Toddler Work :D

Lolly has been enjoying lots of different activities lately, and being sick at home means we're here more and have more relaxed days of play and busy-ness.  Though sure, we watch a lot of telly when we're sick too :D.  I thought I'd do a post on what she's interested in at the moment. 

Here are her lounge room shelves as they were last week. 

Puzzles on the top (the one on the right is a 19 piece one of elephants that she needs help to do, but she loves it).  The second shelf has a basket of tiny books that she likes to carry round, take out, put back in, and get me to read to her.   In the middle in the round basket are several ribbons she was fascinated with, but hasn't touched since :p, next to the favourite library books, Pet Fish, Cats, and Dogs, which we read at least once every day.  On the bottom is her ocean animals number puzzle, a basket of beads for threading from the toy library, and a puzzle/sorting tray, also from the toy library.  We also have a work table out in the bay window, and that has had her sorting and water play on it.  Under the TV I've put her blocks and wooden matching box.

Lolly enjoys pouring water into things, and I have set her up with a few little jugs and attractive containers to help her express this.  It's in a carpeted area, but with a cloth down, and the carpet soon to be replaced, I haven't actually had many spills.  She's also enjoying picking flowers from our garden and arranging them in little vases at her worktable.  You can see the jugs in the marble photo below :D

I got two packs of glass marbles, purple and yellow, to do sorting, and then read on a Montessori blog about using them in suction cup bath stick-ons to do transfer activities, which Lolly LOVES.  She does them by hand at the moment, but is interested in using tongs, too, which is great for that pincer movement of hers :D  Here are the marbles for sorting, she loves to get lots of different spoons and tongs together at once while doing this.

Here she is with the suction cup duck, looking very pleased with herself.  You can see how I leave a cloth down on the table for water pouring. 

I've been going craft shop mad at the moment, we made it out to Spotlight as one of our first outings since recovering, and came home with pom poms, balloons, little stars, bells, a coffee scoop that looked great for spooning, a three part tray with a central well for sorting, colourful large buttons, pipe cleaners, oh, lots of things!  I have put most of it away for now, but we have small pom poms in two colours out for sorting, and paper beads too.  Here she is goin' crazy with spoons and scoops and marbles.  She loves to compare how each one works.

She has been very interested in our set of large blocks - which were a gift from her Aunt Strawberrypot when she was very little.  She builds them up high, but also makes houses out of them.  Often she will in line up the sides to be the same, which is interesting. Knocking them down is fun too :D

We're enjoying books at the moment, particularly "real" books about dogs, fish and cats we got from the excellent Ipswich library.  It's a Montessori thing that small children should read books that are about real life, not fantasy, and while we definitely don't follow this, I have noticed that the books she constantly requests are those about "real" things, facts and pictures about pet fish, puppies and things, and number books.  Though she also still likes Bears in the Night and Go Dog, Go! very much. 

She loves play dough, but has not been as intent on this as she was last month.  This is the set up I have at the moment, with some lovely cookie cutters.

She loves feeding the fish, which we do everyday.  We have three types of food and she asks for it in her palm and puts it in a pinch at a time.  We look at the fish and talk about them, she really loves it, and "let's feed the fish" can deflect much sick-y misery :D  We feed "cat-puss" and Pippin together, and water the plants.  She also helps with laundry, tidying up, and vacuuming and sweeping.  She often sits up at the bench to help "cutting" when one of us is cooking, she has her own little cutting board and uses a butter knife.  She's not expert yet, and I stick to soft foods to avoid too much frustration, bananas and avocados and so on.  She'd love to "cutting" everything but doesn't have the hold with one hand and saw with the other motion down yet, so carrots and other hard things are a little frustrating for her.  Here she is making herself a tuna sandwich :D

So that's a little glimpse of Lolly land, at age 2 and 5 months! 

At a friend's 3rd birthday, with cake!