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.

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.

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.

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.