Saturday, August 30, 2014

Colors, Shapes, & Sorting

Well, this house has taken a little break from Letter of the Week. Life is slightly more busy now than our crazy summer so I haven't had (or made) the time to make lessons. Instead Babycake is learning on the go, or in the moment. The first "subject" I remember focusing on for a period of time with Babycake around age one or younger, was colors. She loved how I would point out colors of things we saw around us- where ever we happened to be. It was a bit of a game for us. After a while I started including shapes. "Look, that sign is a yellow triangle," "the store has a big red circle on it," etc.

Since I am taking a hiatus from creating lessons, this game we once so often played has returned. We've even made it into our own "eye spy." "Eye spy with my little eye something that is blue," and she runs to whatever blue thing she can find. Being two years old, it's too difficult to understand that when Mommy says she sees something blue, it is not the same blue object that she happen to see, or even the second or third blue thing. That gets very frustrating and the game is no fun. The whole point of our game is 1) to practice our colors and make sure we understand them 2) a little play interaction for Mommy and Babycake 3) a time for Babycake to be busy doing something and not getting into mischief. Really this game is a huge hit and a great game for when some of our little friends come over. Babycake also enjoys being the spyer, though this version is always played differently depending on the day and her present mood ;-)

Another activity I have been having Babycake do in the evenings (primarily at dinner preparation time) is to sit at the table and sort some foam shapes I found in the dollar section at Target. I love that section. My husband won't let me enter it on my own if he happens to be with me. Thank goodness I usually shop while he's at work! Anyway, The shapes are all different colors. So I'll ask Babycake to put all the green stars together, then once she's done that, all the yellow circles, and so on. This game is very fun and it's difficulty can progress after a few of the tasks have been accomplished. Like once she sorts all the shapes into separate piles, I'll giver her some toddler chopsticks (another $ section find!) and a small bowl. She then is to put each group one by one into to bowl using the chopsticks. When we first started this game a couple months ago she had to use both hands to work the chopsticks. Now she is able to use one hand completely gripping it, and eventually she will be able to properly hold and use the chopsticks. This is such a fun way to learn fine motor skills.

Since Babycake knows her colors, and shapes pretty well, this is also a great game for her to understand adjectives. "Put the blue square in the bowl." If you said put something blue, or put the square in the bowl, she would put the correct object in, but I've noticed that saying 'blue square' is really making her stop and think. She is starting to realize that more than one word can describe something- this thing is a square, it is also blue. Shapes have always just been shapes before, and colors have described anything and everything. This is a whole new concept of speaking/describing. We're moving from "the bird is blue," to "it's a blue bird."

As I'm writing this, I temporarily thought "well that's silly, those sentences are saying the same thing. This really isn't that big of a deal." Wow. Um. No. This is big. Babycake is learning our language and the different ways something can be described. Yes the message is the same in each sentence, but to understand that the message is the same despite word order changing, and a couple of words changing, is a very big step. It's also not simply that she hears what I say, sees what I'm motioning to, and understands the message, but she can now verbalize messages of her own in a similar fashion.

Watching a child learn and grow is so fascinating, exciting, and if you're lucky enough to be a part of it, it's incredibly rewarding.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Time to recoup!

Oh man! This was one busy summer! It was filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, and never seemed to provide a breather. We started the summer season by leaving Babycake for two weeks with my parents while we flew across the pond with my husband's family to Ireland, England, and Whales.
Stonehenge

No we didn't visit Great Britain b/c we visited the part of Ireland that is not part of Great Britain- I learned a lot of history and geography on this trip. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should seriously watch this video. It's informative and entertaining.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10


Wedding prep
So, we got back, had a week to attempt a normal routine again, and then left that weekend to Chicago. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid to one of my best friends while she married a really great guy. She of course looked beautiful and the ceremony was lovely. I just wish I had had more energy instead of still suffering from jet lag, and a toddler who happened to be WAY off her normal schedule and totally regress in her previously completed potty training.

Counting cars at snack time
The next week I went from nannying one toddler two times a week, to the toddler and his two older sisters, who were on summer break, three days a week. These kids are all great. They are kind and fun. Babycake and I had a blast spending our summer with them. We had many trips to the zoo and participated in the library summer reading program too. We got great prizes from the reading program- baseball tickets, state fair tickets, children's museum haunted house tickets, toys, and lots and lots of temporary tattoos.

