Babies of Harmony's House, part 4

The Babies of Harmony's House (Baby "E" and Toddler "K") have been growing, but not always in the ways one might expect.  Poor Toddler "K" has been diagnosed with Growth Hormone Deficiency this fall after exhibiting slow growth and development over the first years of her life.  This diagnosis has come after several appointments with a pediatric endocrinologist who required a battery of blood tests and even MRI under anesthesia.  Although the IV's, blood draws, tests, and trips have been somewhat (to very!) traumatic for little "K," the good news is that she now has a treatment plan.  She will require daily growth hormone injections until she reaches a full adult height.

But on the other hand, Toddler "K" loves counting to ten, finds rhyming to be funny (Crocs- rocks, Chicken-kicken), and now has a favorite color: blue.

Toddler "K" asked to be a blue M&M for Halloween and loved wearing her costume every time!  Hopefully her treatment for GHD will be successful, and she'll start growing in stature soon!

Baby "E" is almost as tall as "K" now and had her first birthday over the weekend.

She loves exploring everything with deep curiosity and focus.

Baby "E" is very close to walking, loves dancing and climbing.  And she is hilarious.  She makes the funniest expressions!

And, the best news is that she has started sleeping through the night on *some* nights!  Yes!

Babies of Harmony's House part 1, 2, and 3...

Babies of Harmony's House, part 3

It's Spring Break for the students at Harmony's House... so it's been quiet-ish around here.  :)  This week you get a post about the babies who live here.  Baby "E" turned five months.  She loves to grab her feet, wiggle around, and stand up in her exersaucer.  Her giggles are the cutest, and she loves to eat!  She nurses and takes formula in a bottle.  She loves all the stage 1 Gerber fruits and veggies, as well as baby rice and oatmeal cereals.

Toddler "K" is growing up fast!  She loves to point out the eyeglasses people wear; it doesn't matter whether they are prescription or simply sunglasses.  We pulled out the bag of sunglasses from the dress up boxes this week, and Toddler "K" chose these ones to be hers this summer.  She names blue, green, and white reliably, and sometimes orange.

Goldfish crackers are some of her favorite snacks.  When asked how many fish she has, she lines them up carefully, points to each one, and seriously says, "Two.  Two.  Two."

Toddler "K" has gotten brave!  She has learned to climb up the climber by herself and slide down!  Slides used to be "terrifying," so this is big news.

Her favorite shape is the circle, and she points them out everywhere.  She also reliably names stars and hearts. 

Her favorite activity is to do art.  She has recently started distinguishing her marks.  Sometimes she brings a marker to be opened and says, "Wite" (write).  Sometimes she brings a marker to be opened and says, "Wah" (draw).  Ms. Harmony has explained that when she draws letters and numbers, she is writing.  When she draws pictures, she is drawing.  Now Toddler "K" apparently "wites" and "wahs" too.  ;)

Toddler "K" also loves to read.  She points out interesting things in pictures.  She also examines the text and points out letters B, C, O, and S.

Hopefully our school friends are enjoying a week off with their families, but we are looking forward to their return next week!

Book Mania!

Thanks to nine very generous people, Harmony's House was able to earn $250 of FREE books through the Usborne Book Fair!  That is a serious haul, and the children will love reading and learning from these books for many years to come.  Thank you thank you to everyone who participated in the Book Fair to help us earn so many beautiful, durable, educational, and quality books!

Even Baby "E" is getting in on the action!

Snow What Fun!

Our first day of the 2019 Spring Session was super fun!  For Small Group, we put together a floor puzzle of polar animals.  Then we used magnifying glasses to notice which animals lived at the North Pole and South Pole.  Did you know that penguins only live in the southern hemisphere?  We used the floor puzzle, the wall map, and a globe to look at North and South poles, and to talk about the animals found there.

Some of the awesome dialogue about this activity included where the light was coming from when they used the magnifying glasses.  We noticed that wherever we moved the glass, a small spot of light followed.  The magnifying glass was catching the light from the room and shining it onto the puzzle.  We also observed that the magnifying glasses have a "small bump" that makes things look extra big!  These powers of observation really helped us notice where different animals live on the map.

Work Time was filled with creativity and fun as well!  Friend "S" used popsicle sticks and a paper towel tube together.  She poked holes in the tube with a pair of scissors.

