A Friendly Introduction

The other day I introduced the Pink Tower to James.

Pink Tower, James. James, Pink Tower. Nice to meet you.

Hehe the introduction doesn't quite work that way - in fact, it's much more complicated, especially if you follow Gettman's book (which I do). Anyway, James is usually very calm and interested whenever I present a new activity or work, but this time he was so distracted. He putzed with the small cubes for a minute and then found something much more interesting to him...

My David Gettman book.

Now anyone who has read it should have a chuckle (or at least crack a smile) at the fact that James paged through this book for a good 20 minutes! No lie. He wouldn't put it down. For those of you who aren't familiar with this book let me just say that while it's a GREAT resource for Montessori, it's a bit... dry. Not that James was aware of any of that. It's merely a funny coincidence that he enjoyed this particular book. Of course I didn't discourage his looking at the book, but I did offer up one of my other Montessori books with lots of bright pictures of children engaged in meaningful activities. Nope, he wouldn't have it. It was Gettman or nothing.

And forget the Pink Tower.

Later I found him looking at the book again and heard him spelling out m-o-n-t-e-s-s-o-r-i. It was a very special moment for this Montessori mama. :)

Life School Take 2

Unlike some of my amazing bloggy friends, I skipped out on Tot School (again) this week. We had guests here most of the week and it was just too hard to find time for any "organized" school activities. Of course there was lots of Life School to be had...

James and the giant coconut. Paul and his brother spent a good 45 minutes trying to crack this coconut only to discover it was rotted. :(

Checking out the canons at The Dockyard

Building sand castles with Uncle Dan

Hiking and exploring the island

Tomorrow I'll be planning out our Tot School activities for the coming week. We're back on track with the alphabet and next up is the letter O. I'm thinking we'll get a lot accomplished since we'll be staying in the house a lot this week (potty training has officially begun!).

Oh and one other quick thing: I just revamped James' playroom/schoolroom and I am SO excited about how it turned out. I have just a few more things to add and then I will excitedly post a photo tour of our new set up. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek... :)

Life School

We've been taking it really easy on the Tot School front while we enjoy the holidays with family and friends. Because of this, James has been experiencing loads of Life School. Here's a quick peek...

Paul's brother, Dan, and his girlfriend, Huimin, are visiting us until Wednesday. James loves having them around. Huimin is really smart (like a Ph.D. in Physics & author of 5 books kind of smart), she's very down to earth, super sweet and really easy to talk to. She's been sharing lots of her Chinese heritage with us by making yummy dinners, bringing gifts from China and by sharing lots of ancient secrets (can't wait to try them!). It's been SUCH a treat spending time with her.

James has been learning Chinese for a while now and Huimin was delighted when James counted to 10 in Mandarin. She has been teaching him a few new words every day. She's also teaching us how to write our names in Chinese (as pictured above - first my name, then James').

We had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope you did, too!
It's not likely I'll get around to posting anymore this year :) so I'm wishing a Happy New Year in advance to all of you!!

Self Serve

It was just a little too quiet.

And it was 7:15am. Surely James couldn't have slept in that late (yes, that would be sleeping in for him).

As I lay in bed I quickly racked my brain to recall that we closed all the pertinent doors (bathroom, office) before going to sleep last night.

I flipped on the video monitor. Kid's bed was sans kid.

I got up, walked down the hall to the kitchen and I could hear a little voice counting. Well that's harmless, I thought. Then I saw this...Hmmm.

Then I saw this in the adjacent room...
James had helped himself to emptying out the fridge.

He was so proud of his work that he happily showed me what he did. AND that he was using all of it to count. Guess he thought Tot School should've started a bit earlier that day!

I didn't get upset with him, but we did have a little chat about how things that are in the fridge need to STAY in the fridge. :)