Toddler Activities

Long before Thanksgiving of 2013 came around, I started working on toddler activities for the wee ones (James and Camille).  They are getting to the age where they can handle more structured activities.  I knew after the New Year, when I wanted to start said new activities, I'd be way too tired (3rd trimester) and overwhelmed (homeschool starting back up, plus baby prep) to have any brain power to do much of anything.  So, I planned ahead (sacre bleu!) and ordered the items I needed along with my Christmas gifts.  Will the miracles never cease?

Overall, I spent less than $50 on these activities, but this first one is my favorite type: FREE.

I started with this old calendar we had in our school room from 2013.  I loved the images and didn't want to get rid of them, but clearly, they were not useful as a calendar anymore!  So I chopped off the calendar part and voila! Matching cards for the babies.  Leif found matches from our stash of Schleich animals (and a few Safari Toob animals, as well as one random octopus I've had since childhood) and we were set.

New. Free. Activity.

The best part is Leif can use the set for homeschool (biology and geography) as well, but more on that later.

They're pretty good matches, too.  We only currently have 9/12 of the matches, but that is fine for now.  And I've yet to go through the large number of Safari Toobs we bought on clearance (yay!) right before Christmas.

As for our calendar, we were sad to see the old animal calendar go, but I thought it would be boring to do the same thing again this year.  So we downloaded a freebie from the internet, and I love it, too.  :)

Happy New Year!

Lots of Firsts

Leif loved his first pony ride on Ginger at the local historic farm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leif has been accomplishing a lot of "firsts" lately.  He had his first horseback ride, above, which he absolutely adored.  He even said today (weeks after the fact) that he loved it and wants to do it again. 

He has also been doing exceedingly well with his learning.  He counts everything in sight, loves to do basic math, and is basically numbers obsessed.  I'm counting my lucky stars - it is so much fun to work with him when he is really in to what he is doing!  

We've been using workbooks (or activity books, as I call them) which I had originally not been very keen on for various reasons (although I loved them as a child myself) but Leif loves them.  He spends many hours a day with his activity books and we have all different sorts: numbers, writing, reading, history, cutting, etc. as well as the standard tracing, coloring, matching, patterns, etc.  He loves them all.  It's an ongoing lesson to me that just because I think something will not work doesn't mean it won't.  And thinking that something will work for me isn't the point, it has to work for Leif, since he is the one learning.  (All this obvious stuff isn't so obvious when you're in the thick of it!)  Lesson learned, though.  Leif loves his workbooks and they're doing him a world of good. 

Very proud of his 4s, which he wrote out several weeks ago, I'm just slow.  Four is his favorite number right now. :)

He's been writing a ton as well, hot on the heels of his coloring extravaganza where he colored everything he could.  It is so neat to see him come into the phase where he is clearly ready for writing, reading, and 'rithmetic! 

Leif drew a picture for his Daddy, and then wrote "Daddy" (as you can see) underneath - his first word!  Again, he did this a while back, and I'm only now getting to it.  Slooooow Momma.

He's also read his first book, "Mat" of the Bob Book Series.  And see, even before I was able to blog about that first, he's onto his second - "Sam" in the same series.  So he's read two books!  So, we're making a ton of progress there!

It's funny because at this point, it is all fun and games - and yet he is still learning at astonishing rates.  I feel like I hardly do much, but the little that we do has such a huge impact.  We may work on activity books or other activities for 15 minutes to a half hour at a time, a few times a day and that is all.  The rest of the day is play and explore time (and with Leif, exploring almost always includes water).  That's all, and yet he is learning at exponential rates right now.  So cool.

