Animal theme activities - week 1

This is actually a post about what we started doing three weeks ago. Since our return from holidays in Australia, I just haven't found the time to post any new blogs. There has been crappy internet service, an intermittent access to Blogger and the hassle of trying to get Little Bean settled in at home again.  Then I sprained an ankle and got the sore throat from Hell; a totally miserable combination. Add to that, all the Vietnamese New Year holiday preparations, work functions, visitors and the required visits to family. Honestly, I am SO, SO over it. I can't wait for normality to be restored and for life to go back to our regular, slightly boring, but reassuringly familiar routine.

We're having a month-long theme of animals and the sounds they make. We're focusing mainly on the farm and household animals that he see sees regularly, as well as the most common African and jungle animals he sees on TV and in books.

Our journey began with lots of singing and dancing. Little Bean is a huge fan of The Wiggles and we have several of their DVDs. We've watched, sang to and danced along with lots of their songs about animals such as The Monkey Dance, Ponies, Uncle Noah's Ark and Captain Feathersword Fell Asleep on His Pirate Ship.  I have to tell you, I've been getting a pretty good workout dancing along with the DVDs. Who needs aerobics when you have a toddler who loves The Wiggles? We've also been watching New MacDonald's Farm and Play School DVDs.

We've been singing animal songs like Old MacDonald Had a Farm and Five Little Ducks using our plastic animals and bath tub duckies. Here is a copy of our free printable lyrics for Five Little Ducks. 

I bought some Kinetic Sand from Online Toys Australia at Christmas time and we finally got it out to make an animal sensory tub. It is really weird stuff. It's almost like it crawls along. I think it's kind of creepy. I put some small plastic African animals, spoons and small bowls in the tub along with 2kg of sand. Little Bean loves to go out to the balcony to play with it at least once or twice a day. I've been burying animals for him to find and helping him mould the sand with the bowls. But mostly, he loves scooping and pouring the sand.

I bought this Build-A-Garden set online from Modern Teaching Aids. This is one of my favourite online stores for Montessori and homeschool materials. The dowels are designed to fit into a base and the beads can be threaded on to make a garden with flowers and bugs. We're only using the dowels and bug beads at the moment for a smaller scale threading activity.

 We bought this push-along duck toy in Australia from our local pharmacy. Little Bean broke the duck's beak off five minutes after we got home. He loves the noise it makes.

Little Bean was given these cute ladybird and monster Pillow Pets by his aunties. He loves snuggling up on his new floor bed with them. I plan to put them in his old toddler bed and turn it into a reading nook. More on that project in my next post.

 I got these gorgeous Melissa & Doug jumbo knob puzzles from Modern Teaching Aids.
We've also been using the pieces for vocabulary practice, singing Old McDonald Had a Farm and imaginative play.

 Little Bean loves to throws things at the moment, so I'm trying to channel it by putting out this basket of soft balls. The four smaller balls are actually really dense pompoms I got from Kmart  in a pack for a few dollars.

 Little Bean's Daddy gave him this super snuggly teddy bear a few months ago and he's really taken to it. This month, Big Bear got his own bed, clothes, nappy and sippy cup. Little Bean has been resistant to sitting on the potty so I'm hoping that Big Bear can help us by swapping his nappy for training pants and going on the potty too.

What we're doing this week

This is what we did during our first week back in Australia for the Christmas - New Year holidays. Little Bean is loving it here. Our house in Vietnam is rather small and doesn't have a yard or garden to play in. We only have a tiny courtyard at the front where we park our motorbikes. Little Bean has played more outside in the past week than he has in the previous 3 months. It has made me long for an Aussie style house and garden. When we remodel our Vietnamese house next year, we'll be including a large rooftop entertainment area which will serve as a garden and play area for Little Bean. He really loves exploring my sister's garden and has quickly gone from walking to running since we've been here.

I unintentionally ended up with a bugs & insects theme to most of our activities this week. It just happened that LB found some bug books and discovered my nephew's bug specimen collection.

I bought Little Bean a play set because it included a little wagon, some sandpit toys and a watering can (which I have wanted to get LB for ages). It just happened to also include a "Creeper Keeper" bug viewing container. We haven't tried it out yet, but we'll go looking for some creepy crawlies to go in it this afternoon. I'm sure we can find some slater bugs or snails amongst the pot plants when we water them.

My sister found this awesome bug collection for my nephew at a garage sale. It was a lucky find as it was one of those sets where you had to buy a weekly magazine and bug specimen. These sets usually cost many hundreds of dollars by the time you purchase them all, and often take up to a year to collect. Little Bean is fascinated by them and is very good about only getting a couple out at a time, then returning them to the case before swapping them for more. He is grasping many concepts like this now and I am constantly amazed by how much he actually understands.

Little Bean got to play in a sandpit for the first time. I gave him a couple of spoons and a sand castle mould to play with. He happily scooped, poured and transferred sand for hours. We also used some damp sand to build small castles, which he gleefully smashed with little fists. Once I bought him a sandpit set, he had a shovel, rake, hoe, sieve, bucket and small moulds to play with too.

   Little Bean's cousin was watering pot plants and LB wanted to join in, so he was very happy to be given his own toddler-sized watering can. He quickly got the hang of it and likes to help water the plants every day. He is really enjoying being able to do lots of things that big kids and grown-ups do. Now that's he's undertaking so many new practical life and self care tasks, I'll be writing a post on practical life activities shortly.

The weather has been quite hot, so we've been playing with water a lot. I have been filling his little wagon with water and giving him different tools to play with each day. So far he played with his sandpit set, cups, bowls, slotted spoons for scooping and large serving spoons for transferring water. He also plays with all sorts of natural items he's collected himself such as leaves, rocks and honky nuts. The honky nuts and rocks seem to be firm favourites.

Little Bean has also been enjoying some quiet activities on his Montessori mat. He's been stacking plastic cup towers and knocking them down. He's also been nesting cups and bowls too. As a fine motor skills activity, he's been playing with an icy pole mould set.