Tiny Tot School: Purple

Maddie is 15 months.

We are slowly but surely making our way through the colors. I'm still not sure Maddie fully recognizes any of the colors, but she really enjoys doing tot school and she's still pretty young, so I know she'll catch on here before too long!

Fine Motor Skills - Clothespins on a Purple Cup

She could fairly easily pull the clothespins off, and she really enjoyed taking them off and putting them in the cup, then shaking the cup so they all fell out. :) She was never able to get the right "pinching" motion to be able to take them off this week.

Fine Motor Skills - Tearing Paper

Maddie really enjoyed this activity! Once I showed her how to tear the paper, this was all she wanted to do. The first couple days, I had to start the tear for her, but by Friday she could tear the paper independently.

Math/Science - Purple Magnets

Maddie has never really seen how magnets work before (I need to get some fridge ones she can play with!) and she was enthralled! She loved to try and stick them together and to the pan. I cut out some squares and circles in order to encourage some sorting, but Maddie was definitely not interested in that, only in how the magnets worked. :)

Art - Gluing Tissue Paper and Painting a Frame

We added to her "God Made Everything" book by gluing tissue paper to a purple flower. Maddie was very interested in the glue but did NOT like it on her hands, haha. She loved painting her picture frame, as you can see!


Also, totally off topic, but I pulled out my 50mm f1.8 lens again to take pictures this week. I forgot how much I love the ethereal quality of the pictures I get from it!! 

Maddie: 15 Months

Dear Maddie,

You are just blossoming into a little girl these days, although I am holding on to "my baby" for dear life! :) You are so much fun. Your little personality just shines and I am so glad I get to be your mother.

-Gross motor skills: You can crawl (very quickly!), and pull up to your knees. You like to "walk" across the room on your knees and your new trick is to try and "jump," also on your knees. You refuse to pull up to standing, however. You feel safe on your knees, I guess. You love to dance to music!

-Fine motor: You have really great fine motor skills! You can easily color with a crayon or marker, as well as pick up teeny tiny pieces of things on the floor that I don't want you to.

-Verbal: You are extremely verbal! You babble a LOT, and are constantly talking to yourself and me in a language I don't understand. Words you CAN say: Mama, Daddy, Kayla, Grandpa, uh-oh, bottle (baba), puppy (pup-pup). eat, hi, bye bye, baby, boots, duck, and several more I'm sure that I can't remember. You can sign "all done" and "eat."

-You absolutely LOVE playing with your baby doll. You are the best mommy to her! You feed her her ba-ba, put her to sleep, burp her, and rock her. Over and over and over again. That is probably your favorite toy at the moment.

-You know what a chicken, duck, and horsie say. You also know where your eyes, nose, and "Santa" (your tummy) are. You are very bright, and can easily identify things I ask you to find. In the bath, we play find that toy - I will ask for Katarina Kitty-Cat, or the duck, or the turtle, etc, and you will find it and bring it to me. You always get it right!

-You wear size 18 month clothes and jammies, although they are a bit big on you still. You wear some 2T pants for length. You wear size 3 diapers and size 3 shoes.

-You are just over 18 pounds (10%) and 30.5 (50%) inches long. Still small for your age.

-You are extremely shy around new people. You give everyone THE SCOWL until you decide that they are okay, and then you become flirty and chatty and try to make friends.

-You love Daniel Tiger. You will sit and watch that show like no other show. It's an easy way for me to calm you down or distract/redirect you when necessary.

-You also love music. Any song that comes on, you immediately begin dancing.

-You are becoming a picky eater. You only sometimes will eat what I put in front of you. Unless it's a giant spoonful of peanut butter. You always eat that! :)

-You only have one bottle per day now, at night. All the rest are gone!

-You are still a terrible night sleeper. You mostly sleep in my bed, but that is becoming more difficult, as it is becoming apparent that you sleep like me - like a crazy person! However, sleep training you is soooooo hard. We've been working on it, but it's still a work in progress. There have been so many nights recently where I"m just about in tears, begging you to please please please just go to sleep. I'm so exhausted.

We are so happy that you are part of our family, Madelynn Kate. You are so sweet and loving and we love you so much!

Love,
Mommy

Tiny Tot School: Hanukkah

Maddie is 14 months old.

Tray #1 - Felt Menorah

I created a felt menorah for Maddie to explore this week. We practiced counting, one to one correspondence, and it was a sensory experience as well. She never really put the candles on the menorah, she much preferred to take them out of the basket and put them back in. :)

Tray #2 - Blue Candles, Floral Foam

Similar to our golf tee/floral foam activity. Maddie worked on finger strength and fine motor skills as she pushed candles into the foam and pulled them out. She enjoyed this activity a lot, and would do it over and over again each day.

Tray #3 - Yellow Button Pushing

For this activity, Maddie pushed yellow "gelt" through a buttonhole in an old Parmesan cheese container. She LOVED this, easily her favorite activity this week. She quickly figured out that, once there were several buttons in it, the container made a great rattling noise! She would put them all in, shake it around, and hand it to me to open and get the buttons out.

