Toys Around the House - Hangers

While packing up some of the things in my closet, I discovered a new "toy" for Xander.  He is fascinated by hangers.  The loop together, you can bag them, throw them, etc.  

Pumpkin Patch

This month I took Xander to the pumpkin patch.  I love the local one because they have so much for the kids to do.  Xander got to experience many firsts on our outing!

We fed some goats.  He was not all too convinced that he enjoyed the experience.  Maybe because the goats were eating and he wasn't.

He got his face painted for the first time.  You can see how well that went over.  It only took about 30 seconds, but the sound of the air brush really freaked him out.

We went on a barrel ride, which he thought was fun.

He also got to go in a bounce house, an inflated castle, on wiggle racers, and in a corn maze.  No pictures of those, sorry.

This is his first pumpkin!  I can't decide whether to let him paint  it or to carve it to look like his teeth.

A Boy and His Ball Pit

As the weather started turning cooler, I decided to re-purpose Xander's inflatable swimming pool.  I bought a bag of 100 plastic balls and created an easy ball pit.  Since the balls didn't really fill the pool, I may eventually need to buy a second set of balls.

At first he was skeptical.  He would play with the balls only from the outside, but did not enjoy being put in it.  Then he decided being in it was okay, but struggled to crawl out.  Now, he is in an out like a pro.  He LOVES it.  He has learned to throw them, so I end up with balls everywhere.  He also says "bah" for ball.  We're using them to learn colors.  Sometimes he will give me the color I ask for, but we're still working on it.

Xander has also decided that balls make good decorations.  I constantly find them on shelves, in drawers, etc.  Have I mentioned that I keep the toilet lid down?

Coming Back!

First of all, my apologies!  I know I haven't been doing much on here in a while.  I started a new job with longer hours and Xander and I needed some time to adjust our schedule a bit.  I know we still have some adjustments to make, plus we are moving in less than 5 weeks, so I still probably won't be updating as much as I would like, but please bear with me.  Eventually we will be settled!

Anyway, now that we are in our new routine, we have started slowly doing lessons again.  I am still rotating Xander's Baby Trays and he spends a lot of time with the more educational toys that I put on them.  Since we don't get home until about 3:30 and Xander is currently refusing his afternoon nap, we have some VERY cranky evenings.  Because of this, we are really only doing one set of word flash cards a day.  I am hoping that if we can adjust his nap at day care a bit, we can go back to more flash cards a day again.  We are also only doing LR and LM once a day right now.  Once again, I would like to get back up to two, if he can get over the crabbiness in the evenings.  Because we are doing so few flash cards, I have been trying to make sure we are reading extra books that have big fonts.  With a little boy who LOVES his books, and will often get you to reread the same one multiple times (even without words he can be incredibly clear in communicating what he wants), reading more books isn't too hard.

We also still watch one of his movies every day.  The newest addition to our collection is the second Baby Signing Time, which he really likes.  Now that he is getting closer to being able to gesture, I need to do better about reinforcing his signs!

Numerals

While I am wrapping up my old job and getting ready to start the new job, we have been on a bit of hiatus.  The difficult shifts I have been working now make it hard to be consistent.  My plan is to get into a good schedule once I start the new job so that we can be consistent with our lessons.  We are still reading plenty of books and watching our educational DVDs.  However, while we aren't currently doing lessons, I have still been working on some materials.

I have decided it is time to start working on numerals.  I have been teaching Xander numbers since he was about 3 months old, but I purposefully avoided showing him numerals.  Now I would like to create the association.

So far we have only really done his Little Math program a week or so ago, which has a lessons showing both the numeral and the quantity.

I also dug out his old Doman style dot card.  I made numeral cards to go with them.

I found this great numbers matching game for a quarter at a garage sale.  It has the numeral as well as a corresponding card with that number of objects. 

I picked up a number and letter bath set and magnetic number set.  I dug out an old deck of cards, although I realize it will only be good for numbers 2-10.  I also made him an English and Spanish numeral card set, which can be found in the download section.

10 Month Reflections

My baby is 10 months now, almost 10 and a half months!  Recently, while I watch him play, I am constantly struck by what a little person he is!  He has his own little personality, his own likes and dislikes, his own habits.  It is so hard to believe that he is the same little boy I brought home from the hospital!  I am so scared of forgetting his little quirks and habits as he develops new ones, so I figured I would get some written down.

Right now his favorite song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, although I will usually get a huge smile out of the Itsy Bitsy Spider (he loves the hand gestures).  He loves to play with the buttons on the tv, remote, or phone.  Sometimes he will be watching one of his shows and turn the tv off on himself by accident.  While he does mind pretty well for his age, he hates being scolded.  He does the whole lower lip and alligator tears bit.

Xander LOVES his books.  He has two shelves of board books within easy access.  At least once or twice a day he will go over to them and pull down many of them.  He will spend a good 15-20 minutes just looking at them himself.  He has trouble opening the pages, so will repeatedly drop them until they fall open, and he can look at the pages.  His favorite is Noisy Farm, which he gets out the most often and gets the most excited for me to read to him.  He also really likes his sight words books, although I don't let him look at them alone since they have paper pages.

Xander has begun "sorting."  He likes to put toys on the shelves of the entertainment center.  He also pulls out my storage bins and puts random toys in.  One of the bins in his room has a slot for a handle and I found him stuffing number matching cards in it.  I find it so random and funny that he would find it amusing to redecorate for me.  It has become a challenge for me to locate everything and put it back in its proper place at the end of the night.

In the past couple of weeks he has developed another little quirk.  He will be playing, crawling, pulling himself along the couch, then pause, and lay his head down.  He rests his head for 2-3 seconds with a big grin on his face, then resumes going wherever it is he is going, then repeats.  I don't know if he is feeling the different surfaces with his face, or what.  Regardless, it is adorable to watch.

What is even more endearing, is I think Xander has started kissing.  He will be sitting on my lap or in my arms and he'll push his face up against my cheek (usually with an open mouth and lots of drool).  He will hold it there for a few seconds, then pull away.  The only thing I can think is that I kiss his cheeks constantly (they're so round and soft, can you blame me?) that he is mimicking me.

I am sure there are a dozen more things I should record so that I don't forget, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Clapping

I wrote how Xander had learned to wave and that we were working on clapping.  It didn't take long at all!  Last Wednesday he mastered it!  What I love is that any time I say "good job" he claps for himself.  He also claps when we finish flash cards and when he took a few steps on his walking toy.  I guess I hadn't realized that I always clapped for him in those situations.  :)  Now I need to find something new to work on.  Maybe pointing or a high five?