I have to remember to take more picture of what we do during the week but I often get so swept up in what we’re doing that I forget. I managed to remember for a couple of our activities.

I made a slightly modified house game from Hubbard’s Cupboard September for 2’s, which he really, really had fun with.

He took it quite seriously.

This awesome wooden cup thing was a thrift store find. My husband said he could see the Montessori light flashing on and off on the top of my head the moment I found it.

Counting and number writing practice.

Cutting practice.

We read Princess and the Pea, then decided to try to see how many pieces of fabric we could feel a dried pea through.

It took quite a few folds. Those little suckers are hard!

Sticking with the Princess and the Pea theme, we glued dried peas to a capital P on a pink piece of paper. I’m all about alliteration.

Let’s ignore the raging mess behind him and look at how cool his P is!

With some assistance, he wrote his name. Some assistance being that I placed his hand in the right place and he did the shapes entirely himself.

We have recently come across a treasure trove of children’s classic books, which has also lead me back to a dear pastime which my husband would probably be completely content with me not reconnecting with – buying rare, old and ridiculously expensive books so they can sit on a shelf for their yellowing pages to be admired from afar. And because my husband is just not willing to enable my addiction by spending $180 on a 15 page book that’s over 100 years old and is awesome, The Boy and I have spent much more time on the internet reading books. (Just saying that made me feel like I’m on the Jetson’s.)

The treasure trove of which I speak is The Children’s Library. It has books that are no longer under copyright and/or that they have obtained permission to print…er…post? One of our current favorites is the one above called, “The Children’s Object Book” and while I would much prefer to have that book in hand, this is absolutely the next best thing. Not only does the boy get to work with the mouse a bit more (by clicking to get to the next page), but he also gets to learn what a “poultry yard” is without having to sacrifice his parents’ marriage because mommy spent $70 on a well used, antique, hardcover version of the book. It’s a win-win for everyone.

This week with the P3/4 Sonlight Program has been a blast. The Boy has come up with some brand new “favorite ever” stories, like “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie“. Loves them so much, in fact, that upon printing some “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” he hugged the print-out and said, “Oh my goo-ness! I WOVE YOU!”

Yeah. I know. The kid needs friends. You should have seen the look on his face when I suggested we make cookies after reading “the mouse eating a cookie book”.

It was similar to this, only less cheeky.

It was nothing like this. This is his, “Put away the camera” face.

So is this.

The pouring of sugar is a very serious job. Clearly, by the look on his face, he took it as such.

I know. Sharp inhale. He’s attempting to pick that up with one hand. That heavy, full of hard to clean-up, sticky, powdery brown sugar. WITH ONE HAND! Every mom of a toddler is every so slightly terrified and wondering why I didn’t put down the camera.

I did. That’s why there’s no picture of him pouring in the brown sugar. Although, he did end up using both hands by himself. He hates messes much more than I do. I find myself regularly telling him, “It’s okay to get messy. Really, it’s fine!”

To which he regularly responds, “No. No, it’s not, mommy. I need to wash my hands.”

And that’s how I’m regularly chided by a 2 year old.

Back to the one-handed cookies.

Which he handled exceptionally well.

There was a minor hiccup, however, when he (using two hands) spilled a little flour on the kitchen island.

Feel free to sharply inhale again. He certainly did.

I said, “It’s okay.”

He said, “THE TABLE IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY SHIRT IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY HANDS ARE DIRTY OF FLOUR! OH NOOOO, MOMMYYYYYYYYYY!”

We had to take a hand wash, table wipe and shirt cleaning break.

I spent the time between the 2 year old OCD break cleaning up break and this picture trying to stave off the boy eating the dough straight out of the bowl. We had to have a talk about raw eggs and salmonella.

He didn’t want to touch dough. Ever. Again. But he did want to “wook at dee cookies in dee oven!”

And he did. A lot.

Can I ask a favor? Could we all pretend like that cookie isn’t clearly burnt? Could we pretend like I didn’t get sidetracked trying to convince that sleepy faced child up there to take a nap while he screamed no because he wanted to see the cookies again and again and again?

Thanks.

While it’s clear the rousing “BOOM! BOOM!” is what is the cause of his love for “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom“, I’m convinced that Sonlight’s suggestion to make cookies after reading “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is the main reason he fell in love with this book. We are positively loving Sonlight right now.

I did. I gave up on Letter of the Week. While it’s clearly a wonderful curriculum, the amount of prep work involved was just too much for me. I ended up skipping weeks because we couldn’t make it to the library or because I didn’t have time to get the printed stuff together. Then, once the hubs got his new job (WOOHOO!), I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the only day we had alone together, as a family, doing prep work. With a mind better suited for pre-planning, it likely wouldn’t have been much of a problem. Unfortunately, I am a lazy ass with untreated ADD my mind just doesn’t work that way. So, I gave up and went on a search for something a little less prep intensive.

I needed something “The Boy” friendly, something that wouldn’t be 10 miles above his head but also wouldn’t bore the heck out of him (harder than you’d think with a 2 year old beginning reader), and secular. Now, I have nothing against religious curriculum in general. I just want to be the one to walk that path with my son. I don’t feel comfortable having anyone or anything else take that role, in any way, shape or form. And, after a whole lot of searching, I came across Sonlight Curriculum. While it’s clearly evangelical Christian in nature, it’s also easily adapted to be secular and it’s extremely well put together. In addition, we were able to find a good combination of cores to fit The Boy’s needs. It was wonderful. So we ordered it.

