Stacking, Beading and Fine Motor

Vada and I read a lot! It is one of her favorite things for us to do together. She is constantly bringing me a book to read to her. In her room, I made her a little reading corner where she goes and makes piles and pies of books that she has looked through (It's where she is sitting in the picture below. Usually, her little pink rocker is sitting there too.). At her nap time and before she goes to bed I am reading her the fourth book in the Little House on the Prairie Series, On the Banks of Plum Creek (our third chapter book in the series because I skipped, Farmer Boy, if your familiar with the series at all you'll know what I am talking about.) You'd think that she wouldn't sit still for a series book like this but she does and she pays attention as well. Sometimes I will read a word like "candy" or "baby" and she will do the sign for it and surprise me with how much she is following along. 

Anyway, we read other books as well. Usually on the days when we have nothing planned and nowhere to go (I just love those days!) we spend the early morning in Vada's room doing what she wants to do and today, she wanted to read...

This was today's stack of read books.

After we spent some leisure time reading I thought we should spend some more time focusing on stacking blocks, this time I brought out some bigger blocks that I thought may be easier for Vada. I figured if she could get confident in stacking these big blocks than we could move to the smaller ones. 

Today, Vada would get as high as four blocks then she would knock them over. If I am remembering correctly yesterdays highest was four as well and then she would do the exact same thing. I agree baby girl, its way more fun to knock them over than it is to build them up.., but that's not where your points are going to come from!

I began thinking that maybe this "non block stacking thing" had more to do with a lack of polished fine motor skills and maybe I just needed to focus more on those skills in general and that it would all come together. So my plan is to work on fine motor "stuff" on a daily basis.

I plan on doing the blocks daily but also throwing new stuff in there to keep her interest. One thing I brought out that she has yet to use is this Melissa and Doug Bead Sequencing Set, I basically used it as a lacing set, which we have but like I said, I wanted to use new things to keep her interested. 

Another game I got out was Pop-up-Pirate only my version came from Tokyo or Hong Kong and that was an accidental purchased on my behalf through Amazon! Long story. I meant to buy the American version but this one will do. This game is great for color recognition and fine motor skills but is not intended for Children Vada's age, unless supervised!