One Hook Wonder

Rosemary's Toddler

Remember this little guy?  Don't let the cute oh-golly-gee-I'm-adorable-wearing-an-angel-food-cake-pan disguise fool you:

People, I tell you...he is Satan's Spawn.  Now that I think about it, he's actually worse than Satan's Spawn.  Evil Spawn would just run around doing evil; this child not only runs around doing evil, but he throws HUGE MAMMOTH TANTRUMS WHILE DOING IT. 

Holy crap!  Someone save me before I start drinking at 8:30 in the morning!  Yesterday we had ginormous, laying on the floor kicking and screaming fits because:

1.  I would not give him more pretzels when he already had a bowl full of them (I'm stingy that way)

2.  I could not physically hold him, read to him, and make lunch all at the same time

3.  I wanted to change his diaper instead of letting him stew in his own poop

4.  I looked at him

5.  Short Pants looked at him

6.  The sky is blue

I'm sure you're getting the general theme here!  The worst part is that I can't seem to find anything that works to stop the tantrums.  If I try to comfort him during one, he hits at me.  If I try to hand him his blanket, he hits/kicks at it.  If I sit nearby and stay quiet, he tackles me and hits me.  If I get up and walk away, he runs screaming after me, runs physically into me, then flings himself on the floor at my feet still screaming. 

I think it's safe to say that we've reached the Totally Irrational Toddler stage of development, complete with limb flailing.

I'm ending each day completely drained and I'm sure Pita Pocket feels much the same way.  Short Pants never really threw tantrums like this, and if Boba and Bean ever did they are a distant memory (thank goodness!).  I'm sure that Pita Pocket's frustration level will decrease at least a tiny bit once he begins speech therapy and can communicate his desires/needs a bit better, but that's definately not the entire issue.  I mean, running screaming from the room when I announce it's diaper change time is a pretty clear communication, I think.   

Cross your fingers that it gets better for *both* of us soon!

Montessori Monday

Last week was interesting as I only put out a couple of new lessons since I was sick.  Normally I put out anywhere between 5-7 new lessons each Sunday night, in addition to the regular Montessori materials that stay out all the time on our shelves.  The first day we did lessons Short Pants crabbed a bit about the lack of new material, but it turned out quite nicely as it reminded him to work with materials he'd been overlooking. 

His favorite lesson of the week was using a slotted spoon to scoop animals from our continent boxes out of a bin of sand.  He did this several times, switching out for different animals.  Short Pants thought it was *very* silly to be scooping penguins from Antarctica out of sand!  He had loads of fun finding and naming all of the animals; it was a good review:

 
 
He also built a huge "robot" using the pink tower and brown stair:

Ignore the crazy wolf-boy bangs - he doesn't want to get them cut!

We also played the penny game.  Very easy - use an empty egg carton and take turns dropping pennies untill each depression has a coin.  I stood on my knees and Short Pants stood to make it more challenging.  And yes, I *did* catch him cheating a few times!  ;)

 
 
I also convinced him to work with the geometric solids for a bit.  We used our matching cards that I purchased from Montessori for Everyone.  We only got about halfway through this lesson - Short Pants just doesn't seem to be a fan of the geometric solids *or* the geometric cabinet:

 
 He also worked for a tiny bit on a lesson that I've seen all over blogland recently - using tweezers to remove kernals from Indian corn.  Short Pants isn't so much of a fan of this lesson either.  I've been trying to use the fact that we'll try popping the corn afterwards to entice him, but no dice.  At this rate we'll only have about 5 pieces of popcorn!  I'm planning on leaving this out for next week again and doing it with him:

Short Pants explored his phonics drawers again - I had him pick a few drawers and then we dumped all of the objects out and he sorted them back into the proper drawers.  I'm really happy that I went to the trouble of gathering the miniatures because he's been having so much fun with them:

 
Another fun lesson for *me* was watching Short Pants work with all four knobbed cylinder sets at the same time - something I'd been asking him to do off and on for months.  I think he kept refusing because he was a bit intimidated, and he did ask me to do the first few with him.  After that he was off like a shot and was more than happy to match them back up himself.  I guess I don't blame him for being intimidated; that's a lot of cylinders!