Since they’re located in Littleton, the package came in exactly one day. That didn’t stop me from refreshing the FedEx tracking page over and over and over and over again while having horrible, threatening thoughts towards the driver every time I saw him drive by without stopping. I was moments away from chasing him down the street, barefoot with a 2 year old in arms, screaming like a banshee. The only thing that kept me from doing it was that I might not be able to get the package to the county jail.

I do not deal well with waiting.

The box managed to come about 2 minutes after I found the boy napping like this…by himself:

Did I mention he was napping by himself? Without me? No, “MOMMY!!! COME HOOOOOLD MEEEEE!” No, “MOOOOMMY!! COME READ ME A STOOOORY!” Instead what I got was, “MOMMY! GO GO GO! GET OUT OF HERE! I’m going to nap with my baaaaaaaabies!” While unsure whether to be offended or proud, I saw the FedEx man leaving the gate in the front yard. The quandary was quickly forgotten and replaced with, “Should I open this before he wakes up?”

Which I did. Because I’m horrible and evil and enjoy stealing the joy from my son’s life.

Give me a little credit. I only pulled out the Instruction Guide and blinded myself to everything else. Replacing the papers exactly where they were and closing the box back up.

And, thank goodness I did, otherwise I might have missed the, “A BOX FOR ME?!” moment and this:

“WOOK AH AAH DEEZ BOOKS, MOMMY!! DER MY! OOOH! WET’S WEED DIS ONE! OOH! DIS ONE! WET’S PWAY WIT DIS ONE! DIS BOOK HAVES CAPS FOR SALE! AND GOODNIGHT MOON!” We read at least one story from every book (except the 101 Bible Stories) that moment. We played with every single thing there was to play with. It was so many kinds of awesome, I can’t even begin to describe…I guess I did. Verbosely. Sorry about that.

We’re officially beginning on Monday, and if he’s even half excited as that up there? We’re going to have a really, really good week.

For the past month or so, The Boy and I have been working with the Letter of the Week online curriculum and molding it to our needs. He’s been able to recognize all the letters of the alphabet since about 15 months, shapes and numbers since about 13 months. He has such a fascination with them that I decided we may as well jump on in. I figured, if he enjoyed it and learned something from it, awesome. If not, at least we have all the stuff ready for when he is. I didn’t want to pressure him and, to be honest, I was a little reticent at the idea of beginning any of this so early. I didn’t want it to feel like school. Luckily, in the first week all my worries flew out the window.

Monday of the first week, I put up the learning poster and he nearly (or probably did) wet his diaper with excitement when we put up the cow picture and the A’s. We mixed letter of the week with the toddler suggestions and ended up with emphasis on the letter with a side-emphasis of the theme (in this case cows). We couldn’t find many of the books she suggested at our library because they were checked out or they just didn’t have them, so we improvised a little. We also got one book in Spanish (a counting book) because, as much as I should, I don’t find myself naturally speaking Spanish to him in daily conversation. I thought it may help to remind me to speak in Spanish more often and, at minimum, expose him to the language regularly. In addition to the Spanish book every week, we’ve opted to add a Spanish DVD (our library is awesome), and we introduce the week’s theme and vocab word in Spanish as well as English.

The first week was awesome. He learned that a calf was a baby cow, that cow is vaca in Spanish, and ternero is calf. He can spout off 5 words that begin with A and can tell you the short sound A makes. He has memorized “Click Clack Moo”, and the “County Fair” story from the alligator book. He also made it very clear that “Two Cool Cows” is the lamest book ever – I think he’s just too young for it but, to be honest, I didn’t like it much either. Most importantly, though, he loved having the poster up in our living room. He’d go to it daily and holler “A. Ahhhhhhh! SQUARE! COW! VACA COW! CALF! BABY COW! ONEEEEEEEEEE! ONE SQUARE! A! ALLIGATOR BEGIN A! AAAAND APPLE! AAAAAND ASTRONAUT! AAAAAND ANT!” He’d walk around with the flash cards and tell everyone and everything he came across that flash card he was holding? It said ASTRONAUT! Not to mention how excited he got when he made the square cow and got to glue it himself.

He’s excited and I’m excited that he’s excited. It’s helped keep him a little busier which has helped keep me a little saner, too. I have a feeling we’ll be revisiting all this again next year, but he’s enjoying getting a taste of it now and it’s getting me into good habits.

Week one:
Theme: Cow/Vaca
Vocab: Calf
Letter: Aa
Number: 1
Shape: Square

Books:
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin – He loved it, knows it by heart.
Two Cool Cows by Toby Speed – Really, really not a fan but I think it may have been too old for him.
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman – The end has an apple pie recipe that I thought was cool. He liked that the story sounded like one great big recipe. He loves recipes.
Meet Mr. and Mrs. Green by Keith Baker – This is a book with 3 stories. “County Fair” was Ben’s favorite and probably the most fun. 100 Pancakes is probably not the greatest story if you’re anti-causing-your-husband-a-heart-attack.
Uno, Dos, Tres: One, Two, Three by Pat Mora – Great, great illustrations. He thought it was fun.
The Alphabet Room – We have read this nearly every night for 3 weeks so far and I see no end in sight.

Projects:
Coloring pages for A, a, and cow
Made a snowstorm by tearing up a sheet of white paper then gluing it (with a glue stick he controlled) on a blue sheet of paper

Square Cow

Cow Puzzle (I didn’t print it out, I cut out the pieces willy-nilly from construction paper, then covered the pieces in contact paper.)