The begining of Our School

Well the past month has had it's ups and downs.  I have spent my time attempting to prepare activities for the boys that are at the correct level that they find engaging.  I have also tried to figure out how to keep T engaged while R works.  T wants to do all of R's activities but unfortunately T's idea of an activity is seeing how fast he can get it onto the floor while R has a temper tantrum about the fact that T messed up his work.  This past week I introduced them to floor mats and have been working hard on enforcing R's spot and T's spot.  So far I have had a small amount of success with this.  T also enjoys dumping everything off of the shelves.  I wish I had a specific school room but unfortunately the best I have at the moment is our TV room which is the room the spend the majority of the day in.  It is rather ironic that we call the room the TV room since we rarely watch TV. 

So I told you about my struggles, now let me tell you about some of my successes.

The first time R was truly engaged in an activity, it was in something I did not actually prepare for him.  I made him some lacing cards out of card stock that I laminated.  I then punched holes along the edge of the shapes using a hand held hole punch.  R liked the lacing cards well enough, and tried them a few times, but what he really liked was the hole punch.  One morning he got out the hole punch and a piece of paper.  I didn't think he was strong enough to operate it so I didn't give him any assistance, but I also didn't stop him from trying.   After about 5 minutes, he holds the paper for me to see, he had the biggest smile on his face and announced "I made a hole".  He then spent about the next 15 minutes punching holes in the paper.  It really is an amazing site seeing a 2 and a half year old concentrate for such a long time. 

Here are some pictures of the boys working.

This picture is T putting puff balls into a "pounding tower"  The toy came with 4 wooden balls that the child can pound through the holes with a hammer.  It is still a bit tough for him to pound the balls through but he did spent quite a long time dropping the puff balls in and then taking them out again.  He also likes putting the wooden balls in through the side and watching them drop out on their own. 

This picture is R gluing buttons.  This is currently one of his favorite activities.  He likes it when I add food coloring to the glue. On this particular day he requested brown glue. 

 
This is a coin box that I made for T.  I found a wooden picture frame box at a craft store.  I was able to remove the top of the box where a picture is supposed to go and replace it with a piece of cardboard that I cut a slit in.  I then gave T several counting chips.  He spent a good 5 minutes putting the chips in and taking them out again.  Once he has mastered this level, I plan on replacing the cardboard on the top with a smaller slit so that it is harder for him. 

 R wasn't going to let his brother have all the fun.  He wanted to try T's coin activity as well.  When I bought the box I also found an unfinished bank for about $0.30.  I gave that to R to work with figuring it would be a bigger challenge for him.  He spent quite awhile working on it.  That incidence reminded me that R really is quite young and I have to remember not to make his activities too difficult. 

Here is a picture of T practicing putting shapes on pegs.  This picture looks rather impressive.  You may look at it and think he did it all by himself.  I only wish he could do that.  I took this picture right after he got this shape sorter out before he had a chance to dump all of the pieces.  The goal of the activity was not for him to sort the pieces it was simply just to take a piece off and put it back on.  It was quite a challenge for him, but he kept going back to it. 

Here is a picture of R sorting puff balls.  This was not a successful activity.  I always hear that kids like to sort things.  But my child does not.  He seems able to sort by color without a problem, but for the most part he won't do it.  I tried giving him tweezers (which he is using in this picture) and then tongs along with this activity, which kept his interest slightly longer, but really this activity was not a hit with him. 

The next activity is R's current favorite activity.  I found some cork tiles at Target, they came in a pack of 4, They are each about a quarter of an inch thick.  I taped them together and taped a square of plywood that I bought at Michael's onto the back.  The shapes are made from fun foam.  The hammer is the smallest real hammer I could find, and the nails are the type you would use to hang pictures on a wall (I probably should get better nails, but that is all I had).  He will spend a long time pounding nails into the board.  He still has a lot of trouble getting the nails started and will ask me to push them in a little bit.  After they are started he will pound them in the rest of the way. 

I will end this post with a couple of pictures of our "school room".  The room has actually changed quite a bit since this picture was taken but it does let you see a few of our other activities.  On the top shelf you see the puff ball sorting activity.  Beside it is a tray that should contain paper and scissors for cutting practice. 

On the second shelf is a "spindle box"  The little blue box has 5 compartments in it numbered from 0-4.  I gave R some gems that he is supposed to count into each slot.  He is just only beginning to have the concept of one to one correspondence so this box is currently too advanced for him.  He is interested in counting, and has begun trying to count objects.  He can normally count 3 objects successfully.  When there are more objects than 3 he will attempt to count them using one to one correspondence but he normally doesn't remember to stop counting when he runs out of objects.  When he is just rattling off numbers he can count up to 10 consistently, and is beginning to work on 11-20.  He will normally count to about 12 and then mumble the numbers from 13-20 missing one or two of them along the way. 

The brown oval box contains nuts and bolts.  I expected this activity to be a big hit with him, but I think it may still be slightly too hard.  I may try representing it to him soon.

Besides the nuts and bolts box are mini Montessori cylinders.  The full size ones were a bit too expensive so I figured these ones would do for now.  R does try them periodically. 

Besides the cylinders is a little tea pot and cups.  R loves to pour, In this activity he has to pour from a large to a smaller container.  He enjoyed this one for awhile but has not looked at it in a few weeks.  I may try representing it to him soon. 

The green fabric thing on the third shelf is a "Dressing Snake" that I made.  You can find the directions I used here. http://sewing.about.com/od/toysanddolls/ss/toysnake.htm  Basically there are 6 sections that attach with velcro, snaps, buttons, zipper, and lacing. 

The tray next to the snack is a matching cats activity.  R showed very little interest in the activity.  With a bit of pressure he did show me that he was capable of matching the cats, he just had no desire to do so.

The bottom shelf has a shoe box with a hole in the top for T to drop balls into.  and the hammer that goes with his pounding ball tower. 

This picture shows more of the room. 

That seems like more than enough for this one post.  Next time I will talk about where I plan on going from here.