On Our Shelves

This week I have a couple of new, challenging activities which I hope will be enjoyed. There is a bit of a peg theme going on - Nikki is eager to play with my clothes pegs at the moment, so I thought I'd give him some extra practice!

Maths

 Nikki is great at counting now (when he doesn't get lazy and skip from 3 to 6) and I wanted to add something to practice quantity recognition. He isn't too bothered about moving counters around, but I think these mini clothes pegs will get his attention:

Mini pegs to show quantity on number flashcards.

I pre-marked the cards for one-to-one correspondence practice

I bought the numbers in a pound shop a while ago - they are cheap stick-on house numbers, but work really well to make an interesting, raised flashcard.

Size and Sequence

I made this set of sequencing lorries by re-sizing a clip-art image. I then cut out, coloured and laminated them. Nikki loves lorries, so these should be a hit.

Size sequencing lorries

Chinese

This week's books. I swap in one new text each week (it takes me that long to learn to read it!) and will read up to three each day, so there is plenty of repetition. Even Mummy is remembering some Chinese!

Books from My First Chinese Words series

Fine Motor

I bought these adorable pegs over the summer, but I didn't know how to present them to Nikki as the animal heads would be upside down if pegged onto a box. I then realised that the simple dowel tree I was planning to use for Easter decoration would be perfect to peg onto.

Cute animal pegs hanging from our Easter tree

Music

I wanted to do something different with our bells this week, so I printed off and laminated some flashcards with the note name and picture. I added a colour sticker to match with the bells.

Colour stickers help match the bells to the note

Colours

Nikki is a typical boy and loves vehicles of all kinds. So he should fall head over heels for this colour-matching activity!

Transport colour-matching activity

Writing

Nikki doesn't draw anymore - he writes! I have re-sized and laminated pages from our Kumon tracing book and given him a dry-wipe marker and cloth. He loves writing on my whiteboard so this should be a hit. Maybe this will encourage him to write something other than the letter 'o'...
 

Wipe-clean Kumon worksheets

We're linking up to H is for Homeschooling and Montessori Mondays

Personalized dinner

Nicholoas loves learning letters at the moment. He recognises most English letters, as well as a few Russian ones. Oddly, he has learned to spell his name in Russian but only recognises his initial in English.

I like to slip in letters where he doesn't expect them - his whole face lights up when he realises they are there! I decorated today's dinner with tomato puree. Yes, he's an odd one and eats tomato puree as if it were ketchup - I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Nikki was especially delighted with the rare treat of fish fingers...

Smiles and a 'thumbs up'!

And for dessert...

Singing in Chinese, take 2!

Today, Nikki was quite insistent that I video him singing in Chinese again - he just didn't want to go down for his nap! He was  so eager, unlike yesterday, so I can finally post him singing all of the words! Yey!

I love how he stops half way through to point out his number line and then goes right back into the song! He loves this song - I hear it all day! He won't 'perform' without the music or me singing along (which you don't want to hear!) but he will sing it all the time when I'm not pointing a camera in his direction...

How to make the best bubble bath EVER!

Like all kids, Nikki loves his bubble baths! He used to insist that I keep adding more and more soap to his bath as the bubbles didn't cover him up. Unfortunately, super-soapy baths are not good for baby skin.

Simple science gave me the solution: you get more bubbles by shaking up the water more, so if you were to run the bath using a shower head...

Nikki loves his super-bubbly bubble baths!

This super-bubbly bath was made using just one squirt of soap. That is one measured squirt from the pump on the bottle of soap to make around 2 inches of foam! Filling a whole tub rather than the little baby bath would give you even more bubbles!

The only problem is that Nikki always seems to lose his legs...

Singing in Chinese!

This is one thing that that I can't get my head around - how do you sing in tones? Nicholas doesn't seem to have a problem with it and will often be heard singing along to his Chinese cds. There is one song that I know he knows all the words to - but he is reluctant to perform in front of the camera. We tried for about ten minutes, but at no point could I get a recording of him doing the whole song. He would sing it perfectly as soon as the camera went away, though! This is the final attempt - he gets half way through and walks off saying 'Mummy, turn off Chinese!'

All Grown Up!

Nicholas is getting far too grown up!

He might need my help before and after, but when sitting on the potty he now demands 'Mummy - go away!' (unless he is doing standing up wees, in which case it is more 'Mummy, look - oh wow!')

He also  insists that he partake in all the 'manly' jobs - such as putting together new furniture!

He really enjoyed playing in the bottom cupboards! At one point, there was only one door and yet every one of the twenty-or-so times I was still surprised when I opened it and found Nicholas hiding!

