"School" with her Grandmama aka Duh-guh

My mom keeps O on Thursdays while I work, and they had their 1st school session together this past week. At first, I didn't plan on having my mom do "school" with O, but then I realized that my mom REALLY wanted to do it (she's a teacher who has had some Montessori training), and I was curious to see how O would do with her. I was happy, but not surprised, to hear that O did a fantastic job! She worked for about an hour, and her behavior was perfect. My mom was very impressed by how carefully O carried her work to her rug, and then cleaned it up when she was done and returned it to the shelf. O chose several activities that she's never chosen with me, which I thought was interesting. She chose: phonics pouches, water transfer with a sponge, shape sorter, animal/picture match, nesting dolls, jars and lids, and the mystery bag. After school they made homemade whole wheat chocolate chip cookies. Yummy!

Thrifty Thursday

I haven't done a thrifty Thursday post in a while, so I thought today would be a good day to start back. Last week I was too sick to stop at the thrift store after work (and you know I must have felt bad to not stop by at least for a minute!), and the week before that I took a trunkload full of donations and did not buy a thing! That felt good! Today I bought 4 children's books. At least one will definitely be for cutting up and using in projects, and I know that won't be a problem for me (I HATE to cut books) since it is scribbled in and a few pages are torn. I made sure it was in bad enough shape that I wouldn't mind cutting it up :) I also bought a baby doll car seat for O. She's REALLY into baby doll care lately, and she's going to love it. I can't decide if I should go ahead and give it to her or wait for Christmas. My last purchase was a potty seat with steps, so she can get up on the potty independently. I think she's going to love this, too!

Transferring Water with a Sponge

IMG_1073 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

O has really enjoyed transferring water with a sponge. This is an activity that we've done in the past, but we haven't done it in a while. After seeing Laura on My Montessori Journey's post about a similar activity, I realized that this would be a great work to put on our Montessori shelf. It was immediately a hit!

Making Music

IMG_1087 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

O had a great time making music on her banging wall this morning. We've had a beautiful week, and we've been spending about an hour or 2 outside each morning after "school." I LOVE fall!

Melissa and Doug Latches Board

IMG_1062 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

O LOVES her Melissa and Doug latches board! I've wanted to buy it for a long time, and I finally bought since I had an Amazon gift certificate. I'm glad that I went ahead and got it for her because after only having it one day, she's already pretty good at unlocking all of the doors (except the 2nd one which requires more strength than her little fingers have :) I introduced the board to her yesterday and put it on her school shelf this morning. It was the 1st work that she chose during "school." O asked if she could "play school" this afternoon (and of course I let her), and the only thing she was interested in was this board :)

Unschooling Fun

Now that O is talking nonstop and asking lots of questions, we're having a lot more opportunities to "unschool." Before she was talking, we told her about everything around us, etc. but now we really know what she is interested in, and that is so much fun. Her two favorite questions to ask are "What is it? or What's that is it?" and "What does that mean?" She is NOT satisfied with a simple answer. The girl wants DETAILS! Here are a couple of examples that I'd like to document just so I can remember to tell O about them one day :)
She asked Elliott what a light switch was. She wasn't satisfied that it was just a light switch, so he went into great detail telling her all about electricity. He took her outside and showed her the power lines and told her all about voltage and where the electricity comes from (he works for an electric company, so he was thrilled with her interest in this subject). I'm sure most of this was way over her head since she's just 26 months old, but she was really listening and paying attention to him. Since then she's talked about electricity quite a bit. This morning she told me about daddy showing her the power lines, and she said "daddy buys electricity at his office." She definitely has an understanding of not wasting electricity, which is something that she hears often when we make sure all of the lights are off when we aren't using them. When we were at her grandparents house this past weekend, she worriedly told me that they'd left a light on upstairs :)
O has also been interested in her veins in her wrists lately. Elliott also went into great detail explaining what her veins are and what they are used for. He must have also told her about bones, because she's been talking about her bones, too. This new questioning stage of her language development is SO much fun!
Oh, one more unschooling story...O LOVES for us to tell her her birth story, and we probably tell it at least 4 times a day. I realized last week that although O knows that she was born at X:08 pm (although she usually just says Xpm when asked) on a Sunday, she did not know her actual birthday. Oops! I told her that her birthday is July XX, and she has proudly been sharing that information with everyone she sees ever since then. She also adds in that July XX is her Guh-guh and her cousin, Emily's, birthday, too. Although she's a little confused about her cousin Emily, since she has two Auntie Emily's :) I've also told her that she was born in 20XX (I made sure to tell her this since I am always amazed by how many children in elementary and even middle school who don't know the year in which they were born!) O won't say 20XX, but she will fill in the X if I say 2000... She loves it when I ask her questions like this (She gets a sweet little proud grin on her face), so I'm trying to think of more. Let me know if you have any ideas :) Thanks!

edited to delete personal info at Elliott's request :)

A Crayon and Silicone Ice Tray Puzzle :)

IMG_1060 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

O has a great time putting the number crayons BACK into the silicone number ice tray. I would never have thought to use the tray as a puzzle, but she did and she loves it!

