BACK TO WORK

It has been a long time since I last updated the blog. I have been feeling less energetic and recently the weather didn't help. Nonetheless we have done some interesting activities and outings.
M. kept on colouring, drawing and playing with the play-dough and make believe, we went often to the library and to the children's centres. M. is learning to recognise the colours and she learnt to count to 10. In April, during the warm weather we went to the Mudchute farm, the Lady Diana's memorial play-ground and we had a couple of pic-nics in the park. When the weather worsened we went to the Childhood Museum and the London Aquarium.

Today I set few activities for her to do at home.

MAKE-BELIEVE

We played with the play-dough and we pretended to make spaghetti, pizza, eggs and cakes.





We pressed the playdough onto the plastic food and felt the different impressions that were coming out.




ANIMALS PROJECT.

M. coloured in a ladybird, a squirell and a bunny.

MESSY PLAY




M. played with water, from the aquarium visit she learnt that fish can't walk and that to survive they need to stay in the water. She often repeats this when she plays with her fish, octopus and wale toys.



ART and CRAFT

M. glued some pasta shapes, rise and lentils to a paper.

seems like november again

What a terrible rainy weather.
Back to be forced in doors and getting creative to avoid boredom!

ANIMAL PROJECT

Last week we enjoyed few hours of sunshine. During that time we could go to the park and observe the signs of springs. M. played with freshly cut grass, smelled and touched the flowers on the ground and in the trees, and had some encounters with insects.



I decided to print some insects that M. discovered last week and make her colour them in. Today she coloured in some ants.


ART AND CRAFT

We made some new play dough. This time M. used in her kitchen to make belive cooking lots of different things. She had so much fun.







We have also done some sponge painting, but after few minutes it turned into finger painting as it usually does!

reward chart

This morning at the course they taught us how to make a reward chart and how to mange it. I though M. was too young for this type of things, but they showed us that you can use a chart as soon as the child is able to understand about rewards, the important thing with a young child is to keep the chart simple and straight forward. Then they gave us some time to create a chart for our children, and me and my team member came up with a very good idea. We drew a big Yo-jojo (a Waybaloon character,our children's favourite) on a poster, and the idea is that every time our child does the behaviour we want, Yo-jojo gets a sticker, which they can put on it themselves.
For me the behaviour I want to see more of is doing as she is told straight away, without me repeating myself 10 times, losing my patience and then starting threatening her by counting to 3.
I thought that the chart would help, but probably wouldn't work straight away. Surprise-surprise, as soon as I introduce her to Yo-jojo and the stickers she was so entusiast and started doing what she was told immediately or almost immediately. I didn't have to count to 3 for every single thing, it probably happended once or twice, whereas before this counting was dominating my day!!!
I hope M. will continue to be entusiast about the chart. Yo-jojo collected 6 stickers today, and for being such a good girl M. collected a piece of chocolate.





ANIMAL PROJECT

On our way back home from the course we stopped at the library. M. sat down and read some book to the library stuffed giant panda. I went to the PC and printed off the lizzard I missed yesterday.
At home M. coloured in the lizzard and the hedgehog. Later in the afternoon I showed her some videos on the internet about hedgehogs.


WEATHER PROJECT

This morning M. had another fun walk through the puddles and this made me think about another project we can do. I though we could do something about the weather that teaches her the various weather conditions, what they are, why, and what they do to us and the environment. Starting of course with the rain.
At the library I got a couple of books about rainy days. "Rainy day" by Manning, "Kipper: Weather" by Inkpen and a very good one "A stormy day" by Petty (this last one has the oldest borrower dated 1989 and this is on the one and only stamped page! My God this library needs a proper lift)
"A stormy day" tells how the plants and animals needs the water from the rain, how the rain fills up rivers, about lightning and floods. Really simple but very interesting.
When she was having her nap, and after I finished tiding up the flat, I planned how I could teach her about the rain. I thought I would associate to the rain elements that she already knows: wellington boots, puddles and of course drops of rain; in addition I would introduce her to the rainy clouds and tell her how these are full of water that fall on the ground and this is the rain.
I drew for her a picture on a paper of all these elements for her to work on. I set the cotton wool to make the cloud, some blue gliter for the rain drops, blue tissue paper for the paddle, and small pieces of red paper for the boots (M. got red wellies)




When M. woke up from her nap, we began to complete the picture with all these materials.







When we finished we read the books about the rain.

Now I will wait for the sun, or wind or anything else to teach her about another weather condition.

ART AND CRAFT

Today I baked home made pizza for dinner. M. also made some pizzas and cakes with the play dough we made a few days ago. It was really good for her imagination-skills, and I must say she surprised me when I told her "oh you made a nice pizza" and she replyed "no, this is a cake!". I didn't know she could play with her imagination this much.
She knead, flatted, and cut the dough, then put pieces of "cake" and "pizza" on plates and pretended to eat them.
She loved it!






And when the real pizza was ready she eat that too! Well done mum, a really nice pizza.

SPLASH!

Today we went on foot to the local library. It is a good walk, especially for little legs, but M. is a good walker! I took the occasion to put her wellington boots on and let her have fun with the paddles on our way. The weather is terrible, not really an ideal day for a stroll, but ehi oh we can't always stay indoor!It is good to see how the world is when is wet!





