Too Big or Just Right!!!

AJ woke up running this morning, so, I knew I just had to hold on tight today! He immediately went to the school cabinet and wanted his bottles. I thought I would challenge him a bit today as we worked with size. So, I gave him a bottle and a collection of items and encouraged him to try to fit them in the opening. If the item was too big...he would call out...Too Bee! It was adorable!

The first time he came to a big car, he was indignant he would get it to fit!


This picture cracks me up. When he finally realized the big car wouldn't fit. He stopped, put the car down, put his hand on his hips and through a long sting of baby grabble said..."mama... car... too bee." Then, just stood there looking at me like..ok..mama...fix it!


Next, we moved on to Arts and Crafts. He was mving a mile a minute today, so I thought this project would not only keep him busy, but we could easily extend it as long as his atention permitted.
So, I pulled out some paper and we started with the markers. We went through the colors and then I insisted he name the color before he was allow to use it. Now, this might sound stern, but I did so by asking him what color it was? The answer was...of course...blue. So, I corrected him and then names the train that was the same color. For example, This is green (and we worked with several shades of each color). Percy is a green train. What color is this? Then, AJ would squeel...Ween! I would tickle and had him the marker. He got a real kick out of this!

What's better than markers....WATER!
This took some work for AJ. He had to figure out how to work the bottle. But, after a few spritz attacks around the island, he got the hang of it rather quickly!

Once you spritz, you have to wipe...and, then you dab...
Just when you think you are done...Glue!

Then, just to cement what we learned about the colors (and to make sure AJ is ready for a nap) we did a bit more work. We reviewed the colors we learned and then, I gave him a marker, asked him to name the color. Once he named the color (to the best of his ability) I asked him to go find something that was the same color. We lined each of his findings up with the markers. He loved this game!

How Many Colors do you have?

Today was another colorific day. I am really trying to get AJ to identify colors by name instead of calling everything blue. So, we started the day with painting.

We got these painting sheets for the Salvation Army. I guess if you are patient they work well by basically drowning the paper in water, but AJ is not so much the patient type. So, he added some water and then moved on to water color.


Aj painted severl more of these sheets and we really talked about the color. I would ask him to get a specific color paint and he had no problems finding the correct color. He still struggles to name the colors and persists to call them all blue. We will have to continue to work on that.

When he finished painting, he ran outside to the garage and grabbed the container of broken crayons. I thought it might be fun to let him smash the crayon pieces and make new ones. So, AJ helped me peel all the paper off, which he enjoyed. Then, I gave him a hammer and let him go to town. He was thrilled!



Then, he filled the muffin cups.

Then, we baked at 250 degrees for a few minutes.


AJ was really excited to try them out.


Then, he spent the rest of the day playing with his bottles. First he played with pom poms.
After pom poms, AJ put his puff balls in the bottle and attempted to shake them out.

Much to his dismay, they didn't come out as esily as he has hoped...
So he tried to pull them out.
It turned out to be a fun and productive day. We are going to keep working on the colors and I am not sure if AJ will ever tire with filling the jugs!

It's a Colorific World!

I spent a few hours last week searching for some different homeschooling supplies. While I was out, I decided to collect a bunch of paint samples form the store to work on an upcoming project. I am going to work with AJ on his alphabet now that he is showing an interest and can verbalize more "real" words. I found these cool Aphabet paint sample cards on the Craft Bits blog and thought I would get started right away. It didn't take much time at all, but I need to get my new laminator out of the car before I hand the cards over the AJ.

Anywhooo. I will post that project soon. What I also came across while looking for paint samples were these cute paint sample cards. AJ loves Mickey Mouse, so, he was enthralled as soon as he saw them. A thought popped right into my head...We could play with matching colors!

I put them all out on the coffee table and tried to get AJ to match them up...

AJ had other plans. I am not sure if the concept of only pickup the 2 matching cards one at a time was too advanced or if AJ was just to much of a nut that day to stay focused. We will have to try it again. In the end, I would ask him to hand me a color card and then have him search through the pile to find its match. He was definitely struggling to slow down and focus, but it is something we will absolutely do again.


I also love this because we can use these cards to identify other things in the house that are the same colors and inevitable work on spelling once we get the colors down. There is a lot of potential! Plus, they are super cute! I am going to laminate them with a blank card on the back. I may right the color name on the back, I haven't decided yet!

Meanwhile, AJ decided to drag a chair over and explore our school stuff. (I have not found a great organized way to keep all our new stuff. We have a small house with only 2 bedrooms and it is really open. So, it seems like everything else AJ can get into and having to keep everything in the garage isn't ideal!) I am really rambling today...