Christmas Baby

Oh, how I love Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. The decorations and music, especially. I tried to convince Maddie to take a few pictures with the tree... and she semi-obliged me. :)

Visiting Santa? Nope. Not her thing. Not at all! (Not that I blame her... but it's so funny!)

Thanksgiving 2015 and Temple Square

We stayed home this year, and had a few family members over to our house. It was the first Thanksgiving that I have hosted, and it was a lot of fun! All the food was delicious, and the company was even better. :)

And just for fun, Thanksgiving 2014 and 2015.

After Thanksgiving, we headed up to the Temple Square Christmas lights with all of the Saunders family. It was so fun to see everyone and to be able to hang out for a bit, even though it was cold and snowy! Maddie wore her "purple people eater" suit, AKA the "pink bunny suit" and was toastier than the rest of us put together, I think! :)

Tiny Tot School: Pink

Maddie is 14 months.

We had lots of fun with the color pink this week! No surprise there, Maddie is no stranger to this color. :) We tried some different activities too - some went over well, some not as much. That's okay, we are figuring this out as we go.

Sensory - Jello

Okay, so the Jello turned out red instead of pink, but that's okay. Maddie LOVED this. It took about 10 minutes the first day for her to warm up to it, but then she went to town every day. She would stick her hands in and just squeeze the life out of the Jello in order to feel it squish through her fingers. She also enjoyed picking it up and tearing it apart. I used the Jiggler recipe, but in hindsight, for sensory play, the regular recipe would probably be better.


Tray #1 - Pouring water

I thought maybe we could try a pouring tray, but I think Maddie is still too young for that. She just wanted to play with the lid on the teapot. Most of the week, I would pour a tiny bit into her cup and she would drink it - she loved that. We turned it into more of a grace & courtesy lesson than a pouring activity. We worked on the signs and oral language of "please" and "thank you." On Friday though, she surprised me by trying to pour the water from the pot into the cup! She did a decent job and was so proud of herself too.


Tray #2 - Pink pasta shells and egg carton

I painted some pasta shells pink (couldn't get the right color food coloring on them) and set them out with half an egg carton. Maddie only gets one to one correspondence about 50% of the time, so I want to do lots of these activities with her to really cement the idea in her head. She, however, does not care about what I want (haha!) so she never once used the tray as I had intended. Which is fine, but just so funny! She loved playing with the shells and putting them in and out of the basket. She also enjoyed opening and closing the egg carton all week.

Tray #3 - Pink stickers on paper

Since she loved stickers so much, I decided to do another sticker tray with her. This time, Maddie would point to the sticker she wanted and I would start it, then let her finish peeling it off and put it on the paper. She did SO much better with this activity this time around. It's amazing what 6 weeks or so of development will do!


Art - Coloring with pink marker

Maddie really impressed me this week! She knew which way to turn the marker in order to draw with it, and she was able to color quite a bit! She doesn't have the right hold down, but that's just a matter of age and development. She loved coloring her pink pig picture.


Playdough - Christmas

I made a Christmas-y playdough to use throughout the month this month. I colored it green and added green glitter. Maddie really enjoyed this as well - she is getting really interested in sensory activities! she loved smooshing and squeezing the playdough and breaking off chunks.

Tiny Tot School: Green

Maddie is 13 months.

Since I didn't get my act together last week until Wednesday, we did the color green both last week and this week.

Sensory - Green bubble wrap

Maddie had never really experienced bubble wrap before this. I knew she wouldn't quite have the finger strength to pop the bubbles, and she didn't... but if she balled it up and squeezed with her whole hand, she was able to get a few pops. She loved it for the first couple of days... and then totally lost interest.

Tray #1 - Green foam and golf tees

The idea of the activity was for Maddie to push the tees into the foam. It took several days of playing with this activity for her to understand how to do so. She really only "got" it the last day. However, she came up with lots of ways to play with it the rest of the time! Her favorite was pulling them OUT of the foam after I pushed them in. She also got really interested in using her fingernail to scrape the foam, turning it into more of a sensory activity.

Tray #2 - Green ribbon pulling

I rolled up some green ribbon and placed it in a Parmesan cheese container. Maddie would pull on it and get the ribbon out of the container. It took a few tries to figure out that she had to stabilize the container in order to get all the ribbon out. She would then wrap the ribbon around her like a scarf and make the funniest face. I can only assume it was an "I'm so pretty!" face.

Tray #3 - Alphabet Puzzle

I bought this puzzle because I knew Maddie would really like the little knobs on each piece. And, it can't hurt to get a little alphabet exposure, right?? :) She did really well taking the pieces out. I would name each letter as she took it out. She was never interested in putting them back in though, but she would observe each piece for quite some time as she took them out. I tried to emphasize M for Maddie, but she isn't quite there yet.