Our house hunt is going.  We've found several houses we like, but so far have yet to make an offer on anything (for various reasons).  Hopefully we'll be in our own place by the end of the summer, though!  We try to include Leif as much as possible, asking what he would like to see in his house (he wants a red house, but will settle for a red shed or playhouse), and what he would like in the yard (chickens, cows, garden, and cutting garden so that he can bring me flowers everyday - that I'll definitely agree to!)  He brings me flowers everyday now...sometimes pretty weed flowers and sometimes real flowers cut from Grandmom's garden (with her permission).  Love that! :)

Baby is doing well, kicking me every time I lay down in bed, and lately, kicking me in the morning when I wake up.  I love the little kicks and rolls.  Leif adores Baby, giving Baby hugs, kisses, and raspberries 50x a day if he does it once!  He will go very far out of his way just to come by and pat Baby (my belly) and say hello and whisper some big brother tidbit to her.  He calls Baby Her since he is thoroughly convinced that Baby is a She.

I have the 20 week sonogram this week, so if we want, we can find out Baby's gender.  I'm shockingly undecided on this point...I don't care if we do know or if we don't.  And if that is the case, I'll probably wait to find out when Baby is born since I'm not too gung-ho to find out now.  Jason is as ambivalent as I am on the subject.  We're as bad with names - neither of us have thought about it at all.  Halfway through the pregnancy, and I can't think of names.  Terrible!  Names or not, I love having the little squiggle pop around in my belly - it's best when Jason and Leif can feel it, too! :)

In other growing news, I pulled up the first radishes from the garden.  I'd been waiting until they were a little bigger to thin them out so I could actually eat them, and yesterday, they were! Some were still a little small, but edible.  They were peppery and hot, but very good. They were the first radishes I've ever successfully grown (the Southern heat killed my crop last summer!) so that was exciting.  I have a few more new types on my "wanna try" list when it comes to radishes.  I love radishes.  And now, I especially love them fresh from the garden and into my mouth.  Oh Happy Day.

Leif pumping water at the historic farm.

So that is about the size of it. 

Homeschooling, pregnancy, house hunting, and  radishes.  That's our life right now.

Not too shabby, eh?

Happy Days.

 

Homeschooling

This is Leif's Homeschooling Central, a little corner of his room where the bulk of his schooling activities are out on the shelves.

I've been meaning to do a little tour of his room (which is also his "classroom" if you want to call it that) for a while now. Plus, I wanted to talk about homeschooling, his progress, and few points on our homeschooling in general. I decided today, an overcast day with little light was the day to do it (despite the fact that I'd been waiting for a nice sunny day for pretty pictures). But then, in a Voltaire-ish mood, I decided to not let Perfection get in the way of Good. I'd procrastinated long enough. So enjoy the poorly lit, poorly taken photos and the long borish text. :)

I had started out all Montessori-centric, but there are two facts to doing Montessori at home:

1) It's wicked expensive (think slightly cheaper than putting your kid in an upscale private school).
2) You can never perfectly re-create the Montessori classroom in a home. Just ain't gonna happen. Esp. with one kid.

So, we've decided that pure Montessori goodness just wasn't going to happen for us, and we changed course.

That's one of the beautiful things about Homeschooling, though.

You can kinda just do whatever you want.

So, we are.

Our methodology now is a mix of education breeds, a blend of Montessori, unschooling, classical, and whatever floats our boat.

We have structure some days, but lately, it's been pretty unstructured, but he still gets in a lot of "schoolwork."

At his age, I'm a pretty big fan of learning through Play, because quite frankly, he's not interested in doing much else (nor should he be).

So, we do a lot of Memory Games, Go Fish, and other games like that which help improve his memory/memorization.

We've been doing these since he was 2 or so, but in the past few months he has improved so much that it's almost scary.

He almost always beats me at the Memory Games now, and I'm not one to let him win, just to let him win. (Then again, my memory isn't exactly a steel trap these days).

He's been doing a lot of coloring, too lately, which is great practice for handwriting.

In the past two days, he's developed so much in coloring that I didn't think he'd done two pages in a coloring book he showed me, but he had.

He's also written his first letter, L. And his second, S.

We've been reading, with a very light emphasis on him reading.So, he's read his first word, mat.

And he's read his second word, Madagascar.

That makes me laugh. So fitting!

Although we haven't done much of anything with it, he has started basic math (addition).

He's still in the very earliest stages of that, though (as in, I haven't even started teaching him that).

I've finally learned that my little boy is as hard headed as I am.

So, I don't force him to do things.

I don't even like to suggest things. I just let him find the items on his own.

I do this through strewing (leaving activities around the house to find, which he does, becomes interested in, and does them - think it's all his idea).

Here's a picture of a new activity (that he should definitely be able to do without me ever showing him) that I put out on his desk while he was in doing his lacing cards (excellent fine motor skills in that and great prep for writing!)

Most of the time, I don't strew them on his workdesk like this, but this one wasn't exactly one I could leave on the kitchen table.

I also get him interested in learning activities (and we don't really ever call it homeschooling, or school, or anything like - it's all games, activities and FUN) by starting to do the activity myself. A creature of curiosity, he'll come over and ask to play (of course I let him) and voila - he's learning on his own terms.

He's really into activity books right now, and while they weren't exactly my top choice for a homeschooling method, he can spend hours doing them and gets a lot from them. And since we're all about educating HIM the way it works best for HIM, I am more than happy to let him get all the activity bookage on that he wants!

Other than that, most of his activities look like this:

and live on that shelf in the first picture.

Each activity is on its own little tray so he can just grab a tray and go.

Represented in this picture are: (Top, L-R) Pencil Sharpening (which teaches Preparation, Care of Items, as well as fine motor skills), Bird Flash Cards (Nature/Science), Sandpaper Letters with Counters (preparation for writing, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, math, etc).

On the lower shelf (L-R): Metal Insets (Preparation for Writing, Shapes, etc) and the last two trays are actually one activity, although you can't see it with the box on the right being closed. He puts the simple puzzle pieces together (that's the "dog" thing on the left) and then uses the wooden letters (in the closed box on the right) to spell out the name of the animal in the puzzle (ie, dog). We also use those wooden letters for a variety of other spelling purposes.

Oh, and the rugs in that first picture (in the basket on the right of the bookshelf) are for placing on the floor when he does floor activities, which are basically any of the activities too big for the table :)

I'm a pretty lax Homeschooling Momma, especially at this phase, because I believe pretty strongly that rushing kids into things before they're ready or willing will create a pretty furious backlash (and I say that as both general belief and from Homeschooling experience I've already gotten myself). Frankly, I'm not exactly the competitive type (understatement of the year) so I'm more than happy for Leif to continue at his own pace with little regard to what anyone else (in any schooling situation) is doing. I don't think rushing kids into things makes for smarter kids, and in fact, I think it can have the opposite effect. I'm more for encouraging a love of learning over just hammering facts into his head. We're in it for the long haul here, so I don't care if he isn't a master of toddler tricks (my pet peeve, actually) I just want him to be still eagerly learning when he's 60, 80 and until the end of his days. I'm a firm believer that learning is a lifelong pursuit, not just a mandatory sentence you endure until you graduate with a diploma or degree.

That being said, we homeschool for our very own unique reasons. I particularly like this little blog post 2p sent me a while back:

The Public School Parents' Guide to Homeschool Parents

I very much love #5, which states, "Our decision to homeschool is not a personal commentary on your decision not to. "

Which falls into the category of "Amen, sista!"

I totally couldn't agree more.

Homeschooling is a very, very, very personal choice for each family (and even each child within that family) and my decision to homeschool has no bearing whatsoever on what I think of your family's choice on the matter.

To each their own, I say.

Or, as my Dad always says, "Different strokes for different folks."

And about Socialization.

Since people always ask first thing about Socialization.

Here are my thoughts on that:

1) I believe that kids who are exposed to more social situations with a variety of people (age, ethnicity, etc) are better prepared for the "real world." Because the world, as we all know, is comprised of a mixture of people, not just your peers in the same age group as you.

I'd rather Leif has 20 friends in the 0-100+ age range than 100 friends in his exact age group.

