We continue to be sick with coughs and colds, with a bonus ear infection for A-. Since she complained of ear pain even after a week of watchful waiting, we started her on the course of antibiotics that the doctor prescribed. We're still tired and occasionally grumpy, but there's light at the end of the tunnel.

A-‘s tantrums seem to be a little lower in intensity and duration now, and she usually accepts comfort from me instead of repeatedly moving away.

I experimented with a play-based curriculum for homeschool preschool this week. I liked the way a little bit of structure helped me have activity ideas all ready to go whenever A- was interested in exploring. She liked reading books about apples doing some of the activities. I modified the other activities to incorporate the concepts into whatever A- actually wanted to do at the moment. It was fun doing this with A-. Maybe I'll try Blossom and Root‘s demo week next time. I'd love to be able to come up with little units based on her interests and the world around us. Someday!

• Kaizen
  • I found a kindergarten readiness guide, so I printed out the checklist and observation chart.
  • I made a multi-click tool in Tasker that could read its configuration from a file, although I couldn't figure out how to persistently split by newline.
  • I switched my data partition to ext4 and moved my Dropbox directory to out.
• Us
  • We all had fun throwing magnetic letters and trying to get them to stick to the cookie tray.
  • I spent some time reflecting on amor fati.
  • I needed to tweak my laptop setup a little after that major upgrade.
  • I helped proofread some text for my dad's National Museum exhibit.
  • I lost my preferences after the Krita upgrade, so I recreated enough to make simple sketches again.
  • I designed and ordered a custom headband that might also be usable as a neck scarf. I wanted something that had numbers, letters, months, and days of the week.
• Gross motor
  • A- had lots of fun climbing up on me and sliding down the other way.
• Fine motor
  • I got A- to show me how tall a tower she could build by playing a “silly tower” game. I built up a few blocks and called it a silly tower when it tumbled down, so she got into it too. She built a tower of 13 blocks by herself.
  • A- tied a bow knot around her stuffed toy all by herself. She showed it to us proudly.
• Language
  • We started doing a picture tour of books before reading the text. I still do most of the talking, but sometimes she answers questions or comments on what she sees.
  • “Can you bring a water bottle for me, please? I am a little bit sick and I don't drink that one.”
  • “I'm a little clingy monkey. I want to cling.”
• Music
  • A- made up her own counting song. “Five little apples hanging in the tree. One came down. Four little apples hanging in the tree.” She sings so much more, and often makes up her own songs based on other ones she knows.
• Self-care and independence
  • We signed up with a new family doctor, who also diagnosed an ear infection in A-. A- patiently followed all the instructions during the examination, including stepping up on the scale by herself so that we could measure her weight (10.9 kg) and height (90cm).
  • It turns out that both W- and J- avoid penicillin-type medicine due to reactions. We'll try giving A- the amoxicillin prescribed for her ear infection, though, just in case she turns out to be okay with it. So far so good.
• Sleep
  • A- sang herself to sleep. It was awesome.
• Emotion
  • A- felt a little anxious about the “Meltdown” book, maybe because the protagonist had a big tantrum and no one coped with it well. She seems to prefer books that model positive strategies.
• Household
  • A- painted in the living room while I washed dishes in the kitchen. When she finished, she brought her paint jars and brushes to the kitchen for cleaning and said, “Bring it to an adult all by myself!”
  • She lined a container with a paper towel, then gave it to us while saying, “Compost bin!”
• Social
  • A- let out a loud fart. Then she said, “Silly Mama.” I laughed and said, “Silly baby.” She said, “You're silly.”
  • “Can you wake up please? Can you drink coconut water? Can you share with me?”
  • A- really likes drinking coconut water. She asks me to drink some so that she can have a sip afterwards. She experimented with calling my attention to the coconut water can by tapping on it, which made us laugh. I told her I prefer to be asked with words instead of with tapping, and she obliged by saying, “Can you drink coconut water, please?”
• Cognition
  • I researched kindergarten readiness options.
  • A- has been very interested in being two years old and being almost three years old. I made her a number line out of playdough so that she could get a sense of how old she is and how old her friends are.
  • A- arranged our chairs in a line and we pretended to be on a bus. She was interested in the concepts of front, back, in front, and behind.
  • She used apples to represent all the numbers in a 5-frame, including “none.”
  • A- took the apples out of the bowl and counted them out (1 apple, 2 apple, 3 apple…) on her own. I'm not sure if she was doing plural forms too. I'll listen more closely next time she does it.
  • A- had fun feeding a pretend bird a few pipecleaner worms. We counted them as she put them in, and she followed my suggestions to focus on red worms, orange worms, and then short worms.
  • Me: “Imagine you have one apple. If I give you another apple, how many apples do you have?” A-: “Two!” Me: “And if I give you another apple?” A-: “Three!” Me: “And if I take away one apple?” A-: “Two!” Me: “And if I give you two more apples?” A-: “Four!”
• World
  • We worked on the apple unit from “Playing Preschool.” A- was interested in the book, sorting, counting, the parts of an apple, and printing with an apple half.
  • A- brought me a yellow sheet of origami paper and asked me to make a sun. She also brought me a blue sheet and asked me to make a sky.

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• 2018-12-17 Emacs news

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