Blueberry Unit Study

So it turns out that if you borrow every book you can with the word "blueberry" in the title, you wind up with a pretty well-rounded blueberry unit study. This is what we've been doing for the past few weeks. Blueberries are in season, and we planned a trip with friends to go blueberry picking. So I hit the library. There were several books that weren't favorites for one reason or another. Here are the ones that stuck:

Blueberries for Sal. A classic. But I guess I either didn't read this one as a kid, or I have a short memory, because I hadn't realized that Sal is a little girl, not a boy! Excellent, since I have a girl. Sal tromps around blueberry picking in overalls, with no girly pretensions like hair bows. In terms of fitting into the unit, this book is literature, with opportunity to discuss science (how people and animals save food/fat for the winter). There's also material there for social studies (family relationships) and art. I know Blueberries for Sal is a Before Five in a Row book. My copy of BFIAR is still packed away in a box somewhere though. (Um, yeah it was over a year ago that we moved). Anyway, you can't "do blueberries" without this book.

Peter in Blueberry Land is your Scandinavian, Waldorf-y fairy tale, and it's delightful. There is so much to talk about on each page. We enjoyed this book purely for the literature, but you could launch into math discussions about relative size, as protagonist Peter is shrunk down to the size of the fairies in the story and sees nature from that perspective. There are also obvious science tie-ins. I didn't go there this time, since I'm doing this unit with a very young child who is not yet 3.

Blueberries Grow on a Bush by Mari Schuh. Ladybug has surprised me before by enjoying nonfiction, and this one was no exception. It's straight science, the life cycle of the blueberry bush, including pollination and winter dormancy. The photographs are simple and beautiful. There's very little text on each page, making this great for a toddler. Bug chose to read it several times. 
 
One Little Blueberry is a simple counting book. I almost disregarded it when I saw what it was, but I'm glad I didn't because my daughter loves it. I am less than charmed by one blueberry, two red ants, three ladybugs, etc...But that doesn't mean Ladybug won't enjoy it. What saves this book from being an ordinary counting book is the little plot: the one blueberry stays in the story for the whole book, as the increasing insects chase it, all hoping to get a snack. Insects are a nice tie-in for this unit, and my Ladybug (led by her Daddy) wound up observing a wide variety of insects on our actual blueberry picking trip, including a very cool blue dragonfly. For unit purposes, check off math. We counted bugs, and Ladybug read me the numbers on each page. 

Blueberry Mouse is just plain cute. It's a rhyming story of a mouse who lives in a blueberry pie, and tells how she eats up her delicious house. For our purposes, I'm counting it as language/poetry because of the rhyming. You could take a social studies angle that talks about the houses we live in, friends, and neighborhoods. I didn't feel compelled to analyze this book, so we just enjoyed reading it. 

To me, something just as important as the unit is how it came about. My daughter is young, and I'm still feeling out our homeschooling style. Yes, I borrowed all the books and decided we could have fun learning about blueberries in a way that enriched our blueberry picking day trip. That's me planning and directing. But I borrowed a ton more books than we actually read, and I took her lead on what to really focus on. One Little Blueberry is a good example: I almost left it at the library, but I saw how Ladybug liked it, so I brought it home. And it really filled out the math part of the unit. The unit was gentle, always fun and always following Ladybug's interests. And that's the child-led part of joyful learning that is so important to me. 

Blueberry picking is my new favorite summer tradition. There are no thorns (raspberries) and no stooping over (strawberries). I highly recommend it!

Sunflowers for Summer

Last month we planted a pot of sunflower seeds, and they have since sprouted into seedlings. Ladybug has her own watering can, and we head out frequently to water them, which she refers to as flowers eating water. From the day I bought the flower seeds, I have been super excited about this project. So I'm relieved that Bug is having fun with it too.

