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Saturday, September 30, 2006

What to do with a Toddler?

I asked for advice on how to entertain my 2 year old son last week, and I wanted to update the situation. We are happier now, because I am playing with my 2 year old on the floor with his Aquadoodle pad while my daughter does her independent work. We leave the room briefly to read a book (this is very distracting to my dd), we crash cars into each other and we are taking tickle breaks whenever the mood strikes.

Someone "Anonymous" wrote: "Put him in his high chair and let him finger paint the tray with pudding. Ok, that's really messy, but a ton of fun."



Okay. Did that...



Who's going to clean him up?

And this is our picture of our activity for Chapter 2 of SOTW Vol 1.
We read about the White Crown of Upper Egypt and the
Red Crown of Lower Egypt (you know if you're a SOTW user)
and here's my dd with her impression of King Menes (Narmer).






And this is my regular sweet girl...





Whew! Much better. You'd wouldn't want to mess with her, she's 6 and full of spunk! She's wearing our rendition of the White Crown of Upper Egypt.

(Duh, it's on the sign. Sorry)

LaMereAcademy suggested "What about those color wonder markers by crayola that only mark on their special paper?? Pouring water in the kitchen into different cups, pots, give him mixing cups and spoons and a pan of rice or small pasta to pour and do things."

I have the Color Wonder stuff. He doesn't play with it long because it takes too long to appear. I do have to say that it's wonderful when he does play with it. He does fine with the crayons until I'm not paying 100% attention. (Of course)

I have the cups, I have the pans, I have the rice, what I don't have is the courage to hand that over to my 2 year old son. I let him bang the lids together one day and my ears were ringing for a couple of hours AFTER he stopped. It's too hot right now to do school outside. Our humidity is horrible right now and we have to wait until 7:00 pm to do our nature journals.

MoreLittleWilsons said, "Jessica, do you have a baby gate? Close him into your school room with you and dd, and make sure there are things that belong to him.. trains, cars, playdough etc.. and then make sure he doesn't have free access to them, that only you can take out a few things for each school day, and rotate them so that he feels this is all new every few days. "

We have 5 baby gates. Little man is 10 inches shorter than 6 year old sister. He scales the baby gates. To keep him in a room we have to stack one on top of the other. It really looks like he's in a cage then. We only do this at night anymore for his own safety.

He has two toy areas in our learning room- nope, three. A shelf for coloring books and games that are 2 year old friendly. A box filled with board books and a basket that has lacing blocks (great idea- he doesn't use them) and his aquadoodle gear. I'm going to try your other suggestions though.






This is the aquadoodle, and he loves it. It's something we keep in the learning room and he'll play with it a little each day. It's only water in the pens and the drawing disappears when it dries. You can see it's a good size for a toddler. I hope this helps someone else that is struggling with entertaining a toddler. I've put a limit on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, it can only be viewed every 48 hours. LOL

 

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