Wanting Spring

Living in the Mid-West you get all of the seasons and Winter has defiantly been a long drawn out occasion this year. I personally am ready for some warm weather! 

The other day I was looking at some of my newer found blogs that I am in love with and I ran across this post and it made me really, really want Spring to be here, like now! I do realize that the "official" first day of Spring has come and gone but it snowed all day yesterday and it's still on the ground today, so to me, it's not really Spring time. I want the warm weather, the planting of our garden, the long walks outdoors, bike rides and thunder storms! Oh, how I can't wait! Since reading that post I have been talking nonstop about our garden with the family and I have even brought Vada into my obsession. I am ready to get her into the land with me this year!

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of books. I love to read and have many favorite authors in all kinds of subject. Lois Ehlert is just one of my many favorites who happens to have an amazing set of gardening books. 

We read Eating the Alphabet and discussed all of the fruits and vegetables that were in this book. Lois uses vibrant colors in all of her books which seems to capture and obtain Vada's attention throughout the whole book but for his particular book my favorite part was the very end. Each fruit and vegetable is listed again with the correct pronunciation and a brief explanation of its use.

We then read Planting a Rainbow. This one is fun, not only because of its great photos but because of its use of actual flowers. Lois actually teaches in her books about our land and earth.

Last, we read Growing Vegetable Soup. This book just makes me hungry! Its all about gardening but in the end it gives a delicious vegetable soup recipe, which we will be making this week!

Vada likes to pretend to pick things off of the pages of books that we are reading and eat them. That's what what she is doing here.

To stay with a garden theme we got out the Farmer's Market sorting game and talked about the fruits and vegetables and their colors as well as theirs tastes and what we use them in or for. 

I know I have said this before but I feel as if I need to continuously mention this to new readers. Vada is not yet speaking many verbal words. She has many sounds and around if not more than a hundred signs but when I say "we talk" I am generally referring to me as the one who is doing the talking and her as the one who is doing the listening. It's like I am telling her a story but she is paying attention to my words and that's what counts. She shows many physical signs that she is comprehending what I am saying and makes attempts at making the same sounds that I use so we are making progress in many areas. It will all just come in smaller steps.

This weekend I made file folder games. These are the first of many. Today, I introduced them to Vada. Introducing new concepts to V is always a challenge  Sometimes it can be fun and other times it can really be a struggle. I think the way she reacts to new things has a lot to do with if she is developmentally ready for them but also her attitude comes into play as well, so I don't just dismiss things because she gives me a hard time at first. I also believe the way that I introduce things has a huge impact on the way she takes to the activity. When I first brought out this dinosaur color file folder (it being our first) I didn't show it to her with much excitement. I basically said "this color goes on this color ... blah, blah, blah." And this is exactly what I got when trying to get her to do the activity with me. 

She was very upset. She wanted to put the dinosaurs down her way and not on their matching colors. She threw a huge fit and I felt instantly overwhelmed. I took a deep breath. Turned her around to face me and embraced her in my arms and held her for a moment and when I turned her around we started again only in a more interesting way.

I put a few of the dinosaurs on my right side and a the rest onto the left side and one by one I would grab one and give my best dinosaur growl saying, "I am a _____ dinosaur." and then I would walk that match around a bit making it growl its color. I would then hand it to Vada and she would walk the dinosaur around. After about thirty seconds I would then point to the file folders matching dinosaur and ask Vada to put her dinosaur onto its matching dinosaur and it worked! That's how we played this game and we did it three times in a row!

I then got out the matching Farm Animal file folder game and since I had already had issues with the first folder I had decided since this was yet another introduction to something new I would do this one myself. I sung Old McDonald to her and had her point to which animal she wanted me to sing about, then I would slide its "bottom" match on with Vada's help, of course!

We also tried out the Counting Cupcakes Folder game. I counted the cherries out loud while using Vada's pointer finger and then we put it onto the corresponding numeral cupcake. We did this twice.

