Stressful behaviour ..... And Relax

(Goblin is 25 months)

Goblin has had a cold for a fortnight now and sleep feels like a mere memory. This morning he woke up at 2.30 am and just would not go back to sleep. But he's not in that forlorn state where he is content to sit on my lap or snuggle up - no he's in the 'I want to play with everything loudly and make lots of mess and generally do things that will stress out my sleep deprived parents' place. 

I stuck the TV on. I swear by the "Here comes a ...." series. We have all four - Digger, Train. Tractor and Fire engine and at times like this I am quite happy to stick them on back to back. You can buy them at http://www.littlebigtv.co.uk

For the first three hours Goblin played happily with his cars. I got out the play mat I made him and all his dinky metal cars. He is really into lining them up and spent a very long time putting them all nose to tail. At least I think thats what happened - I kept falling asleep and every time I woke up there were more cars lined up.
But after a while he started to get restless. I tried getting down some of the more educational stuff from his shelves (they often suggest the morning is the best time to do that kinda stuff but maybe they aren't talking about 4am). Goblin wasn't interested and started throwing stuff around. So I found myself desperately looking for something I could do with him that would occupy him but wouldn't break things if he hurled it. 

I opted for playdough. Goblin doesn't play with playdough a lot but to my surprise he seemed really interested this morning. I have a whole bunch of animal shape cutters and I helped him roll the dough out and cut animal shapes, and then he started counting them. I buy playdough. There are lots of fab blogs with recipes for home made playdough. But I bought my playdough over a year ago and it still hasn't dried up or gone manky. And I got it from Tescos so it was super cheap, and Goblin doesn't try to eat it because it tastes disgusting. Having said that if you are less lazy than me Nuturestore have a whole ebook of playdough recipes you can download for free.

 Goblin spotted the Christmas themed eyespy bottle on the shelves. He really likes that I put a tiny train in the bottle. He wasn't particularly interested in the other objects - although when I got the object sheet down he did make an effort to find them, before going back to looking for the train. 

 And then he wanted to take the lid off. I had taped the lid down so we didn't get rainbow rice and glitter everywhere but as I already had the plastic mat down I took the lid off for him. He poured out the contents and played with the train and donkey in the rice. (And didn't start throwing it around - phew). And then he found the chunky chalks in the playdough box. He brought them over to me so I dashed upstairs and brought down his Chalkboard cubes that his Poppy made him. 

They are wooden cubes painted in blackboard chalk. They are such a brilliant and simple toy. Goblin took each one in turn, marked it up with chalk and stacked it. Observing Goblin playing nicely with things he could quite easily fling across the room made me realise his behaviour probably wasn't any worse this morning than it usually is. I was probably just more tired and my fuse was shorter. I was still very glad when at 9.30am he finally decided it was time for a nap. 

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Collaborative art

(Goblin is 25 Months)

Goblin has a busy day today. Squeak came over to play.

I'd laid out some 'art' for Goblin. I stole an idea from Get 'er Done Momma. On her blog post she shows her 30 months old son Liam sequencing green triangles to make a Christmas tree picture. If you click on her blog name it will take you to her post. Anyway I loved this idea - art and size sequencing. How difficult can it be I though, I'm sure Goblin can do that.

 Er! No, Goblin could not do that. I guess he had quite a bit of distraction with his friend there. But he didn't come close to making a christmas tree shape.

 They did however make some lovely collaborative art. 

Squeak was really good with the glue pot and the kids Bingo Dabbers. 

Goblin stuck down some of the green foam triangles and sparkly snowflakes, as well as doing the 'art' on this yellow sheet. 

Squeak was also rather taken with the Christmas themed EyeSpy bottle I'd made.

 

I'm linking this to

beautiful friendship

(Goblin is 25 months)

Gross Motor play

(Goblin is 25 months)

Goblin has a heavy cold and his concentration span has not been great this week. So we've spent a lot of time outdoors focussing on gross motor skills (and having fun). 

So what has he been working on?

1. Climbing - Today he made me laugh because he insisted on playing on a play set that was for over 5s. My instinct was to let him try.  As long as he can get himself up on the equipment unassisted why shouldn't he play on it - even at the age of 2 he has enough smarts not to launch himself off platforms that are 6 feet in the air. 

