I found Amie’s Map Book. It had gone missing in the move. The Map Book, or Place Book, is a collection of maps, pasted in or drawn, of where we have been living and traveling (you can see some more scans here), with anecdotes and journal entries addressed to Amie. Amie became very interested in …
Category Archives: child’s play
Cooperative Boardgames: Max
One of our Christmas gifts was this game, Max, made by a small family-owned company called Family Pastimes that makes only cooperative games (they even print and make their own boards and boxes). We must help get the little Creatures safely home before Max, the Tomcat, catches them. In an exciting way, children learn logic, …
Let It Seed – I mean, Snow!
Finally we got some snow: about an inch, I should say. Amie ran out to play before school. For once it wasn’t difficult to get her into her clothes! Sadly the snow was too hard for snowmen, snow angels, and snowballs, but she had a lot of fun just scraping it off our car and …
Boston Tea Party
Tea party on the kitchen floor with “Pooh Bear” (the bear to the left: I know, he doesn’t look like Pooh to you, but he does to her!), Caillou, and (outside the picture) Gloria (another bear) and Roo (her kangeroo). It was a rainy afternoon but I didn’t have to turn on the light, or …
So you see what I’m up against
I do my best to stay organized, but really… Who started with this sticker business anyway? I’ve got Dora on my microwave! And I am not a fan of Dora!
Why the incessant WHY? Also, why (or how?) WHY? is not the same as HOW?
Amie started asking “Why?” a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t stopped. Some of her why-s are genuine questions, asked out of curiosity, but many (more, I suspect) are not. It’s fascinating and annoying and often a challenge. I find myself in conversations like these: Amie, please don’t make that mess. Why? Why do you …
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Getting Together
It’s not a tea party. It’s Rabbit Stew.
More Montessori Games
Amie has taken a great liking to this game, another one straight from a Montessori lesson. A while ago I introduced the tea set and the pitcher to let her pour water as a game, and her own drink at mealtime. More recently, I also gave her the responsibility of filling the sugar pot. She …
Cosleeping Dolls
Over the weekend Amie was presented with a wonderful gift from friends: their daughter’s old doll house. A real, wooden, doesn’t-fall-over-when-you-bump-it doll house! Complete with people and pets and furniture and even a garden for planting. Amie and eight-year-old S who gave it to her (I plan to return it once Amie too has grown …
Letting Her Pour Her Own Tea
DH is a Montessori preschool alumnus and I have always liked the Montessori approach, not knowing very much about it. When it was time to sign Amie up for a preschool, I started reading up on it, because we wanted her to go a Montessori preschool (She didn’t get in because of a stupid breakdown …