On our shelves

(Goblin is 27 months)

 I started thinking about the phrase 'use it or lose it' and wondered whether it might apply to toddler's skills. So to be on the safe side I decided to pull out some of the things Goblin did when he was younger.

I brought down his egg box, tongs and pingpong balls. This was a huge favourite about six months ago. And true to form it was the first thing Goblin pulled off the shelves this morning - even before I managed to take a photo of it on the shelves (you can see the hole where it is supposed to sit on the top shelf). 

 I was inspired by a picture I saw this week at Our Montessori home. Look at the beautiful wooden eggs that they have - I have toy envy!

Also on our shelves this week is a big box of musical toys. I used to take Goblin to a Kodaly music class every week. He'd spend a lot of the time running around but occasionally he'd come and join in and clap or play a shaker. But last term the teacher, venue and students changed and it wasn't working for us any more so we stopped going. Since then I haven't really been doing much music with Goblin except for singing nursery rhymes (when Goblin lets me - he often tells me to stop) and playing them for him on You Tube - he likes "Wheels on the bus" and the "A B C song" -  My favourite is "In the big blue sea"

Anyway I thought I'd try getting Goblin to play some rhythms. We used to play a game called "play and play and play and stop" where you play the instrument until the teacher says 'stop' - its great for getting toddlers to learn about following instructions. Goblin used to laugh every time we had to 'stop'.

On the shelves we also have his Montessori mini knob cylinders. I love watching him play with these. He'll put a cylinder in the wrong hole, look at me, smile and say "nooooo", and then move it to the right hole. He's good at self checking with this activity.

 I though I'd include some number activities, so I brought out his magnetic felt fish,  I'll try and encourage him to fish for specific numbers. We haven't really worked ion number recognition much yet.

I also brought out his number gnomes, and again I will try and encourage him to put a specific number through the hole.

And I put out his number flash cards. He's been enjoying matching robots and digger cards (Usborne have some great stuff) so I was hoping he might also be interested in playing a game with numbers.

And finally I put out his upper and lower case magnetic letters. I'll do a separate post on the fun we are having with those.

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