2. Hanging - He loved to swing off bars and pretend he's a monkey. He makes the 'oo oo' monkey noises.  He's always been a bit of a risk taker and Hublet and I definitely encourage that. I think it helps with independence. 

3. Running - he still looks like he will trip over at any second when he runs, but he is falling over less and less. And he's getting worryingly fast - I may have to start practicing my sprinting. 

3a. Running on wobbly surfaces - the first time he ran over this bridge he fell off the edge into a big prickly bush. But it hasn't deterred him. He loves pelting across it at top speed. Getting a few bumps and scrapes and learning to pick yourself up and carry on can only be a good thing. Not that we aren't close at hand to give a cuddle if he really hurts himself. 

4. Jumping - we had to teach Goblin how to jump. It took him a while to get it. He'd bend his knees and make noises but not actually leave the ground. Then he got to the point where he'd leave the ground but fall on his bum. But now he's really good at jumping. We still need to work on perspective though as he often jumps to try and catch aeroplanes!

5. Scooting - Goblin got a toy tractor from his Granny and Grandpa for his birthday and he plays on it every day scooting around the room. He sometimes takes it into the garden and hurtles at top speed down the sloping concrete path into the kitchen door. 

6. Pedalling - Goblin's Poppy and Nanny bought him a trike to keep at their house. This is an old photo of Poppy pushing him when he was smaller. This weekend he discovered he could pedal it himself. As long as he's had a little push to get him started he can pedal it on smooth ground. He spent about an hour getting me and his Uncle to push him back and forth across the kitchen floor so he could practice pedalling - not sure about the steering aspect though. 

We were so excited by his new gross motor skill that we searched ebay and got him his own (cheap) trike. Unfortunately its slightly too big for him at the moment. But he can still scoot it along as he demonstrated for two hours this evening. 

And the best thing is he looks like the kid from 'The Shining' who cycles the hotel corridors on his easy rider trike. Hopefully when he's feeling a bit more up to it we'll get back to another of his favourite gross motor activities - swimming. 

I'm linking this to Montessori Monday. Its not strickly montessori activities but Montessori theory does encourage gross motor activities so I hope it fits enough with the theme.

5 Best Christmas presents for toddlers

(Goblin is 25 months old)

I recently read an excellent post on GeekDad (Found at Wired Magazine). It was entitled "The 5 best toys of all time". Very appropriate in the run up to Christmas. And what were they? 

1. A Stick

2. A Box

3. String

4. A Cardboard tube

5. Dirt

This is so true. While most of us probably enjoy shopping for exciting, interesting and possibly educational toys for our kids its good to remember that children's imagination can be encouraged and developed very effectively with really simple objects. I often find if I fall into the trap of buying an expensive toy for Goblin he will bring me back to reality by having more fun running around the garden with a stick. 

GeekDad points out that string is probably not a great idea for really tiny kids. I have to agree. While I am happy to leave Goblin alone with small objects that will fit in his mouth - he tends to put them in his mouth but not to swallow them - I wouldn't leave him alone with enough string to wrap round his neck - I think he'd do this way to quickly and effectively. I guess we all know our own kids abilities and gauge what risks we are willing to take with them. So for me, I would replace number 3 in the list with Water. Water from the tap or better still naturally formed puddles. 

This one is quite hard to fit in a stocking, but the others could definitely be wrapped up for Christmas. Now I'm off to find a good stick.

W is for ....

(Goblin is 25 months)

Today Goblin and I had a W day. I think W should be for "Wow What a lot of Words begin With W". 

W is for Wellies - Before I went to bed last night I taped a big W to the floor and put Goblin's Wellies at one end. So when he came down this morning we walked the W in our Wellies. 

W is for Wool - We made a W picture using strands of roving wool from my needle felting kit. And we added sparkly snowflakes, so W is also for Winter. 

W is for Wet mess - Goblin wanted to do some pouring so I offered him the choice of water or lentils. He opted for lentils. But then proceeded to pour them into his mouth and suck them while playing, then spit them out into the dry lentils, making everything a bit wet and messy. He also decided to pour all the lentils out and sweep them up. Unfortunately Goblin's sweeping isn't very accurate and ends with more mess, still its good practice I guess. 

