working on language

Even though there as soooo many things i want to do and even more things that Jordy is interested in at the moment i am focusing on language as that seems to be his biggest interest at the moment. I am working hard at making up the three part cards (although i guess i should call them nomenclature cards for now as that is all i am using them for). I must have made hundreds- well it feels like that anyway! I am going to get some coloured dots to stick on the back for a self-correcting check for when he starts to catagorise them.  I decided to use coloured dots rather than coloured card stock so that i can have multiple dots as we build up the catagories and i introduce the concept that things can belong to more than one catagory. For example i will start with his animal pictures and have ‘animals’, ‘birds’, ‘insects’. But later on i can break those into further catagories like ‘mammal’, ‘invertebrate’ etc. But i can also use them for geography studies with native australian animals and african animals, or even things that live in the desert or in the snow etc etc. Because, like most kids, he is very interested in animals he already knows what animals live in the ocean and which live in the snow so we could probably catagorise that straight away if i can find the time to put the dots on. :-p

We did the sound ’ssss’ again this morning and built on the presentation a little. I’ll do the walk around the house later. He is busy dancing at the moment and building lego so not in the mood for quiet work. He has already sorted the coloured buttons this morning. It’s now very easy for him but i am glad he chose to work with it this morning so i could see what he what he was up to with it. I think i will leave it on the shelves for a little longer but i will remove the set of three coloured chips that is the exercise before the coloured buttons as it no longer offers any kind of challenge to him. The coloured buttons can still be sorted in order of size as well as colour and although he names the smallest and largest we have not laid them out in a line in order yet so i will introduce that later today.

A new word building puzzle from ebay arrived this morning. The puzzles are a perfect level of difficulty for him and it combines puzzles and letters!!! yay!!! Two of his favourite things!

 

Yesterday was a bit of an impromptu practical life day. He worked with his play cooking pots and wooden cutting fruit. Then while i was busy with Darcy he climbed up on the chair to the bench and helped himself to the bread knife, butter, and vitaweets and made himself a snack. Had a bit of butter smeared up his arm and a big divet in the butter! LOL! But he did rather well i think. I am really glad that he showed the initiative to do it himself rather than ask. Leaving out a snackbox for him most days that he can access himself has really helped but i have to get more organised with the banana and knife so he can practice real slicing.

cylinder block 2

i introduced the second cylinder block yesterday. Jordy put each of the cylinders back correctly with no effort but we sort of worked with it separately from the first block (although i presented them together). We’ve already had a big day out this morning (see my main blog) so i doubt we will do much more with it today but tomorrow i will set them out again and mix the cylinders up and see how he goes. He is good with the terminology too naming them thin and littlest etc.

Only issue we had was he noticed the V shape and then wanted to move to the other side and see the A and then he wanted to sit inside the V, and move them to form and L and a 7 etc etc! He’ll make letter shapes out of anything!! I really have to get his phonetic pockets up and ready.

shapes and signs

i introduced the stereognostic bag this afternoon (i have named it the shapes bag for Jordy). I started showing him the shapes and asking him to reach and and see which one he could find and point it out to me…. not the best way to approach it.  I quickly changed it to lining one set up and asking him to reach in to the bag and find a match for each item in turn (i started with the easier shapes first).

It went quite well.  He only chose three incorrectly and enjoyed the work. But he did not want to repeat it. He wanted to play with the shapes and then he wanted to roll the ball. So i packed the bag away.  I have not left it on the shelves yet. I will present it again tomorrow and see what he thinks.  The shapes are too invting to roll and throw so until i know that he understands the nature of the materials i will keep it out of reach.

I have to learn the names of the shapes myself. LOL! So i will do that tonight and refresh their names in the morning before i repeat it. I wonder if i should first show him the blue geometric solids before we use the bag again?  I can’t wait to start the Montessori course so i have a better idea of scope and sequence.

Yesterday we revised a few signs that Jordy learnt a while back but we have not kept up with. He then asked for signs for a few more items. We played with them again this morning in bed and he asked for the sign for ‘bear’ so we learnt that too. I am going to make sure i spend some time each day using the signs from his baby sign days as he just soaks them up at the moment.

spooning, more latches, and other bits…

The latches board is still getting a good work out! It’s one of the first things Jordy chooses to work with most days.  Apart from doing the locks and latches he spends a lot of time reading the letters and counting what’s behind each door. I almost always leave him to work with it alone but if i am nearby I have started to ask him to find the circles, rectangles, triangles etc.

He is also chosing the cylinder blocks (1) regularly. I might show him how to arrange them outside of the block. I don’t want to introduce block #2 yet as i think he has enough other materials without adding to them but i will introduce it soon. I might spend a few days working with block 1 with him and getting him to select a missing cylinder or a few other things rather than just leaving him to work alone with it.

And today i introduced the spooning materials. He is working with it now so i’m about to go look and see how much of it is on the tray and how much he has decided to pour elsewhere!

… we just tidied it up. He went quite well with it. And the “Tidy Up” song is helping immensely for cleaning up afterwards.

He is really starting to enjoy the order and routine of things too and packing up is becoming less of an issue (sometimes! not always!). But brushing his teeth and hair, and getting dressed and going to the toilet before getting in the car and those sorts of routines are also becoming fun and playful for him- which is nice!

The phonetic pockets are good but i need more things for it. I am learning so much from each thing i introduce. I should have sewn the velcro tabs on the pockets before showing it to him as they keep getting pulled off! And i should have found a full selection of items for the pockets. I had a few items in most of the 6 letters i gave him but i had a couple of empty ones (nothing around the house that was suitable). That bothered him and he wanted to fill the pockets and move the letters around. So i have removed it until i can present it properly.

a busy morning

well, it’s only a little after 10:00 and already Jordy has had a big morning! He’s played with his nature basket and sat in the dark again to make more sparks with his quartz, worked with the cylinder block, drawn with his magnadoodle, played ball and, most interesting to me, made shapes with some sticks.

He was playing with some parts of another game that have four wooden posts and he made a triangle and was trying to make a square. I watched for a while and then foolishly interrupted by giving him some coloured paddlepop sticks to use instead. I should have just let him be to work with it himself! We continued to make shapes and straight lines with the paddlepop sticks but he wanted me to do it with him and would often say it was “hard work” when he was successfully doing it alone before i interrupted.

So that’s my lesson for today- to step back and let him work as he chooses. I should have just noted his attempts and tomorrow presented the sticks as new material. I wonder if i should present the geometic demonstration tray soon?

improving focus

Jordy has chosen to work with his sorting games a few times over the last week and he will do part of the work and then things deteriorate. He’ll pour all the grains onto the base tray and swish them around and the tip them on the carpet and decide he is finished…. typical 2yr old behaviour… ?? will come up with some ideas to refocus his attention.

He enjoyed painting, looking through his nature basket, and his basket of interesting things today…. not sure what to call that! An odds and ends basket?? Also his fishing game and cylinder blocks. I’d like to expand on the cylinder blocks and have him arrange them in order outside of the actual block.

And he put together his ring tower in the right order today for the first time that i have seen. I now have a growing appreciation for the advantage of having them all exactly the same except for a graduation of size as he spent most of the time arranging them according to whichever colour he preferred next. It was not until i asked which was the biggest, and then the next biggest that he put it together. After doing it once though he went back to choosing colours and making them get stuck so they made the post look like a rocket….?

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.