Of course, we've been reading books about sunflowers too. Life As a Sunflower was a big hit last month. Nice photography and simple text, so that it's engaging even though it's nonfiction. Then this weekend I bought To Be Like the Sun, and I'm just in love with it. Ladybug likes it too and requested three consecutive readings today. It seems to be art meets poetry meets science meets spirituality. The text is written as a little girl addressing the sunflower seed that she is planting. She notes the white stripes on the gray seed, then tells the sunflower that although she digs the hole, the seed does the real work, sunflower work, following instructions written on its heart. Lovely.

The story takes us through the seasons, and though the words are few, each page is so rich. The girl-narrator observes that the flower bud is like hands clasped around a treasure. Ladybug and I play a hand game, making tight fists like flower buds that we open up like a blooming flower. As the flower grows, the text names the parts of the plant in a simple poetic rhythm. It encourages artistic and scientific appreciation without being didactic. Ladybug has zeroed in on the word stem when we read this page. When fall comes, leaves swirl and cardinals flock to the bird feeder stocked with sunflower seeds. So Bug talks about how cardinals love to eat sunflower seeds, and she can eat sunflower seeds too. The story ends in winter, with the little girl reflecting on the tiny seed, and how hard it worked to be like the sun. Even the end pages are fun, covered in a design of scattered sunflower seeds. Bug chose to count these, so now we've integrated math into our delightful book. I guess it has everything!

Real Counting and Potato Chip Subtraction

Miss Bug has been counting (roughly to 11) for a while now, in that memorized way that children do, without reference to what the numbers mean. More recently, I saw her move to the stage where she properly identified two things. She will carefully arrange her fingers so she's holding up two on each hand, which most adults read as four, but she has her own math language right now. Then, she carefully points to the pair of objects and declares, "Two things! It is two." There was one, two, and many.

Then last week she got to three. She carefully points to each of the three buttons on my shirt, properly counting them and declaring the sum of three. I believe experts say she doesn't fully understand the abstract concept of counting, and believes that each object is being named one, two or three. Whatever is going on, it's a developmental change from her previous stage. Yesterday she counted a row of 7 dots, and though she counted "wrong" because she missed some and concluded that the total was 5, it sure looked like like she understood the task she was trying to tackle. This is all very interesting to observe, and fun to see how it happens without concerted instruction. (However, there's tons of PBS and counting books in our home, plus some nuclear physics for good measure.)

Here's another "how it happened" story. Subtraction: 
We ordered Panera for dinner, which comes with a yummy bag of bad-for-you potato chips as a side. Ladybug saw Daddy's bag of chips and wanted to dig in. Wanting to be fair, yet teach moderation, I said, "How about three chips? You can have three." And I counted them out for her very dramatically. She was appeased (thank god, cause tantrums suck). And she really relished those chips, and talked about how there were three of them. Then, about ten minutes later, she surprised me by announcing, "Now Lady has two chips!" And it was so. Three chips, toddler eats one, equals two chips. So I parroted this back to her, validating her claim. Later, this continued with, "Now Lady has one chip. She does have one chip." 

Although she wasn't watching this video  the day of the potato chip subtraction, I suspect she took her cue from this song, "Elmo's Ducks" where Elmo counts down from four ducks to none. I totally let her watch YouTube videos as a guilty pleasure in the late afternoons, or when I'm trying to have a conversation that isn't interrupted by me being climbed on. So here we are, that's the story of how Ladybug started to subtract.

Summer Begins

This is one of my favorite pictures from this week. The weather got hot just in time for the beginning of June, and we played at the sprinkler in one of the local parks.

In The Messy Space

My free time has been filled with reading books about Sudbury Valley School, which is one of many democratic schools like the one I'm working to start. More personally, I've been faced with the challenges of a  2 1/2 year old who whines and cries for me if anyone else so much as looks at her. Ladybug is sensitive, but this has been a new level of needy, and it's been going on for about two months now. My strategy of leaving the house in the mornings for outings and play dates has been shot to hell, because Ladybug screams when she sees other children. I know it's a phase. This week, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel as her behavior mellowed.

