maths, and other bits

Jordy is doing a lot of counting at the moment. He is getting up to 14 ok but then gets a little muddled. But he is really counting, ie he is understanding the quantity of each number to a degree that is a little surprising.

Even though i knew he enjoyed numbers (hence me introducing the spindles earlier than i may have otherwise) the last few days have seen a bit of a leap in his understanding. He is now adding things up. The first basic example for me was on Sunday when he said there were two chickens in the yard and two chickens in the house so there were four chickens. Fair enough. Not rocket science but enough to surprise me.

Today he asked for his talking calculator for the first time in a while. It’s one of those annoying battery operated things that never shuts up (that he totally loves) and i have often discouraged him from using… well not anymore. Today he sat on the floor and added over and over again things like 3+4=, and 6+2=, and 7+1=…. etc.  And did number quizzes counting forwards and backwards (surprisingly he got the counting wrong more than the addition which i don’t quite understand but there you go…)

We worked together with the stereognostic bag. He enjoyed feeling the shapes and rolling them. He won’t always feel the shape properly before pulling it out of the bag- he just reaches in to surprise himself with what he gets so we’ll have to work on the nature of the game a bit more.

I did a basic presentation of zippering the other day. He wanted to do it himself and got it once but then got frustrated when he did not immediately get it the next time. He hasn’t gone back to it although i offered it this morning.

What else have we been up to…. oh, been doing a little with the classified pictures. I’m not all that happy with the work that i have been presenting him and have had to rethink my method a little. I think i might sit with him and just look at a dozen or so pictures and talk about them a little and not try to classify them just yet. I briefly tried to sort 5 mammals, 5 birds, 5 reptiles today and show him a feather, the feel of scales and fur etc but although he went with it and we had a play i don’t think it really sank in.

I am now going to go with two separate paths with the pictures i have made so far-  simple sorting with 5 cards from each of three very distinct groups (animals, flowers, kitchen utensils) that he can work with without assistance so that he gets a good uncomplicated example of the task. And then present several at a time from the full range of cards from each group (eg mammals or fish etc) and just talk about them and relate them to our environment where possible.

I also took Jordy for his swimming lesson for the first time in several lessons (my mum has taken him) and it was wonderful to see how well he is doing and how much he is totally loving it. Now when we do ‘Under the Sea’ i can hold the back of his head and push him under and along and then let go and he kicks up to the surface, reaches for the wall and pulls himself out quite well (there is the occasional delay or flap and i can’t help but give him a little assistance!) His kicking and paddling is much stronger and he is holding his breath or blowing bubbles with no effort at all.

mr busy

Jordy has been in to everything this morning. Again just for 15min or so for each activity before he moves on.

He did his alphabet puzzle and then he asked for his blue sandpaper letters. I had wanted him to work with the lower case so i had removed the capitals from the shelves but that’s what he wanted so….? I gave him 6 to work with for a while before he moved on something else.

He played with the colour cards for a while but did not complete them (although he can).

We used a length of wool to form a circle on the floor and he did in and out, running around, backwards, etc etc. We have not done walking the line yet so i should draw something on the tiles.

I am going to get up an area on his little table in the dining room for him to prepare snacks on. Today i put a tupperware container out with some fruit, biscuits and sultanas and he has gone back and forth getting snacks as he has wanted them automatically closing the container up properly when he finished. I showed him how to cut up a banana into pieces so i’ll get him a small chopping board of his own and leave it there. As well as a small jar of peanut butter and some cruskits or something that he can prepare.

He likes the animal three part cards that i have just finished. I hope to find time to make up the insects and ocean cards. After doing all the animals i realised i don’t like the font!!! It has the ‘a’ like the one here rather than an ‘a’. 

We worked with the spindles for quite a while. I was asking him the number and he would count in that many spindles. I was just doing 0-4 with him but he asked to do the next one. It did not go so well from there! He wanted to put them all out of order and all over the place and then emptied them on to the floor…. He knows all the numbers and can count objects up to 6, beyond that the actual quantities can be hit and miss. It was the first time we had worked at length with the spindles so i really should have just left it at 4.

Funnily enough one of the spindles was missing and we looked everywhere for it. As i typed here he came in and was playing around me, he got a paper bag off the book shelves that has been on the shelves for yonks and is not something he plays with, he reached in and took out the missing spindle!! I was totally surprised and asked him where it was. He said in the bag. I asked him if he was playing with it there earlier. He said no. I asked how he knew it was there… he said MAGIC!  ????

And although i had shoed him the touch boards ages ago he has not gone back to them. He did today and after just generally playing with them i got him to close his eyes and match just the roughest and the smoothest boards. In another learning moment for myself i then chose to get the blindfold out which we have not used before. Then it became a game of on off on off. So while he continued for a while to match the boards and feel them i think the blindfold only distracted him.

sorting games

i presented Jordy with two new sets of material today; sorting buttons and sorting grains. The initial presentation was not ideal- i need to work on my delivery as he wants to do it immediately rather than waiting for me to complete the demonstration. But he went back to both materials later in the day and worked on them again.

He seemed to really enjoy both tasks.  The buttons are really easy for him but i made each colour also progress in size and i have not shown him that yet. I am happy for him to continue his own work with it as it is good for his coordination and counting, and it’s good to have a task that he can master quickly so that i can use that to build upon and demonstrate more about how to use the tray and basket etc rather than the actual task itself.