Montessori Homeschool- Day 5

IMG_1048 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

Today was day 5, and O did great! She was excited to have her daddy here for the 1st part of school, and he joined in when we did the mystery bag. We worked for about 45 minutes, and she chose: Mystery Bag, transferring water with a dropper, shape sorter, sound cylinders, and sewing block. She only stayed with the sewing block for a few seconds. I think I'm going to move it off the shelf and bring it out when I am sewing so we can sew together, and I'll replace it with a bead stringing activity which she loves. O did a FANTASTIC job with the sound cylinders, which surprised me since she didn't really seem to "get it" last time. The only negative behavior occured when O accidentally knocked over the glass of water when transferring water. She'd taken the top off the dropper and was trying to put it back when she knocked over the water, and she became frustrated and threw the dropper. She immediately picked it up and cleaned up the work. (Thanks, Christina, for the advice to not end school at this time. You made a great point!) We're working on her expressing her frustration with words, and she's definitely getting better, but she forgot today :) We finished on a positive note, and we're looking forward to tomorrow :)

Montessori Homeschool - Day 4

IMG_1041 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

We took an unexpected and unavoidable week off from our Montessori homeschool, so we didn't have our 4th day of "school" until today. I was expecting O to continue "researching" the limits :) However, I was shocked when she THREW the lentils pitcher during the pouring work! What is going on with this girl? She was clearly doing it just to get a reaction, but I'm VERY consistent in my reactions (very calm, firm, etc). I'm a trained behavior therapist for goodness sake :( I just don't understand why she feels the need to continue "researching" the limits. I've made them VERY clear. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
I'm holding out hope that this behavior will resolve itself once we are on a consistent school schedule, but I'd love to hear any advice that any of you might have :) Thanks!

Little Cleaner

IMG_0945 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

O LOVES to use her window washing kit to wash EVERYTHING! She sprays down the tables, doors, floors, etc. and then wipes away the water. She even tried to clean a birthmark off of my leg yesterday! She saw it and said "don't move, mama!" Then she ran to get her water sprayer and squeegy (sp). She seemed a bit perplexed when she couldn't get the birthmark off of my leg. Silly girl! While she cleans she often says in an exhausted tone "O's been cleaning ALL day long!"

Artwork and Photos at O's Level

IMG_1037 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

I've been planning on hanging O's artwork and pictures at her level for a LONG time, and we finally got around to doing it a week ago. I bought lots of these cheap acrylic frames from Hobby Lobby when they were 50% off (so they were REALLY cheap). I hate to use so much plastic, but I didn't think it would be safe to have glass frames down low since she likes to take them off the wall and hold them. O LOVES the pictures. She walks by and says "O likes this one and this one and this one..." She especially loves the baby pictures since she is REALLY into babies right now :)

Painting with Kitchen Utensils

IMG_0954 (Large), originally uploaded by omamom16.

I gathered several kitchen utensils for O to paint with a week or so ago. She had a great time mixing the paint with them, but she wasn't too interested in actually putting anything on paper :)

Making Art and then Bubbles

I recently purchased Young at Art by Susan Striker, and it has inspired me to encourage O to make more art :) Lately, she'll draw for a couple of seconds, and then she wants me to draw for her :( I think there's been too much drawing for her by her daddy and grandparents which seems to have inhibited her creativity. This wouldn't have occured to me before reading the book, but I've definitely noticed that after someone draws "for O," she's VERY unlikely to draw for herself. So... I just kept telling her that it was O's art, and if I drew for her then it would be mama's art. I've also noticed that she's much more interested in creating when I offer her many different options... In these pictures, she's using crayons, markers, and dot painters. She also used our homemade watercolor paint, but I didn't get any pictures of that.



After art time, she had a great time making bubbles with this super cool bubble blower :)

Family Memory Game

Family Memory Game, originally uploaded by omamom16.

I made this memory game for O for Christmas, and I know that she is going to LOVE it! To make the game I cut a piece of balsa wood (from Hobby Lobby) into 10 equally sized pieces, sanded the edges, and decopaged the wallet sized pictures to the boards. The hardest part about making this game was choosing the pictures. I planned on choosing 5 pictures from each year, but I've got 5 pictures here from O's 1st 4 months! I ran out of boards long before I ran out of pictures. I hope to buy more boards soon, so I can finish this game and mark it off my list!

Sorry for another off center picture! It looks perfect in draft form. I don't think that blogging through flickr is going to work out :(

Making Shapes

Making Shapes, originally uploaded by omamom16.

Since O is still learning her shapes (she knows most of them, but she does need to practice!), I thought this would be a good activity for her. The idea for this came from Lapaz Home Learning. To make this activity, you need tongue depressors, stickers, and a pen. I didn't make a control shape at 1st, and O had a bit of trouble making her triangle. She did MUCH better after she had a model to look at so that she could check her work. I originally planned on glueing the control, but then I decided to use velcro to connect the tongue depressors so that I could take it apart for storage. I've also made a rectangle and plan to make a diamond.

Please excuse the off center photo. It's another problem that I'm having when blogging through Flickr :)