I mention my struggles with Bug's behavior because it's nearly impossible to study an educational philosophy that espouses hands off, child-led learning and not wonder if you're being overly-directive as a parent. Is that why she's so upset lately? I've been pushing her? (Nope. It's just a phase.) I try so hard to be relaxed with her. As my blog description attests, I really believe that it's best to follow her lead.

Planning a radical free school while struggling to teach your toddler to control herself is a recipe for self-doubt. I guess parenting is a recipe for self-doubt, if I'm honest. And that's just the point, isn't it. Parenting isn't the same as running a school. There's some overlap in skills, undoubtedly. Legally speaking, schools act in loco parentis, "in place of the parent." All schools have to consider the role of the parents, and the best ones find a good way to keep the parents involved.

Schools must find the right balance of parental involvement, just like parents are constantly walking the line between enforcing rules and letting children grow more independent. It's not a smooth process. Before you have kids, you might decide that you will let your children do things for themselves, even though it will take longer, so that they can learn. Great! Simple, right? Well, what about the things they want to do but physically cannot? And they insist, and you let them, so they struggle and get all mad as they fail. And this process is healthy and good, but your blood pressure is rising because your kid is melting down and screaming her scream that has specially evolved to make you lose it, and you're already late for wherever you're going. Then you wonder if you wouldn't have done better to skip the struggle this time.

As I reread this meandering post, the themes I see are doing your best while feeling uncertain, learning by making mistakes, and struggling with the simplicity of principles versus the mess that is reality. Learning isn't a linear process that can be cleanly plotted out by a textbook publisher or parenting manual. Instead, in a democratic free school or a toddler homeschool, there will be a messy struggle to grow. It's the space for struggle, the time to run behind schedule, that leads to authentic growth. In the messy space, we and our children find ourselves.

My First Homeschool Planner

Yesterday I had a great day for homeschool planning. I visited the local garden center and came home with a large planter and a packet of sunflower seeds. I just need to buy enough potting soil, and we'll be able to plant flowers together. I am very excited about this project!

After the garden center, I made a quick stop at Target and bought my very first homeschool planner. It's a typical student planner with monthly and weekly layout pages. It's pretty too, with a trendy blue and green chrysanthemum pattern on the cover. Lately I've had too many ideas for just the sticky note program on my smartphone. And given the way that our homeschool revolves around the seasons, I like being able to plan with a calendar in front of me.

I mostly want to use my "planner" as a record book, to write down after the fact what we did on a given day. It gives me another way to reflect, come up with more ideas, and correct imbalances. I can see, for example, if it's been way too long since we got to the playground. Although I have gotten plenty of things for Ladybug's education lately (like sunflower seeds), I kept coming back to the idea of a set of matching cards/tiles to play memory. I couldn't figure out why my brain refused to let go of this idea, or leave it for another time. Then, after jotting notes in the planner, I realized that the memory game is the next math activity, and there hasn't been much new in that subject lately. So I quit fussing over it and just bought the game. The planner helps me make decisions and clarify my thinking.

Something about having this first planning book, which begins its dated pages July 2013, makes me feel like I just officially signed up to homeschool preschool. 2.9 - 3 seems to be a magic age for preschool entry, as well as readiness for so many fun activities it's overwhelming. I think that's why I intuitively reached for my planning book around now. There's so much to choose from, yet some days are filled with illness, bad weather, and tons of TV. When I get down about these times, it really helps my mood to have a record of the big picture, in brief notes about how we spent our time.

The cover of the planner reads "2013 // 2014," and with those tiny dates it creates a school year. A host of holidays, Ladybug's 3rd birthday, rotating seasons that will wind up somewhere in summer 2014. However we fill the time, it will be her first year of preschool, and -- it's official -- we're doing it together at home.

Loose Tooth T

I read a great blog post today about the growing movement of people who are homeschooling their preschoolers. The emphasis of the post is that young children learn best through play, and we adults would do well to let them do it. No need for flashcards, scripted lesson plans, or worksheets. There can be a lot of pressure to do early academics, and it can be hard for geeky parents like me to resist it. So I welcome any reminder that play, and usually free play, is the best way for young children to learn about their world.

