Cheezus Songs.

Sing A Longs:  From Grandma

Love you Grandma "Walletta!"
Thanks for teaching my Dalee these songs so he can teach them to me too.
I love my "Cheezus" Songs...
~ Zozie.


Song#1
Cheezus says love everyone,
treat them kindly too.
When your heart is filled with love,
others will love YOU.  
(Try not to point to yourself as the video demonstrates:)
Song#2
I want to be kind to everyone,
for that is right you see...
So I say to myself,
remember this....
"Kindness begins with ME."
Song#3
Cheezus once was a little child,
a little child like me...
He was pure and meek and mild,
like a little child should be.
Oh, little children...
let's you and I....
try to be like him....
try, try, try.
Song#2 (Reprise)
I want to be kind to everyone,
for that is right you see...
So I say to myself,
remember this....
"Kindness begins with ME."

Plate Settings.

The breakfast bell rang early this morning...
We were pleasantly surprised by this lovely 3 person setting complete with:  plate, fork, spoon, napkin, and juice glass.  He got excited to try out the new cork mats from Ikea.
Apparently, we even got a complementary visit from Zozies favorite stuffies as VIP guests!
Now if only we can train him to whip up that nice HOT 3 course breakfast to be served on this nice setting?
I'll get workin' on that one.

Oh, Oh, Oh...

It's Halloween again.
We opted for the faster Marker Jack-O-Lantern face this year!
Zozie liked that he could do multiple versions each day of the week...
Draw, put out on porch.  Next day, wipe clean (washable markers), draw another face, put out on porch.
Rains.  Oops.
Mama, my pumpkin face is melted!
It's ok, now we can draw AGAIN, right?

At school, there was the annual "Halloween Fashion Show Extravaganza".
And indeed it was.
Kids in fantastic costumes, having a dance party to the tunes of KATY PERRY's Fireworks.

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine.
Just own the night, like the 4th of July.
(but in October).
Oh, oh, oh...

Zozie wanted to be a Zoo elephant, and me to be his Zookeeper.  Not exactly sure what the difference is between a "Zoo elephant" vs. just an "elephant" for costuming purposes?  Pulling my safari shirt tight across my near 4month pooch belly, we made our debut that morning, bopping along.

In the evening, there's no getting away from the Trick-or-Treating this year.
We went along one block and collected the treats, then came home to do the best part of the evening...
The What will you pick? Game.

So what IS the What will you pick? Game, you ask?
The rules are simple.
Each person gets a tupperware bowl.
In our case, we had 3 people. (Zozie, Mama, Dalee).

We place the pile o' goodies in the middle.
Then we go around in a circle, asking "What will you pick? , taking turns to place one piece of treat in our bowl.  Keep going till the stash is gone.
We place the lid on our tupperware and each have our own bowl of treats.

Best part of the game for mama & dalee?
That Zozie just has 1/3 of all he collected.
(Shhhhh.....)

I'm STUCK!!!

Mama...I'm STUCK!!!
We woke from a cry for help early this morning....
"Come to our room Zozie, what's the matter???"
We see this.
His hand, literally, CAUGHT IN A COOKIE JAR.
The face says it all.  Altho the grip was still pretty tight.
Lesson learned.
Umm...We think.

Poking Fun!

Presentation:  Shape Tracing.

 "I want to write smooth letters, mama..."
Zozie has been asking to write alot recently.
He's been working on his name,  but at 3.5, he often does "love letters" where he's is pretending to write sentences in paragraph form and give them to me all folded up.  The sentences are just loops and squiggles, but they connect, like cursive letters, or in his words, "smooth".  "That's E, mama, look..."as he makes a small loop in one of his sentences.

Montessori starts toddlers with lower case cursive letters when introducing the alphabet.  What?  None of this ALL CAPITAL learning in all the kids toys, books, and teaching props sold in stores?  What's up with that? 

NOPE.  Apparently, lower case cursive is considered the natural "next step" to a child drawing loops and circles.  Once introduced, that actually made complete sense to me.  Just think of your 3 yr old drawing pictures.  How hard is it for him to make a solid straight line, let alone a series of straight lines that connect in a certain sequence (Print Capitals).  Curves and loops are much easier for little hands.  Also, grammatically, we don't write in all caps.  Caps only begin a sentence and lower case letters are used 90+% of the time. 

Now to the shape "poking".  Tracing is the foundation on which Montessori builds writing skills.  When a child shows interest in writing, they are asked to start with the METAL INSERTS.  This repetition of tracing different shapes with a pencil builds their coordination and pencil grip, skills they need to master in order to move on to writing.

At the LAB, I was in need of a FAST new home tool, and the metal inserts were much too expensive to own.  So this one is really simple, only requiring some paper and a marker.  It builds on the idea of tracing shapes, so we used various geometric shapes, outlined by dots, and we asked Zo to hand-poke the dots for tracing purposes.  Sounds basic and simple, but the kids really dig it.  Now run along and go do some poking-fun of your own!

The Goal
To build hand eye coordination & focus as foundation to start writing

The Set Up
1)  Cut scraps of paper
2)  Markers to draw geometric shapes and outline each shape with dots.  Make the dots more dense if child is older, looser if child is younger.
3)  Sharpened Pencil
4)  Small hand towel

The Presentation
1)  Bring tray to the table
2)  Select one shape to work on
3)  Lay the shape on the folded towel to create a soft surface for poking
4)  Take the sharpened pencil in one hand and come down firmly on one of the dots, piercing the paper
5)  Continue to trace along the shape until all dots have been pierced.
6)  Ask child to clip up their finished shapes on a ribbon (Our own addition to work clipping pincher skill and just an opportunity for the child to have a "finish" to the routine in displaying his work)

 

Some poking fun at home:

 

 

Puleta Ab-lay!

Ever wonder what a Chinese speaking American toddler sounds like reading Spanish?
 
We were inspired by one of our Blog Followers who is a fluent native Spanish speaker teaching her daughter Chinese in their own homeschool.  Since Dalee can speak Spanish, we thought to read a few Dora stories to Zozie, just to hear his "Spanese" accent!

Open the door, shouts Dora.
Puleta Ab-lay, screams Zozie.
(snicker, snicker...squeeks mama & dalee.)

BooBoo Glue.

 

For whatever reason, my toddler LOVES band-aids.

They make everything better... kinda like ketchup. (For him).

They come in lots of fun shapes, sizes, and patterns.

We like sticking to the plain old boring beige, but sometimes "shake it up" with bright solid colors like zesty orange, mint green, and hot yellow.  

(Wait, is that a color?)

We added this "First Aid" cup to his own VANITY STATION in the bathroom.

He goes through ALOT of band-aids, or "OK-Bands" (Pronounced "OKay-Bahn" in Japanese/Taiwanese) whenever there's an ou-wee.  

But what's the Secret Sauce?  The BooBoo Glue.

Yes, that's right.  His own little antibiotic cream dispenser.  

To Zo, the "Glue" is the key to success in healing everything.  

He applies the glue to all wounds, even ones that don't break skin.  I tried stopping him before, but it's just easier to not most times.  Alittle extra glue never hurt anyone.

On this day though, Zozie came home with a bad sandal blister on the side of his foot.  We've been gently nursing this tiny wound for the past day or two.  He changes his own dressing and likes to give himself fresh OK-bands...until he's, well, OK!  And when he's OK, I'm OK.

Here's a little clip of him playing paramedic to himself: