Oh no! Blogtoberfest!

And I was doing so well, too :D

I helped to organise a festival for a community group I'm involved in, the fabulous Joyous Birth, and was flat out all weekend, and with friends staying until this morning, blogging didn't get a look in, I'm afraid!  Wow, what an amazing time we all had, I'm still just buzzing.

Here's a shot of Lolly and her new dinosaur tail :D

Kitteh funny in leiu of post!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Possum update!

You might remember we turfed some possum friends out of our roof recently.  Well, the younger possum has taken up fairly permanent residence under our patio!  Here she (?) is nibbling on some apple.

Lolly's favourite thing is to feed the possum apples and strawberries.  Just too cute!  So now we have to add the possum to our pet feeding routine - cat, dog, fish and turtle, possum!

This week's shelves

The shelves have been sadly neglected for a couple of weeks.  But I managed some work on them the other night, and this is how I have them set up for this week:

We have sparkly pom pom sorting at the top, and her hammering toy (with the pieces in a little pot); on the second shelf, her number puzzle, a space where the flower acitivity goes, and her bead threading; along the bottom, a bowl with her matching cards in, her matching box, a basket of blocks, and our library books.

I have some new activities out - a "flower" building activity with pipe cleaners and big buttons, some sparklies for sorting with an easter egg chocolate tray, and some lizards for sorting and playing!

This is a lovely idea I got off a blog in my travels (wish I could recall which one!), to put pipe cleaners in one of these chocolate shakers (I got this at Woolies for only a few dollars).  Then you can make little flowers by using buttons.  I got these lovely colourful large buttons from Spotlight, they were pricey at around $10, but worth it I think, as I can use them for sorting as well.  I wanted something too large to be a choking risk for littler kids we have to visit.  Putting the pipe cleaners in the holes is a great fine motor activity, as is the button threading!  Lolly really enjoys this and it has been out every day so far!

The sorting is popular, too, but mostly for throwing the sparklies in the air then picking them up again.  I got these sweet sparkly pom poms from Spotlight for a couple of dollars.  Lolly likes to put each colour in a separate egg shape, as well, when she's not throwing them round the lounge!

This is the lizard sorting I put out, from a set I got for a couple of dollars at Crazy Clarks.

She doesn't really "sort" these, more just likes to put them in the containers.  The set turned out not to be great for matching, either, too many different colours.  But she likes them, and I have them out on her table by the window. 

I was linkied!

I forgot to linky that I was linkied!  So that will have to serve for today's blog :D

 The Montessori Goldmine: Thursday Round

This is a fabulous blog for those interested in Montessori and great kids activities.

And my wheelchair post was on Offbeat Mama - hurray! 

And if I post before going to sleep on Monday, that counts for Blogtoberfest!  :p

The Montessorium apps for iPad/Pod

Lolly loves the Montessorium apps.  I'm aware of the controversy of attempting to 'translate' Montessori to this kind of technology.  To some extent, I agree with the critique.  But, I thought I'd try out the Montessorium numbers app with Lolly and was really impressed.  Lolly particularly likes the number tracing, and this is the application's strength, in my opinion.

Montessorium - Intro to Math:  This is a beautifully presented application, with several Montessori-based games.  I agree that "red rods" on the application lose too much in not being a three dimensional object that a child can feel and move around.  Lolly hasn't done the red rods at Nido, she's probably a tad young anyway, but I do think if a child had done the rods successfully in "reality" then they'd enjoy the application version.  Same with the counter activity.

So, I agree with the critics of these applications that there are aspects than need to be experienced viscerally by the child.  However, Lolly has definitely engaged with the application, and frequently chooses it.  Is it "wrong" to give a child an online version of a Montessori based activity?  I don't think so.  So long as they are supported to continue to interact in three dimensional physical ways with these (and other) activities as well. Ideas on how to do this are included on the Montessorium blog - try this post.

That said, the "sandpaper" numbers in the app are very similar to the "real" thing.  Lolly loves doing this activity!

