This Week In Review

It's hard to remember everything we've done this week. It has been a busy, hectic, and stressful week but we did still manage to have a lot of fun. I doubt I can remember everything we did this week and didn't blog as much as I'd hoped to...but here we go...

She spent a lot of time practicing her transfer skills. Seriously, if you need a few minutes for a little down time to read, watch TV, or fold laundry-this is such great Montessori inspired activity. Like I've said before, there are several steps involved in true Montessori but we don't really do it that way. Simply hand your kiddo 2 bowls. The one on the left is filled with sugar, rice, beans, or whatever would be could for using a spoon to transfer. Then hand little one a spoon and instruct them to spoon the material from one bowl to the next. She spent a lot of time on this and pouring this week.

My daughter spent a lot of time playing with her Operation Silly Skill game. While this game is an absolute BLAST it is really great for developing fine motor skills. Children use the tweezers to extract strange items from Cavity Sam and this develops muscles required for pencil grasp. With all of our "learning toys" when you stop and think about it...is there anything better than operation for fine motor skills? I have to tell you that I did NOT think of Operation of anything more than a fun game but it is so wonderful for this purpose. Furthermore, it is a great game for toddlers who do not put items in their mouth as reading isn't required for this version, nor do you have to count money. There isn't a lot of strategy of understanding of rules either, other than removing the pieces without the buzzer going off. I like that it can be used for YEARS to come. This version is a little different than the original Operation game in that it is sillier sounds and kids who enjoy body humor are sure to get a laugh out of it,

She had a lot of fun sneaking into the bathroom and putting lotion all over the room and herself involved in a sensory activity involving lotion. She has drove me crazy washing her hands nonstop this week has done a great job mastering hand washing this week. Seriously, she has really gotten obsessed with hand washing this week, but I think it is so she has an excuse to get to the lotion because she loves "ocean" as she calls it. Still, I am proud that she really learns hygiene and manners quite easily.

She did learn how to weave this week. If you'd like to try this with your toddler, it is extremely easy. Simply cut a border around a piece of construction paper, leaving vertical pieces. Have two other colors of construction paper. Hand the pieces to your child and instruct them how to weave over-under and so on.

My silly girl enjoyed applying stickers to her eyes for a laugh...

Frequent readers of this blog will note that my daughter loves bubbles. For a craft this week, we made a bubble bottle. Simply fill a soda bottle one third full of water. Add a few drops of dish soap and a few drops of food coloring. Close the bottle tightly. Then simply shake, shake, shake.

As part of our Tinytots reading challenge, we did a snowman puzzle. I'll post more on this when I do my post tomorrow about this challenge (but we spent a lot of time learning about snow this week).

She also tried to complete this wooden apple puzzle. It was too difficult for her (truth be told, it was almost too difficult for me). However, she did have fun arranging the blocks in her own way.

We spent this week learning about taking turns. The Noodleboro theme park game is great for this. I love the game so much, I have a separate post about it coming up soon.

As I mentioned before, this week was very stressful. My daughter has sleeping problems. I've brought this up to the pediatrician several times before, but I'm going to get forceful about it. Last week, she was up until 2:30 am at least every day and one day all the way until 6:30 am. I feel like this is very concerning and should be taken more seriously than it is. Every night we do a structured bedtime routine, no caffeine is allowed, and etc.. I've read probably every book there is about sleeping problems in children--at times things work for a bit but within a few days we are back to where we started. When my daughter only wakes up once night, it is a BIG deal for us because it is nothing for her to wake up 5+ times a night. So, for 2.5 years we've all been sleep deprived basically. Right now, I'm still up at 2:00 am because I slept until noon after being up with her until 4:00 am...so our sleep patterns are very off. Anyway, last week was one of the WORST when it comes to her sleeping, therefore I was so stressed. Then, because she was so tired, her behavior was horrible. I remember reading a child development book long ago that stated right before/after a learning surge behavior and sleep difficulties can occur. The week before I was amazed by how many new words and skills she was picking up. Maybe this is the explanation...

Okay, now to explain the picture above. I'm been wanting to learn felting for so long. I've especially wanted to learn it to make items for my daughter's nature table. So, this week I got my supplies and decided to wet felt and bowl. It did not turn out at all. It completely fell apart and I ended up giving it to our cat to play with. I've going to continue trying to learn this. We'll see if I end up with anything or if my cat just keeps getting some strange looking toys (toys that will actually just sit in a basket because she doesn't play with toys; alas another source of stress is that my cat I've had for 11 years and was my fur baby before my human baby is very sick and therefore isn't much for playing these days).