AJ came around the corner with a bag of transportation beads I just bought. Mr. Unfocused suddenly slowed down and was completely captivated!






He was so proud of this transportation string on his pipe cleaner, which he strung all by himself. He even left the beads on it the rest of the day. He was so excited to show Daddy when he came home. He went running to the door to show his amazing creation!

After beads, AJ took a late nap. Just in time for Mama to clean up the days mess and get some work in. It was already time to start dinner. I had a baking project ready to go when AJ awoke....PITA Bread. I let AJ mix the ingredients and kned his own little pita. He had a blast and for some reason kept trying to eat the dough. It cannot have tasted good, but he continued to nibble.





And... while AJ played, Mama cooked! Chicken Souvlaki Dinner with homemade Pita and Tzatziki Sauce is served!!!!

(Notice: AJ had to bring his transportation beads to the dinner table. He even put them on his dinner plate...talk about obsessed!)

Last Week in the World of Sickey-ville

Well, last week flew by and I was so busy taking care of AJ who had a double ear infection and a nasty cough. I was also battling a little cold, along with taking care of my hubbie who had broncitis! It made for a fun week. Oh, and it was cold and windy outside so we were cooped up in Sickey-ville!

AJ was too sick to go out and with too much activity would start coughing really hard, but that didn't slow him down! So, here is our week in pictures:

Monday:
Buttons and Beans were the words for today. AJ cannot get anough of the beans, so, I let him play with the beans this morning. He loves to drive his trains through them and hide his car in them. So, after bean time, we moved onto buttons his other new obsession.

He decided at first that he was going to spoon the buttons into the dish. He had a hard time scooping because it was on a flat surface, but was intent on using the spoon.


I bought some pipe cleaners and we started working on trying to lace the buttons onto the pipe cleaner. This was very difficult for AJ and he could not do it on his own, but he was captivated by the concept. We worked together to put the pipe cleaner though the whole and by the end he was able to do it by himself when using the big buttons. I was really proud of him and he had a blast. He wouldn't let me take the buttons off and carried around the pipe cleaner the rest of the day!


Tuesday:
We learned how to use Tongs!



Then we played hide and seek with the cotton balls!



Wednesday:
In preparation for Valentine's Day, we sorted chips.


We scooped a lot of Pasta...We even drew pictures in our pasta!


Thursday:
We spent the morning back at the doctors office. AJ was weezing a lot, so, we headed back to see why he was not getting better. After a change in medicine and what seemed like forever at the pharmacy, AJ took a steam bath in the shower to help clear the mucus build up. The water wasn't too hot, but we have one bath that is small and makes AWESOME STEAM! So, while the shower was running AJ made shaving cream pictures on the shower walls and then made a shaving cream train track on the floor. He was rather upset to get out!

AJ did a bit of coloring, which was a total surprise because he is not a huge fan. I think the markets were an inspiration.


After a 3 hour nap (I told you he was sick!), we played hide and seek with out new balls. AJ had a blast with this and kept peeking around the corner to see what I was doing. We played this 3 or 4 times and then he decided it was time to try his hand at the tongs again. (Excuse the runny nose!)


Friday:
We made yogurt Popsicles.


We painted using different shapes...


Painting with shapes inevitable turned into painting car tracks with his various cars. We, of course, had to wash them when we were done! AJ was so please to wash all his cars!


Saturday...because learning never stops and AJ seems to have an endless supply of energy (even when sick!)

Back to buttons...AJ could play for hours with buttons! Today, he decided he would make music, so he spent time putting the buttons in this empty container and then running around shaking it! Someone forgot to tell him he was still sick!

Buttons on the Loose...

AJ found my button tin when we were in the garage the other day. Do not ask why or how it found its way to the garage, but there it lay...So, we decided to bring it in and play for a bit.

*Safety Note: Although AJ is NOT none for sticking everything in his mouth, but even so, I did remove all the small buttons from the tin. I only left buttons that were about an 1" or bigger. There were plenty left.

I gave AJ the button tin and an empty egg carton. He went through and started sorting the buttons. He sorted many of the buttons by color, but had no idea what to do with clear, gold and multicolored buttons. So, we talked about what color they were and how to sort them. AJ was lucky that I had many of the same buttons, so, it made it easy to sort, but when he got confused on what to do with the light blue buttons because they were not the same as the navy buttons. This led to a discussion on shades, light and dark. I collected all of the blue buttons and we worked together to sort them.

