What We Have Been Up To

We have been absent for a while and I wanted to give an update on some of the things we have been doing.

1.  Reading these wonderful Biscuit books almost every day!  Adeline loves these and so do I.  They are simple and use repetitive language, making them very predictable.

  2.  Playing with Unfix Cubes.  These are great little manipulatives that really work fine motor skill.  These cubes are also used to teach many math skills such as patterning, counting, sorting, counting, etc.  Right now we are just learning how to put them together.     

 

3.  Coloring our ABC's

4.  Learning animals,  I recently found a great box of social studies and science cards.  The cards are actual photographs.  We have been working on the animals first.

 
5.  Putting clothes pins off and on a box.

These are a few of the thing we have been doing during the past few week.   Adeline is scheduled for heart surgery in about three week.  We are praying that she stay healthy until then.

Activities For a Platform Swing

The weather is amazing here and we have been playing outside.  Last summer Adeline's grandpa built her this great platform swing and we have been doing many different activities on it.

First - Puzzles, both sitting on the tummy.  The whole time the swing is moving gently to challenge her balance and work the core strength.

Being on her tummy works on upper body strength. 

 Second - Adding rings to stacker both sitting and on the tummy.

Third -  Adding pegs to a pegboard.  I had to hold this in front of her but it worked great.

Fourth - Reading flashcards.

Fifth - popping bubbles.  I do not have a picture of Adeline popping bubble but this is also fun to do. 

Learning Numbers and Quantities

We are working on numbers a lot lately.  Adeline has been very interested in counting so that is what we are working on.   Here are some of the things I have been doing with Adeline to help her learn her numbers and quantities.

The first thing I did was to make flashcards up to twenty.   I first had her learn how to identify the numbers.

 
Second thing we did was explore the teddy bear counters.

 
Before children can be expected to use a manipulative for a specific purpose they need some time to explore with it.  

Later, I drew some circles on file folders and we added the correct amount of bears to each circle.

We are also counting stickers on a file folder.

Adeline has really been enjoying her abacus now that she is starting to understand numbers.

One other thing that has helped Adeline learn her numbers is her favorite counting app on the I Pad call Toddler Counting.  This is a great simple app that teaches up to 20.

Sometimes It Is Hard

I have been a bit absent lately and there are a couple of reasons for that.  FIRST Adeline is going to be a big sister!  We are a bit shocked and surprised with this news but we are now moving to a place of excitement.   I think between the holidays and feeling a bit yucky I have lost my motivation.  I am working hard to get it back.

Second news,  we found out this past Friday that Adeline will need heart surgery.  I am shocked and a bit overwhelmed.    When she was born we were told that her heart was fine she just had a PDA tube that took awhile to close off.  Recently the doctors detected a heart murmur and so she had an echo done this past Friday.   There they discovered a leaky valve.  This valve will continue to get worse and it must be repaired.  It is not an emergency but it must be done this year.  We are now deciding if it will before or after baby.  I am thinking before would be better.    Please pray for us as we walk through these times.