Busy BODY

Olivia is a very eager learner, and when she is interested in something her focus can be intense for such a tiny being.  Aside from singing nursery rhymes, she has a new interest in body parts. She has been pointing to them when asked for a few months, but has recently been making great attempts at saying them. Her fave book at the moment is called My Nose, My Toes, and Me by Frida Bing. It is a lift and flap book that uncovers various parts of the body.  While we read she always points to her, or my, corresponding body part, and now repeats it herself. She gets so excited and has memorized the book, so she often points to it before lifting the flap.

 

 

                  

 

This week after the reading the story I decided to stretch the story further and add a few activities. Being the diva that she is, she loved looking in her mirror and pointing to the parts of her face on the mirror as I asked her.

We also broke out good ‘ol Mr. Potato Head, always a hit in our home. This was a fun way to see if she could put the parts in the respective areas and then we also got silly creating crazy creations…that’s totally what it’s intended for : ) This is also a great fine motor activity.

 

We sang songs like Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes!

Last, I cut out several pictures of body parts from magazines and gave her the dry erase board with a piece of contact paper taped sticky side up.  She placed her pieces on the contact paper and I simply said what they were while she did it. It created quite a cool collage!

 

I have always had a love for children’s books, and extending the book with fun activities is one of my favorite ways to introduce and practice a skill.

What are some of your kids’ favorite books right now?

Grab a Song

 

 

 



 I’m baaaacckk!!! We had a very busy summer full of Disney adventures, lazy beach days, camp, play dates, gardening, and travel; but we are back into a daily routine of school (for Sean), play, and learning. I feel like my kiddos grew exponentially over those short summer months and are both taking on new stages of development and learning. Miss Olivia is now a lover of babble and learning to say new words daily, mastering fine motor skills like using a spoon/fork/crayon and stacking blocks. She loves music and outdoor play. Sean has mastered recognizing all letters (upper and lowercase) and their phonetic sounds and has moved on to learning to read cvc words. We recently began –at and –an words. He continues to have a love of science and art.

 

 

Now that Sean is back in school part-time, Olivia and I have a few days together to focus on things that interest her. My little songstress can’t say no to a good nursery rhyme and still likes to rummage through treasure baskets, so I combined the two and made her a basket we could explore together.

As I shared in previous posts, treasure baskets are a Montessori inspired activity that promote self-discovery while using various senses. I usually just grab items I have laying around the house and create themed baskets like textiles, balls, color, etc.

For this basket I  listed some of her favorite songs and found or created items that could represent them.

The Wheels on the Bus- a toy bus from the toy box

Old McDonald- some animal shaped play dough cutters

Itsy Bitsy Spider- an old spider teething toy

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star- I cut out a star shape from an old box and traced it onto a sheet of foil, cut it out and used modge podge glue to adhere the foil to the front and back of the cardboard.

Baa Baa Black Sheep- I cut out an outline of a sheep on cardboard and glued cotton balls to it.

Pat a Cake- a wooden rolling pin from the kitchen

5 Little Ducks- a rubber duck from the bath toy bin



Checking out the goods

Singing Baa Baa Black Sheep

I tossed all the items into her old Easter basket and let her dive in. She was instantly attracted to the shiny star and soft sheep. As she played with each item I sang the song they represented. Next up was the rolling pin and she hummed along with me and did the hand motions for Pat a Cake! After a few songs she realized that she could pull the wool off the poor sheep and spent several minutes piling cotton balls into the basket. She delighted in playing and singing with me for a while and then threw her basket on her arm like a purse, as a lady does, and carried on with playing.   

 







...and she's off!