Toddler Tuesday August 23, 2011

Bitty Bug is 2 years 7 months old

I think this might be my last Toddler Tuesday post.  Right now, Bug has decided to join Monkey for almost every work that’s out, so it’s getting rather difficult to try to separate Toddler from Preschool. 🙂  I think starting next week, Montessori Monday will feature both Bug & Monkey.  Bug thinks she’s a big kid preschooler anyhow. 😉

Since we've had a zoo theme going on for the past few weeks, I wanted to see how Bug would do matching animal models to pictures of real animals. Apparently, this was way too easy for Bug, as she did this work once, and in under 30 seconds. Ooops! Apparently this work would have been better done a year before. 😉

She spent the majority of time wondering why I brought her animals downstairs to the school room. 😉

Bug working with the African animals

 

Bug really loved working with the tray of circles. When she was done, she said "mama! That hard work. I did it!" What a sweet girl!

Bug working with the sea sponge to transfer water from one dish to the other.

Bug's favorite work in the room is still this magnetic fishing game. I'm pretty sure we've had this out for over a year, and she still works with it every single day!

Bug really enjoyed stealing my stapler though. She kept trying to staple every piece of paper she could find (and a couple crayons...I had to put a stop to that one. 😉 ) I'm not sure there are too many things that make Bug more happy than to let her use something that she knows is not a "children's item". She kept trying to staple the paper, then she'd look at the stapler and try to figure out where the staple came from, and then she'd tinker with it trying to figure out how it came out. It was really kind of amazing that a 2 year old can sit there exploring something so simple for so long!

Toddler Tuesday August 10, 2011

Bitty Bug is 2 years 7 months old

Just a random picture of Bug to start out with--she's always trying to make her dresses twirl

 

Bug looking at the Forest in a Box pieces

 

Putting together a puzzle of a cow

 

Bug and Jedi looking at a porcupine quill

 

Using food coloring & water and an eye dropper to make designs in a coffee filter

 

Pouring glass beads from one pitcher to the other

 

Some flowers I made out of pipe cleaners for Bug to put in the holes of the spice jar

 

Bug hammering golf tees into clay

 

Working with clay

 

Scooping rice from the big bowl to the smaller bowls

 

Stacking bead blocks

 

Working with the tool blocks

 

Montessori Monday August 9, 2011

Monkey is 4 years 6 months old

This week has been a rather interesting week for Monkey, primarily outside of the schoolroom.  As you might remember, Monkey has been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder with Selective Mutism.  As you also might remember, we had noticed several cognitive difficulties popping up that were making learning difficult for her.  Well, this past week, we took her back to her former therapist (who happens to be Jedi’s autism therapist), and he has decided to have her assessed for an autism spectrum disorder as well.  If she does have a form of ASD, we would not be surprised, given how similar symptoms of RAD are to ASD.  What does make it surprising is that Monkey will not only have the exact same allergies as the other kids, but will also have the same developmental issues…keeping in mind, Monkey is not biologically related to our other children, this is quite interesting (and somewhat concerning…).  Anyhow, these evaluations should take several weeks, but hopefully we’ll have a better idea of how to help Monkey soon.

In the mean time, we’re doing a lot of trial and error with her.  Since Jedi has autism, we do have several resources under our belt to help academically, socially, and emotionally–it’s just a matter of pinning down what the exact issues are.

And on to what you really came to see….Monkey’s week in review.

Monkey looking at the "forest in a box"...it has various objects that you might find in the forest--bark, acorns, bird egg, cocoon, porcupine quill, etc.

 

Dot painting...one of her favorite activities!

 

Working on the alphabet puzzle

 

Working with the knobbed cylinder

 

Monkey begged to use clay this week, so I brought out the new tub. She *loved* it!

 

Zoo animal-themed pom poms for 1 to 1 transferring

 

Summer themed tonging exercise--moving the bugs/flowers/lizards from the fish tray to the vase

 

Monkey using the spoon to scoop rice

 

Working with the binomal cube--Monkey can do this really quickly now! We'll be bringing out the trinomial cube this week as a result.

