July 21st

Here is our list of activity ideas for this week…

Monday  J feeling a little sick this week so no swimming.
                 He went to the park with grandma instead.
                 Wiggles DVDs!! (he’s sick! what do you do!)

Tuesday  Reading- Read a book, get J to make up a story about the book.
                 Puzzles-  a big success and he is loving them so we’ll do more
                 Movement-  learn the dance steps to ’The Bus Stop’
                 Play- asking to go to the park so we’ll do that too.

Wednesday Craft- play doh 
                   Art-  painting
                   Language- continue with alphabet song & the signs for each letter.
                     Pour water and rice and beans into containers on the deck.

Thursday  Craft- glue stuff on cardboard
                   Play- walk to the park

Friday     Visual-  play with arc puzzle, building blocks & memory game.
                 Play-  make up a story with his arc puzzle and animals.
                           play with the kids next door.

Weekend  Swimming Lesson.
                  go for a walk on the beach with Bundy

July 14th

Here is our list of activity ideas for this week…

Monday  Puzzles. 
                Swimming lesson
                play with his fishing game.

Tuesday  Reading- Read a book, get J to make up a story about the book.
                 Mothers Group.
                 Origami-  make something that we can stick on his rocket…??

Wednesday Craft- make some stars and comets for his rocket.
                     Art-  paint and draw on the rocket.
                     Language- find out the sign for rocket and moon etc

Thursday  Play-  make up a story with his safari animals
                  Reading-  play with his memory cards
                  Movement- play kick and chase outside with Bundy

Friday     Visual-  play with his arc puzzle and building blocks.
                 Play-  make up a story with his arc puzzle and animals.
                           play with the kids next door.

Weekend  Swimming Lesson.
                  Make biscuits together.

Don’t forget… the mobile we saw at swimming… get some crafty bits to make a mobile.

puzzles

i bought some harder puzzles last week.  The ones with individual pieces in a hole were boring him (and me!) so i got one that have more connecting pieces that make robots, and ones with letters and numbers. These are great and while he can partially do them they are also quite challenging for him.

Swimming July

Jordy is becoming more confident with blowing bubbles and putting his eyes under the water. He is also stretching out well with ‘the rocket’.

He was quite strong this morning with kicking back up to the surface when doing ‘under the sea’. Next week i will support his body a little less when he goes under and let him kick up more himself.

We need to work on floating on his back and doing ‘the starfish’.

Physical play

we went to Kids Crazy Maze earlier in the week and Jordy has really leapt ahead in his physical skills since we were last at a similar play park. He was totally in to everything and went down a huge spiral slide that i would have said that he would not have attempted until i saw him pop out the bottom all smiles and ready to go again…?

He was climbing and jumping and swinging on all the equipment- there was nothing he did not attempt.  The only thing he could not do was hang from the fixed flying fox thing as he is not strong enough to support his own body weight for long when swinging.

I will take him back there soon as it is a really safe enviroment for him to explore.

Swimming

Jordy can do ‘kick and swim’ quite well- sort of like a dog paddle but with me still supporting him. But I am not sure how far away he is from being about to paddle and keep himself afloat. I would imagine he is still quite a ways from it! But it’s hard to tell.  His kicks are quite good but i think he thinks it’s mostly for splashing and not for propulsion.

He is no worries at all waiting on the edge while i get a toy and come back to him. He understands that he needs to wait until i say it is ok to jump in. But he won’t neccesarily stand or sit still on the edge of the pool. He’ll sometimes move around even when i ask him to stay seated.

He is getting more confident floating just on the noodle but while he is floating on it he would overbalance and his arms would slip backwards off it if i was not holding him on it.  

He can do ‘monkey’ really well but often just wants to climb out of the pool so he can go on the slide etc cos he knows that is what comes next after the ‘monkey’.  But he can support his own weight on the edge of the pool with one hand while he uses the other hand to stick a suction cup toy onto the pool wall.  I like this skill and want to do it often as i think holding onto the edge of the pool is a really vital skill.

He does not enjoy the starfish float on his back. So that is the main thing i want to work on in the water so that he knows he can float on his back and not sink.

He is happy to go underwater but is often too busy talking or laughing to close his mouth. Last class the instructor passed him under the water to me for about a metre or more and he was under water for several seconds and had no problem.

He blows bubbles well but will often then breathe in at the end without taking his mouth out of the water.

 

Movement

Jordy can jump from a small height like a single step but will not jump from the deck (thankfully!). He enjoys jumping over a skipping rope or from the carpet to the tiles etc.  But i don’t think he could jump over anything much higher off the ground than a skipping rope at this stage.

He can do a somersault but half the time only rolls over his shoulder rather than right over his head.

He can climb a ladder or up the change table etc etc with no effort.

Books

There are a few books that are particular favourites that are read often and several books that Jordy likes to read himself and point out the characters and pictures in the books.  So far reading a story before bed does not fit his routine. Once in bed he likes to talk to us or just go to sleep rather then have us tell him a story. 

Over the next few months i might start showing him the words in the familiar books and give him a chance to see the letter and word patterns and sounds.

 

Letters

Jordy can recognise quite a few letters b, B, e, g, i, l, m, M, o, A, s, S, t, w, W,  not sure what others ones… but we had been referring to the letters with their name rather than their sound so i think that might just make things confusing when learing to sound out words. But then again kids seem to be pretty cluey so he can probably learn both the name of the letter and the sound of it at the same time??  Not sure. 

