Friday's Activity

This was a very engrossing activity. O loved putting the golf tees into the playdoh, and she kept asking for more tees. I watched her very closely because I was afraid she would put the tees in her mouth. This is definitely not an activity that I will let her do independently.

O's Favorite Books

O loves this book! (We read it over and over and over again each day). Anyone who wears or nurses their baby or toddler should buy this book! It tells the stories of families across the world who wear their babies. O loves to look at the pictures and identify the parents as mama or daddy. She especially loves the pictures of the babies in slings who are nursing. She says "milk" while signing "milk" and looks lovingly at the picture. She calls the book "mama." I realize that she's not calling me when she keeps saying "mama" while searching for the book on the shelf. Sometimes she calls it, "Mama Back." This is a book that we are going to be reading for a long time. Thanks, Grandmother for this wonderful book!
Another favorite of O's is Puff the Magic Dragon. This is another book that we read (actually we don't read this book, we sing it!) over and over again. She calls this book "Buff." The illustrations are beautiful, and it comes with a cd with 4 songs. Thanks, Aunt Bobby for this beautiful book!

The Kitchen Helper

O's Guh-guh and Grandpa gave her a Kitchen Helper for Christmas, and I think its going to be another item that we use every day for years and years. We had a great time today using it while we baked cookies. O was at the counter with us participating every step of the way!

We've had a few problems with the kitchen helper so far. When I first put it together I realized that it was missing 4 screws. I called the company, and they told it would be a few weeks before they could send me the screws because the kitchen helper was out of stock. That was last week. Yesterday UPS dropped off a brand new Kitchen Helper. I was shocked! I expected them to mail me 4 screws not a new KH! While putting this one together I realized that it was also missing a piece, so I called to company today to let them know that this KH was not complete either. Their customer service department is great, but obviously they do not check these things too well before they ship them out. Dh was able to take a part off of the 1st KH to make the 2nd one complete, so we were able to use it today. Another issue with the KH is that the openings on the side make it very tempting for a toddler to climb up the side. O put her feet in the holes and was ready to climb, but we quickly stopped her and she hasn't done it again. I hope this won't be a problem. Even with these problems, I think the KH is a great addition to our household, and I am looking forward to using it every day. It will enable us to include O safely in so many more activities. I am looking forward to having her help me bake bread and cook supper on a regular basis. She'll also be able to have lots of fun having water play in the kitchen sink, and she'll be able to easily and safely help us unload the top rack of the dishwasher (she always wants to do this, but it was a little scary to put her in a chair so she could reach). Thanks Guh-guh and Grandpa for this great present!

Bilibos are Fun!

O loves her Bilibo that her Grandaddy gave her for Christmas. It is the greatest open ended toy. So far it has been a rocking chair, baby doll cradle, slide, hat, turtle shell, spinner, and a bowl. She plays with it every day, and I'm sure that we will have fun with it for years and years (I love toys that kids don't grow out of quickly!).

Homemade Puzzles

I made these photo puzzles for O using pics that were leftover from a book that I made her and parts of cardboard boxes. I decopauged the pics to the cardboard after cutting out the shapes. She had lots of fun with these puzzles, and I was glad to finally make them since I've been planning it for months!
I used the packing styrofoam from O's kitchen helper to make these shape puzzles. They were fun to do, but pretty messy and easy to break (she accidentally broke the triangle puzzle right after I took this picture). I think we'll play with these puzzles on the screened porch since we don't mind having tiny bits of styrofoam out there. After we are done with these puzzles, I plan to break them up and put them in the bottoms of my pots for my container garden in the spring.

Walking the Line

This activity came from Slow and Steady Get Me Ready by June R. Oberlander. We had lots of fun balancing on this line as we walked acros with our arms outstretched. We pretended that the line was a bridge and the rug was water. O thought it was hilarious when dh, guh-guh,and I lost our balance and fell into the water, and she was anxious for her turn. She did a good job although she had difficulty staying on the line. Her favorite part was falling in the water. She called out "wa-wa" as she fell and then she laughed and laughed. I plan on showing her how to walk backwards on the line once she is good at walking forwards on it.

Tree Blocks

I'm FINALLY posting about the finished tree blocks! I didn't want to post without a picture, and I didn't have the blocks since I'd left them at my mom's house after Christmas. She brought them back today (along with TONS of other stuff), and we've had lots of fun with them. I think my mom and I may like them more than O does! They were simple to make, but took more time than I expected (that seems to be the way almost all homemade things go!). It didn't take too long to cut them, but sanding was a different story. I sanded them using an electric sander, and I sanded the ends and the edges. Then I vacuumed each of them to try to get as much dust and dirt off as possible. The last step was oiling the blocks with organic flax oil. This also took a while, but my mom pitched in to help me finish in time for Christmas. I made 4 sets which was a little much to make at one time, and none of the sets are very big. I need to add some longer pieces, but I ran out of wood. I'm sending the word out to my family that next time anyone cuts any trees or limbs to save them for me!

