Week 1, day 3: She finally discovers the Cylinder Blocks

No new activities today.

Nugget followed me into our room again as I was heading for a shower and asked to do some Montessori work. We both were in a pretty good mood because she and my husband snuck out when she woke up and got Dunkin Donuts while I slept in. That's gotta start any day off well!

I suggested that we start with the Cylinder Block, which she readily agreed to. I've been surprised that she hasn't gone for this before -- she loved using one at the Montessori open house, and it's right up her alley. We sat down and worked on it together -- both of us taking pieces out, her putting them back. Unsurprisingly, she did quite well. I noticed her taking a few different approaches to putting it together. Sometimes she would pick up a piece and move it around until she found the spot. Sometimes she would pick a piece and algorithmically try each empty slot from one end to the other until it fit. And sometimes she would fill in from biggest to smallest or vice versa. It was like she was trying different approaches to find out what was the most efficient. :)

She worked on that for 10-15 minutes, starting to weave a story about the Block from about halfway through.

After that, we moved to the Brown Stair at her request. But she didn't really want to work on it. She chose the largest piece correctly, but then picked the smallest and was done.

I hopped in the shower then, leaving my husband to keep an eye on things. She made a brief pass at a number of items -- she buttoned a few pieces, used the tongs a bit, and poured a few times. I've got the basic pitcher-to-pitcher dry pouring out, but she mastered that a while ago. I need to move to something a bit tougher. Ooo, that'll free up those colorful heart-shaped beads I have in there now! Maybe that would make a good sorting or stringing activity...

When I got out of the shower, she was back into her basket of containers and telling a story about how a mouse lived in each one. That lasted for a while.

Next, she moved to the spooning and telling a story about baking a sugarplum. She spooned nearly all of the rice, then used her fingers as she got down to the end and couldn't scoop up the rice well. And at the very last, she dumped the remainder from one container to the other. I didn't have a problem with that. She then spooned the rice BACK to the original container, and then did it a third time about halfway. All the while, she talked about the sugarplum she was baking and the sprinkles she was adding.

Lastly, I tried to interest her in the stamping activity (because she had moved on to stamping on the pad I take notes on). We did this together for a little bit, but she wasn't terribly interested.

All in all, we "worked" for about 45-60 minutes and I feel like she spent a very nice amount of time on a few of the materials. Things were a lot more relaxed and like playing. But she used the materials appropriately, used either the table or mat (although I'm still rolling and unrolling it), and put things away when she was done.

This is a lot more the way I expected she would work from the beginning. It's a lot closer to her normal personality than the first few days were.