Friend "B" and Toddler "K" connected a bunch of vehicle pop-blocks and measured each other.  When you connect all of the pop-blocks, it's the same height as friend "B!"

The Explore Table was full of South Pole discoveries!  The styrofoam packing peanuts are in the shape of the letter 'S' for "snow" and "south."  They make a great noise when you crunch them up, and are so much fun to toss and shower the penguins with snow!  The baby penguins are small enough to hide under the styrofoam too, so we had to sift through it all to find them.  The ping pong balls were "snowballs" or "eggs" depending on the plan.

Friend "S" worked at the Alone Table to connect Squigs to the mirror.  Friend "B" also did this plan and talked about it at Recall Time.  She mentioned that when they stick together they sound like"squish."  :D

There were so many other things that the school friends worked on while they were here!  Ms. Harmony will have to share those photos in a later post.  We don't want to overwhelm our readers with too much awesome-ness!

To finish up our day, we read a book about penguins and noticed that they had very short legs.  We tried out what it would be like to walk with super short legs by tying a bandanna around our ankles on going on a Penguin Parade.  :)  It was not a very fast way to get around.  We also pretended to sled on our bellies, hop, and swim like penguins to find a faster way to travel!

P.S.  Our sweet Baby Buddies had their own class downstairs and practiced taking naps and doing floor time.  :)  Baby "E" and Baby "E" are about one week apart.  How fun they get to play together while big sisters are learning and playing upstairs!

What now? Life with toddler and baby...

After the Halloween party (last day of school), a parent asked what I would do now that I wasn't making lesson plans, setting up activities, gathering materials, running the program, and cleaning up afterward?  I wanted to say, "Well I'll probably just sit at home and cry."  I didn't really sit around and cry, but I was sad to have to put preschool on hold while I waited for the new baby to arrive.  I did work on setting up things for the baby.

During the break, I worked to SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY.  Because I didn't have school friends coming over, I reduced the number of toys I had available to Toddler "K."  Less kids means less toys.  In doing this, it made clean up much easier for her.  Because she is younger than the school friends, she also has a shorter attention span and plays in less elaborate ways.  Offering fewer materials has helped her to focus her plans on the play instead of simply dumping materials out (a toddler fave!).  

Toddlers are still very much sensory seeking beings even though they are graduating from the "mouth-everything" stage of infancy.  Harmony's House always makes use of explore tables, but in keeping with the theme SIMPLIFY, we needed to have opportunities that are quick to clean up and safe for toddlers.  Ms. Harmony knew that keeping the work in the explore tables fresh would keep her toddler busy when mom was busy with baby.

These are some of the things we've done in the past few weeks:

Silk fall leaves, pine cones, and forest animals

Play-doh, rolling pins, potato smashers, googly eyes, spatulas, cookie cutters, etc.

Pom-poms, bowl, wire whisk, ladle, and Fisher Price hand mixer

Turkey feathers, large buttons, and colander (not pictured)

Christmas boxes in different shapes and sizes, jingle bells, cotton balls, and bows

As you can see, each table set up includes a sensory component, but also works additional developmental objectives too like fine motor skills, artistic creativity, imaginary play, etc.

With the most recent explore table, Ms. Harmony has been talking to Toddler "K" about shapes, colors, sounds, quantity, size, and popular Christmas tunes like "Jingle Bells."  And just like that, we are surviving the adjustment from one child to two, from baby to toddler, one jingle at a time.  :)

Super Hero Sidekick has Arrived!

Several months ago, Harmony's House posted that Baby "K" would be getting promoted this year.

Well, that little sidekick has finally arrived.  :)  Baby "E" was born on November 16th, at 1:45pm weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces.  

So far, she eats really well, but we are still working on figuring out "days and nights!"  She is very sweet and cuddly though.

After bringing home the new baby, Toddler "K" seems SO big!  She has been amazing during this family transition.  All those amazing social skills she learned this year working with her school friends are paying off now.  Toddler "K" understands that sometimes Mom's lap and time are shared with others.  She can wait her turn, because she knows that she will have a turn when sister is done.  She is demonstrating more and more independence with walking, potty training, talking, and working on her plans.  As expected, one of her most frequented plans these days is working with her baby doll: putting on hats and socks, changing its diaper, reading the doll books, shaking the rattle toys, etc.  And, as a bonus, she can clean up her toys when she notices Mom picking things up!