New Activities

Yesterday, I bought Daphne Play-Doh, a 48-pack of Crayola Crayons and safety scissors. She really enjoys playing with her Play-Doh. I've taught her how to make spheres and snakes with the Play-Doh. I've also shown her how to roll out the Play-Doh with a rolling pin. She seems to really get a kick from it.

She loves to color. She is starting to color within the lines. She's also learning her colors.

Along with teaching her how play with her new toys, I've also shown her how to properly put her things away. She knows that she has to put away the Play-Doh she is playing with before she can open up another color. She knows she has to return a crayon into the box before she takes out another one. When she's done coloring and cutting, she returns her crayons and her scissors to her pencil box that I also purchased for her.

Daphne threw a book in anger two days ago. I realized that we should start disciplining her. Emmanuel and I have agreed on putting her in the corner for 2 minutes whenever she expresses herself inappropriately, i.e. hitting people or throwing items. We're going to reserve the corner for very serious offenses so that it doesn't lose it's effectiveness. It's proven to be quite effective. For other infractions, we've decided to take away privileges. For example, if Daphne doesn't want to clean up her toys after she's done playing, that's fine, we'll clean them up--BUT, she won't be able to go into her playroom for a few hours or perhaps even a day. We want her to know that she has choices, but her choices have consequences. I don't want to bully her into cleaning up after herself, but I want her to learn that she can choose not clean up after herself, but, just like in real life, that choice has a logical sequence of action that follows.

When we put her into the corner two days ago, and it was so sad! She stayed put, but she cried and cried. I think she thinks she's invisible because she yells out, "I'm here! I'm here! Help me! I'm here!"

I'm looking for really good toddler books to read to Daphne that will show her how to appropriately express her emotions without throwing stuff or hitting people.

Oh, yeah, I also bought her alphabet flashcards that have both uppercase and lowercase letters, so she can learn her lowercase letters. I plan on using them to teach her the sound of each letter, too.

I also got her Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. She really, really likes it. She likes to recite the poetry with me, and she even helps me act it out. In fact, she fell asleep last night while Emmanuel read some poems to her.