 

Working with the tonging activity

 

Montessori in the kitchen...Bug washing tomatoes and Monkey cutting them up to make tomato sauce

 

Monkey cutting the tomatoes

 

Bug washing the tomatoes

 

As always, comments are welcome, either here or on our facebook page.  Let me know you’re reading along!

Tot School Tuesday January 12, 2011

Bitty Bug is 23.5 months old

I can’t believe this is my last Tot School post of Bug’s 1 year old year…she’ll be 2 years old later this week!  I can hardly believe it’s true (already!  Her last year of Tot School starts in a couple days…wow…).  It seems like just yesterday, she was a tiny little baby, born a month early, and struggling to even stay awake.  Now, she rarely sleeps, and she’s always running around exploring!

Here are some of the things Bug’s been working on this past week!

Bug loves these little puzzles--they're really great for traveling with, and they are just perfect for little hands! Bug loves to name all of the animals as she's putting the pieces in as well.

Working with her sequencing beads. She's getting really good at matching the colors!

Spooning the little glass stones

Working with one of the little puzzles I found in T@rget's dollar aisle

These are cute little figurines--they're called Friendship Club. Inside of the globe are a bunch of small figures representing people from every continent.

I found these figurines for the culture boxes, but Bug decided she wanted to match them to the figures on the back of the package.

Working with the animal puzzle. This puzzle was a lot harder than it looks...I'm really surprised that there was no good control of error that would help little ones be successful at this. I ended up taking a permenant marker and tracing the outline of all the pieces onto the tray to sort of help her out a bit.

Montessori Monday

Monkey is 3 years 11 months old

This was our first week back in the schoolroom since before the holidays, and Monkey was able to jump right back into things with no problem at all!  I didn’t bring out many new works this week because I wanted her to be able to review some of the things we did over the past few months.  It’s actually kind of amazing how much she was into the basics when I took away all of the “special” holiday-themed lessons!  She didn’t seem to miss them at all (I’m not sure if I should be happy that she can easily go back to the basic works, or sad because those special lessons take so long to develop! LOL!)

Here are a few pictures from the past week (please remember that I’m no longer posting pictures of the children that make them easily identifiable due to this blog being so public.  )

We started a unit on the solar system this week. The first lesson was on the sun. Because my universe set doesn't have a sun in it, I had to make this one out of a foam craft ball.

One of the girls' new puzzles. This one sorts by color and shape! It's actually fairly difficult for all three of the kids (although Jedi obviously gets it after a little work!)

Working with the locks & keys

Working with the screwdriver boards

I found these neat sequencing cards at T@rget. There are quite a few of them in the box, with each set having 3 pieces (beginning, middle, & end)

Exploring minerals with a magnifying glass, and matching them with the control card

Reviewing the three sandpaper letters she was working on before break

Matching the geometric solids with their bases

Working with matching textures, while blindfolded!

Montessori Monday December 20, 2010

Jedi is 7 years 0 months old, Monkey is 3 years 10 months old, Bitty Bug is 23 months old

As we head into the week of Christmas, our time in the school room has been reduced as we replace it with more “real life” things.  That is one of the benefits of homeschooling…when holidays come around, we get to slow down a little with homeschooling, but we more than make up for it with “life school”–real life work in the kitchen, etc.  We’ve had a lot of fun this week making cookies, playing in the snow, and preparing for Christmas!

Here, Monkey is working on a shapes puzzle...when put together, all of the shapes make a house.

It's always entertaining when Jedi joins us for homeschooling. He was attempting to reinact the part of Charlie Brown Christmas where one ornament goes on the tree and bends the tree over. Unfortnately, this tree wasn't the bendy type...

Hammering golf tees into clay

Monkey giving it a shot

Working in the winter sensory bin

Helping to decorate cookies

Bug also came over to help with the cookies

Jedi working on his pan of cookies

Playing in the snow

Jedi's been waiting all year to make a snow angel!

Jedi teaching Monkey how to make snow angels

On the sled

Bug really wanted to try the sled, but then wasn't too fond of it once she got in

One of my favorite pictures of my three little ones (we were trying to take a picture for their Aunt Samantha to thank her for the Christmas gifts.) I think this is one of the few I have of all of them looking at the camera smiling at the same time!