We have entered the official "I do it myself" phase. Sometimes I feel it must be pure parent torture. He doesn't want our help, especially when putting on shirts. This baby boy is wearing his shirts in every fashion imaginable. A couple of times he has managed to put both hands through the arm holes but misses getting his head through the neck hole. This means that it's all bunched up behind his neck and it looks as if he's wearing his shirt the way Cher and Courtney Love wear their little sweaters. Not infrequently he wears his shirts backwards, or inside out, and some days he changes his shirt every few hours. To his credit, even when he refuses help he keeps trying until he finally gets both arms through the arm holes and his head through the neck hole. I'm proud of him. I look for the up side and decide perseverance is a fine character trait.

One of the activities that turned out really well last month was making a hand print. I was given a Precious Moments hand print kit as a gift but your child has to hold his hand still for ten whole seconds while it sets and my little boy just couldn't keep his hand still for that long, so it was ruined. The hand print recipe from my Hands On Homeschooling book worked really well though. Here's the recipe if you want to try it yourself:

1/2 cup water, 1 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup cornstarch (+extra), saucepan, wooden spoon, stove, rolling surface, large circle shape to cut with - slightly bigger than child's hand (straight edge bowl, cardboard circle and a knife).

Mix 3 ingredients together over low heat, stirring with wooden spoon until it becomes thick (several minutes). Remove onto rolling surface coated with cornstarch and knead until it feels like bread dough (you can add extra cornstarch as required but I didn't need to). Place dough on surface such as a cookie sheet where it can dry for several days. Roll out to about 1/2" - 1" thick and help child press hand in deep enough to make a good print (help them press fingers down as needed). Cut around hand print to make a paperweight. Let dry for a few days.

It turned out so well! It even shows some of the lines of his palms. Took about two days to dry. I was going to paint it but it looked so nice I decided to leave well enough alone. It turned out beautiful and now it sits on Grandma and Granddad's coffee table.

Now on to other business.

I've been fortunate in that there is a very active homeschooling organization in my city and they even have "Time For Learning" which is what they call their program for preschoolers. We meet once a week for two hours. Marcia, the wonderful mom who runs the program, used to be a preschool teacher. I was telling her about how I had gotten our boy a whole bunch of buttons, a big bag full for six bucks, and how much he liked playing with them and that it surprised me how engrossed he was when he played with them. He will sort them and move them here and there, talk to me about the different shapes and hold two buttons up to me to and say "two." Sometimes I give him an egg carton which he uses to sort the buttons and it'll keep him busy for the longest time.

Anyway, she told me that playing with small items like buttons is an important activity for very young children because it helps prepare them to hold a pencil when they're older. She explained that because preschools have so many children, toys with small parts are considered a hazard and so they're not allowed. At this age, as we all know, things can and do end up in noses and ears, and in a preschool setting toys with small parts are too risky. There simply aren't enough teachers to supervise children playing with toys with small parts. They can't take the chance that there could be an accident. I had never thought of that. It's one of those things that is so obvious that you don't think about it until someone points it out. So that's something I learned this month.

I got a set of magnetic letters and put them on the fridge and he likes those a lot. It just bowls me over to hear him name any of the letters correctly. We have fun naming them, arranging and rearranging them. He likes moving the letters all about on the fridge to create a design. Of course, knowing the names of the letters is pretty useless at his age. The important concept is knowing that each letter represents a sound. I hope he doesn't have trouble with that when the time comes. I think he's picking up the alphabet from watching Sesame Street too.

The Bible stories part of the lesson plans is not going as I expected. A big reason why I chose Hands On Homeschooling is because it includes Bible stories every day and I do want our boy to know the stories of the Bible. Well, the Beginners Bible just doesn't hold his interest and so the crafts and games done in conjunction with the stories don't have any significance for him although he has fun doing doing most of them. He's just too young yet. I've realized that we have plenty of time in the future to do Bible stuff, so I skip most of that part now. For his spiritual growth we do read the Bible in the morning, say grace at dinner, a bedtime prayer, and we do a quick prayer for people in need whenever we hear sirens. He knows the Bible is a special book. And I just hit on something great last week that worked out really well. He's always been fascinated with seeing me get the candle and my prayer rug out for my meditation, so I decided to invite him to sit and pray with me one afternoon. He sat with me for about five minutes and he seemed very pleased to be doing prayer and meditation with Mamma. I'm going to do it a few times each week with him now.