Pom poms, shapes and squishy beads.

We've had quite a few windy and wet days lately.  Even when it wasn't wet it was really windy. Miss M (3.5) is quite freaked out by the wind, so we do things inside - much to the disgust of Miss F (1.5yrs) who, much like a puppy dog, has energy to burn and needs to 'run' it off.  So we find things to do inside that keep both happy.

This week we found some coloured electrical tape and made shapes on the floor.  Together with different coloured bean bags the girls had a ball.  They threw bags, and jumped, and hopped, and crawled like dogs, and retrieved bean bags in their mouths like dogs.  It was very entertaining.

Miss M surprised me again with her knowledge, this time of shapes.  We counted sides of squares and rectangles and triangles and talked about the differences, she was all over it.  Then we made harder shapes and she knew the names of those... hexagon, octagon.  I got her with one though - she didn't know what a pentagon was ... although she does now!

 

Something Miss M doesn't like very much is getting wet, she will tolerate it for a bit and then demand a towel, or completely loose her plot!  Miss F, however, would happily spend her life running through sprinklers, or chasing her sister with a hose.  Water beads has been a fantastic discovery for this family! They challenge Miss M to touch wet things - as well as sparking conversations about colours and texture.  We've talked about water being a liquid (and milk, and coffee, and wee! amongst other things), and the beads being solid but soft and slimy - and great fun to squish and break and crumble! And it keeps Miss F happy because she's touching something wet and weird, without creating too much mess (so also keeping mummy happy!).  It's really lucky the girls like them because my wonderful wife bought some from an online wholesaler... so we have a lifetime supply! 

Miss M has almost no interest in letters or writing, most of the time.  She likes numbers, but not really letters.  I don't think she understands that they are two different things, letters and numbers.  Every now and then, while drawing, one of us will write her name, or Miss F's name on their artwork.  Miss M knows that her name starts with 'M', and that's about it.  She has never tried to write it, or wanted to trace our writing.  Until this week.  While drawing, Miss M wanted her name written, Mis F's name written, our names written.  Then she wrote her name on the paper and was so proud.

Don't tell her, but other than the 'M' it looks nothing like her name! But it was still a proud mummy moment! 

One of the things recommended by the occupational therapist was using some specially designed chopsticks to move things around to improve her pencil grip - which is more like a fist grip at the moment.  So we found some pom poms and she had a ball! No pun intended. She moved the pom poms around and sorted them out, sometimes she used the chopsticks the right way, other times she had them however she wanted to.  

                                 

It also followed well with her recent theme of things being bigger/smaller, longer/shorter and so on. We've talked a lot about one person being shorter, or a truck being longer than another, Miss M being taller than her sister (and marking it on the wall).  It started with a study ladder activity (https://www.studyladder.com.au ) where she had to pick which item was bigger or longer etc.  Even though we like the unschooling model of homeschooling, I find study ladder is something Miss M loves and will ask to do. Like just now. I guess that's the end of my turn on the computer! 😀