We have not really spent much time reading through the alphabet books, his knowledge of letters has come more from reading objects in front of u s(like the weet-bix box). But i think we will spend more time learning to recognise letters and whole words in the coming months.

I might get some letter magnets for the fridge so they are seen frequently through the day.

Origami & Play-Doh

Origami is probably the only real craft activity we do at the moment… not sure what else counts as craft! We have also coloured in paper to make rockets out of…  Oh, and play-doh.  Jordy enjoys rolling the playdoh and making worms and snakes and snails.

So far the origami is mostly me making things although Jordy tells me what he wants me to make and he helps press down the folds etc.

I think i should make more play-doh as it has been a while since we played with it properly and i think he would have a lot of fun with it now. That will be on my list of things to do next week.

Drawing

Jordy likes to draw but he is also a little destructive with the pens or crayons so i have not been as free with letting him draw as a could be. At the moment we sit down together and he will either draw something and tell me what it is, or he’ll ask me to suggest things for him to draw, or he’ll ask me to draw things for him. He still tests me wuth drawing on the furniture and carpet so once we have gotten over that i will set up an area for him so he can draw whenever he likes.

The only recognisable thing that he draws is a circle. But i think that is pretty good! He can’t draw just a straight line yet. If i ask him to copy a straight line that i have drawn his might start straight but then he likes to keep on drawing in a wiggle. But the wiggle is fun! So we mostly just draw whatever.

We have only really painted once (i am so slack with that!) but he enjoyed the colours so i will do more of that soon.

 

Colours and Shapes

Jordy can recognise red, yellow, purple, orange, brown, pink and blue. He gets green confused with blue quite often. Sometimes he gets orange confused with yellow when tthey are close together and i am not surprised by that but the blue and green thing is a definate confusion between distinct colours. Will keep playing with it. The fishing game he has is great cos it works with both colours and numbers and taking turns and is heaps of fun.

He recognises all the basic shapes- circle, square, triangle, hexagon, cross etc from the shape sorting games. I don’t think i will really bother teaching him the names of other shapes just yet (does not seem important to me!) but i have a much harder shape sorting game that i will get out for him soon to learn to recognise them visually rather than learn the name for them.

Space and the Moon

Jordy loves looking at the moon and stars and likes to know when the moon will be out and where in the sky it will be. It is often the first thing he checks when he goes outside. He likes to pretend to be in a rocket travelling to the moon.

He knows what the Earth looks like and likes to play with our globe. He recognises the Earth from the weather report etc on tv and is learning that Australia is on the Earth and that is where we live.

We are playing with and learning about the moons and stars being in space and that the Earth is also in space. We might also play with the globe and look at maps soon with rivers and oceans etc.

Music

Jordy loves his guitar and drums. He sometimes plays with the maracas and xylophone and recorder but not as often. He will sing a song when playing the guitar and often makes up his own story while strumming.  He can keep a beat well and will naturally beat the drum or guitar in time with whatever music is playing. He can’t make any kind of tune with the xylophone yet, he just bangs all over the place, but he enjoys it when Tim plays a repetitive tune on it.

 

Numbers

Jordy likes counting and can sort of count to ten. Actually he can count really well to 6 and then can get a bit all over the place. He counts better when he counts backwards from ten (thanks to the countdown onthe microwave!)

He recognises his numbers but gets 2 and 5 confused sometimes and also 6 and 9 confused. And he calls ten ‘o’.

He is starting to understand that the numbers equate to the amount of an item and can count actual objects up to three. After that he just says ‘more’.

Personal Care

Jordy is pretty much daytime toilet trained. I would say that he was generally toilet trained before his birthday but we still had the occasional accident and he went through a week of maybe only 50% accuracy after being up at about 90% so i am not sure what happened that week but we are back to almost 100% for wees.  I am not fully confident when out of the house but so far he has been amazingly good (even doing a poo in the toilet while at a friend’s house yesterday).

Poos in general are maybe only 50% (although the last two days have been perfect). Sometimes he seems to get embarrased and asks me to stop and stay away while he poos. We’re working on making it more fun!

We still have occasional accidents during or immediately after his nap. So i use a towel or a pair of pull up one wet pants for his nap just in case. And he still definately needs a nappy overnight but i have no intention of starting on night time awareness until summer!

Tooth brushing is sooo hit and miss.  I need to do more. Sometimes he enjoys it other times it creates a tantrum.  I have to remember to try twice a day so that at least a few teeth get brushed. He wants to use out brushes and because he can’t he does not like his own brush so much.

Social Skills

Jordy is learning to share at the moment.  He does not mind sharing (particularly with Darcy) if it’s his idea, and will often offer to share, but if he is told to share he sometimes needs to be encouraged or bribed!  He shares better if he is offered another toy to play with while waiting to get his preffered toy back.

He understands taking turns and that sometimes it is his turn and sometimes it is another persons turn. But he likes to be the person who controls whose turn it is.

He plays well alongside kids of the same age and enjoys chasing and hiding games. He is starting to want to play with other kids in a group game but unless there is an older child present who directs the play then he has trouble initiating a game. With older kids he enjoys imaginary play like tea parties, cooking, bedtime etc.