Wednesday's Activity

Today's new activity came from the book Mommy, Teach Me by Barbara Curtis. We had 2 bowls side by side. The bowl on the left side had water in it. The activity was to soak up the water from the bowl on the left with a sponge and squeeze the sponge out over the bowl on the right until the bowl on the left is empty and the bowl on the right is full. We had lots of fun with this activity, and O needed lots of prompting to squeeze the sponge over the right bowl. She LOVED squeezing the sponge, and she made the funniest face when she was wringing out all the water.

Tuesday's Activity

Everytime I ask O if she wants to do a new activity, she gets VERY excited. This was our activity for today:
I'm not sure what to call it, but I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs- LaPaz Home Learning. I bought a sugar dispenser (?) from the Dollar Tree and put some cut up straws in a small cup. I showed O how to put the straws in the the glass. I thought she would be too young for this activity, but she was able to do it with no problem, and she absolutely loved it. She was very focused and stayed on task almost the whole time I was cooking dinner. She was very excited to show her daddy when he got home from work. Instead of jumping into his arms for a hug, she pointed to her table and took him to show him her activity. What a proud girl!

Learning to Cut a Banana

O had her 1st lesson in cutting a banana today. She was excited about the banana which is one of her favorite food, and she preferred to just grab chunks of it and stuff it in her mouth. However, she did a pretty good job of cutting it with her knife, and she loved putting the pieces in our cereal bowls.

Velcro Board

O loves her velcro board that I made last night. She says, "off, off, off" the whole time she is pulling things off of it. She needed a little help because she wasn't holding the board down with one hand while pulling an object with the other hand, so she just couldn't get the objects off. I think this is going to be a fun activity for a while (I hope).

Art Activity

I'm trying to do more arts and crafts activities with O, and this was what we did on Friday. My boss gave me a glass Christmas platter with a raised scene, so we did a crayon rubbing of the scene. It would have turned out better if I had taped the paper to the platter, but we still had lots of fun, and O was very proud to show her art to her daddy when he got home from work.

She Loves to Cook and Clean!

O was so proud to help Elliott make cinnamon toast for breakfast this morning, and I was so proud of how he set things up to make it easy for her to be involved. Maybe he should be the Montessori homeschooling mommy!

O was so excited to try out her cousin, Margaret's iron and ironing board. I was shocked that she knew just what to do because we NEVER iron. My mom reminded me that O has probably seen us ironing fabric while we were making the quilt. Otherwise, she has never seen an iron in use!
We got O this kitchen set to use with her kitchen helper that her Guh-guh and Grandpa gave her for Christmas. Unfortunately, the kitchen helper is missing a few screws, and the company, Guidecraft, says it will be a few weeks before they can send them - Grrr! I'm sure that the kitchen helper is going to be wonderful once we can finally use it!

Spooning Activity

We're starting to do more Montessori type activities, and this was our first spooning exercise. I decided to use cheerios since I wouldn't have to worry about O choking on them. I was pretty sure that she would spend more time eating them than scooping them, and I was right. She was thrilled to put a big spoonful of cheerios in her mouth, but she also did a good job transferring them to the other bowl. Check out my new tray- I got it from the thrift store for a dollar, and I really like it. I think it will be perfect for our Montessori tray activities.

This poor, neglected blog

I have really neglected this blog lately, but I think I'll do better in the new year. We've only been home for just a few days at a time since December 1, so O's homeschool has been on hold. We've done lots of traveling, and O really enjoyed her 1st cruise. Since December 1 we've gone to Charleston, Columbia, St. Matthews, Orangeburg, Grand Cayman, Key West, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, Florence, Lake City, Myrtle Beach, Garden City, Surfside, etc. O is one traveling baby!!! We have had a fantastic month of traveling and Christmas fun, but we are ready to get back into our routine. We have lots of new activities to add to our homeschool thanks to the generosity of our family and Santa Claus. I have lots of things that I'll be working on for O's homeschool, including: phonics pouches, 3 part cards and holders, velcro block and velcro toys, cardboard puzzles, etc. (I'm hoping that listing these things here will help me stay motivated to get them made.) Elliott bought me a laminator for Christmas which I am super excited about. You know you are a homeschooling mommy when all you want for Christmas are a few homeschooling books and a laminator!