 
He also picked walking on the line, which he always loves.  He walked while banging his rhythm sticks and also while carrying a bell.  Next time I'll see if he wants to try a bean bag on his head:

 
 
Working with the globe and continents map was another hit (as always):

 
Short Pants also spent quite awhile working with his number rods.  I LOVE our number rods.  Instead of just doing what I call the "meaningless number chant" that many kiddos do, the number rods have actually taught him the meaning of the quantities since he has to point to each section and count it on every rod.  He's actually counting and not just saying the numbers:

 

We also played the "Smack It' game with the sandpaper numerals (I call out a number and he smacks it!).  Short Pants spied our spindle box while I was sorting through the storage drawers, and since I explained that he has to know what all the numerals look like before he can use it, he's become highly motivated as of late!  

 Thanks for reading!

Phonics Miniatures Giveaway Winner (Again!)

Our new winner is:  hiking mama!!!!!

hiking mama, if I do not hear from you by Monday evening I will do YET ANOTHER drawing. 

Phonics Miniatures Giveaway - Take 2

Oh man.  I have a sinus infection that is Kicking.  My.  Ass.  Sorry about the sporadic posting this week.

Our giveaway winner never replied.  No, I have NO CLUE what's up with that.  So anyway, lucky you, I'll be posting a new winner tomorrow morning!  Good luck (again).

Arty Books

Are you getting tired of the recent spate of painting posts?  We've just started introducing Pita Pocket to the world of painting, and it's so exciting that I can't help but post about it!  Last week he did wet-on-wet watercolor painting for the first time.  At first just dipping the brush over and over in the rinse water was thrilling enough:

But soon he was exploring the color red and actually laughing as he watched the bright color appear on his paper:

We also played with fingerpaints one evening.  Both the boys had a ball with this one (what kiddo doesn't?):

 

Pita Pocket also decided that using his wet hand towel to wipe his paper had an interesting effect:

As the weather continues to turn colder we'll be doing more and more open-ended art sessions like these.  The Mister gave me a wonderful book focused on preschool art for my birthday.  I liked it so much that I immediately ordered the book for toddlers and twos the very next week.  If you haven't seen these great books by MaryAnn Kohl, do check them out.  They are chock full of simple ideas.  What I love most about them is that they are all process based; I think a lot of time when adults do art with children they have a bit of an agenda (if that makes any sense).    I have no problem with doing an occasional seasonal/holiday focused craft or four, but I think sometimes we parents can get so caught up in wanting art time to be "educational" or "focused" that we forget that simply handing some paint and a blank canvas to a child can be the most educational experience of all!  It looks like I'm going to be heading up a small once-monthly art group for Short Pants, Pita Pocket, and a few of their friends soon.  Wish me luck!

Montessori Monday...On A Tuesday

Work with me here, people.

We weren't quite as productive during our Montessori time last week, but we still had a lot of fun, which is the most important thing of all, right?  Actually, in all honesty, Short Pants had a bit too much fun at one point.  I made his first set of landforms from non-drying clay (those are plastic Glad containers) and introduced him to the concept of a shoreline, etc:

Our boat wouldn't float, but our car did. (?)  We ended up using a walnut shell in place of the boat.  Short Pants thought this was one of the best lessons EVER:

And then, like a dumb ass, I broke a very important rule of mine.  You know, that rule about never leaving a child alone in the Montessori area?  Uh, yeah.  Pita Pocket woke early and Short Pants *really* wanted to continue exploring the landforms, so I gave him strict instructions not to get out anything else...

You know where this is going, right?

I came downstairs not even 10 minutes later to find both landform bins practically overflowing with water and filled with just about every miniature from our phonics drawers.  It was not a good scene.  And no, I didn't take a picture.  Suffice it to say that Short Pants is not allowed alone again in the Montessori area till he's thirty-four. 

While not quite as fun as trashing the phonics drawers, Short Pants still enjoyed a lesson last week about nuts and got to practice using a nutcracker.  I printed pictures from the net so that he could see how the nuts grew:

And we used three-part cards for the first time (before I've just printed out a single set and we look at them).  I actually didn't think Short Pants would go for the three-part card matching but he seemed to enjoy it , so I guess we'll be doing lots more:

 
Of course, the very best part was the eating:

 
I've started to introduce uppercase letters, so I made my own version of the Pancake Game I saw over at My Montessori Journey.  When Short Pants flipped over the pancake, he got to keep it if he knew the uppercase letter - otherwise I got to keep it.  He really liked this one:

 
  

Short Pants also worked on two lessons that he requested I put out.  The first was tonging marbles onto a frog (it's a non-skid bathtub thingy turned over):

 
 
The second was placing colored hair bands on the matching dowel rods.  While watching him I realized how much his hand strenth and coordination has improved.  Just a few months ago he had trouble with this lesson.  When he did it last week he whipped right through it!