I focus on setting up our home so that it is a rich environment (like having a special art corner). We read, we play games, we go out in the world. We listen to songs and dance around. We even watch TV sometimes (gasp! a perfect mom "no-no"). I do all these things, but because of what I know about the importance of free play and the lure of early academics, I avoid lessons and direct instruction.

I am starting to see how fun it is to watch my daughter learn academic type things in her own time, as a natural corollary to the way we spend our day. For example, we have been reading abridged Winnie the Pooh stories, which are divided into tiny "chapters." Of course, each chapter is numbered. Bug is starting to make a game of talking about and identifying the number at the beginning of each chapter. Cool! I wasn't even thinking of that as a "learning opportunity," which is what helps to keep it fun and keep me relaxed. If I'm not counting on her to Learn Something, I'm not going to be pushy or slightly tense. I can focus on our relationship and her needs. All this is part of my grand desire to let learning be fun. Not make it fun. It already is fun, when you stay out of the way. Let it be.

Approaching learning this way, I am collecting little "how it happened" stories. Here's how letter recognition happened for Ladybug:

Our fridge, with "Chicka Chicka" magnets

Over Christmas, Ladybug and Daddy took a trip together, and on that trip Daddy bought the classic book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. It's a rhyming alphabet book where the letters each climb a tree, fall down in a crazy pile, and one by one climb up again. The letters are distinguished by the various bumps and bruises they suffer when they tumble out of the tree. Ladybug's favorite letter is "loose tooth t." For a while, Daddy read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom every night, and the two of them played seek and find the letter. Suddenly, when I was reading various other books to Bug during the day, she was captivated by the presence of loose tooth t on many pages. A few times she even held down a page I was trying to turn, so she could point out and just ponder the fact that loose tooth t was in this book too. I felt like I was revealing an ancient secret when I said, "You'll start to see that all the letters are in all the books!" I guess it is an ancient secret, but we'll get to the Phoenicians later.

One day in particular, Ladybug was captivate by the word "OUT" written in large type. It was in a book about a bat (a follow up since she so loved Stellaluna). She kept flipping back to the "out" page and recognizing each of the letters, and saying "out" and not really reading, but still taking some step towards understanding that the story was coming from this code. What's memorable to me is her intensity. She had a glimpse of what that "out" word stood for and was so determined to study it more, to understand. I told my husband that I was glad he was there that day to see it happen, because I would have thought I was making it up otherwise.

Teaching reading can invoke so much stress. Should you take a phonics or whole-language approach? Do you need to be an expert to teach it? What if you mess it up? In all the homeschooling guides I read, there is a special section devoted to easing parents' worries about READING. I have always believed that I wouldn't need to worry about this too much, that the child of two bookworm parents who is lovingly read to will also blossom into reading. Am I excited by these first little signs? Of course. But I promise, at least for now: no flash cards, no scripted lesson plans, no worksheets.

The Art Area

I finally got a corner of our basement cleared out and set up to be an art corner. Here are my before and after pics:

I owe a big thank you to my husband for assembling the little table and chairs while I was away at a conference. Ladybug is very excited about her art corner, and I'm very excited to have a relaxing art space that doesn't need to stay perfectly clean.

This morning we did another project from First Art, making homemade puffy paint and squeezing it from a squeeze bottle. I donated one of my icing flood bottles to this cause, chopping off the tip for easier paint flow.

Ladybug can still be very fussy and sensitive during her art time. I'm thinking that I've introduced a lot of new art projects (not to mention the new art corner), and it's time now for some repetition. For my sake, I'm going to list what we've done so far so that I can refer back to it and repeat projects:

• Paper Stain Painting (Supposed to paint with wet crepe paper and the ink will bleed. Didn't work for us.)
• Color Mixing (tempera, brushes, cotton balls)
• Stretchy Dough
• Foil Squeezing
• Easy Big Beads
• Making Marks
• The Need to Squeeze (that was this morning's puffy paint)
• Touch and Pour Explore
• Simply Stickers
• Early Scissors Experiences (Stage 2: Yarn Factory)
• Busy Printing (boy was she crabby about this one. I don't think the print pads were to her liking.)

