Today I had one of my kids absolutely cracking up. I had forgotten how much a stuffed animal can help us out. I had Mr. Octopus join us. 

Mr. Octopus showed us how he likes to color. He only knows how to scribble (I demonstrated Mr. O scribbling really badly outside the lines). Then my kid and I took turns showing Mr. Octopus, using grid paper, how we could outline a square then carefully color it in using just our fingers. After we each modeled a few squares, Mr. Octopus took a turn. GUESS WHAT! HE DID A GREAT JOB! WOW! We taught him how to color!!! We gave him a lot of high-fives, seeing as how he had 8 arms… 🙂

 That particular kid normally scribbles herself, but because I made such a blatant example out of Mr. Octopus, and then we made ourselves the teachers, it really helped.

We also brought in Mr. Monkey who helped us with doing some counting (in this case for the fine motor piece (what we were counting had tiny holes we were placing onto a peg). Mr. Monkey wanted to do the counting but due to having velcro hands he couldn’t do the hard work himself, he could only give the directions. Unfortunately Mr. Monkey didn’t have much of a backbone (no pun intended) and so he kept falling over. This is one of those things where you can get frustrated OR you can turn it into purposeful activity. “Um, Mr Monkey? Why are you sleeping? We are working here. Wake up.” Instantly it turned into something silly and the frustration disappeared. 

(Anytime I am working with a kid and a bead goes flying, or something unintentional happens that can get frustrating to a kid – turn it into something a little more silly – “Hey! Look at that bead, running away! Time out for you, Mr Bead!” (And also consider a small investment in something like Dycem, cough)

I want to take some pictures of a few other things of the day including robot space caterpillars and donuts but this is getting along and um, it’s time for bed.