He now has his own grown-up desk (or deks as he calls it), which is really my old one. He is so chuffed to have his own drawer and cupboard, and his 'old' desk is tucked in the chair space, so he can still sit and draw comfortably. 

Using Scissors

Learning to use scissors is generally recommended for children age 3 and older, but Nikki has always been more interested, and thus more developed in his fine motor skills (at the expense of bothering with all that crawling and walking nonsense!) and has been really keen to try scissors for some time now. Unfortunately, my 'safe' scissors were too heavy for his little fingers, so I have been waiting for him to grow a little.

Last week, in one of his more distructive moods, Nikki decided to upend a bucket full of dough-tools all over the floor. I sorted the tools away nearly 12 months ago, but hadn't thought about them because Nikki wasn't interested in playing with his playdough for more than a couple of minutes and even then rejected cutters. His recent interest in playing with the dough was why the bucket of tools was within his reach.

Well, in that bucket were several pairs of scissors - small and plastic, completely useless for paper cutting but perfect for soft dough. Nikki was so excited that I let him have the scissors!

We rolled sausages:

 Then, Nikki cut them and rolled the small pieces into balls:

Then we got tired of making balls and focused on cutting up as many sausages as Mummy could make!

Look at the concentration as he makes the cut!

We then explored some of the other tools and found a faster way to get the thin sausages that are best for cutting!

Nikki has a new cheesy camera grin!

I love his strong-man face!

 He might not be ready for 'proper' scissors and cutting paper, but I think he did a pretty good job! He has a perfect 'scissor grip', and the angle of the scissors doesn't matter with playdough! My favourite part is that it kept him quiet for most of an hour! And he had fun, too!

Cleaner for hire!

Unfortunately, Child labour laws might argue against that!

Nicholas loves cleaning. Perhaps this is because I am constantly telling him that I need to clean (usually messes of the Nikki-created variety) and he likes to emulate me. Unfortunately, he makes most cleaning jobs ten times longer when he decides to 'help' - or (worse) delcares 'Nikki do it!'

He was rather determined to mop the kitchen floor on his own - and refused to let me shorten the mop handle!

Bandanna Bibs!

A little shameless advertising!

After a busy Christmas and snuffly start to the year, I have finally got it together and started uploading to my Folksy shop. Check out my alphabet print bandanna bibs!

I also have montessori-style aprons (boys design coming soon!) and counting cookies. If you're interested in following my craft designs and what's new in my folksy and etsy shops, check out my blog at Stitchasaurus.

SNOW!

Yes, at the beginning of February we finally had the 2-days of snow that is usual for a, English winter. Another belated post, I know! Nikki loved it - or should I say the idea of it... I bundled him up in thermal vest and tights and all-in-one waterproofs but he quickly tired of touching the snow!

First, we took care of the poor cold birdies by hanging up a coconut feeder:

He then spent about five minutes with his sand-bucket and a cup before helping me make a snowman.

All ready for making snow castles!

Scooping  snow is no fun - it should be put in the cup by hand!

Can you see the path our snowman's body took across the grass?

Not long into the snowman-building process, he decided to stop for hot chocolate and let me finish the job on my own.

A flask of hot chocolate - perfect for a snowy day!

 

Our happy snowman

Motorbike!

I've been meaning to post this picture since Christmas! This is Nikki's 'motorbike' - known to most as a balance bike. Unfortunately, my little monkey is too short to ride it without me holding him on the saddle, but he came up with his own way of doing so!

Nikki's 'motorbike'!

Yes, that is the front wheel he is riding! What a cutie - he's going brrrrrrrooommmmm, too!

Although the bike says 'from age 2' my little shortie can only just touch the floor on either side with his tippy-toes. I can at least feel less guilty at hiding it away until summer, though. It can be a pain having all the presents in October/December!

Cannons in Canaan!

Nikki has been enjoying his church stories (as he insists on calling them) but the other night he was rather worried when I was reading about Abram and his journey to Canaan. He kept pointing at the picture with lots of people and going 'boom boom' rather sadly. It took me a while before I caught on - he thought that they were going to cannons and were going to be blown up! Poor baby! He was fine once I explained that they would be safe, and nobody was getting 'cannon-ed'...

Breakthrough!

We were out shopping today, and Nikki suddenly turned to me and said he needed a wee! Well, we rushed through the shop and up in the lift to the loos, and even though I had to hold him over the big toilet, he went and his trainer pants were dry! Yey!