 

Mixing Colors

The paint and brushes arrived last night, so today Ladybug finally got to paint. Wow, the smell of tempera paint takes me right back to my elementary school art room, and our kind art teacher, Mrs. Kerr.

I don't know why I didn't learn from my mistake yesterday, but after letting Bug play in the paint for a while, I couldn't resist putting brush to paper. Instantly, same effect as last night. "Ladybug need to paint! Need to paaaaaint!" Oh jeeze. I guess there won't be any side-by-side art. I was able to calm her after a while by throwing away the paper I had painted on (just squiggles this time, no "advanced" flowers), and by refilling her paint cups.

Looking at all this fun art stuff and not getting to do any myself makes me think I need to have my own art time during Bug's quiet time. Maybe I will paint something to decorate my empty walls.

After cleanup (which definitely involved the bathtub), we read The Color Kittens. That one has long been a favorite, but it's a must read on paint day!

Making Marks on Aluminum Foil

Tonight's art time was with markers and aluminum foil. This comes out pretty, and it was fun to watch. Then Ladybug started playing in the bucket of soapy water, and I idly doodled a flower on the foil. Well, that was a mistake! Bug flipped out because she wanted to draw a flower and she can only make scribbles. This was a source of intense frustration. She kept trying valiantly, then insisted that I hold her hand and guide her in drawing a flower. So I did, but the frustration was not over.

The art book I'm using did mention not to create samples for children to imitate. And to just sit back and watch their process. I was on board with all of this! Guess I will remember to stay out of her process!

Stretchy Dough

Ladybug has caught on to the fact that fun things happen when she brings me the art book. When I first bought it home from the library on Saturday, she zeroed in on the drawings of paintbrushes and very specifically requested paint. I told her I would buy her paint and brushes. Today she brought me the book again, looked at me and said, "Mama gonna get you a paintbrush." She was mostly satisfied when I told her I had ordered the paint and it would get here tomorrow. But she still wanted a project for today. And why not?

Saturday we did a "sticky" project with glue, and I want to rotate through the chapters in this book (paint, dough, drawing, gluing, printmaking). Ladybug saw a drawing of measuring cups on one of the dough projects and told me she likes to mix. So I found a playdough recipe that I had the ingredients for (note to self: buy cornstarch), and we were off. She helped me tape down freezer paper to the kitchen floor, and I grabbed the measuring cups and spoons that live in her play kitchen.

"Stretchy Dough" is a very oily dough, which is kinda great because there's no goop sticking to your hands. You have to deal with being a little oily though. Ladybug helped mix, and then when it was time to knead, squished both hands in. But she didn't use her hands for long. Very quickly she was enamored with walking in the stretchy dough, getting her feet all oily and sliding around in it. Awesome sensory play. She gave me her highest form of approval: "Ladybug likes it!"

Early Spring: Puddles, Chickens, & Baby Goats

Receding snow at our nearby park

My friend said it very well today: "It's cold, but it's spring cold." Not so bitter and bone-chilling. There's more light and longer days. The two feet of snow from our blizzard has almost melted away, and when I walk outside I can smell mud and new grass. Yes!

Getting in some serious puddle time.

Last week Ladybug was in no mood to participate in farm class, which was not her fault. We'd just had a pretty miserable slog through a lot of snow, trying to walk from the train station to the farm. What was normally a ten minute walk took an hour. Yuck. So when we did get to the farm, we warmed up in a side room, reading books about insects and sheep. Then Ladybug played in puddles, and we got to see two foxes! I was more excited about the foxes than she was. Her favorite was a rabbit burrowed in a little hole. 