I used a T chart for this activity. Here is a picture of a T-chart.

I printed it off my computer and laminated it. This way I can re-use it for many activities by writing any titles I need in the column headings. For this activity, I used Light and Dark as my headings and we sort, sort, sorted! I wanted to work on big and small, but AJ had other plans. When I went to get my bog and small bowls, he found the beans and drug them down...

At this point, you maybe asking yourself why there have been not been any pictures thus far. One, I forgot. Two, I have to get up the nerve to delete the pictures on my camera to make room. I have been deleting a few at a time when I run out of space, but it has gotten a bit ridiculous. There are over 900 pictures on the card and I have not been able to delete the pics from when AJ was first born until now. (Even though they have all been scrapbooked and copied onto disk) So, I finally went through with it and now am down to 212...I could delete everything! But, now, I have adequate space, so, I can take more than 3 pictures at a time with out having to delete yesterdays activities. OK deep breath...don't cry! I just keep telling myself...I have the pictures...I do not need to save them on the camera anymore. Can you tell I am a pack rat about AJ's stuff. I am the mom that that has kept virtually all of his clothes since newborn! My garage (and my hubbie) wishes find a new home for them, but the thrifty pat of me can't part with them! We want to have several kids, so, why would I want to have to buy clothes all over again when we have another boy...they are in god condition. This is how I justify it to myself.

When I couldn't convince him to come back to the buttons, I changed gears and decided on a game of hide and seek. I poured all the beans into the baby tub and hid some buttons in them. Then, I gave AJ a bowl and he went to town! He was so into the game of hide and seek, that once he found all of the buttons, he went to find things for he to hide. Surprise, surprise out came the trains and cars to be hidden.

After that is became a bean festival! He took out everything he could find and jammed up it into the beans...plowing through and making new tracks for his trains, cars, even the baby bath sling became a ramp!

When he tired of the baby sling off, he decided it was time to try out his new spoons. I found these for $1 at JoAnn Fabrics. He thought they were super cool and had a ball filling up his little bowl. He is getting a lot better at scooping and being able to transfer the beans from the scoop into the bowl. Before the majority of the beans would simply fall off the spoon and he would just get frustrated.

Water, Water...EVERYWHERE!

It was cold and rainy outside, so, I thought why not bring the water inside? So, I brought the baby tub inside and we worked with water today. AJ loves water so I thought we would be adventurous. AJ was so excited, he crawled right in and started to play. He could barely wait for me to collect and fill the containers. The funny thing was ...he jumped right in...fully clothed. I didn't even think to take his long sleeve shirt off until we were about half way done!

So the first thing I did was pull out an old dish soap container and filled it with water. AJ spent several minutes just opening and closing the lid on the contained. So, we talked about opening and closing and I helped him to name what he was doing. Once he had that down, we worked on filling a bottle with the soap bottle. This was a hard task for AJ because the soap bottle was not a bottle he could just dump in. He had to squeeze the bottle to get the water to come out. He tried just dumping it over, then shaking it, but it didn't work. Finally he figured out how to squeeze the bottle to get the water out!

He had a blast filling up different bottles with water, then dumping them out. He would then scoop up the water using the measuring cups and pour then back into the soap bottle. He needed help getting the soap bottle lid off, but he had fun filling up the bottle. We tried using the funnel, but because there was water in the bottom of the tub, the bottle would just fall over, so, we ditched the funnel. He did really well keeping the water in the tub for the most part and surprisingly didn't splash the water everywhere like he does in the real bath tub. So, I let him play with the bottles for about 30 minutes. Then, we ventured into Jello!

I made jello a few days ago and put them in various molds. One of the mold I tried was a star Ice cube mold. I thought it would make cute stars, but the problem was I couldn't get the stars out because the plastic was so thick. I had read in the Busy Toddler Book about letting your toddler play with Jello in water, so, I thought this would be a great use for these stars. So, I handed AJ one set of Jello stars and let him go to town. He started by trying to eat through the plastic to get the jello out! It was hysterical to watch him twist and turn trying to get the jello out of the molds.

I started to feel bad, so I helped him to get the jello out and we squished it in the water. We started to talk about texture and how it felt, but, after a few seconds he realized what was in the tub and started to inhale the jello by all means necessary!

Finally, I gave him the second mold to work on removing the jello from. He was indignant that he was going to get all the jello out by any means necessary.

After, he had his fill of jello, it was off to the real tub to get all the stickies off! What a great day though!