Anti-art and Sniffing

I've come to the saddening, undeniable conclusion that my son just does not. like. to. paint. Ever since he was a baby, finger painting, he's not been enthused about the messiness, the gooeyness that is painting. He would just give me a look that said, "This stuff just does not belong on my hands, Mom." The same holds true today. He seems to love to get messy just so he can go wash up. Crazy kid. We painted our cans for our chimes and he was not a fan. We'll see how the actual assembly goes later this afternoon.

On a positive note, he did love the playdough (and always has) he was left to while I prepped his sniffing jars. Maybe a sculptor?

Our sniffing jars are a hit! I used cleaned-out sprinkle jars with the little shaker caps on them, and filled each jar with a cotton ball doused in something smelly.
Butter, wine, coffee, mint, vanilla, and smoke (each from a flavoring or the direct source). My favorite is when he grabs the butter scent, smells, and says, "Kropsu!" Kropsu does have a considerable amount of butter in it...
His little toddler fingers are having fun with the screw-off lids too. Success!

Carpe diem

My plans for storytime at the library were foiled by a too-late morning nap! Mcclellan and I were reading a poem from his High 5 that goes something like this:
"Pizza, pizza, pizza, we like it hot or cold...Pizza, pizza, pizza, fun for young and old..." and so on.

After he insisted I read it 100 times, I decided we should make pizza for lunch. And having none of those oh-so-convenient Rustic Crusts on hand, I ventured that we make our own dough. What?! Make our own pizza crust? With yeast?!

These are the teachable moments one just cannot plan for on a weekly calendar. "Tuesday: teach Mcclellan all about how yeast works, and hope against all hopes that he will be enthralled and absorbent." After two risings and our toppings of availability (we used swiss cheese and chopped olives because that's just what we had...), we had something that looked like this:
And yummy, it was! Between the two of us, we ate about half of this tomatoey, turkeyroni-y masterpiece. So while library time was deviously thwarted by the mischievous toddler and his antinapping sister, we did get some SUPER lessons in, and yummy lunch to boot!

"Hiatus"

Well, I'm at it again. With our extremely successful garage sale last weekend and the move happening in two weeks, I'm just no good at housekeeping. Let alone lesson planning. The only solution? Hiatus!

So my only official plans for the next two weeks include getting out of the house at least once a day (even if that just means to the thrift store or to buy eggs), and doing at least one "work" activity daily. Today we borrowed from the TSBVI site's "Poke and Peek." POKE & PEEK
Focus: encourages fine motor development and eye-hand coordination.
Materials:

• colander
• tin bowl
• coloured toothpicks

Procedure: Invert the colander. The child will insert the toothpicks into the holes. Add a tin bowl underneath the colander and it will give auditory feedback to the child.

We're talking a good ten minutes of one happy, focused toddler. And when he suggested the use of his new tongs, I brought out more little Dixie cups, as the pincing of toothpicks wasn't so much easy for a 2-yr-old...
And then to up the skill level, little steel sorting cups. We're talking another good ten minutes or so. (The addition of the silicone mat was solely for the purpose of sound damping during Verity's nap.)
Now, if only I could come up with something motivating to get us out of the house on this gray, wet, 40-degree day...

Staying on Task

Using the amazing Letter of the Week curriculum (online, see side), we have opted to do the learning poster each week. It give a great visual of what we are learning about, we post pictures of new vocab words, and well, it just helps me (and Mcclellan) stay on task with what we are learning.

This week, we are learning about eyes.