Paint and pasta!

Addie does not seem to want to wait to start school... so why should school wait for her? We aren't quite ready to start to be honest, the house needs sorting out which is this weekend's goal. But one thing is sure is that my little girl is bored of her toys and although she loves her books, she has been very demanding and tearful recently. 

She is breaking her last 2 teeth, so that might be contributing, and last night we went out for our anniversary and my sister babysat. Just after midnight she came in to me with her blanket, and wouldn't go back to sleep for ages, she just cried. For about an hour and a half! But I think she definitely is ready to start 'Tot School', so today we did a couple of things - some art and some practical life.

Art
I am aiming to introduce Addie to the primary colours week by week, but this work is not ready, so I decided that today she could paint with the colour red only. She has previously seemed a bit reluctant to get her hands dirty, literally, so I tried her with finger painting and hand prints, which she did do, but asked for her hands to be wiped and then used the brush. Afterwards, we looked at a red flower she picked yesterday too, so a gentle introduction to the colour red and art activities.

Practical LifeSo the other activity we did is Transferring with a Spoon, which Addie has done before, but this time we did it at the table, and she really enjoyed doing this. She started to transfer the pasta well from one bowl to the other, and then started using her hands. Any that fell on the floor she picked up, and she also poured the pasta out of the bowl into the large, deep tray the bowls are in. A lot of touching and exploring the pasta, which she calls 'patia'. She also experimented by putting the other bowl on the chair and started transferring with her left hand. She did this activity for about 40 minutes which was amazing and when she had finished, she put the tray back on the table and put the table away (it's normally kept in the corner of the room and was meant to be the nature table, but it is the only one we have that is exactly the right height for practical life work!).

Getting ready for school: Making sound shakers

For our family night activity, we made some great sound shakers together for Addie's sensorial room. Here are some photos where we are making the materials. This is Addie putting chickpeas in a bottle. We also have salt, lentils and couscous, and I will add stones and paperclips when I get some. We just bought a value pack of diet lemonade bottles from Asda, emptied, rinsed and dried them and filled them up. Actually for the salt, lentils and couscous we used a funnel - the first introduction to it!

And then it is time to play!

She really enjoyed it and I am looking forward to making the visual ones next!

British Pageant Extended Highlights Video

Here is a video highlighting the British Pageant which we were all a part of last month. Great memories!

My 18-month old does chores

Too young? No way! Babies and toddlers have more potential than we usually give them credit for, and can do a lot more than we normally let them. Addie has only a few simple chores, not to overwhelm her and we keep them fun. This is what she can do:

- Put her clothes in the wash basket (she loves doing this, and will often put ours in too!)
- Clean up her spills - she wipes the table, wipes her face, picks up things she has dropped. She has also taken a liking to the broom and dustpan and brush - 2 weeks before I was going to show her how to use them! She is telling me she is ready to do this now, so I probably won't wait the 2 weeks.
- When it is nappy changing time, she collects her nappy and wet wipes and takes them to the bathroom to get changed. We have started the association with the bathroom so she knows this is where things like that are done!
- She puts her rubbish in the bin. Actually I was very surprised that she knew what I meant when I said 'Go put this in the bin' and she went straight away and did it! Martin was even more shocked and told her not to put things in there (until I told him she was doing what she was asked!)

Other things she does which are independence-building, but not necessarily chores:

- she gets herself in and mainly out of bed herself. We put her in a toddler bed at 16 months so we had no problems with her climbing out of a cot. We involved her in the building of the new bed and taking down of the old one, and it seemed to work really well. 
- She takes her own shoes and socks off (don't they all?!) and we are happy she does this rather than getting frustrated with her that she repeatedly does it.
- She likes to try to get herself dressed. If that means trousers on arms, and socks on hands, then so be it! She normally takes them off, then we put them on right anyway, but try to encourage her to help in everything. 

There are other things we will start introducing over the next weeks and months, so watch this space!

We are raising them to leave us

Short post, but important.

A concern at times of people is whether a child can cope without his or her parents, and whether parents can function without their children. As in the example I gave in my previous blog post, some home educators keep their children at home because they don't want to be parted from them. I must admit that I never want Addie to leave, but I have witnessed the damage imposing this on a child can do, and a benefit of my Montessori training is being able to reflect on how I act, teach, behave etc, and I am very conscious that even if I feel I want my babies here forever, I am raising them to be independent, self-disciplined, self-confident people who will go out into the world and, hopefully, make it a better place. They can't do that at home tied to my apron strings (not that I wear one, but you know what I mean!).

I think some people are horrified when I am not sympathetic when Addie falls over and tell her 'Oh well, up you get' (unless she really has hurt herself), or when I let her play by herself instead of me being on my hands and knees all day playing with her. Well, I do not want a clingy child, who has no confidence to make mistakes or do things independently. Addie is very content, very happy and loves to get on with her own explorations of the world, and as long as she is safe, and not harmed (apart from the normal childhood scrapes), then that is fine with me.