"Who Am I With?"

Last week my daughter and I looked at "Who Am I With?"; wrapping up on the "ALL ABOUT ME!" theme. We covered family, friends & strangers.

Family and Friends:

1. We discussed where she lived and with whom. We also, as craft, created a home of strings with the members of her family.

2. We made a family picture book of members of her family (parents, sibling, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins & godparents) so she can get more familiar with them, their names and faces. 

3. We made friendship bracelets out of wool.

4. We made a card to show our love and appreciation.

5. We spoke about her friends and how she will spend time with them by playing, sharing, having meals together, etc.

6. We also show love and how much we care by our 'Please and Thank you', 'You're welcome', 'I am sorry', 'Excuse me', by sharing, by being helpful, etc. We created a behavioral/reward chart that helped to encourage her to use up her manners, be more helpful, etc. I printed it and got it laminated. 

It's our first attempt and will be modifying this chart soon.

 7. We watched and read:

a. The Berenstain Bears, Forget Their Manners. Take a look inside here. 

b. The Berenstain Bears, Say Please and Thank You. You can read reviews here.

c. Sesame Street - Learning to Share. It came with mix reviews, which you can read here.

Strangers:

Teaching my almost 3 yrs old about strangers, I had to think about how I was going to introduced the topic to her. Considering her attention span and still learning to express herself, I have decided to introduce the word and who is a stranger. We also spoke about parts of her body again; making her comfortable and using the proper words for each part (including her private parts) and why they are her considered private parts. 

With the help of some books and videos I was able to discuss things with her at intervals. 

We watched and read:

a. The Berenstain Bears, Learn About Strangers. Take a look inside here.

b. Too Smart for Strangers with Winnie The Pooh. You can read reviews here.

Looking now it seems a bit pricey, however, I got this from a friend. Although the graphics and picture quality are a bit outdated, the messages are still relevant and engaging. I also love the presentation. 

c. Stranger Safety. You can read reviews here. You can visit their website for free downloads and other materials here. 

d. My Body Belongs to Me. You can read reviews here.

As we move on to other topics, the books and videos will still be here to read and watch, which allows room for more discussions as she gets older. 

Me in My Environment - What I Can Do!

At home I can...

1. We created a home with cardboard and pictures for each room. Behind every curtain you can find a room and  we discussed what she can do in each. I asked her, "What are you doing in the bathroom?" and she replied, "Mom, brush teeth. Keeping them clean."

2. I continue to let her do things on her own and encouraged her, which helps to build her confidence and her tasks becomes easier. 

At the doctor's office I can...

3. We talked about what we normally do when we visited her doctor. Thankfully, her Pediatrician's office is close by so we made a short visit after our supermarket shopping. We also discussed what her doctor will normally do.

4. I allowed G to take my temperature. She was doctor for the day :). 

5. I walked into Doctor G's office complaining about a sprained ankle but Doctor G wanted me (the patient) to wrap her ankle instead. I guess you can say we took turns playing doctors :). 

6. I was given medicine (water). I pretended I didn't want to take it and my sweet doctor showed me how I should take it. Somehow, the doctor ended up taking more medicine than the patient; I barely got a drop. 

7. She did some lab work; she worked on her pincer grip by moving water from one container to another with a medicine drop. My daughter will never turn down an opportunity to play with water. 

At the supermarket, I can....

8. For pretend play we went shopping at the supermarket. We created her grocery list. I made sure the pictures were clear and she could identify what she was going to buy. 

She picked up her trolley:

She shopped for items on her list:

'I can take care of myself with help'....that is WHAT I CAN DO!

I do believe G enjoyed last week because she was able to be more involved in the caring of herself.

I thought about it and decided that although she will be doing some pretend play around this theme, the lessons will be more received and appreciated if I allowed her more freedom to carry out these tasks in reality.

To shed some light; I've been teaching her to brush her teeth as long as I can remember. I will give her the toothbrush to brush her own teeth but it is after I am sure that they were brushed properly, however I'm the one who usually squeezed the toothpaste on her toothbrush, turn the faucet, wet the brush, etc. Sooo can you imagine when I said 'you squeeze the toothpaste on'...her face lit up and she welcomed the responsibility. She took her time and sometimes she will say 'ohh ohhh' when too much paste was squeezed but I told her it was ok, took off the excess and we brushed. I enjoyed watching her as much as she enjoyed doing it on her own.

I applied this not only to her brushing her teeth but to everything else she can learn to do with my help....

So here's what she did last week, with my help:

1. Prepared her meals:

I let her helped with her breakfast

I let her practiced cutting with a buttered knife on her snacks 

2. Eating healthy: We went to the supermarket where she got the opportunity to choose her own fruits and veggies.

3. Brushed her teeth & cleaned her face:  Like I said before, she was more in controlled of this but I guided her to make sure it was done properly. We also watched Sesame Street videos about 'brushing your teeth' here. 