2) That being said, I have every plan to enroll Leif in some fun classes (Karate, music, swimming) or such that will enable him to interact with a group of people, both his age group and not. When we were down South, I joined a Catholic Homeschooling Group shortly before we left, where we were going to go on educational and religious trips with these other families (kids of all ages), but alas, we moved and were never able to do that. Right now, we're not in a permanent situation (as far as where we live) so I'm not keen on the thought of joining a group that we'll possibly be leaving sooner rather than later (ie, when we get our own house). When we do get to that point, though, I will be hopping right on the karate, homeschooling group, etc. bandwagon. But, Leif still has interaction with plenty of other children (and adults) through his family/cousins, as well as swimming at the pool (where he meets lots of kids) and other outdoor adventures we go on frequently (parks, etc).

So, that is that.

A long diatribe in lieu of what otherwise could have been a very simple post.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Tiramisu? (Ooh, yes please!)

PS.  Fun pics of Leif in the post below, so don't miss that! :)

Welding, Crabs, and Summer Skies

Leif wearing his welding helmet.

He spent a good deal of last evening welding.

I think his workbench needed a little repair, so that is what he is doing here, welding his workbench.
Note the welding gloves he has on - he has all the proper welding equipment, thanks to Grandmom and Granddad! :)

Thank Goodness not all welders weld in their underwear, though!

Today, I'm going to the Dr. for a "wound check" - to see how the skin graft and stitches are doing.

We changed the bandage on Sunday, and it seemed to be doing fine.

I didn't faint this time.

In fact, I was singing.

Leif has been doing well with his "Leify School" so that is good.

Yesterday, I set up three new homemade activities and he really took to them.

The first was color clothespins where he attached the clothespins to corresponding color cards.

The second (which he is actually doing again right now) is using a dropper to transfer water from one cup to another.

That one is a prerequisite of another color activity.

The third is simply cutting strips of paper and using glue to attach them randomly to another piece of construction paper.

Rocket science, it is not.

But it is his first time using scissors. And glue.

And he loves it and is working on his hand-eye coordination.

In garden news, I've harvested around 10 cucumbers, 1 yella squash, and 1 pattypan squash.

And I've eaten around 20 Rattlesnake Beans right off the vine.

On Friday, I fed the plants with some organic plant food, and Zounds! What a difference!

Lots of vigorous growth, lots of flowering.

Next time I'm at my {new} favorite gardening store, I'm getting the BIG bag of that stuff!

I also sprayed the squash with powdery mildew with a copper spray for organic gardens.

It seemed to wash the mildew right off, but the mildew seems to be recurring.

Not sure what to do anymore with that.

My volunteer tomato (a White Currant Tomato) is taking over the entire tomato section.

It is 6 feet wide.

I kid you not.

I measured it.

It is 6 feet teeming with tiny tomatoes and flowers.

Those things are pro-lif-ic!

Another welding shot.

Yesterday {Memorial Day}, I asked Jason to put out the crab traps.

I've been wanting some crabs lately and thought that the official start of summer was a good time to start! :)

Jason and Leif pull a trap out of storage and get ready to bait and toss it!

I wanted to get some good pictures of the big event, but the bugs were pretty atrocious, so I quickly came back inside and left the boys to their work.

The good news is that the summer skies are back. 

I've always loved the big billowing cumulonimbus clouds.

And the streaky cirrus clouds above them.

Cloud Nerd Alert!

Love me some summer skies.

Anyway.

We're off to do more fun activities.

Have a good day!

Let the Homeschooling Begin!

Leif builds his first "pink tower!"

We began homeschooling yesterday. 

Yesterday, I introduced him to knobbed cylinders (not shown) and today I introduced him to the Pink Tower.  It's pretty cool what can be learned from these innocuous little blocks.  Actually, they're not little, either, as you can see.

Here he is again.  He looks so old in this picture.  Waah.

Here, he's working on his continents puzzle.  Before we started, we went through what continents are, the names of the continents, etc.  Then I demonstrated, then he did the puzzle.  He loves puzzles, so he did this quickly. 

 

With the finished continents puzzle.

This picture is out of order, but he's just putting the finishing touches on the pink tower.

So far (it's only Day 2) he is really taking to the Montessori materials. 

We only do a little bit per day so he doesn't become bored with it. 

I need to keep his interest in it!

Anyway, that's Day 2 of Leify's School!

Off to the Dr. to get my ear sutured!

Happy days!