17 February 2016

Every day school for the 3 year old.

I started reading 'A Well-Trained Mind' a couple of days ago and was so excited about several quick suggestions it had for kids around Felicity's age.  And just suggestions of what was *possible* to teach her - based on the way her developing brain is programmed right now.  Today, I decided we'd do some informal schooling after we dropped off Simon from work.  

Felicity knows the ABC song and how to count, but she doesn't consistently read the numerals and letters.  So, I thought some pre-reading exercizes and numeracy games would be fun.  We have a nice puzzle set of numbers 1-10 that are only 2 pieces each.  (with a number on one piece and a picture of animals of however many numbers on the other side.)  It's technically for babies, but putting the puzzle together is just the first step of our play.  She has to recognize the numeral for each puzzle, and then we put them in order.  I was surprised that she organized them in numeral order on her own initiative this morning.

Then, we put the finished puzzles in stepping-stone pattern, in order, on the floor and walked across the 'bridge', saying each number as she stepped on it.

Then, we mixed them up all over the floor and she had to jump to the different numbers.

Then, we took turns - 'OK, put your knees on 7!  Where's 7? You got it - Yey!'  'Mommy, put your hand on 3 - yey!'  'OK, put your nose on 9!'  OK - your turn!

Then I got a bean-bag, and we threw the bean bag at the different numbers we chose for eachother.  Oh, it was great and she kept saying, 'OK!  Give me aNa-no one!'

Then we played her 'Dinosaur Races' game after she put the numbers puzzles back in their box.  I had her set up the game board herself while I hastily tidied the kitchen, swept the floor, and fed Titus finger food.

Dinosaur Races has a lot of turn-taking, counting and moving the board pieces around.  SO good for her concentration and again, counting.

After she put away dinosaur races, I found a list of numbers for her to trace in her dry-erase book.  We spent a good bit of time practicing drawing the numbers ('Start at the top - no, the top, try again - that's the top!  Oh now, try again, start at the top!')  and when she wasn't secure to just copy the numbers by herself, I made her dot-to-dot numbers across the page for her to trace (thank you, Well Trained Mind suggestion! Dot to dot for handwriting skills for the win!)

Titus got really upset, so we had to stop there for a while.  But I turned the page back to the ABCs before I went to feed Mr, T, and she was happily tracing letters when I left her.

She found me in the rocking chair and brought me a brilliant book (even though I had to put down my book to look at it with her.)  It's this book where they give you a cartoon picture across every spread with a number of animals or things to find on every page.  We found the picture with mice, butterflies, bees, snails, starlings and other garden-y creatures on it first.  Numeracy for the win!  'How many snails do you have to find?  What's that number?'  '10!'  'OKay, let's find them.....'

And the neat thing about this book is they are based all over the world - there was the Outback and the Artic and the farmyard, etc, etc.  Which led us to a little discussion about dingos and emus in Australia.  (Geography! Natural sciences!)

Then, Felicity chummed me downstairs when Titus was napping in his bed.  We made pancakes for lunch.  She was busy doodling in her dry-erase book when I got started, but then noticed me flipping the pancakes and pushed her chair over to stand next to me and help.  She turned on the light from the vent hood herself.  She watched me flip the pancakes.  Then, I had her put her hand on top of mine as I flipped them.  Then, I let her flip one *all by herself*.  She even put the batter in the pan a couple of times by herself.  Granted, some of them got a little burnt.  And I took over a couple of times.  But she was practically singing, 'This is sooo much fun!'  and we had a little talk about how the tops of the pancakes get all bubbly from the hot air escaping when they are cooked (Ha! Chemistry for 3 year olds!)  And she was *motivated* to eat those pancakes baby!  Normally, I have to beg her to eat anything for lunch.  She helped me set the table, gobbled up her food, and then she helped me clear the table and put the dishes into the waiting dishwasher.  Life skills, baby.  She won't starve at college if she knows how to make pancakes.

Titus woke up almost immediately after, but that was OK because we gave him a pancake to eat too.  Then, I needed a little time to do some other cleaning (ha! finally vaccummed the stairs and took out the recycling!) so I set the kiddos in the livingroom in front of a few wind-down cartoons.

Then, we went out to run errands.  Felicity was dressed in her favorite Frozen princess dress over her blue jeans and boots.  Amongst other errands, we ended up over at the library, sitting and reading for at least another hour.  The librarians were greeting her as 'Princess Elsa' (I'm surprised Felicity didn't correct them and say, 'it's Queen Elsa, actually' but she was acting a bit shy.)

Titus' cold is getting much much better today as well.  He slept well during the day and woke up rosy cheeked.  Still a wee bit less enthusiastic about his solid foods, but I didn't have much of an appetite last week either.  I only gave him pain-killers tonight at bedtime and that was more of a preventative action than because he was really asking for it.  He's such a cutie.  When he's happy, he'll shake his head side-to-side and coo 'AHHHHHHHHHHHHH'.  It's like he likes the world when it's going a little visually-crazy.  and he's been starting to put his hands on either side of our faces and give us big wet open-mouthed kisses.  Felicity loves to kiss him - she'll make a totally obvious pucker-up and start humming 'MMMMmmmmmm' about an inch away from his face and wait for him to close the gap with his little face.  I need to video this phenomenon -so cute. 

We didn't get to the new song I was going to teach Felicity today, but we did listen to 'Ride Away on your Horses' CD and practice the order of the days of the week while riding in the car.

Learning.  It's what's happening.  Every. Day.  Gosh, I love this job.