All Before Nine A.M.

This morning V and I got up with the older girls, had breakfast an then said our goodbyes as the girls went off to school. Once the house was quiet we began "learning stuff". We did over an hour of ABCmouse.com and then I brought out the rice to play in. 

I threw in some colored clothes pens for Vada to grab and to work on some of those motor skills.

It was a simple "game", I put the pins in and she took them out. As V took them out I would say the color and then ask her to put it into the bowl. This is something that we have done on numerous occasions it just varies with whatever it is that were using at the time.

After Vada has put all of the pins into the bowl I clipped them to the side so that she would have to take the off. It was just something extra to do and the beginnings of teaching her how to pinch the pins open herself.

I thought that I would try putting Vada into the rice, kind of like playing in a sand box and she liked it. 

...only it lasted about 3.5 seconds before the rice began to fly and out she came!

I believe in teaching my children responsibility, so I made Vada clean up her own darn mess...well, not really but I do think that at Vada's age she should be helping with simple chores, like today I had her "help" sweep up the rice. I gave her a hand broom and let her use that for her cleaning purposes. It was perfect because it was just her size!

Speaking of just her size things have you ever heard of For Small Hands? It's this great store that is Montessori based and sells the est earning toys as well as real household objects that have down scaled to fit a child sized hand. Love it!

Anyway, after the rice was cleaned up I gave Vada a rag of her own so that she could "clean" while I was doing my own chores around the house (she loves to wipe things off). I got this idea from a friend of mine who has her four year old and one and a half year old help with chores every morning and I have to say that I think that it is one fabulous idea!  

She is one good helper!