M. had so much fun splashing with her red willies. It took us so long to arrive at the library because M. kept on stopping every two steps to look at something and asking "what's this?"; of course all things that she saw hundreds times and she knows what they are. I am wondering if instead of what she wants to say why but she doesn't know how.



At the library we sat down cosy with a few books, we read some and decided to borrow a few more to read at home. M. likes "Pippo" by Oxenbury, it is a series that tell the adventures of a toddler, Tom, and his monkey puppet "Pippo". All the books in the series are really nice to read and very realistic.
Later I went to print off some animals prints for M. to colour in.
I am thinking to make tuesday the "library day".


ANIMAL PROJECT


On sunday we watched Life on iplayer, the episode we missed on saturday. M. was impressed with a African animal which looks like a mouse and ran like a mouse. This animal was chased by a giant lizzad that wanted to eat it, but luckly the mouse managed to outrun it.
So I print out for her a mouse, a panda and a hedgehog which she had some interest in a few days ago. So bad that I forgot to print out a lizard, because when we came back home and started to colour in the mouse, she asked me to watch the mouse and the lizzard on the iplayer again. After that she started pretending to be a lizzard and she didn't finish to colour the mouse.

This is how our poster for the animals project looks like now.




THE WORLD AROUND US

Saturday we went to feed the ducks.





M. had another encounter with the squirell, but this time no accident happened, so this may help her get rid of her fears.
Later we went to the play ground. We were there just 10 minutes when the ice-cream van arrived singing its ideous tune! The children disappeared to return with a ice-cream cone each. M. wanted one as well. There was no way I could make her change her mind. I rushed to the van before it left (I dind't want a possible tantrum) and found I was 9p short...oh please just put a little less ice-cream for us. The man agreed and gave us a full ice-cream but without the chocolate flake. M. still doesn't know much about ice-cream to realize, and it made my day!

terrible 2 here I am!

The prophecy has become tue! What awful behaviour M. has having these last few days....it seems they are waiting for their second birthday to completely transformed themselves from little angels to terrible toddlers! Not a baby anymore but not quite a child...stuck in between and just becoming frustrated. Oh dear oh dear and I am the one who has to deal with this! It is getting quite tiring: all day moaning, crying for any stupid little thing, not wanting to play with her usual friends and refusing anyone. On top of this she is not sleeping enough during the night, going to sleep late and waking up early, and every mother knows how difficult a tired child can be!

Nonetheless I managed to keep her amused with some activities.

5 SENSES

I have finished the "smell" section. To the mixed dried herbs, pepper and coffee beans, I added chocolate powder, mixed spices and fennel seeds.

She tried the different smells and I hope she will go back to the box from time to time.

The "touch" section is under construction.

ANIMAL PROJECT

M. got interested in snails and their behaviour. She wanted to understand how they go inside their shells. We have a couple of books that feature snails in their tales, so I read them for her and explain to her that the shell is the snail's house and that it retreats inside when it is scared and as a defence from other animals that may want to eat it.

I drew a snail for her and she coloured that in for our wall poster.

ART AND CRAFT

We did some painting using the wheels of a toy car. Just going with the car on top of a big drop of paint and then make it run on top of a paper. This will result in lines across the whole paper.

M. liked this simple activity and played with the car and the paint for a long time.

We also made play dough from a recipe I got from the childen centres. It is really easy and M. could help me made the dough without much mess. The dough is actually much better than the one you buy because is softer and little hands can model it easier; you can also add some drops of food coloring to give it the colour you want or add essence to give it a nice smell. We had some chocolate powder to give it a yummy smell.

M. liked adding the ingredients to the bowl and mixing with a spoon. Later she had fun cutting with a plastic knife the sausage dough shapes I made for her.

Recipe

1 cup of flour

3/4 cup salt

1/2 cup water or more if needed

1 table spoon vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients and knead until smooth. It can be covered and kept in the fridge for 2 weeks.

my one year old is gone

And here we are on the last day of my one year old. Tomorrow M. is 2.

How time flies. of course I miss my baby, I miss her when she was so tiny and just started crawling, and then walking and then the first few words. My baby is a little girl now. I am sad...a bit of course...for now she is still my little girl.

ANIMAL PROJECT

We coloured in a bee and its elements of connection: a hive and a man that collects honey. She learnt how the man wears protective clothing so the bees don't sting him, and how the bees make honey inside the hive.

Now she has an interest for pandas, so I guess this will be the next animal we will look at.

VARIOUS

These days she has been wanting to helping me with the cooking, pouring water in the pot, adding salt and other ingredients.

Here she is adding mushrooms and olives to a pizza.

She also wanted to take some pictures...I was a bit reluctant to let her use the camera, of course she wanted a bit of revange for all the pictures I take of her!

This is the picture she manged to take of mummy.

Mostly though she wanted to draw. She is drawing lots of circles and lines saying they are children, mums, dads, babies, snakes, frogs, crabs, trees.

She is drawing every where: on the train, trolley, car, buggy. I always take with me a pen and a paper and this keeps her busy for ages! Really great!