On Our Shelves

We have a few new activities this week that Nicholas is particularly enjoying.

The first is a variation on the spooning activities we have been doing. We went to a pottery shop and found some salt spoons in the bargain bin. The spoon is the perfect size to go with the miniature flower-arranging marbles we bought in the House of Marbles.

Nicholas loves this activity, though it is quite tricky and once he has reduced the marbles to a single 'layer' in the bowl it is too hard and he gives up and pours. It is excellent excercise for his hand-eye coordination and wrists, though.

In the pottery shop, we also found this olive bowl. I don't like olives, but it has been masterfully re-purposed into a simple 3D maze for Nicholas. He takes a small craft puff (miniature pompom) and traces the swirl of the bowl. Great for pincer grip and practicing 'writing' curves.

Lastly, our maths activity. We have taken the number flashcards from our Jones Genius Early Learning Kit and are using glass nuggets (flat marbles) to learn quantity alongside the numeral. Each card has a number 0-9 on one side and dots placed within the number (corresponding to the value of the number) on the other.

Nicholas takes the glass nuggets and places them carefully on the dots in the correct order. We count them on and we count when they're all there. Once Nicholas has learned the placement using the dots, we'll switch the cards over and place from memory. So far he needs a lot of guidance, but will count with me to four!!!

All these activities are carefully supervised, due to the fragile/small quality of the materials, as well as the difficulty. By allowing him to handle the fragile things, he learns to treat them properly.