I mentioned in this post that I went a little overboard on winter books. This week I returned most of the forty picture books I had borrowed from the library for Valentine's and winter. I checked out a much smaller number of springtime titles. One of them is Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker. It's basically the classic "One, two, buckle my shoe" rhyme, with a little added fun at the end when all the hen's friends show up and hatch their chicks. Ladybug has also learned "Los Pollitos Dicen," a traditional Spanish children's song about a mother hen and her baby chicks.

All this reading and singing is why I was very excited that farm school this week would feature chickens! And the great part is we made it to class, with Bug in a good mood, so she got to enjoy seeing them. We even got a special peek at the "Employees Only" room where all the baby chicks live in their incubators.

    

After the visit to the poultry house, we saw three baby goats who were just days old. Ladybug explained, "The baby goats are asleep next to their mother!" Yep.

The little pile of three sleeping baby goats.

I'm so glad spring is finally here.

First Art

Today we started doing art. Not that I haven't given Ladybug fingerpaints, playdough, crayons, and markers before today. But today I finally got my hands on an art curriculum for toddlers that I have wanted to check out. After reading and implementing it, I'm very happy with it and thinking of buying my own copy. This is First Art for Toddlers and Twos, by MaryAnn F. Kohl.

There are certain classes or parenting philosophies that make me feel relaxed, and help me to observe my daughter while she learns in her own way. Following the lessons in this book brings on that kind of relaxation. All the emphasis is on process, not product, and the lessons are about creating an environment for the child to explore. There's instruction about how to provide the child with a comfortable space. After reading, I actually got online ASAP and ordered a $30 play table and chairs from Ikea. I realized that in our home we didn't have a low table where she could comfortably sit or stand to do her art. I've been putting her at the dining room table, where battles ensue over standing up on the bench. Also, I just put up beige curtains in the dining room. Tempera paint splatter is not the "look" I'm going for!

I am grateful for one simple piece of advice that I've been able to implement immediately. When setting up an art project for a toddler, provide them with a small bucket of soapy water and some cloths for their hands. I am so used to doing hand washing and cleaning up after the project, so I never thought of this. But my kid is exactly the type who needs it. I tried to introduce finger paints when she was about a year old, and she stuck the tip of one finger in the paint, then looked at me like, "Why would anyone do that to their hands?" Now that she's a little older, she wants to squish paint between her fingers for the sensory experience. But then she looks at what she's done to her hands and flips out. Being able to immediately clean her hands is going to make such a difference in her ability to enjoy playing with art. Tonight I set her up with some q-tips, cotton balls, and glue. She played with the glue a little bit, and told me she really liked it. But she spent the majority of her time exploring the tub of warm soapy water. Fine by me! The sooner she learns that it will always be part of her art time, the better.

The book is divided into five sections:
1) Primarily Paint
2) Hands on Dough
3) Making Marks (drawing)
4) Sticky Business (glue, contact paper)
5) Great Impressions (printmaking)

I like the idea of rotating through the chapters, so that we're playing with a variety of media on a regular basis. The author reminds the reader to be sure to repeat projects, because children thrive on repetition. We'll see how it shakes out for us, but I'm committed to setting up a regular art environment for her.

The best part of this evening's art time? Me, sitting back and relaxing, observing her play. Unasked, she repeatedly said to me, "Ladybug really likes it!"

Winter Treats

Yesterday was fun. It was full of activity. In the morning we made pine cone bird feeders. I guess bird seed isn't poisonous, because Ladybug ate it by the fistful, with a side of peanut butter.

It had snowed in the night, but by 11:00 am the sun was strong and it was warm enough to have some fun outside. I hung up the pine cone feeders, which very quickly became squirrel food. The cones disappeared within hours! I guess there are some well-stocked nearby squirrel nests now. I'm considering looking into a permanent feeder. Ladybug knows a few birds: bluejay, cardinal, robin. It would be fun to watch more from the back window. 

Even though it would all melt soon anyway, we had fun shoveling snow together. Bug insisted on helping out.