Here's the Intro to Letters version of tracing -

While, admittedly, the child can't feel the texture, the sound and lines that appear when the app letters are touched provide a very real interface, and from what I can see with Lolly, seems just as "real" to her.  She has only recently begun tracing activities on the iPad/Pod, but chooses them repeatedly at the moment, so is obviously interested and engaged by it.  I purchased the letters version of the Montessorium app and she is really enjoying tracing the letters, too.  It seems to me that the action of tracing with her finger is pretty identical to tracing a sandpaper letter with her finger, so in that sense I think this activity is closer to the "real life" physical version of it.  So, it's more successful for her at the moment.

The apps are both beautifully presented, a little pricey at $4.99 each, and as yet there is no combined version of the two apps, but I can see that as Lolly grows and is exposed to more of these activities at Nido and school, that we'll get long term use out of both applications.  I'd definitely recommend them to all parents, especially those interested in Montessori, who have an open mind about it all!

Would you use a Montessori application for your young child?

Great iPod/iPad apps for kids!

You might have noticed we got Lolly an iPod touch recently.  Dave and I also got iPads (yay!), so we've all been shopping madly in the app store and trying out applications.  I've read some decent reviews of kids apps, and thought I'd add my voice to the mix.

Here are our favourites for a 2 and a half year old (I know, we're THOSE parents).

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles!  It's all about the puzzles!  Lolly loves real puzzles, and not suprisingly loves the puzzle apps on her iPod.  If you're looking for puzzles, you can't go past tozzle - which is just great. 

Tozzle is a series of puzzles, including letters and numbers.  Lolly loves it, though my main critique is that they do need to release some new puzzles as upgrades, she's done all of them now, and doesn't choose this one as much as she's become familiar with them all.  More puzzles, please!  That said, there are 33 puzzles on there, all with sound effects and animations. All for only $2.49 (prices in Australian dollars), which is great value.

More puzzle goodness - Anything by Alexandre Minard is great - Here are My First Puzzles and My First Tantagrams.

Just gorgeous, and really engaging.  Though like all the puzzle games, they could do with releasing more puzzles rather than making new apps (yeah right :p).   These are cheap, only $2.49 a pop.

redfish is the iPad version of poissonrouge, the great kids website.

This app is amazing.  Just so creative and intuitive.  Lolly loves it, and I can see it would engage kids much older than her as well.  It's relatively pricey for the whole package, $12 from memory, but worth it!  You get a lot of games for that within the package.  There's heaps in this version, and if you do an app search for redfish there are a few to try for free as well.


Monkey Preschool Lunchbox - this application is just adorable, and when we first got it for her, Lolly spent AGES playing it.  It still gets in regular rotation here, too, so it has staying power, which a lot of these apps don't really have.  It's a mix-em-up game, with counting, sorting, matching, puzzles, letters and colours.  Well worth it.  It's a little praisey, but hey, most of them are (sigh).

Lolly is also really enjoying this Interactive Alphabet game - it has little animations for each letter.  She seems to really like it.

Some others worth checking out - Tickle Tap apps - these are really sweet!

The toddler pack has five games and has been worth it.  They have a second collection, toddler pack 2, coming soon which I will probably buy for Lolly.

The is the biggest problem with kids apps all round, is that there are a limited palette of options inside the game, and kids gets to know them and get tired of them fast.  It's not a product of the technology, at least not in my experience, Lolly has the same thing with "real" wooden puzzles, for example.  She's engaged while it's a challenge, or if it becomes new and interesting.  Otherwise she moves on to the next challenge.

This is something game designers need to account for in updates, especially for kids games in this area.  When your app is limited to the alphabet letters, or to 12 puzzles, it's only going to engage a toddler for a certain amount of time.  Games for older kids have more choices, they are often playing  an actual game, rather than just interacting more simply with the device.  There needs to be more thought to these apps for kids in the 2-4 range.


I'm going to review the Montessorium apps separately soon!

Which apps does your toddler/young one enjoy!?