Home Life

I like the Montesorri approach to promoting independence of having everything at the child height and accessible. We haven't quite got onto the clothes side of things yet but I have rearranged her drawers so she know what is where and I offer her a couple of options each morning.

But I'm quite pleased with how well the pantry is working at the momement. I was fed up with her raiding my baking shelves as they were just at her height so I moved that to the backs dn changed the shelf to Mischief's shelf. 

Her plates, bowls and cups are here and she chooses (when she's not in a contrary mood) ones for each meal. On this shelf is also her cereal so she can choose which one breakfast and six boxes with snacks in. These are usually things like apricots, prunes, dates, sultanas, breadsticks, mixed cereal, mini cheese biscuits. She knows to choose only one a day and if we are at home there's fresh fruit, toast, scotch pancakes and crumpets to choose from too. We dropped the afternoon snack as she wasn't eating dinner and this seems to be working well. 

I'm really pleased with how well this is working and already seems to be building her independence as she now pours her cereal too. I think we may have to invest in some Mischief sized tubs to make this easier.

She also makes her bed each morning and puts her dirty clothes in the washing bin. She tidies her toys before moving on to the next one (mostly), helps me wash up and does a pretty good job of washing herself in the bath or shower.

I-Spy Bottles

I saw this great idea on Counting Coconuts and as I had over two kilos of rainbow rice I thought I'd have a go.

I chose half a dozen small objects for each bottle and photographed them to make a contents card for her and just layered the rice and objects. I think she likes them but I think she'll get more out of them as she grows.

Weather Sensory Tub

Although Mischief loved just playing with her rainbow rice and scooping and pouring it I thought I'd have a go at making a sensory tub. Our theme this month (roughly as we're still working out how this tot school lark is going to work for us) is weather. This was perfect for using the rainbow rice, it's right there in the name.

So we had the rainbow as the base, cotton wool clouds, snowflake sequins, sparkly pipe cleaner lightning, spare weather calendar cards, and all the weather related items from the Letter Lion. I also added some scoops for pouring.

I think she might have preferred just the rice but she did have some good play. Mostly burying things and excavating them.

Rainbow Rice

Mischief and I had great fun making some rainbow rice. 

In each bag I put a tablespoon of vinegar and some food colouring. We used liquid stuff and it varied how much we needed from a teaspoon to half a bottle. I think I might invest in some sugar craft pastes if we're going to do this often. 

Mischief's task was to smoosh the bags and mix the colour. She did really well and they looked great.

I decided to dry them in the oven on a low heat for ten minutes.

But whether it was the heat or the consequence of cheap rice the grains became quite fragile and brittle. The second batch I put in for less time and finished off just drying in the tray. Next time I think I'll dry completely in trays, I was being impatient. 

I think heating them also affected the intensity of the colours. But overall it was quite successful and certainly a hit with Mischief.

Life skills

We've done a lot of practical life activites lately. Not in a particularly Montesorri fashion but just because it's a) easier for me to get chores done if Mischief helps and b) she really wants to help and learn these skills.

For quite some time she's been loading and unloading the washing machine which is actually really helpful. She even leans in and turns the drum to make sure she's got everything. So we stepped this up and made hanging the socks a matching game. She really quite surprised me how well she did this. Most of our socks are very similar with just different coloured stripes. But I was told who each sock belonged to (who know two year olds were so observant of socks) and when I picked one out she rummaged through and accurately found the matching one. She's not quite so good at hanging them but we're getting there.

Every day Mischief stands in her pod and helps me get dinner and make daddy's 'sam-itches' for the next day. She's very good at putting all the bits and bobs in the 'saucypans' so I taught her how to peel carrots.

The look of concentration is impressive. We did end up with some very flat sided carrots but she was so pleased with herself. We've also had a go at potatoes but these seem to have thicker skin. 

We made some cup cakes as she loves mummy's mixer and helped pour the batter into the cases. They did rather good impressions of volcanoes in the oven but still tasted good.

For some time she's been helping lay the fire too. She tells us what to do first, scrunches all the paper, brings the sticks and logs and stands back whilst telling us to light it carefully. It seems to be helping her establish respect for the fire and she does like being helpful.

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles

Mischief's dad brought home a huuuugggeee bag of puzzles from his boss the other day. They're so cool and some of them will be fab for tot school. 

She already loves the one of the boy learning to ride and will do it over and over, then there's the big tractor, coloured shapes with objects representing that shape, transport two part puzzles, two part opposites and two part whose home cards. 

You can see pooch isn't very impressed with her efforts...

Then we got four emergency vehicle puzzles, counting monsters puzzle game, Noah's ark triple puzzle with more pieces for each segment and Dino dominos which are four part puzzles on the reverse. A you can see she's already getting in to them all.

Then a week later we got more from a friend, two piece transport and farm puzzles, and jungle and under the sea counting puzzles. She astounded us by completing the undersea one and putting them in numerical order. This really must have been coincidence but impressed us!

Mummy's learning too

So I've been souring the internet for ideas for our tot school. My mind is buzzing with ideas, things to buy, things to make and activites to try. I've never used Pintrest or any other social media so my task is to learn as there's far too much for me to gather in bookmarks and with a memory like a sieve I'll never remember it all. 

I'm also planning themes to base activites on and how we can reflect this on our calendar. I'm trying hard not to get overwhelmed as I know I can get so caught up in planning and thinking I have to have everything in place before I can make a start that I'll put it off and off. 

Gathering pace

Well we still haven't officially made a start but we are carrying on making our space. Several black sacks have been taken to charity shops, items have been stashed in the loft and other itmes have come down to sell or help create the space. 

Mishief has enjoyed some tot school activites. Pouring heads is still a massive hit so we had changed this up with glass beads and water beads. She thought these were fab and filled a case and watched them bounce. 

Another tray had pegs to match to felt. This only held her attention for a few mins. 

I made a button snake to help with buttoning skills, colour identification and shape matching. Again not a huge hot yet but I did catch her showing it to Babbitt!

We also had a great music time with lots of tribal dancing and Mischief trying to play the harmonica and penny whistle at the same time!

Finally, yesterday we went to the Sealife Centre in Birmingham with a friend. It was a great hit and they both had a fab time. 

I know most fo these activites took part in several different room in our house but Mischief already loves her school room even though it's not finished. 

I've been amazed how long some of the activities have held her attention. I never expected a two year old to be able to concentrate on one activity for over an hour. We have noticed that when she's been cooking she's been interested for longer than when we first started a few months ago so she's obviously improving her concentration. 

I also caught her counting we fingers the other night when she woke and needed a nappy change. Exciting times. Let's see what this week brings.