Week ending 2018-07-13

| review, weekly
  • Fine motor
    • She liked spraying the playdough with water and working it in to soften it up.
    • A- liked chug-chug-chugging the Duplo train cars in a circle around me.
  • Sensory
    • A- stuffed plastic bags into the yogurt container and made a plastic bag sandcastle.
    • After class and our picnic lunch, we went to the playground to meet up with a friend. A- had so much fun at the splash pad. She kept constantly checking in with me and then going to the splash pad, getting progressively closer and closer to the jets of water until she got to the point of wetting her hands and then wetting me. She was so happy! She also spent a lot of time digging in the wet sand. (5.3 Sensory – Sensory exploration)
    • A- and I played with giant bubbles on the deck. I tried to make a bubble around a bubble, but it was hard.
  • Language
    • A- wasn't keen on dressing up, but agreed to do it if I read her a book while she did so.
    • I'm not awesome. I'm brave.
  • Music
    • A- did the actions when I hummed the music for “See the Little Bunnies.”
  • Self-care
    • She skinned another knee while stepping off the sidewalk, so we patched her up with a bandage.
  • Household
    • A- helped water the grass. She did a good job of keeping the nozzle high above the soil.
    • A- helped me make red bean buns. She said, “Just like playdough!”
    • A- had fun blowing milk bubbles, modulating her breath so that they didn't overflow the container. She also insisted on sorting utensils and playing in the kitchen.
    • When we were playing in the sandbox, A- wanted to use a stick to level the sand in the yogurt container.
    • A- helped sort laundry by colour.
  • Social
    • We made it to circle time at the drop-in centre. We donated the baby toys. A- followed along with the actions for See the Little Bunnies, which she hadn't done in a while.
    • We invited Joy and J- over. J- was fascinated by our cats. I made a fresh batch of playdough and gave it to them after we all played.
    • I was talking to A- about having friends over. She said, “Mama, ask me what not to share.” I asked her, and she told me that she didn't want to share her headlamp and her lights. That's great, she can remind me to ask important questions now!
    • I experimented with bringing our giant bubble kit to the playground. Looks like crowd control might be an interesting challenge. This might come in handy later, when A- can play more independently and when she might benefit from observing kids work out conflicts.
    • A- noticed the lines on my knee from when I knelt on the bathroom tiles. She knelt down to try to get lines on her knees too.
    • We went to our first nature class. A- was proud about finding her nametag, and she asked me to write her name using crayon. She was too sleepy and reserved to participate in opening circle time, and the information on habitats was probably mostly for my benefit rather than hers. She walked maybe half of the trail going through tall grasses, though, which was a pleasant surprise. We avoided the poison ivy that they pointed out. Our bubble kit came in handy during bubble time. At ending circle, A- felt happy enough to follow along with the gestures. Yay!
    • We met up with Jen, Ewan, E-, Hala, Florian, and S- for dinner near the High Park splash pad. A- ate lots of bread, cheese, and watermelon. She had fun playing with the fountains, and she spent some time independently playing with the playset. She and I played with another two-year-old, who also enjoyed the “I'm Stuck / Earthquake” game.
  • Kaizen
    • I drew our bedtime routine, printed it on an index card, and covered it with contact paper. A- was curious about the card, and referred to it a few times.
  • Us
    • A- stayed up late, woke up early for class, and played a lot, so I figured she was in for a good long nap. I jumped on a web conference call with one of my clients, fixed some embarrassing bugs in my code, and got the prototype working again on his computer. I think I had some old code that was shadowing the error, and I could have tested more effectively. Anyway, great timing. A- woke up just as we succeeded in getting things to work, and she let me snuggle in bed with her while I leaned the laptop on the bed so I could keep an eye on stuff. That probably means I don't need to get a babysitter for Monday. If I can set up more meetings or more coding on the fly around long naps, all the better!
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