Baby I Got Your Money – Learning About Money

There are two things Little A loves right now: using a spray bottle and coins.  I thought I’d switch up the window cleaning she usually asks to do and use this time to learn about money.  My low windows were cleaned the other night so we were good in that department.

I also like to find activities that don’t take any artistic “talent” from me because its too much pressure for me. I am craft-phobic.

But lets go back to Little A’s money cleaning. She is learning what coins look like… what is a toonie, a loonie, a quarter, a dime, a nickel and a penny.

I emptied some change onto her table and Little A got to choose which one she wanted to “clean” first.

Loose Change to choose from

I let Little A figure out how she wanted to play this game.  I think it is important to let her create her own play, I want to encourage her to think/create on her own.  Oh who am I kidding -I had no real idea how how I was going to have this time play out. So I told her to clean one at a time so we could talk about it.  How she cleaned it was up to her.

She started with a wipe and laid it out on the table, then squirted the heck out of it.

Spraying the wipe getting it good and wet

Next she picked out a coin and laid it on the wipe then folded the wipe over and over in a precise manner, well as precise as a two year old can. She obviously had a plan, glad someone did.

Folding the wipe over the money to clean it

The next step was letting her clean it however she wanted.  Happy as a bee!

washing the coin clean

After that we looked at the money and what each side was so she’d recall what a ship was or what a beaver, or loon etc.  Little A enjoyed when she got the coins correct.

looking at the money to figure out what each one is

It was an easy little lesson on money without feeling like I was a tiger mom and pushing learning on her.  Maybe she’ll take an interest in coins and be able to hang out with her djudgi (my dad) as he’s a collector.

Sick Day Quiet Play

I stayed home with Little A today.  Usually a day off with her is filled with adventures and lunch somewhere, but not today.  She’s under the weather and has almost no energy.  There were only two small bursts of liveliness out of her today. Most of her day she only wanted to be cuddled on me reading books, watching tv or me telling her impromptu stories about secret rooftop gardens.

This morning after a little smoothie I decided to do runway painting.  A revised version to what I’d do in the summer because I didn’t want to go full messy inside.  But this summer I want to do a big messy one with her this summer and frame it with both her feet. We switched her pj bottoms for a skirt and got set up.

So I set up a long strip of paper and taped it down so there’d be no slipping.  Grabbed a bucket with some water, our tempra paint pods and two paint brushes.

We coated Little A’s soles of her feet then I lifted her up, planted her down on the runway and said – OK run!

Running footprints

She thought this was great! We did a few runs with her feet. I only got to help her paint her feet once, she wanted to “do it myself”.  Ya go for it – this is your paint play not mine.

Painting her feet

Then she decided to do a bear walk with her painted hands.  So she loaded up her fingers and palm.

How about my hands mommy?

Swishing her hand for more designs

Of course being two years old, paint went on her legs and the back of her hand, across her cheek, each time we tried to figure out how to transfer it onto the paper.  Sometimes it worked, other times she just moved onto the next body part.

Loading up her paintbrush

The game didn’t last too long because she soon wanted to have a shower-bath to clean herself off. But  it was entertaining and got her blood flowing without being outside (where it was trying very hard to snow).

We took one more little opportunity of an increase in her energy to go outside for some fresh air but after only two blocks she said she was too tired to go any further.  We came home and I tucked her in on the couch where she fell asleep within the opening credits of her TV obsession “Little Einsteins”.

Cuddled up on the couch

Poor thing, I hope she feels better soon.

My First Craft Post…Pumpkins, Letters and Learning

I am not crafty.  I so want to be but when I try things they look like a 2 year old did them.  Which right now is great because Little A (my daughter) is 2.5 yrs.  So there’s a bit less pressure to get it perfect.  Her imagination more than makes up for my lack of talent.  My chalk markings become dinosaurs and giraffes- bless her little soul!

But having a two year old means you need to do crafts and projects.  So I try to let go of my need for perfection the first time and off I go to find something easy, crafty and Halloweenish.

My first craft attempt was a bust.  I wanted to make hand spiders like these I found on Pinterest-

Finger Spider Craft

How hard can they be, really, it is a hand print and some google eyes.

First lesson about Craft Club

1.  Crafts only work if your child wants to do them

That day she wanted to use a brush on the paper, NO FINGER Painting.  Ahhh well.  I’m not craft savvy to think on my feet so a regular painting session it was to be and back to the itnerwebs I would go later.  (Ha ha punnny, spiders, interwebs haha)

During the week Little A received a parcel from Nana… some felt letter stickers. And The Imagination Tree  (fantastic blog) had a great halloween pumpkin craft so I dove in to try it.

The Great Alphabet Pumkin

You need:

1 pumpkin                      check                 We had our pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, Little A picked it out on her own this year

1 pack of felt letters      check                Thanks Nana

Little A chose her own pumpkin and was so proud of it

We sat down on the floor with our Great Pumpkin and the letters.  I explained we were going to look at each letter, sound the letter out , pick words that started with that letter and then put them on the pumpkin.  Both of us were very excited.

I pulled out the first letter ” B”

Me: “This is the letter B… It has a long line and two little bumps on it.  It sounds like ..b..b..b..   What words start with the letter B..b..b…b…?”

Little A :  “I don’t know.” (smiling and tilting her head in interest)

Me:  “B..b…b…b.. BEAR”

Little A:  “Bear!  Ahhhahhahha”   (note: said with a 2 yr old “accent” like she was from Boston)

She thought this was pretty funny.  I handed the letter to her to peal the backing off and put anywhere on the pumpkin.

We continued picking up letters, looking at how they were shaped, sounding them out and then picking a word to go with the letter

“H- two lines and one little line half way to connect them.. h…h…h…. HIPPO, HORSE ” – Giggles and guffawing

“V- one line on an angle going down and one line going up…v…v…v ….VACCUUM”  – Again loads of laughter.

There was much thought put into the placement of each letter.  She rolled the pumpkin around finding the best spot for each letter, some she wanted close to other letters, some she wanted to stand alone some she chose to put on upside down.

We did this project earlier in the week and the letter obsession is now in full swing.  She is often asking what does this or that start with. We have letters on the fridge and she is naming the letters and asking to replicate the sound.  The animal magnets have now become part of the learning.  “What does zebra start with?”  and so on.

By the time Halloween rolls around I’m hoping the pumpkin will be loaded with letters, its a fun activity to come back to every couple days. Depending on attention span this could be done on the kitchen floor while you are prepping for dinner too.

Its very exciting to see her recognize the alphabet and new synapse sparks happening.  Little brains are amazing.

The  Great Lettered Pumpkin now sits beside  Captain Turkey she made at daycare.