In this photo Vada is praying. Seriously! This is what she does if we pray somewhere where we don't hold hands and she was mumbling praying out loud, probably for this particular lesson to be over with!

 I have also been working on Big, Bigger and Biggest concepts with Vada so I used the stacking cups to talk about how we have them in order from Biggest to smallest. (We actually have a file folder game for this as well but I though that she had had enough file folder fun for one day!)

I had her work on her stacking skills. 

I know that stacking cups are rated for really young ages, like six months and up or something like that but they are so useful when teaching problem solving skills! Here we worked on stacking the cups into themselves which takes a great deal of effort, concentration and problem solving skills! It also helps with the big to small concept as well which in return is actually a math concept!

Another new introduction today was "Mr. Sunshine" (No pun intended, since we haven't been seeing any real sunshine around these parts in some time!). We call him Mr. Sunshine but the game itself is called "Hello Shine!" Mr. Sunshine is by Thinkfun, the same makers of Roll and Play which we also have and love to play with Vada.

Now, for those of you who are even remotely creative you may not need or even want to buy this game. Its a pretty simple concept that can be done with anything and more specially to be like the this game, any stuffed animal! I however, am not always that creative and as I have mentioned before I am not afraid to admit that I often swipe others brilliant teaching ideas and use them here at home as my own (always making sure to give credit where credit is due, however).

Anyway, Mr. Sunshine helps to teaches the concepts of: Over, Under, In, Beside, On, Under, Next To, On Top Of, Behind and In Front Of.

 I opened the box and took out Mr. Sunshine and Vada and I began to play. We played two different ways but I have to admit that I haven't read the actual game rules yet!

The first way we played was like the game Hide and Go Seek. I "Hid" Mr. Sunshine, while V covered her eyes (what she is doing in the photo below!!) and then once I was done, I told her where he was! I know! I know! It kind of sounds like I am defeating the purpose of the game itself but this was the first time we have ever played this game. She had no idea what I wanted her to do, plus I wanted to get her mind and attention on this game and not roaming onto something else since she had free range of the room! 

So, I told her where to find him, which was always in a very visible place for her but I also made sure to say it in a specific descriptive way... "Vada, go find Mr. Sunshine. I put him on top of the garbage can."

"Mr. Sunshine is under the chair."

"Mr. Sunshine is in the drawer."

After each "find" I would ask V to bring Mr. Sunshine back to me. Games like this are also good for building little one's listen and following direction skills!

After a couple of rounds of Hide and Go Seek, we sat down with Mr. Sunshine and did some listening activities with him. Again, this is all new to Vada and to me. Being specific in the way I talk especially in this way is not something I am used to or something that I have tried to be conscience of in the past. I now see the importance in these specific phrases. In fact, these too are important phrases to know for math as well and I am only bringing up math so much because I am rereading Teaching Math to People with Down syndrome and other Hands on Learners so it's really got me thinking!

We worked on putting Mr. Sunshine In Vada's lap.

And Putting Mr. Sunshine on top of Vada's head.

This is just another fun game that we will continue to play. My husband, Justin, brought up a really good idea. He thought that we should play it like the Elf on a Shelf and hide Mr. Sunshine everyday in a new place. I think that we will have to work on getting this concept down first and then we will  move onto hiding him everyday. Why not? It sounds like something fun to do!

I began reading The Wind in the Willows to Vada last week and today after lunch and before her nap we began to read the chapter titled The Wild Wood. 

It ended up being a perfect chapter to tie together our lesson of positions...

Coloring Without Boundries

I recently read a book by Rahima Baldwin Dancy called You Are Your Child's First Teacher, she wrote a section on using coloring block crayons verses typical stick crayons. This is where my interest in block crayons arose. Dancy also mentioned in this same section that all children have artist abilities, those abilities just need to be continuously nurtured. By doing simple things such as trading our children's coloring markers for water colors and offering blank sheets of drawing paper instead of pre-lined coloring pages (where our children are requested to "keep within the lines") then their artistic ability is more likely to remain alive and accessible to them throughout their whole lives. This all made sense to me and I have begun to make small changes in my thinking and in the ways that I not only present crafts to Vada but to my older girls as well.

