This blog is called Post-Apocalyptic Homeschool because I obsessively collect and stockpile used children's books just in case I need to personally educate a small village after some sort of catastrophic scenario where all the other books and technology and book-obtaining means of all kinds have been destroyed, such that the only reading materials left for miles around are the piles of books in my garage. Sensible, yes?
Semicircle is our favorite word around here lately, thanks to some new toys that explore shapes, lines, wholes, parts and more.
This Learning Journey Shape Shuffle set was on sale at Ross for $5, and despite the slippery pieces being a bit hard for a toddler to grapple with, it's a winner. Lots of new vocabulary (right triangle, isosceles triangle) and exploration of shapes in context. Above, Jackson is discovering which other shapes can be combined to form a square: four smaller squares, two rectangles, two right triangles, etc.
Jackson does the hard work of being a toddler while we talk about some more shapes. These are the pieces from an "out-of-print" Melissa & Doug Shapes puzzle I found at a thrift store. An intrepid youngster had written all over the board in permanent marker, and the hexagon was missing, but I harvested the rest of the shapes and keep them in a plastic bag. Jackson likes to fish them out of the drawer and play with them. We've been working on sorting out the ones with curved edges (circle, ellipse/oval, quatrefoil) from the ones with the straight edges (square, rectangle, etc).
Hey look, circles roll! This Guidecraft Shape Sorter that was a gateway drug for several other Guidecraft puzzles that I couldn't resist after getting this one! Actually, I could resist, but then I bought a Ryan's Room version of a fairly shapes puzzle, and it was so cheap and misshapen compared to the wonderful quality of Guidecraft that I figured it was a message from above. Anyway, Jackson's all but mastered this one now...
And last but not least, in the midst of building vast "car cities" out of blocks for his plastic trucks, we pull out blocks and books that reinforce some of the vocabulary we've been using. Hey, look, two quadrants make a semicircle! Oh my, two of the arches on the bridge blocks are the same shape as a circle, that must mean a circle is two semicircles!
I was still struggling with triangle types circa junior high, so if the kid has a shot of internalizing some of these concepts early, I'm delighted. Thus, I'm trying to teach ellipse as a synonym for oval and rhombus as a synonym for diamond, and if even a fraction (hee) of this clicks in, I think that it can only be for the good, as encyclopedic knowledge and math concepts are obviously cumulative, so why not begin accumulating early?
P.S. For my money, the very best shape sorter I've encountered anywhere is the Tupperware Shape O Ball Toy, but that lives at grandma and grandpa's house, so no pics of it in action are included here. That said, if you're in the market for shape-teaching toys, do consider it. It's got a great array of shapes, it contributes to fine-motor skill and hand-eye development because the kid has to keep rotating the ball to find the slot, it rolls because it's a ball, it rattles when it rolls if the shapes are inside, the shapes all actually fit inside (not the case for some shape sorters), it pulls open easily to retrieve the shapes, and it's just so darn clever and perfect for actual human kids. Highly recommended.
If the house caught on fire but I still had some time to rescue a toy after getting all the important stuff out, there is no question in my mind that I would take our Haba blocks. Blocks and balls are pretty much the best toys ever, and I think the kid and I could play well for years with these gorgeous building blocks.
Anyway, J got two new sets of Haba blocks for Christmas, and to my surprise, one set, the Clown Blocks, was on a smaller scale than the usual Haba blocks (3 cm for Clown blocks vs. the usual 4 cm). At first I was very mildly disappointed, but then I realized (a) who cares, they're still great, and (b) this new variety of shapes and sizes offered great opportunity for what Jackson calls a "lesson." In fact, after we did this for the first time yesterday, he come up to me today and said, "Blocks...lesson?" and we did it all over again.
Basically, I unrolled a place mat (Montessori says it focuses the child's attention), set out four blocks in a random arrangement, and asked him to point out which one is different. He did a great job, although for some reason the combination of three rectangular solids and one cube confounded him and/or made him mad. But he blasted through everything else, and I got a chance to very gently introduce vocabulary like taller, wider, diameter, cube, cylinder, cone and so forth.
