Yarn Along

{Yarning Along with Ginny}

I've made some sock progress, but really I haven't been knitting for the last several days. My creative time has mostly been going toward sewing lately, as I'm trying to finish up our little girl's fall/winter wardrobe. A few more long sleeve dresses and pairs of leggings will do it, then it's on to the knits she'll need this winter.


I'm almost finished with the striped cardigan I started over the summer (1 1/2 sleeves and a button band to go) and she already has 3 other cardigans for the fall/winter. I might add one more, but only if she seems to be outgrowing what she has. I purposely knit a little large so that they will go all winter. I'm happy to roll up sleeves for a little while!


I'm planning to knit her some leg warmers for under the dresses she loves so much. We have wood floors in much of the house so socks are really not a great option for her (I'm envisioning head wounds and knocked out teeth) and I think leg warmers might be just the thing for this period of time when socks are a no go- and they'll help me use up my odds and ends of worsted and DK weight from the last several finished projects.


I also need to knit her a few hats for this season and her first little pair of thumb-less mittens. Ezra has requested that he and Ellie have some matching mittens this year, so probably not pink mittens, but I have some cute rainbow-y yarn that is muted enough to work for a boy and a girl. I think I'm most excited about the mitten knitting for my littles.

Any suggestions for other winter knits for toddlers?

I'm in a  book slump right now, so nothing interesting to report here. I started up Ender's Game again, but since I'm re-reading it for about the 10th time it just doesn't have that urgency to get it finished. It's more like a slow "savor and enjoy" read. The boys and I finished listening to Trumpet of the Swan and started listening to Farmer Boy yesterday. We've already had a lot of interesting conversations- "what does tardy mean? What's Oxen? Why didn't they just get in their car?"

Spring Birds, Part II

We tried a second version of the Spring Birds this week, this time with oil pastels and watercolors. Above is Ender's orange bird, and below is Ezra's red one:

Ender recently started to keep his colors a little bit more separate to avoid the "preschool brown" that happens when all your paints mix together.

Ezra? Not so much yet, but his most frequently chosen colors are red and black, just like he picked here.

Tips to Occupy Your Toddler

{Ezra at 18 months}

I'm sharing toddler tips at Simple Homeschool today.

Come on over and join in the conversation!

Themes

Am I the only one that gets all glassy-eyed thinking about all the educational possibilities that are out there? I mean, just looking through early childhood things you can make yourself crazy trying to do everything that is worthy to do! There are the unit studies and lapbooks over at Home School Share, the Alphabet Path at Serendipity, the Montessori 3-6 albums and excellent Montessori ideas blogged over at My Montessori Journey, abundant craft ideas collected at the Crafty Crow, Five in a Row, and so many blogs and books that I find myself in a perpetual state of idea collecting.

 

I finally got around to reminding myself that I am actually a teacher by trade and that I taught preschool for a few years and I *may* have a slight idea as to how to teach my own son! So after reading all the awesome ideas and filing them away in my brain, I went into planning mode- wrote down the basics, copied pages, sorted, filed, and ended up with our general outline for the year.

 

For My Four-Year-Old

 

We will be having a "letter of the week" theme. Ender knows his letters and sounds, but I wanted to have something to plan our year around that was predictable for my super orderly child. We will start with A and work in order through the alphabet, using different materials to learn how to form the letters (dough, sand tray, alphabet builders, and writing as he is able). I pulled ideas from all over the place, and I'm planning to share our plans as we work through them. We started with letter A this week and because of a little craziness in my work schedule we're taking 2 weeks with letter A instead of one.

 

Even though we're using the framework of the alphabet this year, we have plenty of time to take off in more specific directions when Ender has ideas for projects or we find things that interest us. The alphabet is just a guide, projects can come from anywhere at any time!

 

I plan to include number concepts, though those will be on a more casual basis depending on Ender's interest. We're sticking pretty close to Montessori for our number concepts, and I'll share these as they come along.

 

We're using the Kumon cutting book and the maze books too- Ender loves mazes, so he's on to his second maze book in this series. He's having a lot of fun with starfall.com as well, so he's getting a bit of computer time 2 or 3 days a week.

