Rainbow activities

Colors were the first topic we worked on when we started this school year. After some activities that reinforced the notions of basic colors M already had, I decided to widen the scope to secondary colors and what better than the rainbow to work on seven colors?

The first activity I left next to the window just as a suggestion was a foam rainbow together with a bowl of water. M knew well that those foam pieces stick to the glass if soaked in water and the moment she saw the invitation, she set to work. Once she had been working for a while, I took the opportunity to review the colors with her and sing the rainbow song a couple of times. 

Foam rainbow and a bowl full of water

It took M less than a week to learn these seven colors, after all only four of them were more or less new but it made 14 words, since she learned them both in English and Catalan. 

Among the rainbow activities featured also our home-made crayons, which were quite used for a while.

Something else we made was a painted rainbow to use for matching activities and these have engaged her several times since we made them around the second week of September for the first time. Had I been thinking of posting this, I would have used tempera or acrylic paint but since I thought it would be an activity for a while I used crayons. It would have looked neater...

M matching painted clothes pegs to the rainbow

Matching colored feathers to the rainbow

Home-made watercolors

M really likes painting, coloring, and experimenting with paint, so the other day I set up an activity that cost me close to nothing and that turned out really successful. 

We made home-made watercolors. We had never tried it before and it was really simple. First, I gave M a dropper full of water and a plastic egg box. She experimented with the dropper a little bit, then accepted my help. We would otherwise have had way too much water in each hole.

We then added a little bit of cinnamon, orange and green food coloring, turmeric, and curry, and we had nice watercolors to paint with!

Do you have any favorite home-made paint recipes or painting ideas? I would really like to hear!!

Button snake

I had never shared a video before and I don't think I will do it often, but this time I've considered it the clearest way of showing our latest creation.
I was inspired by Counting coconuts to make this button snake, and well, it was actually my mother who helped me with the sewing. Well, she has more time than I do and is much better and faster with the needle. It was not our first button activity but it was more age appropriate than the one I made before. I had not planned to introduce the button snake to M yet but the other day, while moving some boxes, the snake fell to the floor and I thought "why not" present it on a tray, just as an invitation to play.
The button snake is a nice invitation to learn buttoning and it turned out to be a real hit. Not only did M get the button through the buttonhole but she spent considerable time in a state of concentration that I love to observe. She enjoyed the activity so much that we took it to the car, where it is always a bit difficult to find interesting things that she can do while seating.
The snake is really easy to make. You only need a string of cloth that you can cut out from remnants, a button -I chose a big one, like the ones winter coats usually have-, several squares with a button hole in the middle -I used felt for those- and you have the toy. Simple, cheap, and nice. And a nice way to learn how to button up.

What's new: nursing teddies

Halloween came and went and although we had done some related activities, namely pumpkin play dough with cinnamon flavor, small pumpkin boxes recycling egg cartons, and a pumpkin costume, I now realize I took pictures of none of these activities. There is here a tradition called "castanyada", where people gather to eat toasted chestnuts and small cookies called "panallets" and that's what we celebrated in the end. My husband and M made panallets and we invited some friends over for the weekend. The girls were very excited to spend together longer time than is usual.
My dear girl turned 22 months on the 22nd of October and I can tell she has really grown in maturity lately. She is able to express much of her feelings and I think this enables her to feel more at ease and confident about life in general. Not that she is suddenly a bold girl, but she dares to talk to some people and yesterday, for instance, in the supermarket she greeted an unknown boy with a "hello boy" after they had stared at each other for some seconds. And even when she has been shy and silent in a situation, she is able to relate it with humor, as if she had been chatting and taking part of it. This really amazes me.
She has started talking to herself a lot as of late and it is not strange to hear her up and down the house describing what she is doing or what she is going to do, or talking to her teddy. Today I have heard her asking the teddy if he wanted some milk. He must have answered positively because she has proceeded to nurse him and afterwards she has asked him if he wanted to get some sleep. This nursing teddies is something new. Although "we" weaned when she was 17 months, we have never stopped talking about how there will be milk when the baby is born, and she has seen in many instances friends of hers or babies nursing. I love how she incorporates nursing as one more natural aspect of life.
In terms of language, her structures are getting more and more complex and she can now relate quite long sentences with connectors. I find it really funny, though, that despite using "because" apparently well, the sentences she connects often have nothing to do with one another. Another amusing mistake occurs sometimes now that she has incorporated the verb to be in simple sentences as well as in the present continuous/progressive form. Thus, she often says things like "are you cold", to express that she is cold. I love it because while you can see that she is learning to speak really fast, the way she uses language is a very clever imitation of what she hears. It is amazing that children who start talking under the age of 2 or so often invert the personal pronouns. My husband mocks us 'cause some mornings our conversations sound a bit crazy with M saying "good morning Marina" and me answering "good morning mama". It is also incredible how fast she grasps all she hears and this reminds me we have to be extra careful in the way we say things. This evening she was telling me "the baby is kicking me". She must have heard me saying this some time and it has made me think I should speak appropriately all the time. It is not easy, though. Plus our English has so many interferences and, be it as it may, M uses Catalan most of the time. She has picked up the costume of translating and she uses Catalan with everyone around even if the person has addressed her in English. It is as if English were only mum's language...
I haven't mentioned  the baby in my updates but he is growing nice and healthy -I believe- and is due to be born in a month. Having him in mind, I have kept my mother pretty busy as of late... and this is some of what she has made. Apart from a Gobbi mobile I am still trying to assemble. As you see, knitting is one of her crafts -not mine. I am lucky enough to have her to make my designs come true.

Interlocking knitted rings. Thinking ahead of time... just in case we don't have time later on. 

Well... this is a snail for M, who adores snails. My mother had the not so good idea of attaching the knitted snail to a piece of paper. Surprisingly, the paper house has remained nearly intact after much handling.

What's new: sharing

It's been two weeks since I last wrote a "what's new" post and I feel there are many new things to mention these days. To start with, M seems to be growing taller. On Monday, I noticed she couldn't reach the floor when trying to ride a motorbike some relatives gave her. Today, Thursday, she was able to tiptoe when straddling it in the same position. Her two friends have been about 2 inches taller than her for several months but today I noticed the difference is growing shorter. Although size is not my main worry and has never been, I am really happy she is growing up. I always used to be among the smallest of my peers -not that I am a big lady now anyway...- but being from May and quite an extrovert it was never a big issue. M seems to be a bit shy plus she was born at the end of the year, so we sometimes worry about her being so beyond the average in height and weight.

On the other hand, she is really verbal and can express most of her experiences and feelings. For quite a bit now, we have been working on how to express her feelings to other children instead of crying or just going away from the situation. This week it was the first time I heard her vocalize that she didn't want her friend (L) to take away a book she was about to open. The way she did it was in the third person, but we were all glad she talked to L herself and not to me saying that she didn't want L to take something away. This has been a step forward in a process that started with her first interactions with other children when she would cry when other children would approached her too much, take something off her hands, or the like. Fortunately, we have had very little to do with children who hit.

Concerning language, I know I am always repeating the same and I don't want to sound boastful but M amazes me everyday. Her constructions are more and more elaborate each day. Last week I wrote down sentences such as "mama has gone there far behind", "li ensenyarem el bebè a la iaia", "mama wants to put pigtail Marina". She announced on Monday that her friend L "was coming tomorrow", and the following day she said "L gone to the park today". I know at her age time is a very abstract notion but I guess she mimics my speech excellently 'cause both statements were right.
She often says "X is coming" to express that she would like to see that person, and she has started to associate people -and animal- with places. Thus, Clara is in Mataró, with the turtle, and other people who are there too.


Sharing from the heart is something I start to see. We have never told M that she "should" share her things. We believe this act has to come from the child's heart and not from obeying a rule grown-ups invent. However, we have neither told her that the objects she has at home or she plays with are exclusively "hers". Whenever a child comes home, she doesn't object to that child toying around with her things, except when she has the item in her hands at that moment. By sharing, though, I mean the pleasure of doing something together and that's what seemed to happen on the picture below. M and L were eating the same ice-cream in peace while the rest of us (5 adults and another toddler) were eating ours, and nobody seemed to notice except for the photographer...

Late update

The biggest pumpkin party ever  (Sept. 2008)-
 this was my own design

One more night I have the feeling I should post something nice but one more time I am overtired and it is way too late to start uploading pictures, and so on.
I hope, I wish, it will suffice to say that I keep the blog in mind all the time. The intensity and amount of activities we are doing these days, though, leaves too little room to write and share. Little baby is not expected yet but he sometimes moves as if he were going to jump out any time.
We have been doing some Fall and Halloween activities, among which featured pumpkin flavored orange play dough, pine cones tonging, lots of window decorating with foam pieces -specially nice in this rainy weather-, a pumpkin costume, little pumpkin party favors made out of egg cartons... As you can see, I love pumpkins. My father-in-law has been growing pumpkins and squashes for several years now and he has won several biggest pumpkin contests. Some of his big pumpkins can be seen on the pic above these lines.
I haven't told you about a play-group M and I host every Wednesday.
I also have some projects that are about to see the light: a beginning sound book (M), and a sensory gel pad. I am very excited about both, although I can't foresee if M will be as excited as I am.
Needless to say, I hope to be able to share this projects with you soon. In the meantime, forgive my absence in the blogosphere.

M enjoying the new season on her paternal grandfather's farm

Discovering politeness, music, and friendship

Phew, I have been absent for too long and I promise I haven't had a second to post, so busy I was preparing classes, environments, activities, both for my students and for my girl. I am terribly sorry for the loss it represents to skip two or three Wednesdays without updating M's progress. I am also sorry this will be a post written in haste, nearing midnight, and stealing some time from a precious rest. Well, I can't say I am sleeping wonderfully this days, but I do try to rest as much as I can during the night, since naps can't happen these days.

We have been doing several practical life activities around here. M is interested in squeezing oranges, spreading tomato on a loaf of bread, pouring liquids with her pitcher, transferring, and tonging. Although the tongs are a bit too big and she ends up transferring with her hands. 

Not too long ago she started saying "salut" (=bless you) after someone had sneezed. Then, it was "thank you" and "gràcies", which she uses mainly when she is the one giving something, not taking. We have also heard her wishing "bon profit" during lunchtimes. All in all it is delightful to see how modeling behavior is about enough. I really can't figure myself pushing her to say thanks to someone, in a similar way I can't push her to kiss someone. 

Music is becoming one of her favorite activities and apart from playing the piano with the daddy nearly every day, she often goes to her kitchen cabinet, grabs a couple of spoons and comes back to the living room, where she uses her round wooden block box as a drum. Not seldom she exclaims "Marina making noise", although I am encouraging her to call it music or rhythms.

Some days ago a great friend of ours gave us some money to spend on M's materials and we got a set of musical bells from Imaginarium, which M loves and uses daily. There are also some songs she prefers and asks us to sing. Lately she has even started singing a bit.
In the field of language, the novelty is the use of prepositions and conjunctions. She started first with the latter and sometimes seems to take delight in listing "the cat sleeping AND the dogs sleeping AND...". Her use of prepositions is clearly distinct in the Catalan language, where instead of a possessive 's (i.e. mama's hat) possession is articulated thought a preposition.

Finally, after many months of regularly sharing some time with two other girls (my friends' daughters) her same age, friendship seems to be appearing. She talks about them and wants to see them. Some interaction has also made appearance and I am glad that after some weeks when conflict seemed to be the only interaction, they are now showing signs of fondness.