April 6, 2009 Easter (Cat?) Bunny with pom poms

Now, that Sophia is capable of doing more things I am planning on doing two activities every day. With the intent of providing an enriching experience for her development, I intend to do 2 structured activities a day. Up until now, we only did one a day that was experiential learning sometimes going outside and playing or singing a song. We are still going to be using experiential learning but taking it to a new level and emphasing a specific skill in each session.

Because she is not in daycare, I don't want her to fall behind in any areas that her peers are encountering in school. I have always dreamed of this and the moment is now. She is pretty good at following directions so I am going to be working on helping her to lengthen her attention span. It seems to have suddenly gotten shorter so we will be working on focusing on the task at hand.

My intent is to create a semi-structured environment where each day we sit down at her table and do something whether it be making something or learning something. I will try to vary the experiences and make them fun yet teach her how to count or learn her colors or use her senses at each session. I will choose sensory activities to expose her to different textures and shapes. We will also develop her fine motor skills development and gross motor skills. I will consciously choose activities that expose her to a variety of environments and experiences.

This was one of the first lessons we had. I was reading books about Easter to Sophia. I was teaching her about the upcoming holiday so she would appreciate the events more coming up this weekend. Then, we sat down and glued pom poms to a piece of paper to make an Easter Bunny.

I printed out a picture of the Easter Bunny here and told Sophia we were going to glue them on the bunny. I put several colorful pom poms in front of her that would be the color of the bunny. However, she chose the ones that were still in the bag. She chose the orange and black swirled pom poms. I thought okay, it is her picture, let her do what she wants. Don't curb her creativity, step back and let her go. She proceeded to glue these pom poms on the bunny as pictured. I was very proud that she could do this project and patiently helped her stay focused on the task.

When she completed her picture, I asked her what we made. She did not answer me but she brought her picture over to show the cat. I was puzzled for a moment and then as she pointed to the cat and smiled, I realized what she was telling me. She said, "Cat!" as she pointed to Brittany our cat. Then, I saw the resemblence. All along she was making a picture of our cat, not the Easter Bunny. I guess she taught me today. Here is one of our cats, her favorite below.

January 2, 2009 Cat playing PS3

I am not sure that this is what Sony meant when they said the PS3 was entertaining for the whole family.  The cat was standing up and trying to catch the game. By the time I grabbed the camera she sat down and just watched the game her head moving back and forth as Scott played the game.  Oh, and there is no stripe going across the TV, that is from the light filter in the room.

You can barely see her in this picture because the backlight of the TV interferred with the flash, but she is laying there on the floor watching the game.

December 18, 2008 Trimming the Christmas Tree

Daddy and Sophia are putting up the Christmas tree.  Last year, Scott bought a new pre-lit 12 foot Christmas tree.  In the photo Scott is plugging in the tree and showing Sophia how we put up the tree.  

Sophia found the Angel "baby" as stated by Sophia, for Daddy.  Scott is really into Christmas decorations and has collected Hallmark ornaments for about the past 20 years. Many of the ones we have are sound and motion ornaments.  They plug into the light sockets for power.  This makes putting up our tree a several day adventure to say the least.  Well, this year we just barely got the tree up in time for Santa to make his delivery because I was working too much. Retail hours make it tough for us all to be home at the same time.  So, Dec 18 was the first chance we were all home and not completely exhausted to get the tree up.  With our new 12 foot tree, it was quite a challenge to figure out how to get the Hallmark ornaments working.  I tried to plug in a few and they didn't fit into the light sockets.  That meant we would need to put additional lights on our already pre-lit tree.  There just wasn't time for extra work this year and so the ornaments didn't work. The majority of them are on the tree, but they are not magically working and I am slightly disappointed. 

Not only am I sad about the ornaments not working, I am also very disappointed that I was also not able to display my collection of Department 56 villages.  How I miss my large collection of churches and villages. I just really didn't have time to put them out and figure out how to keep Sophia from destroying them in the process.  I suppose I will get over it in a few days when the magic of Christmas happens and we see the delight in Sophia's eyes as she discovers the neat things Santa will bring.  Merry Christmas!

November 6, 2008 Sophia playing dress-up with cat

Sophia was playing with a headband that matches one of her dresses.  She decided to put it on our cat Brittany.  Then, she leaned in and gave the cat a kiss on the nose. She is so loving, it is so sweet. I didn't know little girls started dressing animals this early, but I guess she was having fun.  

I know my mother, Sophia's Grandma used to dress up the family dog when she was a little girl but I do not know how old she was when she started dressing the dog.   When I was younger, I can remember our family Chihuahua, Cricket wearing many sweaters to "keep her warm".