The Adventures of Bear: November 2009

Advent Day 2 – Setting up the Nativity Sets

>> Monday, November 30, 2009

Bear loves her nativity set. It isn’t plastic and she has to take such good care of it. She enjoys rearranging it through0ut the day. She was very excited when we brought it out today. The rearranging fairy will come by tonight to “hide” baby Jesus until December 25th.

Melted Crayon Drawing

We tried drawing on a heated cookie sheet, as seen at The Artful Parent. I loved how smooth the crayon was doing this. Bear loved wearing an oven mitt for coloring. Thanks, Jean, for a great idea.

First Day of Advent – Decorate the Christmas Tree

>> Sunday, November 29, 2009

It’s been very hard to wait for Advent this year. I am so excited to share this special season with Bear. I’ve been wanting to put up the tree since last week, but it has become tradition now to wait until the first Sunday of Advent.

Bear enjoyed hanging ornaments. Last year she kept placing them on top of branches, but this year she knew how to hang them correctly. She liked placing a lot of the same ornaments all together in the same branch. A little fairy came by afterward and rearranged a bit!

Tot School

>> Saturday, November 28, 2009

Tot School has been a little hit or miss lately. I am in the middle of reorganizing so that I can return to doing more “Montessori work” with Bear. I’ve deviated from my original schooling intent and am making my way back to our original path. I have been reading my “how-to” guide and trying to figure out how to best achieve each activity without buying anything.

Alphabet

Bear knows her lower case and upper case alphabet and her letter sounds except for occasional confusion on the upper case F and E (she calls “E” /f/ sometimes). She continues to amaze me with how quickly and effortlessly she learns material.

This week, Bear has wanted to do her Dora the Explorer alphabet puzzle over and over every day. I use the opportunity to practice her left and right. (Is it normal that my two year old knows her right from her left? I noticed the other day that she knows the difference between right and left. It left me mouth agape; I was so shocked since I hardly ever bother saying the words.) I placed half the puzzle pieces on one side of her and the other half on the other side. Then I say, “I spy the sound /a/ on your left.” She finds the piece and puts it in. She is subconsciously working on alphabetical order while doing this puzzle.

We made more alphabet tiles with foam letters (unfortunately we only have upper case). We played I spy with these tiles too.

Numbers

We have been “working” more with numbers lately.

Bear and I made a new craft foam puzzle. We had a cardstock version, but this one is more fun.

We also made number tiles like the alphabet ones and played “Slap it.” I call out a number and Bear slaps it, or she calls one out and I slap it. She is working on number recognition from one to nine.

She played with her bead counter, working on number recognition and numeral to number of object matching.

We continue to do calendar every day and I think Bear is picking up on the patterns of counting beyond ten.

Fine Motor Skills

Lots of work with the eyedropper this week.

First, she mixed a full dropper or yellow with a full dropper of blue to make green.

Then I wondered if she would be able to squeeze just a drop of colored water, so I took a piece of parchment paper and drew some circles with a Sharpie. After demonstrating once, Bear was happily engaged for a very long time.

I drew her 12 circles in a line and we counted as she squeezed her drops.

Lastly, I drew a circle Christmas tree and she squeezed red and green water to “color” the tree and decorate it.

Other Stuff

Bear has been playing doctor nonstop this week. Guess who is her favorite patient. J-jo.

What Bear is Reading

Bear loves Henry and Mudge right now. Unfortunately these are the only two available to us. Even though these are early readers, they are really well written. There is a good mix of simple and complex sentences. A lot of early readers only comprise of simple sentences and can be a little annoying to read aloud. I love Cynthia Rylant’s way with words. Children can relate well to Henry. For example, in the first he struggles with doing what he knows is expected of him (not picking a flower and forgetting to ask his father before going outside to play) and in the second, he struggles with the fear of being alone in the dark without Mudge.

To see what others are reading visit Mouse Grow, Mouse Learns.

Handprint Christmas Tree

>> Friday, November 27, 2009

First, mix up some green.

Next, paint your hand at least 10 times.

Have somebody big cut out all those hands.

Arrange them like a Christmas tree and glue them down.

Decorate your tree.

Voila! A beautiful handprint Christmas tree.

(I tried to convince her that stars go at the top of the tree, but she didn’t care.)

Round and Round the Pond

>> Wednesday, November 25, 2009

,One of my challenges is finding French rhymes to sing to my children.

I want to sing them the cute English rhymes we have, but translating them into French just doens't work right with rhythm or rhyme. Even finding songs for learning is difficult.

So of course,

I make up my own.

Here is my French version of Round and Round the Garden.

Tout autour de l'etang

saute la petite grenouille.

Un pas, deux pas,

et puis une petite chatouille.

For those of you who don't speak French, sorry.

For those of you who do, hope this is useful.

It's the kind of stuff I have been looking for and can't find.

Learn & Groove® Musical Table

This week, I thought I would highlight a toy for the slightly younger crowd. One of Bear's favorite toys starting around 8 or 9 months was the
Learn and Groove Musical Table by Leapfrog.