Then in the afternoon we made chocolate cookies, heart-shaped in honor of Valentine's Day. I just got a rolling pin with special disks on the side to control the thickness of the dough. Between that and parchment paper (no more flouring countertops!) cookies are almost too easy to make now. Ladybug had a lot of trouble waiting until after they were baked to eat them!

Monday Farm School - Sheep

We had a great day on Monday. Last week, Ladybug was not feeling ready to attend her farm class. This week we arrived super early so she had plenty of time to warm up, literally and figuratively. We sat in a side room off the main classroom for about half an hour, reading books and playing with a few rocks and bits of fur in cups (the kind of touch and feel nature stuff you would find at an exhibit for kids). Although she remained fussy-sensitive for most of the class, she was able to experience it. We got to play with fleece and card the wool. Then we strung cereal on necklaces, which Bug was more skilled at than I expected. She made me laugh when I noticed she was stringing cereal and just as quickly eating it off the other end of the yarn. I do think I will look into lacing beads!

The main event was getting to feed and pet sheep. I wish I had a picture of Bug, and all the preschoolers, holding armfuls of hay as big as their little bodies, waddling in snowsuits to drop the hay in the trough. Then, because the children had helped out on the farm, they were allowed inside the pen with the sheep. Sheep really are docile, which is a good thing since we were letting at least ten 2-4 year olds run wild in their home. Ladybug was excited about the sheep, and cried when one walked away from her. We followed the whole herd outside and up a hill with a lovely view of bare winter trees against bright blue sky.

2 Year Check In, Looking Forward

I have (in books and online) tons of lists of milestones that my toddler probably-might-should meet by her second birthday. Or some of them are considered ones she'll meet during this, her third year. I'm really reluctant to get too caught up in them, but they are good to review now and then. So here goes.

Here's a list of life skills from the blog Busy Kids = Happy Mom. The first item, "undress self," makes me laugh right out loud. Ladybug is so good at undressing herself that for a while we found her naked after every naptime. But do we let her use this skill practically? So I just suggested to my husband that during the bedtime routine, Ladybug should be encouraged to take of her own outfit before diaper change and PJs. Moving toward independence once skill at a time. Cool!

The rest of the items on that list are similar. Things she can do that we would like to start encouraging as part of the routines. We're doing well with teeth brushing. A lot of the cleaning up items would be nice to do more regularly, especially clearing her space at the table. I hadn't thought of that! She does play independently for a good long stretch during afternoon quiet time. She doesn't comb her own hair, but I'm going out on a limb and assuming this list wasn't made with mixed girls' tight curls in mind.

Slow and Steady: Get Me Ready has lists for each year entitled "Measurable Parameters to Profile Child Development." According to the book, your child needs to attain 16 out of 20 parameters to consider development satisfactory. Okay. Let's look at 2 to 3 years:

To keep it brief, let me just say checkity check check. Jumping, climbing, running. Crayon scribbles, stringing words together, listening to stories, imitation, understanding of simple concepts, quiet play. The only things she isn't really doing are skills I would expect a little later into her third year. These are: knowing her full name, knowing her sex, and knowing her age. I bet she understands her gender, but she hasn't started talking about it. Although the other day she pointed at my husband and me, dubbing us first "the dad and the mom," and then "the brother and the sister." I think that is gender identification. She didn't make it personal to herself though.

The other day I had the markers out and Bug made a game out of matching the caps to the right marker. She was pretty insistent on doing this, so I watched her carefully. With no input from me, she was able to match them all up, correcting her own mismatches once or twice. I enjoyed this and decided to mention it in my "assessment" post, because it seems like exactly the kind of exercise that I could have nervously administered as a test. Instead it happened naturally in the course of play, which is the way most of these mini-milestones took place.

Picture Books for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a little over two weeks away, and I just made a massive set of book requests from the library. We'll see soon what arrives, and which one Ladybug likes best. Here are my picks for Valentines: