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.
