my preschooler

This morning I woke up to my wee man "reading" his books in bed. Slowly pronouncing each letter and trying to form the words.

My wee man has hit a serious learning curve. I'll be honest I might be a tad excited and proud watching it all happen. I also might be going a tad overboard with encouraging it as much as I can. To be honest though he just seems to be just as excited and eager about it all without us. It's all started with his introduction to jolly phonics. He brings home a letter each week and then we spend a couple minutes each day talking about it. Here is where I go overboard and get crafty with it too. Nothing like googling a letter each week to find out what they are for. 

After a twitter conversation with some teachers (who are great parents who blog) we were re introduced to the alphablocks. It certainly eases the guilt a little bit when I stick him in front of the TV and I have been saved from Umizumi. ABC is definitely the wee man's favourite song now as well as the jolly phonics song for each letter. He loves to write now too, focusing hard and following the dots. Then it seems to have spilled over into his drawing and colouring too. He certainly tries a bit harder now to stay in the lines. We have distinguishing bodily features now for the face arms and legs and he'll even give you a bit of hair. He drew his first bus as a rectangle and wheels.

Our craft activities are a lot more focused and we have an impressive collection of monsters and fish. Our key craft materials now are glitter and glue and googly eyes. Having a wooden floor and a wipeable plastic tablecloth makes coping with the mess a lot easier. I had to restock his craft box properly with card, paper plates and coloured tissue paper. Recycling in this household has taken on a whole new meaning. Admittedly I still like just giving him some materials and leaving him to his imagination and I love hearing all about what he is creating.

Our Salad Spinner Paintings

My wee man really loves painting. It's turning into an activity that can occupy him a whole morning. I am really trying my best these days to make the most of his eagerness to explore different materials and see "how you do?" What a simple and great idea I found on my favourite spot the Imagination Tree. All it involves is a salad spinner and some paint. It's a great way for him to keep exploring different shapes and this time he even helped me cut them out. Then we just used blue tack to hold the shape in place. The wee man maybe got a bit over zealous in the amount of paint he squeezed into the salad spinner but all part of the fun. A great tip is to try and keep the blobs of paint in the middle and after a spin once you can add more blobs to the same shape if you want to fill out with some more colour. For the last one we used some shiny paper which added great effect too and the paint seemed to slide nicely across it. Of course I'm not sure what made him think about it but he also asked to add some glitter. All I can say is Damien Hirst eat your heart out!

Igniting the imagination

I'll admit that arts and crafts scared the hell out of me. It was something for nursery. I was also though secretly a bit envious of artsy craftsy blogs and all the amazing things they were doing with their wee ones. It became a bit obvious that it would be a great way to occupy the wee man if ever we were stuck inside on a rainy day. So I gave in and bought some paints and some brushes. I quickly realised though that arts and crafts with my wee man in the beginning was more about the process than the outcome. Provide him with some materials and just leave him to it. Embrace the mess and remember that getting clean is part of the fun too.

As he gets older though and his imagination grows so does his creative ability it seems. Our arts and crafts box has expanded and I find myself saving toilet rolls, bubble wrap and cardboard boxes. I actually bought some glitter, different types of materials and cards, googly eyes and pipe cleaners. It's still a lot about not worrying at what it looks like in the end but we understand now that cotton balls can be clouds or sheep, that we can cut out different shapes and make patterns with them on the paper. We can spend a whole morning just creating and he enjoys changing the materials we are using. I used a very simple and fab idea from The Imagination tree using cardboard tubes to make shapes for printing. 

I have been inspired by Red Ted Art to experiment with different materials and we painted on bubble wrap and used that for printing as well. I was hoping to get him to make the prints into some trees but he was not playing ball.

 We created scenes with our stencils and foam sheets. We ended up finding the glitter and cutting out shapes to decorate. It was a mad morning of arts and crafts. So simple to ignite their imagination really.

Home made

What will I remember about my wee man having the chicken pox? Well it came on very suddenly. He gave no clues with any flu like symptoms. I was supposed to be having a relaxing day off work but instead was collecting my son from nursery with suspicious spots. They had a little break out and this time round it was not missing us out. Stuck in a little room away from the other patients at the surgery waiting patiently for the doctor only to confirm what I really already knew. As the doctor explained rightly so they come out in "crops". After two days new ones still seem to be raring their little blister heads. The itching seems to come a little after. "I'm not scratching mummy I'm just feeling them". The wee man copes pretty well with the symptoms. We have a few moments of "Ouchy, ouchy Mummy" but the aqueous calamine lotion and piriton seem to be keeping it mostly under control. 

What will I remember about my wee man having chicken pox? Being stuck at home inside. "when the spots go away I can go outside?" YES! The cavalry arrive today...Nonna. That means at least I can get out, back to work on Monday, as hubby travels. The first two days involved a fine balance between watching TV and other fun activities. Then of course making a road/train track. Then adding a tunnel. Then eventually adding an unnecessary diversion of a bridge. I'm not sure who it entertained more me or my wee man!