Experiences

This post will be very picture heavy... but here are some of the activities Dax and I have done over the past couple weeks...

1: Lots and lots of pretend play. Over the past couple weeks he has turned a corner in really participating in some pretend play. He talks to babies, his cars talk to each other, and he is now doing cooperative play with Daniel and I. He is still working on this skill because he definitely gets frustrated at least once a day because we're not doing what his little mind is wanting us to do. He's thinking a lot faster than he can communicate with us.... so we're working on using our words. It's a whole new world for him.

  2. Lots of ramps and block play!  My very favorite thing to do with kids for sure. They just learn so many skills through ramps and blocks and I'm seeing it everyday at home. The problems solving he is having to do is unreal, and he's been testing different things to see how they "roll" down (the second image is him trying to roll a square block). We're big into rolling cars, marbles, and his little wooden balls.  His pretend play is also really coming out in his block building too. He's bringing his animals into play, his cars into play, and even acting out his favorite story (the three little pigs) with them.

 

3. Art is still one of our favorite things to do! I set up an experience for him using paint and his basket of natural materials I leave on his table for him. He started just painting with his brush but quickly picked a rock out of the basket, painted it, and then used it to make a mark on his page. He did this with a few different rocks and it was awesome to watch! Each rock made a different print... it was super cool to see him make a print, look at the rock, touch the rock, and try to figure out what exactly was going on. He's like the epitome of a sensory learner so painting his hands is still a favorite thing to do. I also threw in a little aluminum foil and canvas for him to paint on this week to mix things up :)

 

4. Cooking! Daxton loves helping and is always pretending to cook so I thought I would let him help me make pizza for dinner last night! He absolutely loved it. I wrote a recipe for us to follow.... so we read the directions, followed them step by step, and he helped with every detail of making the pizza.

 

 5. Letters! We are still running full speed with letters! He is learning them so fast! He can now spell his name when you ask him, knows quite a few letters, is pointing them out in books, and is now running his fingers along the words in books while he pretends to read (!!!).  I ordered these great Montessori books online and we've been using the letter one a lot! It's really cool because it introduces each letter by the sound that it makes and the letters inside are tactile so they can trace the letters with their fingers and learn the feel for it. We've been talking about the lines and curves of each letter and I think it's helping a lot . The second image is something I made him last week to learn his name. Within 2 days of playing with this he had his name down. He loves this!

 

And the next photos include a project we did yesterday. We collected rocks, took them in and washed them (Dax poured the soap and scrubbed each rock), and then I painted letters on them with acrylic paint (apparently you can also do this with sharpie but decided to go with paint). I did a set with all capital letters and a set with all lower case letters. Then I got a couple empty egg cartons (yes I keep "trash" like egg cartons laying around the house) and printed a letter on each slot.  He'll be able to use these as a matching activity s well as just a hands on movable alphabet that he can explore with. I love these!