First week of Tot school. Days 1-3

MONDAY

The idea was to throw a party to celebrate the beginning of our school, but we haven't had time to arrange everything in the way we want, plus many friends were still away on vacation. So, today tot school has started without any previous event.
By "home or tot school" I mean all the activities M and me do in the morning. Activities I have scheduled for our first trimester, that is the next 16 weeks, or until the baby is born.
Having around 16 topics in mind, I will set up the environment for M to learn as much as she wants. I try to plan inviting set-ups where she decides what she wants to do in a way that is connected with the topic that is displayed that week. I won't push her to do anything, just support her in what she decides to do, observe her and let her be.
This first morning, for instance, after getting up and having breakfast, she's been toying around with the first items that were displayed on her shelves:
After some minutes, she has realized the weather was a bit cool and we have headed for the bathroom to get dressed and groomed. Curiously, she has decided to wear a red jumper, just like the bottle she was playing with a second ago. "Red" is the color she knows best. Then comes "blue". And as for "yellow"she gets a bit mixed up sometimes, saying "purple" instead or not saying anything. We did enough activities in the past so that I can ask her now "what color is this?" Of course, here I mean only the three basic colors, although some weeks ago, when I made her rock crayons I was surprised to see that she was able to correctly associate each of the six colors we had.

Already dressed, she has headed for the kitchen on her own account and has come back with a pot of yellow finger paint. I guess something has made her associate the bottles activity with the paint. Although we often draw and paint with a variety of supplies, we have only used those pots of finger paint three times. I have set up a table and brush, glass with water and cardboard outside, and this is what she's made.
Then, we've gone downstairs to load a washing machine; activity she often wants to do all by herself. We've had a snack and we intended to go to the library to get some color related books. M was very excited about the idea of library books but since she has not been willing to seat in her car seat, we've come back home.
Quick lunch and before 12 she was napping.
Today is also my first day of work -ehem- I will be working around 5 hours a week as of now so I don't know if I should call it "work". Anyway, since I am teaching this afternoon, today we're done with school activities.
As you can guess, this week will be devoted to "colors" and I intend to display secondary colors and see how we get along. If you are interested, be sure to check back with us soon.

TUESDAY 
Notice how empty our notice board and working table look at the beginning of the week:

This is a very easy activity that took me just five minutes to put together. The wooden blocks belong to the box you can see on the right in the pic above. I took three red blocks and three blue ones from the set and placed them in the tiny basket. Then, I painted the equivalent shapes with markers, and voilà. 

 M found the activity on her table and set to work straight away. I actually didn't notice because I was in the kitchen but she had done it right and I noticed it was very easy for her. I regretted not having included yellow and green as I had first intended, but the yellow was too pale for the cardboard and when I prepare things close to midnight I am too tired to look for solutions... She liked it anyway and wanted to play while waiting for lunch.

 In the meantime, as well, I took the opportunity she was so concentrated and interested to introduce "light blue". We toyed with some light blue items and then filled in a bottle with light blue glitter and water. Wonderful activity to foster practical skills such as using a funnel. It's a pity I forgot to take a picture of our new blue light bottle.

WEDNESDAY

However sick and hopeless I felt yesterday, I guess you would call today a "very successful day". Well, M has dropped her nap, but for the rest she has been fine. I had prepared three activities but she has only had time to explore one, which is fine, since the rest will be there ready for her to use if she chooses to tomorrow.

As you already know, if you have been reading this Tot school journal of ours, this week we are exploring colors and doing color activities. It might be an obsession with my profession, but I was a bit worried we don't own any books about colors, so a visit to the local library was a must this week. I really wanted to make one of those books where vegetables, fruits and other items are grouped by color but I haven't had time at all.

We attempted to go to the library on Monday but M didn't want to get into the car. We were far too busy yesterday, and I wasn't feeling well, so we have attempted it again today and it's been a great hit. Both car rides were fine; among the six ore seven color related books we've borrowed three which are quite beautiful; M has enjoyed the kid's space, painted a bit, given her painting to the librarian, gotten her library card, played with the colored cushions.

In the afternoon, after no nap--- we've gone to our favorite park, where we had a date with M's two friends, and both car rides have been fine, which is incredibly good, given the state M can be in after a whole day of activity, no nap and her absolute dislike of cars.
(Sorry for the quality of the shots. For practical reasons, I only use my cell phone.)

Summing up 19 month practical life

My dear girl turned 20 months yesterday and I am amazed at how much we've experienced together. Since she is going to have her second birthday around the time her brother is born, I wanted to throw a 20 month party in her honor, so I'll better start planning it carefully.
Today I will share a summary of M's accomplishments during her 19th month.
 * Potty learning completed both during day and night time. Rare accidents can occur if she is distracted or there is too much excitement around.
* Getting her shoes, t-shirt, and pants on. I don't know why she finds dresses more difficult to put on.
* Setting her part of the table using her placemat.
* Pouring her own glass of water.
* Taking care of plants.
* Helping with some housework such as mopping the floors, washing windows, or doing dishes. In truth she helps any time she is asked but we don't really have a routine and sometimes don't ask her to join. We need to improve this.

