Using the Computer

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Piper has gotten really good on the computer and can use the mouse fairly well on her own. She likes to play Starfall and a couple other games I downloaded for her. Starfall she can do pretty independently, but with the other games I have to stay close because she can get frustrated at times since she has not played them as much yet. It's scary to think how quickly they learn technology. We didn't have anything like this when I was her age, and there was definitely no internet yet.

Smoothies

Nick Jr. has a segment on every so often about making smoothies. I figured this could be something we could do together. Piper helped me get the fruit ready, and she put it in the blender. We used strawberries, cherries, blackberries, and I snuck in a plum. She had never had one before and we had a dozen that were going to go to waste. We also added fruit juice and some plain yogurt. She loved pushing the buttons on the blender and was excited to finally make it. Of course she had to have stickers on her straw like they do on t.v. Now every time it comes on, she reminds me that we made them together.

Another Carnival Ride Post

Notice the effective safety strap...a bungee cord? I think these rides are left over from the 1970's. You'd think they would be able to update them by now.

Messy Face

We made brownies today. I think she liked them! :)

Independence Day

Piper loved the fireworks today. Erick bought her some sparklers, but she wasn't too sure about holding them. She liked looking at them though. We spent the day at the grandparents, and then went downtown to Greg's to watch the show. I think she had more fun catching fireflies with Grandma than watching the fireworks however.

General Update

Age (in months, or years and months): almost 34 months

Physical abilities: As I suspected she is perfectly capable of pedaling her bikes, she was just being stubborn. She does it all the time inside on the carpet, but refuses to do it outside, for me at least. It’s ten times harder on the carpet, but whatever. She’s getting really good on the monkey bars and I am barely holding on now. She’s just lacking a bit of upper body strength. She is very close to writing her first name independently.

Speech/language: vocabulary, sentence length, etc: increasingly complex

Reading/pre-reading: We’ve been reading more this month and I signed her up for the summer reading program at the library. This is her third year at it and we always get some good prizes at the end, especially more books. She got her first library card this week and was so excited. My goal is to start taking her to the story time once a week. On another note, I am dreadfully tired of “Word World” and “ Letter Factory” She knows quite a few letter sounds now, and tells me things like “P is for Piper, and pirate.“ She made me laugh this week when she tried to read one of Erick’s books. She told me that his book had lots of words but no pictures and her books had lots of pictures but not as many words. She then proceeded to “read” his book by pointing to the letters and singing her ABC’s.

Number stuff: nothing new except she has been focusing more on ordinal numbers: first, second, third, She is starting to really like the Umizoomi cartoon and I think it may help her with math. She loves to answer Dora when they ask addition and subtraction questions, and usually is right.

Creativity: not as much drawing lately, more writing of letters especially her name. She still draws people from time to time, and the occasional object like a rainbow, snake, boats, etc. I noticed her figure out how to draw water by adding waves underneath her boat. Today she was drawing a seahorse who lived in the river, and then wanted to argue with me about it.

Imagination: has added more voices to her imaginary repertoire. I love her evil laugh!

Social: very social with kids, initiates conversations with them. She made a new friend at the park, and I think I did too. (Why is it so hard to makes new friends as an adult?) Piper still tends to be aggressive towards other though in her play.

Character/personality: Has two personalities at times. She can be sweet, thoughtful, and helpful one moment, and the next be screaming and whining. Again, food and rest play a major part. She will not nap anymore even though she really needs it.

School Updates: n/a

Link to blog/websites/photos: http://onefunkymunky.blogspot.com/

Carnival

Today Piper finally achieved her long awaited dream to ride a roller coaster. It was really

cheesy, and I think she would like a bigger one better. At first she was upset because she did not want to ride it herself, so Erick got on with her and she had a great time.

She loved all of the other rides, especially the Tilt-a-Whirl. She rode it once with Mommy and once with Daddy. Apparently we are getting old since we both felt sick after riding it.

On the scrambler with Daddy

She threw a fit because she wanted to ride one of the bigger rides, and I was surprised they let her on it. She thought it was a train because it had a train whistle and played music. Of course she loved every minute. She would have ridden more rides but she was too small for some of them, plus it was expensive since we had to ride with her on most of them. They wouldn't let her

on the pirate ship because she was an inch too short.

This is the one kiddie ride that she rode by herself. It just flew in a circle up in the air.

On the Ferris Wheel with Mommy. We rode with some older kids and she was cracking them up talking the whole time.