EVERY THING BEAUTIFUL

Oh lovely summer is here...we have been on holiday back to our origins. M. learnt so much there about where the fruit and vegetable come from. She became independent on picking strawberries, basil leaves, berries and helped me with other vegetables such as courgettes, aubergines, green beans. We ate so much fresh picked fruit, and M loved it so much. Back in London we kept the good habits and went to the country park to pick some black berries and we also discovered trees of sweet cherries and even peas!
We ate lots of berries and cherries and I also made jam, which she still enjoyes on a melba toast for breakfast.
I have also bought a basil plant and made pesto with the leaves M. picked for me, she also helped me prepare it. It is very good that she understand how fruit and vegetable grow and how we can make delicious things from them in a very simple way.
She is also developing a better understanding of how nature works (the plant needs sun and water and the fruit will ripe with time and with a good deal of sunshine), and grow an emphaty for our world.















We are also enjoying parks very much. Our bourogh is organizing various activities for children around the local parks, and even if there isn't much sunshine, we are having lots of days out, we even watched a puppet show, have face painting and made lots of art and craft, all of this for free!





Oh yes, I forgot! M. became so good with her potty traing that she was keeping herself 90% dry in matter of 2 weeks from the start of the training. After 1 month and half (cause of timeing issues) she got her scooter. She now keeps dry even at night!

Mudchute farm

Summer is her at last!

We made a trip at Mudchute farm where M. can see farm animals, feed them and even touch them and run after them. It is a lovely place where you can really feel like in the country-side.
M. had lots of fun! There were small lambs free on the meadow and she was running after them to stoke them, eventually she cracked the tecnique and managed to successfully touch quite a few of them.
It was a really sunny and hot day. We had a pic-nic with our friends and then a little stroll to make all the little ones sleep.
There is also a small play-ground where they had time to play when they woke up from their nap.






MESSY PLAY

I put some rice on a oven dish and gave M. some containers and spoons to play with it. She put the rice in and out the containers, she tried all the different size spoons and enjoyed this activity for quite a long time.

POTTY TRAINING

M. is now 2 and 3 months, the season is getting warmer and I think she is ready to make the big step from baby to little girl.
I am expecting her to understand exactly where she needs to make a wee and poo and why, and I am also expecting lots of mess and accident for the first week, getting better and better as the days pass.

To make the all process rewarding, and hopefully quicker, I have introduced a reward chart, similar to the ones I made previously. We chose to have Meg and Mog on it, her favourite book characters, and every time she makes wee in the potty she will get a sticker, sometimes even only the effort to sit and try will award her a sticker (at least for the first couple of days).



The first day (friday, 4 days ago)was quite disappointing for me, because M. made a couple of wees on the floor and didn't even care or have any feelings for it, she just moved away from her puddle and kept on being busy with her toys. I didn't expect that she wouldn't even tell me that she has done it!
I felt that I was up to a difficult and long task.

I then introduced to the chart a final prize she would get if she could collect lots of stickers and become really good at using the potty. This prize is something that she wants from long time: a scooter.
I cut a picture of it from the Argos' catalogue and I sticked it to the chart, so every time she goes to put a sticker she is reminded of her prize.
To make her successful efforts even more rewarding troughtout the potty training I told her I will reward her from time to time with a clog-charm for her clogs; since she is into the little mermaid at the moment, I bought from e-bay 4 charms with different characters from the walt-disney animation. Today she got Sebastian because she made a wee on the grass in the park, and when we arrived home I gave her the Ariel one because again she made wee on her own, today she never wet herself.

Now our chart looks like this: stickers that she got for using the potty, on the left the photos of her future scooter and hung on Meg's hat the bag with the clog-charms.



I am really proud of her to have progressed so quickly! Of course I am expecting more mess and accidents, but the important thing is that she is getting in the habit to use the potty.

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!

dolce salame

This is a recipe from my childhood. I remember it was almost always in the freezer during summer, but there were also good occasions to eat it in winter. It is also linked to my dear grandmother who passed away a year ago, it was her doing it for us, her grandchildren, as a treat.
It is really easy, there is no need of baking and it takes minutes. Older children can managed to do it almost completely by them selves, younger one can have fun helping with some stages.
M. helped mummy breaking the biscuits and cleaning the bowl with her fingers!




INGREDIENTS:

150 gr rich tea biscuits or digestive
70 gr butter
100 gr dark choccolate
50 gr sugar
1 egg

Leave the butter at room temperature for few minutes to become soft. In a large bowl break the buiscuits into small pieces. Melt the choccolate over a bowl of hot water, mix it untill is smooth and then leave it to cool down.
Work the butter with a spoon untill smooth, then add the sugar,the egg and the cool choccolate.
Add the mixture to the broken buiscuits and mix all together.
Put all the mixture onto a sheet of foil big enough to cover it, and with your hand give it the form of a long sausage.
Still in the foil, put your choccolate sausage in the freezer and leave it to rest for at least three hours.
To serve, slice the cake with a knife.

WEATHER PROJECT

It is still very cold, there have been few warm days, but they were quickly forgotten. Last week was a cold one and this week is even worse.
For our project weather we have been looking at the cold weather. I drew a scarf, a hat, a pair of gloves and a coat, M filled them up with a collage of wool strings, pieces of coloured paper and tissue paper.





ART AND CRAFT

We made some cards for family and friends. M. expecially likes putting the glitter on them. I think it is a lovely thing making hand made cards.







REWARD CHART

We accomplished the porpuse of the first reward chart, which was to change the nappy as soon as mummy said that. Now we have a new chart for a baby-habit M. doesn't want to get rid off easily. This one we have done it together: M. chose to have Opsy Daisy on it and then she helped me coloured it in. It works exactly in the same way as the first one, but we have introduced a timer: for every hour she doesn't do the habit, she will receive a sticker, when she gets three stickers I will give her a piece of choccolate. It is working very well and she is so good to control her-self. This exercise is teaching her self-control and patience (cause she needs to wait to obtain the third sticker before getting the choccolate). She is really cooperative and I am very proud of her.