In terms of language, she amazes me all the time. Some structures and turns she uses are surprising, and she even makes fun of the language sometimes. The other day when we were in the changing rooms of the community pool, she told me "like it no" to refer to the noise the hand-dryers make, and later on the same day she told me "no like it, lake it", when I asked her about a book we were reading. Another day she surprised us using a German expression she got from a German book her father reads to her when they are in the toilet. We were shown some cute puppies the neighbor's dog had delivered some days before and she exclaimed "wie süss" (how sweet!). She is also picking up some Spanish and she has amused us tonight when out of the blue she has half stood on her chair and said "Menina, por favor".

Regarding gross motor skills she has started to be interested in physical activities such as running, climbing, and shooting or throwing balls. On the other hand, in terms of fine motor skills, she is really into sorting pom-poms into ice trays.

Artistically speaking, her delight are "colors" and she often asks us to draw or paint something for her. For this reason, I've made some "kind of" rock crayons for her. I could not find rock crayons in Spain but don't worry 'cause I used some very old crayons -from my husband and his brother's childhood- to make brand-new round crayons. And although the result is far from perfect, M loves them.

The old crayons just before going into the oven

Before Spring settles in

In my mind I have been wanting to write and post about so many things lately that thinking I had actually done something I have almost completely forgotten to mention what was going on around here. Preparing to welcome the spring I set up a new environment last night and realized I hadn't shared our last activities, not even the ones we had before those. I apologize for this lack of consistency.
We tried stickers again, using a black-and-white painting by J. Miró as the background, and this was the outcome:

I know it is too early for abstract concepts such as colors but since we are always seeing basic colors everywhere I decided to set up some color shelves for a couple of weeks. You can see the blue and red ones -yellow came later-. M didn't show much interest in them, only took some items to explore. And although I guess the blocks are likely to be used in the future, up to know they have been utterly ignored. Finally, I got to make a triangle, yellow block!














One of the boxes we have had around these pasts weeks contains toiletries; a tiny hand mirror, a hair brush, necklaces, and bracelets. Together with the clothes baskets, it has been a hit. There you can see M trying on some jewels, and checking their top quality with the help of the mirror:-)

We've been also doing some activities outside, playing with sand -oh, yeah, we finally set up a sandy area-, water, using the blackboards... The water involved a bit more of a mess, so I didn't take any pictures... sorry! I will next time.

 M is currently 14 months old and she has started to stand on her own and cruise taking one or two steps. It is so exciting and the nicest thing is that she shows excitement when she realizes she is there all by herself. Before she decided to give cruising a try though, she tried to climb the stairs step by step on  her legs... This is something that has indeed surprised me, she could crawl up this flight of iron stairs before crawling on the floor and started standing up on each step before standing on the floor! Isn't that amazing?

Hey world, here I come!!

One more Farm week

As usual, books have been a great hit this week. For this reason, and following our main topic "the farm", I have changed the display of the shelf every couple of days. While doing this, I have seen that what works best for us is to change materials every couple of days. We stuck to the farm topic for over a month but have mixed many other activities and several changes of the way materials were displayed. As I said last week I would probably do, I went ahead and and got M a special treat; two beautiful Schleich farm animals: a horse and a foal.
We started the week with horses on the shelf, then switched to sheep and cows.

Another of the top activities this week has been climbing. I rarely post pictures of M's gross motor activities and there is a reason for that: she is way faster than I and by the time I've got the camera ready she is already on the floor again. This time, though, I could take some snaps.

There she is climbing into and out of a hassock.

And here, climbing into an umbrella stroller we have been given and has unexpectedly turned out to be a success.
Tomorrow I'll talk about other activities we gave a try last week and will show you our latest creation.
I am off for a much needed rest!

Our week in images

Before I rearrange our shelves tonight, I would like to revise what we've done this past week. A bit tired after a whole weekend of activities, including a wonderful and totally unplanned trip to a nearby farm, I am going to summarize our week in pictures. We are so lucky!!! We've set out for a walk this morning and been invited by a young farmer to have a look at all his poultry. After a week playing with the new set of farm animal magnets, transferring wooden eggs, and reading Rosie's walk, a visit to a poultry farm on Sunday morning was just ideal.

Hand-eye coordination skills:

Turning on the lights.

Getting the plug in the socket.

Eating with spoon and fork at the same time...

Gross motor skills:

Dragging her chair.

Climbing onto her chair.

And our trip to the farm: