fizzy vitamin drink which I open for her, a shot glass with a liquid mineral supplement (raspberry flavor being the favorite), a shot glass with her liquid chlorophyl supplement and a shot glass with her liquid kinder vitamins, a small jug with water and a spoon. She pours everything into the cup and mixes it with the spoon to see the fizz. Drinking it may take place immediately or drag on throughout the day but most days I'm happy to say she gets her needed nutrients!!

Here's A. doing her Sorting By Category activity(cognitive skills). You initially choose 2 different categories such as "animals" or "office supplies" for example. The objects in a category are identical but vary by color so that the child won't try to sort by color. Each object is sorted according to category into 2 bowls. I've only given her 2 categories, each with 5 identical objects. I'm way behind on adding another 1 maybe even 2 categories to make it more challenging for her. As it stands she has 5 pencil erasers and 5 pompoms. Tonight I'll add another category and reintroduce it to her tomorrow. Until then... Happy Montessori mommying!