One Hook Wonder

Toddler Tuesday

Wow, I can't believe that it took almost an entire week to do so few activities!  Pita Pocket definately doesn't have a very long attention span yet, and I have to be careful to catch him in just the right mood, otherwise he's more interested in doing his own thing than participating in a mini lesson.  No, he's not headstrong or anything.  ;)

Last week Pita Pocket really enjoyed working with some new foam stickers I bought.  I (of course) had to peel off the backs for him, but he loved sticking them to his paper and then pounding them with his little fist:

He also loved climbing on the table - big suprise there!

 
Working with a matryoshka was a good exercise in opening and closing.  Boba gave me this Santa matryoshka for Christmas a few years ago:

Pita Pocket worked with the two smallest pieces for quite some time.  Besides just fitting them inside one another, he would fit them together and then shake them so he could hear the smaller one rattling inside.  Then he'd take the smaller one out, put the bigger one back together and shake it again.  So neat to watch him experiment with sound!  The matryoshka also gave us an opportunity to talk about "big" and "little":

One lesson that *both* of the littles enjoyed greatly was sponge squeezing.  So easy, and a good strengthening exercise for little hands.  I just cut a sponge in half and set out a bowl with some water.  I used the sponge to soak up some of the water, then showed Pita Pocket how to squeeze the water back out:

This actually ended up being a good practical life exercise on more than one count.  Pita kept forgetting to hold his sponge over the bowl as he squeezed the water out, so he had multiple puddles to wipe up!

 

We also worked for a bit with a large-knobbed puzzle:

 
And worked on colors using our people mover:

I would take one of the colors, hold it up and say the color name, then ask Pita to find me the matching color.  We got through about half the colors, but then someone decided that he was more interested in saying "eeeee" (cheese) and getting his picture taken:

Lastly, we dropped clothespins into a large glass bowl.  Pita Pocket started out standing, but then decided to turn it into a pouring sort of lesson.  No matter - it kept him happy and engaged for about twenty minutes:

 
 
 

(and yes - look at all those legos and ping pong balls scattered in the background!)

Thanks for reading!

Toddler Tuesday

I figured Pita Pocket deserved his own category.  ;)  I'm not sure yet if this will be a weekly or just every other week kind of thing, but I thought there might be interest for some of you in the pre-Montessori lessons that I'm beginning to do with Pita Pocket.  Our focus will be on motor skills (both gross and fine), sensorial activities, and practical life activities.  I am choosing not to expose Pita Pocket to numbers and letters at this point simply because he's 21 months old.  At this age, learning about spatial relationships, exploring the world around him, learning to do things independently, etc. are MUCH more important and relevant than ABCs and 123s.  If you follow along with David Gettman's periods for Montessori lessons, you'll notice that the first few periods stress sensorial and practical life activities over language activities, and math doesn't even come into play at all during the first two periods.  Right now my main goal is just to expose Pita Pocket to fun learning activities that will ready him to begin "formal" Montessori lessons once he's around age 3.

Last week we got out our peg board so that he could work on making towers.  For some reason he got the deer-in-the-headlights look when I first brought out the camera:

 

Thankfully he quickly lost his inhibitions about being filmed:

 

 Pita Pocket also worked on opening and closing different shapes of boxes that I found on sale at Hobby Lobby.  I put a small plastic animal in each of them for him to find.  He *really* enjoyed this activity despite his big brother's overly enthusiastic "help" at times:

 
 
In case you're wondering, that weird looking tube thingy in the background is a ball chute that I put together for Pita.  It's just a shipping tube taped to the wall.  We have a container of ping pong balls that can be dropped down the tube and into the basket at the bottom.  Both of the boys really like this - we've even had a few matchbox cars go down the tube too!

 
 
Pita Pocket also worked at poking colored craft sticks through a slit in the top of an old oatmeal canister.  He really had to concentrate as the slit was very small, and I named the color of each stick for him as he put it through:

 

As always, thanks for reading!

Beginning With Pita Pocket

I did a few simple Montessori-ish things with Pita Pocket this last week - finally!  I realized that due to his speech delay I've been underestimating him.  He just seems so much "younger" than my other kids did at 20 months.  He seems to understand everything just fine, but only has about 8 words at a time when he should have between 20-25. (he's actually being evaluated for speech therapy mid-month)  I've been working to remind myself that he can understand TONS more than he can verbally communicate, and that he's definately not too young to begin simple activities. 

Short Pants and I worked together to make him a simple color book using the idea I saw over at Hearthstone House.  We didn't have any magazines, so I just downloaded pics from the net and then Short Pants helped me glue them in place.  It came out pretty cute:

 
 Short Pants wanted his (scribbled on) hand in the picture too:

 
I also introduced Pita Pocket to placing pom poms one by one into a muffin tin:

 
He promptly dumped the whole bowl onto the tin and then looked at me like, "Seriously, woman, why must you waste my time with this?"

 
A much more successful activity was showing him how to place spaghetti noodles into the holes of an old parmesan cheese container.  Pita Pocket loved this one and worked at it for some time:

 
His fake surprised face:

 
He also discovered that breaking the spaghetti was fun as well:

 
I downloaded Montessori for Everyone's Comprehensive List For Toddlers, which looks to be a great resource for the younger Montessori set.  I've also been looking at tot trays and am thinking about starting our own little "Tot School" postings so that I can link up with other mamas of toddlers doing similar things.  It seems like that might be a good way to hold myself accountable to doing mini lessons with my littlest guy every week.      

Hope you all have a great weekend!  Bean and Boba will be here, and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with my big kids.