biscuits please

For two days M. have been having fun making biscuits with home made play dough (which she made herself).


You can do this by adding some flour, salt and water (enought to make a dough that doesn't stick to the hands), then you can add some ingredients for texture (peanuts, cake decoration, ice-cream toppers)
She also had pretend tea parties with the play dough biscuits and water as tea, all on plates and cups of course!

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.

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!

every new word

WORDS

Every day M. is saying a new word! It is amazing to hear her pronounce perfectly, sometimes trying to say or say in her own way a word that the previous day she didn't know. She is bla bla speaking with the usual words and suddenly there you have it a brand new word that just fits right in with her sentence and instead of a pointing or a sign there is a very clear well pronounced word!

Also we have already started the phase of "what is this mummy". It happened four days ago, at the tender age of 23 months and it didn't stop, I know it won't for a long time. For now I am very happy with her curiosity, answering to her questions in a polity, calm and motherly way. Of course she is asking me about things that have always been around her and she surely know their use (carpet, umbrella, cream); I think that she just want me to repeat the world for her, so she can learn it.

To improve on her already fab progress we used our flash cards and now she is willing to try and say more words whereas before she wouldn't even attempt to. I noticed that she takes a long time to learn a new world in my mother tongue, but she registers an English word so quickly she can repeat it back the second after it was pronounced! She knows so many English words that I never taught her, she just learnt them because she overheard me talking to someone or from the TV. She would probably speak first in English if i wouldn't put so much effort for her to learn our mother tongue.



EYE-HAND COORDINATION and MANUAL DEXTERITY

M. is having a big fun time with mega blocks recently. She used to build only tall towers made of the single unit blocks, or add to my constructions some single unit blocks here and there. Now her imagination has grown. She is building "aeroplanes" and "houses" and she wants to use all the blocks, adding them on and on until there aren't any left. The way she fits the blocks together as developed a lot in comparisons to few week ago.

Mega blocks are really good to play with in M.'s age because there isn't a real goal to achieve, just put them together and see what will come out, it is an enjoyable toy for all the family, it is probably the activity that will keep a small child interested the longest, and also it helps with eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity.

I love the mega blocks my self!

COLOURS

We done some colour in activities. Sitting with her I let her give me with crayon or felt-tip she wants me to use and then I label the colour (oh M. is giving mummy red), so that she will also learn the names of the colour. Then I ask her which part of the drawing she wants mummy to colour in, and I colour that part that colour until she gives me a new colour. It doesn't matter if a girl's hair will get colour in red rather than in brown or yellow: this is her drawing and she can choose to do it in any colour she likes. This will be more enjoyable for her instead of listening to mummy saying "no, girl's hair aren't red". I believe she likes to say to mummy what to do for a change!

I enjoy seeing how confident she is making choices of colours and what drawing she wants to do the colouring on.

MESSY PLAY

We played with water: I filled up with some water her bath tub and put her dolly, different size containers and her tea set to make a tea for the dolly. Of course she had lots of fun and after 15 minutes I had to stop the activity because she was totally wet!

We also had fun with finger paint where M. splat and splat her hands and then spread the paint all over the paper. It is quite messy but she didn't want to stop splatting.

ROLE PLAY

We usually play with her kitchen and plastic food, but this time I tried to introduce real food like pasta and rice and wasabi nuts (sure enough that she won't eat them). I didn't have anything else suitable but I guess dried lentils, chickpeas and fruit are good too.

I showed her how she should pretend to put water in the pot, add the pasta and then the salt... mix and then put the lid on the pot. When ready the pasta is put on the plates and served...mmmmmm.

She then copied every thing I did, adding the rice and other things to her dish too.

This activity is also good to experience different texture; for this point it may be nice also used cooked pasta for different textures.