 


And, of course, Short Pants worked with his continent boxes.  Looks like Asia is up next.  Pita Pocket joined us in the Montessori area for just a few moments and Short Pants really enjoyed showing off the animals from his Antarctica box:

 
Lastly, something we've both been enjoying (and sometimes even Pita Pocket too!) has been using the yoga poses from Sew Liberated.  I just printed the pictures out, labeled them, and laminated them.  Short Pants didn't want me to take a photo of him doing any poses, but he loves lining them all up and then picking which one to do next:

 Thanks for reading!

Sick

I'm a bit under the weather, so I'm taking a bit of a posting break till Monday.  If I owe you and e-mail, please be assured that I will send it as soon as my head stops throbbing.  :)  Have a lovely weekend!

*Drumroll*

Thank you to everyone who entered my phonics miniatures giveaway!  It has been so nice to "meet" so many of you and I'm looking forward to checking out all of the wonderful blogs listed.  This has been such great fun that I'm sure I'll be doing another Montessori giveaway soon.

And now on to the winner!  Our winner is:

Meg

Meg, please send me an e-mail with your addy and I'll get your phonics miniatures out to you by Friday.  Thanks again!  :)

30 Days of Happiness - Thirty

Watching the bond of brotherhood between my two youngest strengthen each and every day just makes my heart sing.  They do everything together, from making mischief to enjoying a slide down into a big pile of leaves.  (ok, maybe in Pita Pocket's case "enjoying" could have been a bit strong as he was pretty hesitant - but hey, if you're going to try something new, what better way to try it then on your big brother's lap?)

 

Montessori Monday

It was a busy busy week in our little corner of the Montessori world!  First up was another new continent box - North America.  Once again I used the continent downloads from Montessori for Everyone.  Short Pants really enjoyed his new box, and was very impressed by the difference in climate throughout North America.  I overheard him explaining to The Mister and Bean this weekend that polar bears lived in the upper part because it was cold.  It's always so nice to hear that things really do sink in!

 
  

I can't wait till we get through all of the continents so that I can make him a big felt continent "map" for sorting animals on - learning about the animals is always his favorite part of each continent box.

He also spent quite a bit of time exploring our new phonics drawers.  Each drawer holds between 3-5 miniatures beginning with the letter sound.  We didn't do any formal lessons with this as I wanted him to just have fun looking through everything first.  We *did* end up doing some phonics sorting though when he decided to get a lot of the animals out of different drawers, which I'm happy to say that he enjoyed.  I think these drawers are going to be very useful and a lot of fun:

 

 The empty drawers will be filled eventually when we get to the red, yellow, and blue series.  

Short Pants also worked on some mazes, which he also really enjoyed.  I saw the tip to put the workbook pages in sheet protectors *somewhere* on the web - just have your kiddo use dry erase markers and then the lines wipe right off so that the pages can be used multiple times:

 
We also used the free download from Montessori for Everyone to learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin:

 Short Pants then used his "magifying glass" to examine the outside and inside of our pumpkin:

 
 
Then he helped rinse and roast the seeds...YUM!

 
 
Short Pants also put together his alphabet train puzzle, which was a good review of letter sounds and a nice introduction to uppercase letters:

 
We also grabbed his basket of animals and he placed them onto the appropriate letter car:

 
Using the knobless cylinder extension cards *finally* touched off enough interest so that Short Pants used all 4 boxes to build towers:

 
  
Of course, then he said that they looked like lighthouses and asked to play for a bit.  What's a mom to do?  I had him sort his vehicle minis collection by type and then gave him a few minutes for fun.  I normally discourage any type of playing during lesson time, but every once in awhile I'll give him a few minutes - always at the END of lesson time!

 
 
We also did a short lesson on the food pyramid and sorted food into the correct groups:

Short Pants used a make-up brush to dust the moveable alphabet, which in theory was a great practical life exercise, but in reality only lasted through about 4 letters:

Lastly, I introduced the sandpaper numerals for the first time.  Since we began working with the number rods a few weeks ago I've caught Short Pants carefully counting items up to 5 several times...yay!

 
All in all it was a great week.  It was one of those weeks that's just wonderfully fulfilling and you KNOW you're doing the right thing for your child.  We all need those weeks, don't we? 

Oh, excuse all the clutter in many of the photos - I've been going through trying to rearrange all of my storage drawers.  Have a great week!