Week ending 2018-07-20

| review, weekly
  • Field trip
    • A- wanted the stroller turned into a bike trailer, so off we went to Vermont Square Park. She really enjoyed riding around on a toy tractor, and she also played with puddles and the sandbox faucet. She waded in the wading pool while I hung out with Jen and E-. When my timer went off, she went for one last slide with me, then climbed into the trailer without stalling. This is promising!
  • Gross motor
    • After reading “Bigger! Bigger!”, A- wanted to wear a hard hat and knock down a tower made of stacking cups.
    • A- wanted to practise riding her balance bike outside. She walked it a little bit, but preferred to put her feet on the footrests and have me push it along quickly. W- played with the balance bike too, imitating various tricks.
  • Fine motor
    • To postpone bedtime, A- stacked the lacing beads. She paid attention to orientation, intentionally stacking them upside down all that the design was on the bottom.
  • Sensory
    • A- had so much fun wading at the wading pool, even though the water was so cold! She waded in and out, walked circles around me, asked to be swung around, and tentatively splashed around too. She also liked the splash pad.
  • Language
    • “I think I will have some blueberries.”
    • “Don't worry, I got it.”
    • “I don't want to do toilet training.”
    • I took A-‘s dry diaper off as soon as we woke up. A- said, “I am practising toilet training.”
  • Self-care
    • A- wanted to play with the forehead thermometer, so we took each other's temperatures. She paid attention to the colour of the screen. I showed her how rubbing my hands together warmed them up.
    • A- wanted to brush her teeth with the purple toothbrush while I brushed my teeth with her blue toothbrush. She did a pretty good job at it, too. We also swapped so that she used my toothbrush to brush my teeth, and I used her toothbrush to brush her teeth. She's gotten much gentler, whew! (5.2.3 Tool Use)
    • A- experimented with lying down on the crib mattress by herself for bedtime reading.
    • A- picked out a pair of jeans to wear to bed, and wanted to improvise a belt.
    • A- picked out a top and a bottom for herself, and asked for help putting them on. (5.2.1 Dressing)
  • Household
    • A- helped mop the floor. She was also interested in rinsing the mop and wringing it out.
    • A- wanted to water the garden, so we did even though rain was in the forecast.
    • A- helped me take the garbage cans in, and she watered the grass too.
  • Social
    • We went to the drop-in centre. A- said, “We made it!” She played with the latch board and used crayons to draw on the easel. People liked the red bean buns we shared. I chatted with Stacey and another parent about Reggio Emilia.
    • A- asked a librarian to request a book for her. “I want Cat and Bunny back.” She wanted to wait for the librarian to be done. The library's copy was still out, though, so she eventually accepted that we need to wait several days.
  • Pretend
    • After we dropped off an envelope in a mailbox, A- wanted to go home and build a Duplo mailbox. We experimented to see which pieces fit into the slot.
    • A- wanted to make a pretend Duplo fire so that she could put it out. Fortunately, we had a fire piece and a water piece, so we were all set.
    • W- made a Duplo flower shop and roleplayed that with A-.
    • A- liked playing with the large shovel at the playground. She pretended to shovel snow.
    • A- pretended to be a dead bird, so I brushed her beak while she lay on the floor.
    • A- picked a Duplo figure to represent W- – the one with a cap. She pretended all three of us were on an airplane, and she also pretended he was pushing her on a swing in the playground.
  • Kaizen
    • I drew and printed visual routines for walking up, daily chores, and weekend chores on index cards. I covered the cards with contact paper to protect them.
    • We blew giant bubbles on the porch. I got better at doing the occasional bubble-in-bubble.
    • I added ELECT links to my entries.
  • Us
    • Good deed for the day: Got an email from someone trying to get a CC Attribution photo from ostensibly that person linked to a site advertising massage chairs. I tracked the original photo down on Flickr and notified the photographer, and left comments on the dupes linking back to the originals. The image equivalent of calling the number on your credit card instead of the one in the email, I guess!
  • World
    • A- lay down on the floor so that she could watch Neko eat.
    • A- was fascinated by a dead bug.
    • A- wanted to pick up stuff in pictures, and expressed a little frustration when she couldn't.
    • On the way to the playground one late afternoon, A- stopped to observe, “A-‘s shadow is very tall.” We spent some time playing with our shadows before moving on.
    • Nature class focused on soil. We collected soil samples and used glue up make soil art on paper. We learned a few new songs: “Robin hopping, hopping, hopping, Robin hopping all around. Robin hopping, hopping, hopping. Stop! What have you found?” (With a grab bag of objects) “Leaves, branches, trunks and roots underground. (x2) Leaves grow up and roots grow down. Leaves, branches, trunks and roots underground.”
  • Sleep
    • A- fell asleep while I was reading to her, even without nursing. She had been awake for about ten hours.
  • Cognition
    • While playing with the Junior Engineer set, A- said, “I want to make a flowerbed.” She looked for the big hemispheres she used when playing with Tita Kathy's set, but since we don't have those, she settled for using wheels instead. (4.2 Problem Solving)
You can comment with Disqus or you can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.