Starting "School"

This week was my first ever planned out "school" week for Henry. By school I mean purposeful play directed at acquiring certain skills.

I am loosely basing my plans on the ABC Jesus loves me curriculum for three year olds, with some significant differences. First of all there is no writing, because Henry is too little :) We read a Bible story (just a few verses long) and sing a song and say a memory verse every day. They also suggest books on the site, but since I didn't see the first book at the library and I'm trying to limit my book binging we just watched a reading of it on youtube. By the way, did you realize that every children's book is on youtube? Seriously, it's great. I wish I had known about it this winter when I kept losing my voice.

I also printed out some of the linked coloring pages of the creation story. At this point Henry will color over the objects on a page, but is more interested in looking at the crayons and talking about the colors. He knows red, yellow, brown, green, orange, pink, black, and white. If I ask where "the blue one is" he will point to the correct object but won't spontaneously say blue. The same with my favorite color, purple. Learning his colors happened almost as soon as I started making a habit of pointing them out to him.

I try to get him to use the triangle crayons because he is much more likely to hold these correctly, like a pencil. I don't even try to put the crayon in his hand the right way yet when he colors.

We also tried lacing beads, which he did very contentedly, although he liked playing with the wood beads by themselves more than the lacing. We played with a Mr. Potato Head and reviewed body parts, and with some Melissa and Doug animal magnets, talking about the sounds they make.

We watched Talking Words Factory whenever he begged for a "dee-dee-vee", I don't think he gets the linking of the letters yet, but he loves the video anyway.

Now that it's not so cold out we've been taking very long walks on the boardwalk together, which has helped us both so much. When I can get a little exercise I don't feel so couped up and crazy and Henry is happier when he gets to run. When we go on these walks Henry walks and runs nearly a mile of the way home. He sleeps and eats better and is so cheerful and loving when he's had a chance to work off some of his wiggles. In fact, this week my independent little guy has hugged me and his dad more than ever!

His pronunciation is getting better and he has started to say two word sentences. He still refused to eat anything that's not milk or a cracker or pretzel, but I did get him to eat some veggie baby food when his cousin was over. I'll have to remember that for the future, when Mercy gets something, Henry wants it too!

18 Months

Henry is a year and a half as of yesterday. I was planning on starting to do this ABC Jesus loves me curriculum with him starting at this age, but I think instead I might borrow some of those ideas but do more of a Montessori themed curriculum that I'm working on. Most of the plans for toddlers that I've seen focus on one letter or number at a time, doing one a week and centering the activities around that letter or number. I'm not sure that's the best plan for us, since Henry knows the letters and the numbers (non-sequentially) and the letter sounds already. We may just work on colors or shapes and I'll probably spend most of my baby-teaching energy on potty training and banishing the bottle. I love the tray-activity idea explained on this site, and I ordered some art trays to try it out. The problem for us is space - there is no way we have space to have multiple trays of activities out at a time, but maybe just one a day would be good?

Also our sand/water table came in the mail today and I can't wait to set it up. The days are getting warmer and I know Henry will love to play outside more!

Sleeping

We were playing a game with Henry where we pretended to sleep, (closed our eyes and made snoring sounds), until he would say "wake up" or "good morning", then we would pretend to wake up. Henry decided to play too and laid down. He made snoring sounds... with his eyes wide open! He also pretended to be upset when we "woke him up."

18 Month (approximately) check up

23.5 lbs (10th-25th percentile)
34 inches (90th-95th percentile)
Never cries for shots, just complains.
Dr. yelled at me about his bottle.

Henry Counts

Wan. Dos. Tree.

New Supplies!

My mom and sister gave me some cash in lieu of Easter candy this year, which made my week. After paying for a load of groceries and filling up the car with gas, I headed to Michael's and the dollar store and dropped a hundred bucks on cool stuff for Henry. We got a ton of craft supplies that I'm trying to find places for right now. Henry has a new favorite word: "beat" for paint.

The Words He Says

Here are all that I can think of at the moment:
Mama (for his mom and his grandma)
Daddy
Aunt Sarah
Mike
Baby (to refer to his cousin, any kid, or his yogurt, which has a baby on the package)
Bop (Grandpa)
Amy (for Trouwbottom, after she leaves he will point to where she was or the toys they played with and repeat her name, like he's asking when she'll come back)
Hat
Light
Ball
More
Milk
Bar (cereal bar)
Fry
Elmo
Toooo-toooo (train noise when he sees Thomas the train)
Emmy (for Emily the train)
Abby
A-Z (but says "ess" for C, and makes the sounds instead of saying the name for some)
1-9
Brown
Yellow
Pink
Purple
Windy
Rain
Duck ("Duts")
Hoop (For basketball hoop)
Bob (for veggie tales)
Oval
Diamond
Boat
Truck
Car
Remote
Robot
Dog
Woof
Sheep
Baa
Owl
Pig
Lion
Frog
Cup
Pop (for Hop on Pop, and when he sees a lolly pop)
Cat ("at") (for cats and for Cat in the Hat)
BUG (his favorite right now)
Oh No
No
Yeah
Man (like "oh man...")
Uh-Oh
Up (also uses for open)
Down (also uses for close)
Walk (to go outside)
Book
Boom (for purposely falling down)
Bunny (actually says money)
Ba-Ba (hopefully a thing of the past soon)
Nose
Eye
Eyebrow
Elbow
Knee
Mouth
Brush

These are the ones he uses consistently right now, although he recognizes many more. If you show him a picture and ask him to point out the _________, he can easily do so.