On our shelves

(Goblin is 27 months)

 I started thinking about the phrase 'use it or lose it' and wondered whether it might apply to toddler's skills. So to be on the safe side I decided to pull out some of the things Goblin did when he was younger.

I brought down his egg box, tongs and pingpong balls. This was a huge favourite about six months ago. And true to form it was the first thing Goblin pulled off the shelves this morning - even before I managed to take a photo of it on the shelves (you can see the hole where it is supposed to sit on the top shelf). 

 I was inspired by a picture I saw this week at Our Montessori home. Look at the beautiful wooden eggs that they have - I have toy envy!

Also on our shelves this week is a big box of musical toys. I used to take Goblin to a Kodaly music class every week. He'd spend a lot of the time running around but occasionally he'd come and join in and clap or play a shaker. But last term the teacher, venue and students changed and it wasn't working for us any more so we stopped going. Since then I haven't really been doing much music with Goblin except for singing nursery rhymes (when Goblin lets me - he often tells me to stop) and playing them for him on You Tube - he likes "Wheels on the bus" and the "A B C song" -  My favourite is "In the big blue sea"

Anyway I thought I'd try getting Goblin to play some rhythms. We used to play a game called "play and play and play and stop" where you play the instrument until the teacher says 'stop' - its great for getting toddlers to learn about following instructions. Goblin used to laugh every time we had to 'stop'.

On the shelves we also have his Montessori mini knob cylinders. I love watching him play with these. He'll put a cylinder in the wrong hole, look at me, smile and say "nooooo", and then move it to the right hole. He's good at self checking with this activity.

 I though I'd include some number activities, so I brought out his magnetic felt fish,  I'll try and encourage him to fish for specific numbers. We haven't really worked ion number recognition much yet.

I also brought out his number gnomes, and again I will try and encourage him to put a specific number through the hole.

And I put out his number flash cards. He's been enjoying matching robots and digger cards (Usborne have some great stuff) so I was hoping he might also be interested in playing a game with numbers.

And finally I put out his upper and lower case magnetic letters. I'll do a separate post on the fun we are having with those.

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While I'm at work - Banana bread

(Goblin is 27 months)

While I was at work today I received a series of photos. They were photos of Goblin baking, or should I say, eating various baking ingredients. When I got home I was given a piece of delicious banana bread. I thought it would be mean not to share the recipe with you so I asked Hublet to write it down. Not only did he write it down but he also wrote the instructions. They were more amusing than my second hand write up would have been so here it is as drafted by Hublet.

Ingredients - All these are ballpark as I don't really do recipes, I do weigh things but not very accurately:

250g plain flour

250g brown sugar

100g butter

100ml milk

1tbsp lemon juice

1tsp baking soda

1tsp salt

1tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

4 ripe bananas (mashed with a fork)

50g mixed dried fruit (optional)

Hopefully nothing else I have forgotten!

Wash everyone's hands, several times if necessary since it is now a fun game.

Preheat oven to 180C (Gas mark 4, 350F) (convection, fan ovens will be lower) 

Explain to toddler that oven will be hot soon, despite it currently appearing like a warm place to climb into.

Put sugar into a plastic bowl and arm toddler with a wooden spoon.

Melt butter in microwave and cream into sugar

Prevent toddler from eating sugary butter goo

Add all other ingredients mixing in throughly (I can't be bothered to sieve things or add in a specific order)

Mash an extra banana to replace the one your toddler ate

Pour into a greased (or lined with baking parchment to be safe) loaf tin then put into the oven.

Spend the interim tidying up and licking bowls/spoons.

Bake for about an hour, checking with a skewer until it comes out clean (mine ended up needing an hour and 15 minutes but I would check after an hour as it will depend on the dimensions of your tin)

Remove skewer from toddler as he is waving it wildly

Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Eat rapidly

I'm linking Hublet's cooking instructions to 

 

Days of the week

(Goblin is 27 months)

Hublet and I talk to Goblin about the days of the week, but it occurred to me that without any visual aids its hard to learn them consistently. I always find it easier to learn things if I have visual cues, so I thought I'd make him some.
Goblin's uncle bought him a proper play mat for his Birthday, and since then the cardboard one I made has been sitting unloved behind a shelf. So I decided to re-task it.

 I painted a big section of it with black paint and trimmed it down to size. Then I laminated the days of the week and glued them on to the right hand side. On the left hand side I put velcro strips opposite each day. I also laminated two phrases "today is" and "Tomorrow is". I put velcro on the back of these. Every day Hublet or I will talk to Goblin about what day it is, and move the phrases to the right days. I realise that Goblin can't read yet, but I think he will start to recognise the word shapes for the different days - especially as they are in sequence. And to help I made them all different colours.

I also made a second sign. This one tells Goblin who is looking after him. He already recognises the word Mummy, and guessed the word Daddy after I explained what the sign said. 

I made a hanging pocket out of an A4 plastic wallet and some double sided sticky tape. I stuck it on the bottom of the sign to hold all the names of the possible people who could be looking after him. The only trouble is that the sign doesn't quite work for the weekends when its Mummy and Daddy looking after him - but he can't read yet so the fact it says "is" rather than "are" doesn't bother me too much.

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Postcard exchange

(Goblin is 27 months)

Before Christmas Goblin got a pen pal in Australia. Obviously Goblin can't actually read and write yet, but I thought it would be fun for him to get some post of his own. So now he is sending postcards to Master D over at HappyWhimsicalHearts. When ever we go anywhere exciting Goblin picks a nice postcard to send. I write it and Goblin usually adds a scribble.
This is the first one we sent.

And last week Goblin got his first one from Master D. Its a lovely picture of Australia. It arrived while I was at work but Hublet showed it to Goblin and they talked about the animals pictured on the post card.

 There is even a beautiful dingo pictured on the stamp. 

Master D looks at the globe to see where the postcards come from. I'm not sure that Goblin grasps the concept of countries, or living in different parts of the world yet. But thats something we can look at when he's older. And I can keep the post cards so when he is old enough I can show him again.
Its lovely to think he's made a friend over the other side of the world and he's only 2 years old.

Snow Snow Snow

(Goblin is 27 months)

We have snow - yipeee! For any of you lucky people living in countries that get a lot of snow, let me explain that despite its reputation for awful weather most of the south of the UK only gets about 2 proper days of snow a year.

So you can imagine my delight when I woke up to this scene this morning. And I wasn't the only one who was excited. Goblin wanted to go out in it straight away, and pretty much spent the entire day outside despite the cold.

He spent a lot of time in the garden with his vehicles. He used his digger (and a spade) to fill his dumper truck with snow and then empty it out the back.

After a while we managed to convince Goblin to put some gloves on. The air wasn't that cold but touching the snow was bitter.  

 I took Goblin on a sledge ride around the estate to take in the sites. He called the sledge his boat. 

 Here are some of the lovely things we saw. 

 Goblin also took a turn at pulling the sledge. He tried pulling me but even with the lower friction from the snow I was way too heavy for him. So he settled for an empty sledge.

 I showed Goblin how to make snow angels - they don't photograph very well though. 

 And Hublet came and joined us as we were trying to make a snowman. 

 Hublet showed Goblin how to make snowballs, and how to throw them - although this did end with an hilarious incident where Goblin threw a snowball into the air and it landed on him.

 Here is a photo of Goblin having a snowball thrown at him - you can't see the snowball against the snow but you can see the delight of Goblin's face.

 When we made it back to the hill by our house lots of other kids had come out to play. Goblin stood and watched for ages. We found a less steep slope for Goblin to slide down.

 After his nap Goblin helped Hublet clean snow off Nanny's car. 

 He enjoyed this so much he tried to clean lots of other people's cars too. 

 And he helped Hublet clear the path with our new snow shovel - for anyone who doesn't have one of these they are awesome.

 Goblin found it particularly hilarious when Hublet started throwing snow with it. This went on for some time with Goblin directing Hublet. And once we had enough snow piled up we made a snow Fireman.

Having a garden full of snow was a bit like having a sand pit the size of the entire garden. 

Isn't snow great!

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