The only downside I found to having four kids three days a week was that my workout routine suffered... a lot. Summer was not only busy in our daily life events, but my husband's work schedule lengthened as well. I was often left home with Babycake until 7 or 8 in the evening. So, after having 4 kids all day I wasn't interested in driving to the Y to exercise, and on my days off, it still sounded exhausting since I was playing single parent all day. This is not the first time hubby's schedule has become 12 hr shifts, but we had gotten used to having him home by 5 or 6 each night. Last summer it was incredibly frustrating when he worked this late as Babycake would be in bed, or getting ready for bed, by the time he got home. This year, she's so big and stays up until 8 or 8:30! (I'm interested in seeing if this will stick once the sun starts going down earlier and we aren't outside playing as late)

A rose for each year
in our marraige.
This summer my husband and I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, hubby got me a new computer since my old one was 4 yrs old, and beginning to turn off at random points while I was still working and battery life showed fine. Each year he also gets me roses- one for each year of our marriage. Somehow I always forget he does this and am surprised and touched by the gesture. He claims he does this so one day he can walk into the flower shop and order 50.
Liverpool FC vs. Olypiacos FC
My gift to him was a day trip to Chicago to watch his favorite football/soccer team Liverpool FC. While we were in England we got to tour Liverpool FC stadium, museum, and training grounds. It happened to be the off season for football/soccer while we were there so there was no chance of seeing any players or going to a game. The day in Liverpool was the best day of my husband's life despite not attending a game. I think this summer will go down in our family history as the best ever since he ended up being present at a game (even if it was an international friendly).

Fishin' at the State Fair!
To end the summer our little family went to the state fair. We ended up doing almost every activity/ sight we did last year, and added a few more. It was fun to look at the almost identical pictures from last year and this year and see how much Babycake has grown! Not only is she obviously bigger, but she was able to understand so much more, and follow instructions from the presenters of activities on her own too. Next year we will probably do the same things again b/c she will not remember and will be able to do more and learn more.

Now that summer has ended and school has begun, our nanny friends are all in school full time. It was sad saying bye to the kiddos, especially the little one since I've been watching him for over a year. Babycake had just turned one when I began watching him and can't remember life without him. She still talks about them everyday and saves seats at the table or couch for them. I think she's confused why they are not with us almost everyday anymore.

Hubby still works late, but I'm now going back to the Y. It's really nice to get back on a more relaxed schedule. Sadly this break is just that, a break. This fall we've got four weddings, a few showers, a trip to Lake MI, and to top it off, I've agreed to begin a business with my aunt. So our summer adventures have ended and our fall ones are on the brink. I'm just grateful for this breather.





Letter Weeks Kk and Ll

As were all the weeks of the summer, weeks Kk and Ll were no different. One exciting thing that did happen during week Kk, was that Babycake's Aunt Kelly came to visit. It was fun to see Babycake try to comprehend a person (or their name) beginning with a letter. I don't think she got it, but she went along with it and got excited b/c we were excited. 

For week Kk, we read books about kites, kangaroos, koalas, kings, and knights. Babycake loved reading about the animals, and most of our kite books involved Curious George so that was exciting. However, she didn't really get what a king was, and talking about a knight, but not night time and bedtime and darkness instead of light really threw her for a loop. It was a little funny to watch the confusion and misunderstanding while I attempted to make sense of it to my two year old. 
Our crafts here (sorry for the bad shot!) coloring a kite, and having Aunt Kelly draw one on a scrap of paper, create a kangaroo from the letter K, and color a K and koala and glue the koala on so it can climb the K.


For letter week Ll, we read books about lions, lambs, lobsters, and lamps. Did you know there aren't many childrens books about lamps? hmmm. Yeah, I just got a book with tons of pictures of different lamps from the regular section of the library. That was interesting enough for a two year old.
Here are our crafts of a lamp. lamb, lobster (this one was really exciting) and a lion (also super exciting to roar all day like a lion).

Letter Weeks Ii and Jj

Wow! I'm a little (or months) behind! Summer was super busy, and I'll share more of our adventures in another post. But now I'd like to begin catching up on our Letter of the Week lessons. With how busy our summer was, each letter we learned took about 2 weeks. This is b/c I was not as diligent about reading books related to the lesson everyday or doing a craft or activity everyday.

So, here is our crafts and lessons for letter Ii and Jj.




 For week Ii, we read books about ice, icicles, ice cubes, ice cream, and insects. Here you can see we made an ice cream cone, icicles hanging from our I, and insect, and practiced staying in the lines when gluing ice cubes to our I. As you can imagine, all the talking and reading about ice, meant we had to have ice cream and ice pops all week long!







For week Jj, we read books about the jungle, jumping snakes in the jungle, jaguars, jellyfish, and jumping. Here are our jauguar, jellyfish, and jumping snake crafts. I was very greatful for our jungle book that gave me the idea for the jumping snake as I needed one more day's activity! One day we talked all about jumping- jumping and dancing, jumping rope, jumping with hopscotch, etc.