Eating neatly with cutlery

Geekling has recently mastered eating with metal cutlery.  It seems like it suddenly 'clicked'.  He cleans out a bowl of yoghurt at light speed with a spoon and he's just gotten the hang of a metal fork.

It is a good Montessori practical life lesson each meal, plastic forks are useless!  You will also see he uses a regular ceramic bowl - Now we must stock up on some appropriate sized glassware and be rid of those plastic cups.

Chicken pen

Two reasons its been a bit quiet on this blog lately:

1. My laptop is dying

2. We've been spending our weekends building a chicken pen for our chickens.  And here it is!

The frame is made from recycled pool fencing that had been sitting around hubby's parents place for the best part of the last decade.  While it is excellent to be able to use the gate part, I wouldn't recommend it as it is SOOOO heavy.  Or at least I would not recommend situating the new chook pen at the very far uphill corner of the yard.

The frame posts are secured with recycled star pickets donated by our neighbour.  It is covered with chicken wire and recycled corregated iron from the nearby Dakabin Tip Treasure Market.  We ran bricks around the outside to stop the dog (or anything else) digging under it.

The chook house is a dog kennel I purchased recently on ebay for $10.  The lid is on a hinge so lifts for easy access to the eggs (when they start laying) and for cleaning.  The ramp is made from a bit of pine with backyard sticks glued to it.

The chooks seem happy enough with it but they haven't yet worked out how to get up into the chook house which I find odd since I thought they naturally go to the highest point.

Catching the train

Geekling LOVES the train, we catch the train every week day to his day care centre one stop away.  He walks to the station from the car park, likes to choose whether to go up the steps or up the ramp, then he enjoys pressing the buttons to call the lift to take us up to the concourse and another lift down to our platform.

Lately he has taken to sitting on "seats".  Anything that can be sat on is a seat, and he simply must try sitting on whatever he sees other people sitting on, and takes particular delight in sitting on the train seats - it brought a tear to my eye as he looks so big and grown up.

Geekling's new cousin

Introducing Geekling's latest cousin: Baby-G!

Baby-G is the first-born of my little brother (who we nickname 'G' in real life).  Just like Geekling, Baby-G's name begins with G - he inherited his 'G' name from his dad, who inherited it from his dad, who inherited it from his dad (my late Pop, who passed away only a few months ago).  It is a family tradition for first born boys.

The arrival of Baby-G made me an aunt for the 12th time (and we have another nephew due in January!).  I hope Geekling and Baby-G will be great buddies as they grow up.

Op shop Montessori bargains

Purchasing Montessori materials can be expensive if you shop at Montessori stores and sites, but if you keep an eye out you can find similar items at markets and op shops.  Here is my haul from a local op shop last weekend that cost a total of $14 (and that included some shorts and a tshirt for Geekling also!).



I plan to use the metal trays to present tasks and activities, the scoop, funnel and seive in sensory tubs, the ceramic jugs for pouring activities and the egg cups are for our weekend breakfasts but may paint or polish the two unfinished ones.

Ditching the stroller

In keeping with our decision to implement the Montessori method, we are making great progress with 'weaning off the stroller'.  To be honest, its more about weaning hubby and I off it than weaning Geekling off it.  Most of the time he would much rather get from A to B under his own steam.  We've been guilty of using it for our own convenience (and in some cases, sanity), particularly in getting him to and from daycare.  But no more.  Now we will only use the stroller if we are planning a big, long day out somewhere (such as a show or festival).  It is an exercise in patience for mummy and daddy many times, walking at a child's pace (even though Geekling seldom walks, but runs as fast as his chubby legs will carry him) and stopping many times as his attention is caught by something other than the path ahead.  It would be so easy to say "don't stop, we must hurry" or to scoop him up and carry him, but we truly want to encourage his interest in the world around him and natural curiosity.

Why does the Montessori method shun the use of prams and strollers?

Aside from the general principle of allowing a child to interact freely with their environment, Montessori methods prefer not to use strollers because a child does not learn skills like walking by being strapped into prams and carriers and high chairs most their day.  They learn by being given the chance to attempt and practice these skills through being allowed to safely move freely.  Yes, Geekling already knows how to walk, and run, but these skills are still stepping stones to further skills that he must be able to practice at every possible opportunity.  Every day he is perfecting his balance, soon he will learn to jump, skip, hop and more.  We do not want to hold him back for the sake of our convenience.

This does make shopping with him more difficult, with the exception of shopping at Bunnings where he can push a baby trolley around the store.  He's getting quite good at steering them!

Chickens!

Geekling's daycare recently had a hired chicken hatching, and when the chicks reached 2 weeks old they offered them up to parents to take home for free.  We were told that Geekling LOVED the chicks and had been meaning to invest in some chooks for some time so we took 3 home.  And here they are:

We're still deciding on names.  I'm leaning towards "K", "F" and "C" but we might wait to see how many are roosters (which we'll have to get rid of) before we try themed names!

Geekling does indeed love the chickens.  Here he is reading one of his books on chicks with his Daddy.

They're still in a (bigger) box in the house and will stay inside with us for a couple more weeks.  When they are about 6 weeks old they will venture out into the back yard.  In the meantime we are going to fence off part of the yard away from the dog and build a coop :)