Leif beams next to a magnet version of himself.
He made this the other day and showed me how, "There are my eyes, my nose, my mouth, and my cheeks (the orange rectangles!)" and I thought he did look rather like his magnetic self. :)
We often make his food (mainly breakfast) into faces on his plate before he eats it, and that translated well to magnets on the fridge!
I still haven't heard about my biopsy results, but I'll let you know as soon as I do.
Leif and I went to the post office the other day, and he said, "We're both silly, because you're wearing your big hat, and I'm wearing mine." I was wearing a big straw sun hat (securely tightened under my chin) and he was wearing his bike helmet (in the car). I'm sure we looked quite the silly pair! But oh well, we'd just gone for a bike ride, and I practically wear the sunhat to sleep now, so it made sense to us! :)
The garden is doing well. This week I'll be planting more squash, plus horseradish and ginger. We have loads of little squash and cukes popping up under their big leaves, so that is exciting. The beans are producing tiny purple flowers, and climbing the bamboo trellis I made for them. My turmeric that I planted in...March, was it?...has finally sprouted. That makes me far happier than it should.
The volunteer tomato is a low, wide, squat, bushy type of mater, so I'll be interested to see what he is. I'm thinking he's a white carbon mater, but we'll see.
The volunteer squash in the compost pile isn't doing so well. Perhaps that is because I keep throwing our food scraps on top of it :)
I ordered the first round of our homeschooling supplies today. So, hopefully, in around 3 weeks, we'll be kicking off our homeschooling fun (which we, and that's a collective We, have decided to call "Leify's School").
So far, Leif is very excited about it. More on that later when we get in the supplies.
My Momma came up last week and helped me do a little cleaning (I'd gotten behind from feeling icky earlier in the week, probably due to some medicine the Doctor gave me!)
She cleaned my kitchen windows - the outsides of which hadn't been cleaned by us EVER. We (Jason and I) couldn't figure out how to remove the screens, so I looked out foggy, dirty, grimey windows every time I was at the kitchen sink (which is a good 70% of my time!)
Now, they're sparkly, clean, and beautiful.
Every day I smile looking out my kitchen windows, because the view is so pretty now - (aside from the clammers who sometimes change clothes next to their truck when they get out of the water - THAT ain't pretty!). But I do love my sparkly clean windows.
She also cleaned my kitchen floor (on her hands and knees!) so that is, as Leif says, "all sparkly and clean" (except he is normally referring to himself after a bath when he says that).
Anyway, this was supposed to be a super short post,
but here I am yammering on and on and on...
Sorry bout that.
Have a good night!
You'd best get that kid some socialization since yer homeschoolin' an' all! (Grrrrrrrrrrrr. The S-word.) I'm so glad you're geting started on your homeschoolin' journey! And thanks for the laugh about the sights outside of your kitchen window!
ReplyDeleteI am looking into some more structered activities for Christopher lately. It seems as though we drift through our days and sometimes I think giving him some activities would cut back on behavior issues. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteKatie -
ReplyDeleteBecause I subscribe to the Montessori Method (since I was a Montessori child myself), most of my activities with Leif tend to stem from that. LOL - That scene from StepBrothers suddenly popped into my head ("If we bunk our beds, we'll have so much room for activities! Think of all the activities we can do!")
The ones that I do the most involve dry beans: sorting different types of beans, pouring beans from pitcher to cup and back again, transferring with scoops and tongs, etc. All I do is set it up (for sorting, I use ramekins; for pouring I use 2 small creamer pitchers) and Leif will play for a very long time which gives me time to do dishes, etc. He loves it. When he starts getting a little "rowdy" with the beans, then it is time to move on to something else. You can have Christopher sort anything, really: different types of noodles, buttons, etc. He can sort by color, shape, etc. You can pour beans, lentils, rice, sand, water, etc. but be sure he masters the easier ones before moving on to the harder ones, like sand and water. Using a tray as his worksurface helps to control mess. Sorting and transferring are very natural and fun things for little ones to do (and help with motor skills, etc).
There is a ton of info on the net about simple montessori activities at home (I think ehow has a host of videos on various activities) which all use things you probably already have around the house. There are also some great activities that you can make fairly easily yourself (or buy) - like a mystery bag (a drawstring bag filled with small items that CRW is familiar with. He reaches into the bag, blindfolded, and pulls out one of the items. The point is that he identifies the items by senses other than sight - mainly by touch and smell).
Another activity is a set of small CRW sized containers in a basket. He takes each one out opens it, and lines it up on the table. Each item should have a different way of opening: a corked bottle, a change purse that snaps, a wooden box with a lift off lid, a zippered pouch, a screw-top spice bottle, etc. When finished, he can close each item and put it back in the basket, one by one.
There are loads of activities like that. If you're interested in those type of activities, you can check out Montessori Services dot com, and look at their selection of "manipulative activities" - you don't need to buy anything from them, but it will sure give you a lot of ideas!
CRW is pretty much at the perfect age to begin learning all of those little activities, so he should take right to them!
Is that the sort of thing you were looking for?
And do I get the award for longest comment ever?! ;)
WOW Laura thanks. This is just what I was looking for. I had him try pouring barley into different buckets with scoops and funnels. He loved it and it kept him busy for a long time. I need to get trays though, we had a big mess to clean up, which he liked because he could use the dust pan and brush!
ReplyDelete