He's pretty much dry at home (even for naps!) but has so far refused to use any toilet but 'his' and his best friend/cousin's. Getting him to even let me pull down the trainer pants to sit on his trainer seat at my mum's house was impossible. So the fact that he didn't simply use them as a nappy today is a massive breakthrough. Maybe I'll take him to playgroup in proper pants tomorrow...

Practical Chinese Lesson!

You can't teach a boy Chinese, and not teach him to use chopsticks! I always give him his 'sticks' when we have Chinese food (mostly because I use some and he demands his own) and this video is fairly typical of how he uses them... right up until the last couple of seconds!

It's not just me, right. You did see the food get picked up and eaten from the chopsticks, right? I'm sooo PROUD!

Excuse the panting - he has a cold, again, and can't breathe through his nose. If anyone knows if I can turn the video around so you can watch it properly, please, please, please let me know!

Mummy's House

Today, for the first time ever, Nikki showed a real interest in building with his bricks. Usually, after a few minutes of putting a couple of blocks together and then throwing them around the room, he gives up. Today, he was a master architect! This is the house he built for me:

The First Tower is Complete...

Peeking out from behind his very own Tower of Piza...

I can reach... just one more...

I helped only build the base layer (2 bricks high) so that there would be something for the towers to stand on! When I tried helping with the towers, I was told that I was doing it wrong! I was allowed to hold the towers to stop them falling over as he added the high bricks, though.

Independent Breakfast

Nicholas now makes his own breakfast (when he has cereal, anyway).

First, he carefully scoops the cereal into his bowl:
 

 Then, he pours his milk from a little jug. I always tell him he might not want it all, and he always ignores me and pours in the lot!

Look how pleased with himself he is!

I love how his toes are peeking out under the highchair! Notice the sudden bib appearence? I got so caught up in taking photos that I forgot about the bib! Nikki was also distracted - he rarely spills anything, but was so busy posing that both cereal and milk ended up on the table.

On Our Shelves

This week, I have finally removed all the Christmas Toy Excess and whittled down a select few things to go on Nikki's shelves this week.

As always, he has his bells. He loves to play with them, and although the initial interest has waned (thank goodness!) he still plays for a few minutes every day. I name the notes every time he lets me ring them, so it also works as a kind of music lesson.

From C to C, Nikki's handbells are so colourful (and labelled)!

For sequencing practice, he has his Ded Moroz dolls - he just can't give them up! He doesn't seem too interested in lining them up at the moment, though!

Russian dolls with Grandfather Frost (Dedushka Moroz)

He has a bowl of buttons and felt numbers to learn quantity: He really needs help with this one, because although he is good at counting, he still doesn't really associate the numbers with the quantities. He does enjoy playing with the buttons and 'helping' me to count by guiding my finger to touch each button.

Quantities using buttons and felt numbers

I have set up a shortened version of the fantastic marble run he had for Christmas. This is fine motor for the most part, but he also has to line up the final piece if he knocks it. He really loved it when Uncle Harry set up the whole run for him, but within five minutes it was knocked over and both boys were upset (it took about half an hour to set up!) so now we just have a really simple setup which I hope Nikki will learn to fix on his own.

Mini marble run

I have a set of colour flashcards to remind him that not everything is blue or green! We simply name the colours together in English and Russian. The perfectionist in me is annoyed that none of the sets of kids coloured paper I had (or have seen) include red paper, so I had to use some of my craft paper which was a different size...

A5 colour flashcards (with words on the back)

 And finally, his Bible, to read together in the mornings.

Messy Church

Once every couple of months, our village church does a 'Messy Church' craft afternoon for kids. I have never taken Nikki before, as it is not really for toddlers and he simply hasn't been into crafts in the same way. Now that he would rather stick glue on the paper (and not his finger down the glue stick) I thought we would give it a try.

It turned out to be a really fun afternoon. The theme was The Creation, which I felt was appropriate for a first session. There were seven activity stations in the church, one for each day.

At the first station, we removed a sheet of black paper from our poster (the creation of light).
Then, we coloured in sea, earth and sky (the creation of heaven).
The third station supplied us with some trees, flowers and seeds to stick on to the earth.
At the fourth station, we stuck on pictures of the sun, moon and stars.
The fifth station provided stickers of fish.
The sixth day was split between two stations - first we stuck on all sorts of animals and people to our collage. Then we went off to decorate a gingerbread Adam or Eve (there wasn't time or icing enough to decorate two biscuits per child, so it was generally boys making Adams and girls making Eves. Our Adam had green icing legs and rather disproportionate smartie eyes...).
The seventh station had a picture of a bed to stick on (God rested)!

This was all done in a rather manic 30 minutes, followed by a couple of songs and prayers and dinner! It was nothing fancy - sandwiches, sausages, crisps etc. but the children all loved it!

Our "Seven Days of Creation" Poster

Guess which colour crayon Mummy used! We were using a pew as a table, so I made a lovely wood rubbing, too! Nikki did all the blue crayon, most of the stickers and a lot of glue. I suspect most of the picture has traces of glue on it! If we had more time, he would have done all the sticking.

When we got home, I decided it was a really good time to introduce Bible reading. Nikki wasn't interested until I called it a church book. He loves the church and its bells... So, we read the first story in our Children's Bible - The Creation. I might even read him the rest of the book!

Spring Playdough

Ok, so maybe I'm being hopeful with the 'Spring' theme...

Nikki helped me make some new playdough today. He poured the ingredients from the measuring cups and very carefully stirred them together.

Nikki stirring the dough mix before cooking.

 Then, once I had cooked it and kneaded it, and it was quite cool, Nikki helped to add the colour! I use the gel colours which are expensive, but they last forever and are soooo much cleaner to mix in to doughs. I dip a cocktail stick (or spoon handle or chopstick...) into the gel and the amount left on when I take it out is usually enough.

To knead it in cleanly, flatten your dough ball and wipe the gel across the top, then fold the dough before kneading. This keeps the messy gel on the inside and the colour which bleeds through is no longer pure gel so doesn't usually stain hands. Keep kneading until you get a smooth colour.

Nikki took one part with the blue gel in had great fun squeezing it until he could see blue!

Squeeze, squeeze - it's turning blue!

 And the final result: sunny yellow, sky blue and spring green:

Our spring playdough.

Christmas Night

Ok, so it's a month late, but can you guess where we were Christmas night?

Nicholas was wheezing Christmas day, and got progressively worse. In the end, we had an adventure - I spoke to a nurse on NHS Direct and she was worried enough to tell us to get an ambulance into hospital to get checked out. He was not very impressed, especially with the breathing mask and the sats monitor (a clip on his toe, completely painless!) but completely ignored the two heel-prick blood tests. Silly boy. It turned out to be a nasty-sounding but relatively harmless viral chest infection, so we didn't even need medication. We didn't find this out until 4am, though! At least we got to keep the face mask...

Holiday Over!

I have taken a little holdiay from blogging the last couple of weeks. We were ill between Christmas and New Year, and I have only just got Nicholas back into going to his room to sleep at bedtime, as well as going back to his bed when he comes to my room at 2am. Now that my evenings are mostly baby-free and I am sleeping almost enough to feel that I have some energy in the day,  my brain is functioning enough for me to write in complete sentences again!

The last week I have been really lazy. Nikki has a new favourite Russian DVD: Русский с Хрюшей or Russian with Hrusha, a series teaching the alphabet and reading with some very old-style puppets. I didn't intend to show it to him for a while (if at all) because the sound can be a bit muffled and I'd rather something with actual children, but Nikki has been demanding it hour after hour, and I have been that desperate to get some sleep that I have allowed it!

Amazingly, he has started speaking a lot more Russian with the constant dvd exposure (especially since he went through a couple of weeks refusing to acknowledge me speaking Russian or speak Russian to me afterehis father visited) and now if I ignore his request to carry him when we are out for a walk, he will say 'cuddle' in Russian because he knows I won't ignore his linguistic progress! Cheeky monster!



I have been working hard on my 2012 Russian/English curriculum for Nicholas. I plan to do a lot more 'school' with him this year, as he is very interested in letters and counting at the moment and has developed a longer attention span. I have started planning pre-reading games and activities in both languages, as well as writing a story-based program (like our Chinese books, but more intense) to teach Russian language from zero, which will hopefully progress him to understanding and speaking in proper sentences. I am hoping that by introducing a gradual progression of new vocabulary and grammar, he will become more comfortable (and vocal) with his Russian.

At the moment, although he listens to dvds and audio books in Russian, he doesn't like to sit and listen to me reading Russian stories that are longer than a few simple phrases. I think this is because he doesn't have the same vocabulary, and most childrens books are written in fairy-tale language which is quite unlike the day-to-day conversational language. It might also be because I am rubbish at reading said fairy-tale Russian.

Unfortunately, a lack of sleep also led to a distinct lack of housework and as much as I would like to write the many posts I've been planning over the last month, I must go and wage war on my kitchen...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I've been away for a little while. Sorry about that! Before Christmas Nikki's father visited for a week (a 12/10 on my stressometer) and left days before the chaos that is Christmas. Then we've both been ill with nasty coughs for the last week and with the couple of hours that I'm sleeping (rather than coughing/caring for sick baby) I've not really been up to blogging.