W is for Water play - When he'd finished pouring lentils he decided he needed to wash his hands - this is Goblin code for I want to waste water and get very wet and make anything in the near vicinity wet too. Fortunately I had planned to do some water play today because it fits with our W theme. 

W is for Walk - In the afternoon we went to the park with Squeak and his mum. On the way down I pointed out Ws in all the shop signs - there were loads, I'd never really noticed before. It was quite cold so after the boys had run around for a bit we went for coffee. Normally Goblin drinks his drink in two seconds flat and then spends the next half hour running around the coffee shop generally being rowdy. Today I gave him a bunch of little toy trains to play with and instead of running around he sat quietly playing with them. So much so that at one point Squeak's mum said "Why can't you sit nicely like Goblin". That is the first time I have every heard anyone use Goblin's behaviour as one that should be modelled. I suspect it won't happen again so I had to take this photo as evidence. 

W is for Waiting and Watching - On the way home Goblin wanted to see some trains so we went and sat on the platform and waited and watched. 

W is for Why did I do that - When we got home Goblin's tongs were sitting on the table next to a bauble that had a broken hanging bit. I absentmindedly picked it up with the tongs - WHY DID I DO THAT!!!! Goblin, seeing me pick up the one bauble, took it as a cue to use his tongs to pull multiple baubles off the tree. He was quite good at it so rather than stopping him I decided it was good practice  and went to get my camera. 

In case you spotted the hand-grenades on the table I should explain they were an Amnesty International fund raising christmas tree decoration last year. I think Goblin looks like a member of the bomb squad with this one:

Christmas trees

(Goblin is 25 months)

Yesterday Hublet and I were at home while Goblin was at nursery (this is unusual but that's a whole other story). We took advantage of this Goblin free time to put up the Christmas decorations including the tree. Usually Hublet makes me wait until closer to Christmas but this year I have be feeling festive since mid November and just couldn't wait. 
When Goblin came home from nursery he was delighted. He rushed in and started stripping the tree, saying look balls, as he pulled off one bauble after another. Then he found the disney Eyore and said "look donkey" as that came off the tree. He "counted" the stars - he pointed at them and I counted as he pulled them off. So we paused and had a little explanation of why the decorations would be nicer if they stayed on the tree. I am please to say that this morning only Eyore was stripped from the tree. 

After he'd calmed down a bit I sat him on my knee and turned off all the lights except the christmas tree lights. He sat for about fifteen minutes watching them and the ones on our little fibre optic tree we bought last year when we didn't trust Goblin not to eat christmas decorations. 
Every so often he'd ask me to turn the main light on, then he'd say "off" and sit again quietly mesmerised. It was a beautiful start to the festive season and a lovely thing to do to calm him down before bed time. 

Yey Christmas!

Christmas activities

(Goblin is 25 months)

Its not even December yet and already I'm feeling festive. So I decided to make a few Christmas themed activities for Goblin's shelves.

 This is my Christmas house - Ok its not very Christmassy, especially as it has roses up the side which aren't even seasonally accurate. But it does come with sparkly snowballs to pop down the Chimney. You could use pompoms and pingpong balls to make snowmen or santas but I had a broken Christmas garland and wanted to do something with the sparkly balls.

 I put velcro under the roof so it can open up to retrieve the balls. 

 My second activity is posting Christmas trees into a parcel. I intend to do this as a counting game. Goblin really enjoys trying to count, although he isn't very good at anything except 2 and 3. But its a good start. The trees came with some wooden train tracks that we got from Tescos.

And finally as Goblin is slightly addicted to his tongs I have a tonging jingle bells activity.  And he can do some colour naming at the same time. These bells came from a craft shop and are a bit bigger than normal bells and make a lovely sound.

I'm sure I'll be doing a few more Christmas posts before the big day, but that will keep me going for now. Can't wait to put the tree up.

I'm linking this to Montessori Monday, Sunday Showcase, Kids Get Crafty, T.G.I.F and Hey Mom, look what I did