Here he is pointing out that the larger triangle is the one that is different.
We compared the following sets of blocks:
3 large cubes, 1 small cube
3 small triangles, 1 large triangle (pictured above)
3 red cubes, 1 yellow cube
3 short wide cylinders, 1 narrower taller cylinder
3 rectangular solids, 1 cube
3 cubes, 1 rectangular solid
3 cylinders, 1 rectangular solid
3 rectangular solids, 1 cylinder
3 cylinders, 1 cylinder with a "hat" (conical tower topper thing)
When we got to the cylinders, Jackson took over and decided it was time to play/work on his own. He had a field day exploring the many dimensions of the four cylinders, including shape and sound.
So after I put together my "baby reference library" box, I decided to expand on the theme box idea and put together boxes for the alphabet and numbers. In addition to alphabet and counting books, I included foam letters and numbers, links for counting, etc. I quickly same that there is a strong household bias toward alphabet books instead of counting books, so I made a point to get some more counting books when we visited the Culver City branch of the County of Los Angeles Library (not to be confused with the city of Los Angeles Public Library system) this weekend.
Anyway, I found this lovely British book published by the Tate Gallery in England called Counting Birds. It's veddy veddy British, but I love the whimsy (some of the birds are birds in a baby's mobile or birds on the pot of afternoon tea), and Alice Melvin's illustration style. In particular, her geese remind me of my beloved Provensens. Long story short, Jackson and I both really liked these. Jackson told me that crows say "caw-caw" while we were looking at it tonight, which is the first time that he's revealed he knows this information (he learned it from Good-Night Owl! by Pat Hutchins, not to mention our local, very active murder of crows). He also liked looking for extra objects, like a picture of an owl or a cat sleeping on a couch. In addition to the great textured illusrations, I loved the lyricis, which makes it fun for me to read in between counting, counting, counting. (I count from one to whatever number is on every page, so there's a lot of good repetition.
Anyway, I'm going to look for more storybooks that count to 20, because I read somewhere that the way the "teens" are set up can be confusing to kids for a while (the number names become regular after 20), and I hope I find more books like this!
that was a gateway drug for several other Guidecraft puzzles that I couldn't resist after getting this one! Actually, I could resist, but then I bought a Ryan's Room version of a fairly shapes puzzle, and it was so cheap and misshapen compared to the wonderful quality of Guidecraft that I figured it was a message from above. Anyway, Jackson's all but mastered this one now...
P.S. For my money, the very best shape sorter I've encountered anywhere is the Tupperware Shape O Ball Toy, but that lives at grandma and grandpa's house, so no pics of it in action are included here. That said, if you're in the market for shape-teaching toys, do consider it. It's got a great array of shapes, it contributes to fine-motor skill and hand-eye development because the kid has to keep rotating the ball to find the slot, it rolls because it's a ball, it rattles when it rolls if the shapes are inside, the shapes all actually fit inside (not the case for some shape sorters), it pulls open easily to retrieve the shapes, and it's just so darn clever and perfect for actual human kids. Highly recommended.
. It's veddy veddy British, but I love the whimsy (some of the birds are birds in a baby's mobile or birds on the pot of afternoon tea), and Alice Melvin's illustration style. In particular, her geese remind me of my beloved Provensens. Long story short, Jackson and I both really liked these. Jackson told me that crows say "caw-caw" while we were looking at it tonight, which is the first time that he's revealed he knows this information (he learned it from 
by Pat Hutchins, not to mention our local, very active murder of crows). He also liked looking for extra objects, like a picture of an owl or a cat sleeping on a couch. In addition to the great textured illusrations, I loved the lyricis, which makes it fun for me to read in between counting, counting, counting. (I count from one to whatever number is on every page, so there's a lot of good repetition.