We also worked on our teeth brushing technique and grip, and some brushing art.

White styrofoam egg carton (cut in half) represented her teeth and she was given toothpaste and an old brush to clean it. We discussed what was involve in getting her teeth cleaned as she brushed. When she rinsed and it wasn't completely white, she shouted 'more paste!'.

She painted away that yellow tooth with a toothbrush.

4. Washed and comb her hair: On the day I was going to washed her hair, I let her washed her doll's hair as a part of her pretend play. We then went and washed her hair; she helped with the washing. Like in everything we do, we discussed what is involve in washing her hair.

5. Made her bed: She insisted on helping to make her bed, so I did the three corners and she did the fourth.

6. Cleaned her hands: I set up a table so she could be relaxed and have complete control over washing her hands (without a step stool and moving forward to reach the tap), and we went through the steps at her pace.

7. Breathing & Exercise: Every evening we do breathing exercises and stretches.

8. Bathe herself: After I soap her up I will hand her the rag so she can do it herself. This was a bit comical but she asked for help when needed, like to reach her back. She turned on the faucet and on some days I would let try washing out her rag (of course I have to do it after but she's learning).

9. Getting dressed: It will take some time before she will learn how to dress herself and so we worked on her fine motor skills by snapping, buttoning & unbuttoning, zipping & unzipping, hooking, clasping, etc.

Throughout her learning experience and growth I will continue to guide her; giving her just a little bit more responsibility than before.

'What Can I Do?' - My Ears, Hands & Legs

I can hear and listen with my ears, and not only can I feel with my hands but also with my body. I can push, pull, clap, pick up and put down objects with my hands. I can run, jump, skip and walk with my legs.

It was a very active week:

- We played a lot of games and songs that covered most of these areas like 'Head, Shoulder, Knees & Toes', 'Simon Says', 'If you're happy and you know it', 'Hokey Pokey' and simple games that allowed her to easily follow my actions.

- YouTube was one of the places I got some great action and movement songs. Some simple ones I fell in love with and subscribed to are:
i. Patty Shukla: Jump here
                       I can do it here
                       Play with me, Sing along here

    If you like what you see you can always check out other videos from her here.

ii. Debbie Doo: Movement Song (Hokey Pokey) here
                        Movement Song (The Twist) here
                       

1. We also made drums and shakers out of empty cans, wrapped them with construction paper and decorate them. Jumbo paintbrushes were transformed into drum sticks.

2. Sensory Mat: I looked for different textured materials around the house and put them together on a construction paper.

3. Sensory Bag: In a bag we combined rice, dried peas, and different shape pastas.

4. Hot & Cold: Well it wasn't really hot but warm enough for her to touch while differentiating temperature. I had for cold, iced water & ice. For hot (warm), we had warm water & a warm iron (instead of letting her touch the iron directly, I ironed a cloth and G felt the warmth of the cloth). Throughout the week we identified other cold & hot items; like a stone that has been in the sun, the day, her tea, hot chocolate, her meals, her juice, ice cream, etc.  

 5. Finger paint:

We wrapped up the week with water play, walked in the park, visited the garden and zoo where we used  all our senses for looking and listening to birds and other animals' sounds, smelling flowers, feeling the grass against our toes (although my daughter isn't too big on this), she did couple runs and skips, and we had tasty treats.

We also finished our 5 Senses board *will update with a picture soon.


We also read this week:

1. 'Elmo Can...Taste! Touch! Smell! See! Hear!'. You can take a look inside here

2. 'First Skills with Ladybird: Big and Little. Visit our local bookshop here OR have a look here

'What Can I Do?' - My Eyes

I can see with my eyes.

I can see...

1. Big and small things around me - We looked for objects around the house (clothes pins, beads, shoes, etc.) and sort them into things that are big and things that are small.

2. Shapes - I cut out some shapes from a sponge (rectangle, oval, square, diamond & triangle), gave her some poster paint for each sponge (I add 1 teaspoon of water to each colour) and let her paint. As she stamped them on the paper she saw the shapes and she was happy to point them out. Leave her long enough, it eventually became one beautiful mess.  

3. Colours - We mixed colours on fudge sticks by painting the sides with two colours and the shade was revealed in the centre. We also did a salt glue art. I got the idea from here. My daughter was a bit more aggressive with her painting, but more importantly she had fun :) 

4. She practiced Eye-hand coordination - We have these flashcards that are not being used (it just doesn't intrigued G so she doesn't have the patience for them) so I transformed them into lacing cards, using a single hole punch and wool strings. THAT she found interest in doing. 

5. Letters - We did many things with letters. One of which, is letter tracing with her finger and paint. 

6. I can see things that are inside my home - This, she truly enjoyed. She is in love with the camera and being the photographer instead of the subject. *Light bulb!* I let her take pictures of things she sees; I only held the camera's string just in case it slipped her fingers. 

7. I can see things that are outside my home - We went outside and she took her pictures.