Rainbow activities

The winkles and I have been having fun with rainbows so far...

Lamb and I painted a rainbow together

The whole way through he kept saying, "I really enjoy painting with you Mum"...NOTE: do this MUCH more often.

Once we had finished painting it, we turned it into a colour matching exercise for Cherry.

And then to jazz up snack time today, I set the winkles to chopping...

and then arranged everything in rainbow form...

Pink (watermelon), Purple (sultanas and craisins), Blue (blueberries...the best I could think of, the Winkles were satisfied with the explanation that they are called BLUE berries), Green (Avocado and broccoli), Yellow (Banana and Cheese), Orange (Bbq rice crackers and carrot sticks) and Red (Strawberries).

They both got such a kick out of this and sat there happily munching away on a really random combination of foods, some of which they won't usually eat.

How great!

We also made a rainbow cake (not so healthy)

And with all the colour action I set up a colour mixing activity for Lamb

I put red, yellow and blue food colouring in three polystyrene cups that I cut the top off to make child sized then Lamb used an eye dropped to mix the right amount of colour in to make green, orange and purple.

That wasn't enough though so...

I drew pencil circles on a sheet of baking paper and blu tacked that to a cookie tray (I think this activity idea is from John Bowman's ebook....and Lamb used the eye dropper to squeeze the colours onto the dots.

He hasn't done this activity before so, as you can see, some dots were huge and others not so much but he spent a good twenty five minutes filling a couple of sheets of dots!

Cherry's practical life

It's a little bit trickier with the smaller one of the bunch but Cherry is almost seventeen months and is responsible for getting her own shoes when we are to leave the house and putting them away again. She gets her own hat when playing outside and will happily partake in 'clean up' time dutifully singing her version of the clean up song that I made up.

I gave Cherry her own bowl and spoon at fifteen months and within the month she was feeding herself completely independently. She has a turn brushing her teeth once I have finished and 'combs her hair' in the mornings and after a bath.

She has just started pulling a chair into the kitchen when Lamb is in there helping me with something so I guess she will soon be mixing along with her brother.

Lamb's practical life

One of the things that really spoke to me about the Montessori method was the inclusion of practical life activities.

It is something that we have naturally incorporated into Lamb's life to encourage independence but when Maria Montessori wrote about the validation of the child by giving them 'real' work...well I really got that.

I want to document what Lamb is doing for himself at various stages in his development in the same way that I want to know about his language or math development...truthfully because I fear taking over and doing everything for Cherry because it's 'easier' and I am holding myself accountable!

Lamb is 3 years and 3 months.

He is responsible for brushing his teeth, washing his face and getting dressed in the morning (I still sit in the room with him when he gets dressed in case he needs 'instant' help). He is of course completely independant when it comes to toileting.

Lamb loves to wash dishes so he washed the breakfast dishes a few times a week.

He is also responsible for picking up his toys. This particularly relates to his animals and cars of which there are many. He likes to play with them on the couch and should he leave one or both lots out the whole lounge room is strewn with small things that one sits down on or stands on. He seems to understand that they are his things and therefore his mess. If Cherry has several things out at once he will tell her that there is too much mess and helpfully pack up what she isn't using (not all of the time of course and not always with Cherry's approval).

In a cupboard by the dining room table we have a dustpan and brush that he chose himself that is for his table mess from cutting bits of paper or dropping little bits of playdough or after a meal.

Lamb sets the table most nights. I put all of the necessary things in a basket on the chair and he places them in where they ought to go.

He also loves to 'spray and wipe' so has a cloth and 'squirty' bottle either for tables and surfaces or windows and mirrors.

In the kitchen we do several things each week that vary of course but typical things include chopping fruit to make smoothies, squeezing lemon juice to make hummus, mixing and cracking eggs when baking, buttering his own bread, making his own hot chocolate in the mornings. Most of these things require him to bring over a chair to stand at the bench with me so Cherry has started getting involved in that too.

Lamb also loves to be outside so is happy to 'weed' the garden with me or take clippings and put them into the compost or green waste bin.