 Coloring with block crayons rather than using stick crayons enables a person/child to cover an entire page with color with very little effort making coloring easier and more fluid-like especially for smaller children. 

Stockmar Wax block crayons are made of a sweet smelling beeswax rather than paraffin and can be purchased at many stores but can easily be found through amazon.

For Christmas Vada also received these fun Alex brand Finger Crayons. While the colors are not as vivid as the beeswax block crayons are, they still serve a purpose beyond just coloring!

 Finger crayons are great for finger isolation, which is something that we are really working on with Vada.
On a daily basis I have Vada in her thumb splints, well... almost and depending on what I am doing with her I may take them off (but that's besides the point). Long story short, the splints are suppose to help her hold her thumbs correctly so that she has a "correct" pincer grasp. These crayons don't help the placement of her thumb necessarily but they do help Vada hold her pointer in an outward position while at they same time having her thumb also in an outward position, kind of like a pincer grasp. Either way, the finger crayons, helps Vada use her hand muscles differently than she is used to, which is good for her...

Finger Crayons are also good for stacking,

color sorting and...

knocking over.

Sorting It Out At the Farmers Market

Today Vada and I worked on the Alphabet. how do you do such a thing with a two year old? Well, today her and I sat on our living room floor and went through flash cards. Yes, she is a busy bodied little girl but she is also a sponge and I can keep her attention for quite awhile. So we went through the flash cards and then we sang and danced to the Alphabet song sung by no other than yours truly. Its pretty simple stuff here.

After working on the alphabet we broke out the Farmer's Market Sorting Set by my favorite place to buy toys, Learning Resources. My parents ordered it for her for her birthday. Such. a. perfect. gift! The suggested age is 3+ but it's completely safe with supervision and there are only a couple of smaller pieces to be concerned with in the first place.

Since this was our first time using the set I let Vada explore the majority of the pieces while I took everything out of their bags and put the color label stickers on the baskets.

There are five pieces of fruits and vegetables for each color and five colors total.

I started Vada off with one color, red and I just asked her to put the red ______ into the basket. After she did all five of the red foods I added a second basket, leaving the red next to the new one.

With the second basket (purple), I repeated the task that I had origanally gave to her with the red basket.

Finally I added a third basket (orange). The task was still the same as the first two baskets, nothing had changed other than the color and number of baskets sitting in front of her. I wanted her to hear me speak the name of the fruit or vegetable as well as its color and then I wanted her to be able to pay attention to the task that I gave her and to identify the difference in color. Well, that was my initial goal. Not being a teacher or having any real clue as to what I was doing, I think that it went really well. Vada is great at listening and visually paying attention. What I saw today was not Vada knowing her colors but her watching where I was pointing to and listening to what I was telling her to do. When I would point at a basket asking Vada to place the object that she was holding into the basket, she knew what I was talking about, even if she didn't know what exactly it was that she was holding. And to me, that's a great place to start!

After the third basket Vada had had enough color sorting and because I want this to be a fun and positive experiences I was fine with that! I did however through in a final learning lesson when I brought out the ziplock and asked Vada to help me pick up. not only was I teaching her to clean up and put things into something, as she was grabbing a fruit or vegetable I would say "Vada, you grabbed an purple onion, that's a vegetable. Thank you  for helping Mommy pick up, now can you please pick up another?" Oh yes, we are working on manners too! Isn't it funny how everything we do we teach? This all probably sounds so simple to everyone but to Vada, or any toddler, this is work and is a learning experience. It kind of amazes me. Anyway, I have found a lot of great learning ideas and I have had so many responses to my request for more ideas. Thank you to everyone who has shared their thoughts and ideas with me, these past two weeks have been full of fun learning activities!

And last but not least, thank you to my parents Augie and Suzan for this great learning toy as well as the other two that you sent for Vada! They will be well used and are greatly appreciated! We love you !