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.