Little One's Day

Little One had loads of fun today. Aside from the usual coloring and play dough. She found a pair of weird eye glasses the kids' Aunt bought them for Halloween. She was taking them off and on for quite awhile. This has to be good for her motor skills. You can see in the last pic she didn't quite get it, but is trying mightily to keep them on anyway. Too cute!

My partner brought home a rather large, cool shaped box from work yesterday. Little One has been in and out of it all day. I played with her for a little while narrating for her, 'In' as she went in, and 'Out' when she went out. She thought this was funny. Then she changed the game to 'Hello' for coming out and 'Bye' for going in. It is amazing how the simplest things reinforce their learning and cause merriness at this age. Yesterday we played a game where we held hands and pushed our hands up high saying 'Up' and brought them down low saying 'Down'. She thought that was great too. Big Sis and Little One drew on the box, decorated inside the box, and played together in it too.

You'll notice the balloon in the last picture with stars. I blew up the balloon and gave it to Little One with shiny star shaped stickers. She decorated it all by herself. I'm constantly amazed at her fine motor skills. If you look closely you may also notice my older daughter misspelled maple as mapple. I did not correct her, but I did take mental note to add it to her Spelling list. The box was for fun and she wrote on it for fun. I didn't want to take away from that at all. There are three books Little One has wanted to listen to repeatedly all week. Little Bear and Little Bear's Friend by Else Holmelund Minarik and It's About Time, Jesse Bear by Nancy White Carlstrom.

Especially the Little Bear books. In Little Bear one of the stories is Birthday Soup, in which Little Bear proceeds to make soup with carrots, peas, potatoes, and tomatoes in a big, black pot. I think this story is her favorite, judging by the time we've spent with it. She's shown so much interest in the soup part, pointing at the pictures of vegetables again and again for me to name, that I told her today we'd make our own soup with carrots, peas, potatoes, and tomatoes. She was thrilled. I chopped potatoes and carrots and put water in the pot. I thought it would be fun for her if she put each vegetable into the pot in a different way. She dropped in the potatoes by the handful, pushed in the carrots from the cutting board, spooned in frozen peas, dumped in frozen green beans from a bag, poured in diced tomatoes and tomato sauce from a measuring cup, and plopped in a whole peeled onion to flavor the broth.

After it was boiling I added raw hamburger in by the spoonful. The hamburger could most definitely be left out for a delicious vegan alternative. I usually do make veggie soup without meat, but I'll admit this soup with meat was superb. Little One got a bit impatient for the soup and insisted to get in her high chair. I gave her one of her little bubble containers to play with while she waited. Can you believe the little sprite can already blow bubbles all by herself? She seems so little still at 25 months old.

Here she is getting ready to take her first bite.

Everyone loved the soup. It was such a hit the pan was near to empty when our family of five was through with it. And that was with biscuits on the side and chopped onions and shredded cheese for toppings.

Book Review- Janice VanCleave's Play and Find Out about Science-Easy Experiments for Young Children

Book review Let's Play and Find Out about Science-Easy Experiments for Young Children by Janice Vancleave

Janice Vancleave has authored numerous, experiment packed books about Science for parents and kids. This book gives simple, short experiments for adults to do with children. The sections; Air, Changes, Magnets, Forces, Light, Sound, and Electricity, have multiple activities. Each experiment is set up as a question a small child might ask, followed by clear, concise instructions with illustrations and extensions, for more ways to try out the concept. The materials needed for are likely to be around your house already, if not a quick trip to a local store and a few bucks should suffice to get them. The book does not specify an age range that I have seen, though I feel it would be wonderful for Pre-K children.

I got this book to find some simple activities to do with my two year old. Some of the activities are appropriate for a two year old, others would work with a small amount of tweaking. The book includes simple explanations which could be read to the child or not. I haven't bothered to read anything from the book to my two year old. I think just experiencing is enough for this little of a scientist. I make short observational comments. Just like I usually do in our everyday life together.

She has really enjoyed the experiments we've done so far and it is just another fun way to spend time together. I'd recommend this book for those caring for children ages 2-5. Following are some pictures of our tweaked version of experiment Bubbly. The original experiment calls for bubble bath and water in the cup. I thought milk would be a safer alternative for a two year old. Good thing too because she did forget to blow a few times and sucked instead! She got a mouth full of 'cow', as she calls it, lol.

Something for the Little One too :)

I plan to buy the big kids some Kumon Math workbooks to supplement Singapore Math. I decided to poke around on the Kumon workbooks website and let me tell you what, I'm sold, lol. They have the cutest, colorful little workbooks for Pre-K. Also workbooks for kids as young as two. Now I bet I know what you're thinking. Two is too young! Tell that to my little two year old toddler. She is very into doing what big brother and sister are doing, including school. She loves books, paper, art supplies, etc. I am pretty sure she will love these adorable little workbooks. I figure if I'm wrong, and she isn't in to them, they'll be there for later when she is. Make no mistake these are not for me, to get her ready for school, these will be for her to do if, how, and as she pleases! There is a book each for coloring, easy mazes, beginning cutting, folding, and more.  They really are too cute!

And it just so happens Rainbow Resource carries them. Isn't that just too convenient, now I just have to click, click, click to add them to my ever growing wish list. By now some people might think I must be rolling in the money. Not so. I just happen to be lucky this year with a bit of a windfall, likely never to happen again in my lifetime. I really want to take advantage of the opportunity to expand our homeschool supplies while I can. Seeing as we're under contract for our first house, I imagine times will be quite tight in the future as we try to get it paid off. Here's my Wish List for the little one, please note some of these things are not recommended for children under three, I know my child well and she will be under direct supervision the entire time she is playing with these items-

Before Five in a Row
Bright & Beyond Age 2
52 Magnetic Letters
Magnetic Dry Erase Board 18" x 24"
Baby Bears Balance Set
Political Earth 12" soft pillow model 
Kumon First Steps, Let's Color! 
Kumon First Steps, Let's Cut Paper! 
Kumon First Steps, Let's Fold!
Kumon First Steps, Let's Sticker & Paste!
Kumon My Book of Coloring 
Kumon My Book of Coloring At the Zoo 
Kumon My Book of Easy Mazes 
Kumon My First Book of Tracing