We found ours at a consignment sale. It has been a very long lasting toy, as Bear still enjoys going over to it every now and again.

What I love about it

(even though I generally do not like this type of toy)

The table top comes off to allow for a youger baby to play with it.
This toy encourages standing and is sturdy enough that Bear was able to climb on it without it tipping over or breaking! (I did discourage the climbing, but she always still managed to find a way to climb it!)
It has two settings. One that is just music and sounds, and the other that sings the ABC and 123 and shapes and colors.
It has two volume settings (and ours is ALWAYS on low. Why is it that they make these darn toys so LOUD anyway?).

What I like less about it

It's plastic.
It uses batteries.
It makes noise!

LOL.

I still highly recommend it. It kept Bear occupied for long periods of time and allowed me to prepare dinner or take five minutes to myself when she was younger. I would say it is great for a crawler all the way up to age 3, but is not a toy I would buy for a one year old. It really is a toy that is much used between 8 to 14 months, but would still entertain at times an older child, especially if pulled out of rotation for a long time. (27 month old Bear is actually playing with it as I type this....)

For more toy reviews visit My Bilingual Boys.

Tot School

>> Sunday, November 22, 2009

Bear is 27 months old

Language Arts

We finished the Great Alphabet Sort and then pulled out the /s/ drawer (she jsut randomly chose one) to use the items inside to create stories. Some items included a sun, strawberry, snail, Santa Claus, squirrel...you get the idea. She would place the item she wanted in the story on a piece of white paper and then tell me what was happening. I wrote down what she said. I often asked questions like "what happened next" or "why" to get her to expand. As she narrated, I would say back what she said in a grammatically correct sentence. I would write down a sentence that was kind of in the middle. I would sometimes contribute to plot (I always asked first). We had a great deal of fun creating our stories. In fact, we created 4 in a row! If you click on the picture, you can actually read story number 3.

Next we moved on to cutting out items in the Price Smart catalog. Usually, I tell her a story with the things she cuts out, but this time she will do the telling and I will write down her exact words. There should be a balance between stories which get edited and stories that are just written as told.

She has been pointing out letters everywhere and "reading" with her finger in all her books.

Numbers and Math Concepts

Lots of matching numbers on number lines.

We played market and this time I set prices in terms of numbers of marbles, as opposed to having her recognize different coins. I made this number line of bubbles for her to place her marble coins when she made a purchase. It helps her visually.

We practiced patterns as we counted. Both ABAB and AABAAB patterns.

She stuck snowman stickers to number outlines. It's similar to the pinprick idea.

We also did this with shapes.

Obviously we were practicing French vocabulary here!

I found cute shapes stickers and got them for her, even though she knows her shapes (even odd ones like trapezoid and parallelogram and crescent etc)

She sorted them by color and by shape for all of two seconds since this was way too easy and bored her.

Guess I'll be saving the rest of the stickers for her brother for about a year from now! LOL.

Other

We also practiced French vocabulary by playing Lottino.

Art

You can see some of our art in this post and this post.

We also went on a few nature walks and played catch and made some Christmas presents.

What others are doing in Tot School.

Art Box Week One

Nicole at Tired Need Sleep is hosting a blog carnival of open ended (no themes) art. You can read about it here.

The idea of an art box is great, but it doesn't really work for me. Instead, when we do art, I let Bear decide which of our art mediums to use, or I set up supplies at her table for her to explore.

One day, I set her free with watercolors.

She painted a "sunset." I love that now that she can talk, she can tell me about her art. I try to write art statements on the back of her drawings and paintings so we'll remember later.

I was working on the Advent calendar ornaments and drawing first then painting, so she started to imitate me. This one above is two ducks.

Then she decided to add grass.

This one is a camel (I was working on the ornament that had a camel on it!)

She went to town with some foam stickers on another day. She was really enjoying stacking them.

We played with our homemade painting tools on a third day.

She drew with her markers.

And she played with playdough as well.

To see other open ended art ideas that Bear has done, see here.

What Bear is Reading

>> Saturday, November 21, 2009

This week, one of Bear's favorites was Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock

It is about a spider named Anansi who likes to play tricks. One day she finds a moss-covered rock that knocks people out (makes them fall down unconscious) if they say the word "moss-covered rock." Anansi tricks every animal in the jungle until a smart little Bush Deer tricks him back!

The story was funny and lends itself well for doing voices and sound effects. I can see why Bear wanted it read to her endlessly. The illustrations were pleasant, bright and colorful, and in almost every one you can see Little Bush Deer hiding, watching what Anansi is doing.

For more book recommendations, visit Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Under Your Kitchen Sink

>> Thursday, November 19, 2009

What's under your kitchen sink?

Here's what I found under mine -

some new art tools!

The flat kitchen sponge became a tool very similar to this one at Let's Explore.

I also used a rubber band to hold a piece of this sponge to a baby food jar for stamping (the sponge has patterns as you can see from the photo and I was curious to see how it would show up on paper).