 

For My Two-Year-Old

 

In addition to our letter of the week, I've planned some toddler themes for Ezra. Ender really likes to help Ezra learn, so we're going to have some play center themes for the two of them to help Ezra build some vocabulary and to just have some fun!

 

For Both Boys

 

My goal is to focus on seasons and holidays- to notice the changes in the trees and plants in our own yard, to watch for signs of the incoming season, to learn a little more about the traditions of our holidays and to notice how life moves with the seasons. This portion is just as much for me as for the boys, but I hope they will have being a bigger part of our seasonal chanes this year.

Practical Life

 Ezra is just starting to drink from an open cup. We've had a few of these little coke glasses since we got married and they're a great size for Ezra's hands, even if they aren't a very traditional looking Montessori item.

 

Ezra started to take a very active interest in our cups a few weeks ago, so I started him out with just enough water in the cup to have 1 sip. After he was able to control that I started giving him a little more each time. He still spills on occasion, but he's very careful in general. Once he's really doing well with drinking out of the glass I'll put together a pouring activity so that he can pour his own cup and drink it. Now if only I could get Ender to be as equally interested in drinking from an open cup!

 

Ezra has also started to try to fold things. He watches me fold laundry almost every day and Ender has the fun task of matching socks. Ezra wants to have a job too so I've been directing him to hand towels and washcloths, showing him how to make the corners meet and to smooth out the fabric. He doesn't quite have the patience for it though, so he usually makes one nice fold and then crumbles it all up on the second fold and throws it back into the basket. Work in progress.

Butterflies

We saw so many butterflies on our morning walk yesterday that we came home to make some of our own. I remembered seeing some butterfly crafts over at The Crafty Crow not long ago and we used one of those examples as our inspiration.

First the boys finger painted on paper plates. This is the first time that Ender has really filled a page with color instead of just painting the center.



After the paintings dried, we cut little triangle notches out of the plates to make wings. I cut for Ezra, and Ender cut his own. I had precut the butterfly bodies so we stapled them on and the boys colored the bodies.





 

When we finished with everything, we hung them on one of our windows.

 



 

Sighted: Table-Top Toddler

I'd love to say this is a rare occurance in our home, but this is where we find him at least three times a day. And yes- he's usually stuffing his face.

Our Nature Adventure

We *finally* had a nice day! It's either been sunny but freezing, or warm-ish and raining for a few weeks now, but we finally had a nice sunny warm day earlier this week and we went on a really long walk. My 2 year old loves to collect things and he brought everything home to be able to show daddy:





I meant to put these up the day of, but we were super busy around here! I can't wait til summer hits and our schedules relax a bit.

Our First Step into Homeschooling

After reading a ton about all our different education options we're still undecided, but I've been impressed with all the early childhood information out there! I'm going to start working with my 2 1/2 year old a bit each day just to learn more about the world. We're going to start with learning about the ocean because we are taking a trip to the ocean in May. I have several little activities planned, and I think it will be fun for him. His little brain is so organized and he acquires new information like crazy, so I think this will help keep him busy.

I'm putting together some coloring sheets, and we're going to make a big ocean on the wall. I'm loving this! I hope he does too. I'm also looking into doing Five in a Row literature since he loves reading so much. I'm excited to get started!

Trying New Things

Does anyone have any amazing ideas for getting stubborn people to try new foods? My husband is a total wimp about vegetables, and my 2 year old is catching on to the fact that daddy doesn't really eat his veggies. We're already in the "5 Food Stage"- where the toddler will only really eat 5 different things- kosher hotdogs, green beans, applesauce, any kind of cracker, and soy yogurt. Gummy bears are also on the favorites list, but I can't bear to put that down as one of his 5 main nutrition sources! Note- the kosher hotdogs and soy yogurt are because of cow's milk allergies here- our whole family is intolerant (we're not sure about the baby yet, since he hasn't hit 18 months), so we just don't have it around- we do a lot of soy products and rice milk over here.

The husband has problems with the textures of foods, so certain things like cooked carrots literally make him gag. I want to call him a whiny baby, but that isn't exactly being an excellent wife, is it? I do think there are some things that he didn't like as a kid that if he would just try them again he would like okay. I keep trying to tell him that your taste buds mature just like the rest of the body and they can like new flavors if you give it a shot. I just want to be able to try out a few new recipes- that's all. Is that so bad?