Friday, 22 June 2012

Joyful June!

This month has been really joyful! Not sure what it is, but our Maximus has been just full of giggles lately and we absolutely LOVE it! You'll see! Check it out!

He has been doing incredible with his phonics thanks to Cbeebies' Alphablocks, so much so that we decided to latch onto this sharpish and try teaching him to read alongside learning to speak. He is clearly very much a visual learner, so I made the decision to move away from PECs and onto phonics and reading. I'll put up a picture of the Alphablocks letters I made. I printed them from the Cbeebies website then coloured them in (with a little help from the hub), cut them out, laminated them, then cut out the laminates and we now have 4 sets of alphabet to make all sorts of words and even sentences in the future! So far we have been using these for about 2 weeks and Max can already make the sounds for the following letters UNAIDED: a, b, c, d, h, j, k, o, p, qu, r, s, t, u, w, x, y and z! :) PS - these phonics have also helped a lot with the pronunciation of a lot of his words, which now total about 40. We are getting there people!!
some of the joy I was talking about - Maximus has the best fun with Jack Jack, particularly on the trampoline or running around playing chase outside
Hannah skipping
Max worships Jack
He's a bit bonkers, but so's Max :)
Feeding the ducks on a very blustery day!
Avoiding the puddle in the playground, bless him - he's well trained :)
My eldest niece - Lucy, who is now taller than me at 13 - I know, I know I'm short, but still! She's us her best lion face
Sally showing us the artwork her little Harry did - so sweet
My Goddaughter and middle niece, Katie
and the youngest, Hannah
another play therapy idea, colour matching and number sequencing. He did it first try, clearly too easy, will make it harder next time!




Grandad, 'big' Gran and my Aunty Mea
Jack getting ready to catch a ball thrown by Grandad
Harry making us laugh his is super wide legged stance! He wanted a ball to roll through but he's so low to the ground it wouldn't go!
Jack and Harry giving Mea a tour around Grandad's greenhouse
Pouring water for motor skills practise
Jack Jack posing by Granny's roses
and Harry posing by his pushchair!
See the love? Max wanting Jack to do more running I think!
More bouncing joy
Chasing with Raphael after Jack! They ran for about half an hour with barely any stops - they were all EXHAUSTED by bedtime but very happy :)


Jack is pretending to be a dinosaur and chasing Max, who totally loved it and couldn't stop laughing and shrieking with delight!
He was soon chased down by Harry and Raphael and their trigger puppets


Max and his loving Grandad
My stunningly beautiful new goddaughter, Analena (3rd sister to Raphael)
Raphael and me when I took him out to feed the ducks
much joy
and even more!
This is jumping in glee watching Alphablocks (who says learning can't be fun?!)
Looking up to see where the wind is coming from




Tuesday, 5 June 2012

May and June 2012

A sensory tub for Max to bury and find various objects - this is full of coloured rice and is very good for calming down and focussing in after a play outdoors and before 'work'

watching the ducks at our local pond


giant painting on old wallpaper!



this is the underside of the paint tub - I just thought it was too pretty not to photograph!

a couple of my favourite parts of the painting




G'uncle Peej playing with Max - spinning around!

Max loves Peej a LOT

Max's 'new' trampoline - 2nd hand from our nephew Dastan (thanks guys!)

Playing with Harry! Max initiated this play, which was mostly running around the garden and peepo-ing, but it's super brilliant news as Max struggled with Harry for quite a while. They are now good friends - hooray!

"I'm ready for my dinner now please Mummy"

Maximus, Harry & Jack in the bath after a lovely long day of playing together

Some of our 'work': colour matching matchsticks and playdough


This is a happy shout - I think at Pingu?

Cheerios birdfeeder

Some multi-coloured sketching - significant enough to post here as he chose to use more than one colour, which is new :)


Felt plate - with help from Mummy, but designed and mostly stuck by Max

Ambidextrous drawing


more wallpaper painting, this time with scratched on effect aftter painting using a comb






gorgeousness

me and the hunkahub


investigating the water feature


Strawberry picking at Grays farm in Wokingham