Friday, June 10, 2011

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 4

This week's "7 Quick Takes" all relate to a summer camp class that Jillian and I are taking at the local school district. The class is 1.5 hours long and for kids ages 12-22 months and their moms. I wish I had remembered my camera - I will next week!
  1. Within the first few minutes of class, both the teacher and the teacher's assistant asked me if Jillian had any older siblings. Apparently they thought her socialness and curiosity would have come from watching an older sibling at home.
  2. For the first 15 minutes of class the kids had free-play time. I left Jillian at a little table with buckets and shapes to sort and went over to the diaper bag to grab her sunscreen. I turned around (maybe 30 seconds after walking away from her) and she was sitting on top of the little table so that she could reach all the shapes and put all of them in her bucket.
  3. Next up was outside time, she had no interest in the sand table or the sprinkler, but loved the water tray, bubbles and ball pit - all things she has at home.
  4. Upon coming back inside, the next activity was crafts. There were 4 crafts to choose from, and I knew all were well beyond Jillian's experience with arts and crafts. We did 2 of the 4 crafts. The first was taking dot paint and dotting a paper plate cut into a fish shape. She didn't understand the dotting and wanted to suck on the dot bottle. I gave her a marker and let her finish her fish by coloring. I was trying to avoid the paint table but alas, Jillian saw it and wanted to play with the paint. The kids were to paint shells with paintbrushes. Jillian mostly just painted her mouth - she just really wanted to eat the paint.
  5. Then it was time for circle time, but you know who was not at all interested in sitting on mommy's lap in the circle (I mean, why would she, the room is full of toys to play with). She ended up in the cozy coupe (which we also have a home) and I had to drag her out of it to bring her to the circle. After a couple of songs the teacher brought out a box of musical instruments and the kids each got to pick one. This got Jillian excited and she ran over to grab a shaker. However we only used them for one song and then the kids had to put them away. I pried it out of Jillian's hand and then she followed the teacher to the cabinet where she was putting away the box, pointing and saying "no no no no no no no no."
  6. The last activity of the day was snack time. Jillian did pretty well with this one except that she dumped half her goldfish crackers onto the floor. 
  7. We got home and she went right down for a nap (and so did I). The teacher says by the end of the 4 week class the kids get used to the routine, I guess we'll see what happens next Wednesday!

2 comments:

Ebethteach said...

I am betting you will be suprised how she picks up the routine. Funny stuff about sitting on the table though, I love when kids catch you off guard. (life is too boring otherwise, unless of course it is destructive but you get what I mean).
You are such an awesome momma to keep integrating stuff like this!

Katie said...

Sounds cute but I can't believe the art project ideas for 1-year-olds. I get a few things from daycare but nothing that structured unless it is obvious the teachers have helped a lot!! And before 18 months? We didn't even do art anything.