Fatima's typical Day (43 & 44)

The Schedule:
Every morning she wakes up and give out a cry to let her mom, who is working in kitchen, know that she is up. After receiving greetings, Assalamualaikum (peace be on you), Fatima spends some few minutes in her mom's arms. I read somewhere that for kids 9 mins are really important, 3 after they wake up from sleep, three after returning from school, 3 minutes before they go to sleep. Anyway, later on she moves into the stroller, which is always in kitchen, and explores kitchen utensils or fruits or veggies while her mom cooks. Next its breakfast time, followed by play/work. She does all her activities one after another. When done with all that its time to move to another room to just crawl and explore. This all takes a good hour or two. She also takes a break from all her materials/ work just to watch pigeons through the window. There is this chair she pulls up to stand to look through the window. Meanwhile, she also has her snack. Then comes the nap time. After she wakes up, I let her play first till she gets hungry and then we have lunch. Then I read to her some book or we just lie down talking, story telling, rhymes,  games. She then plays while I do some work. Its nap time again. After waking up she mostly gets into the stroller, as I cook dinner, having her snack. Then dad is home, they play, exercise, talk, cuddle and all of us have dinner. After little play she goes to sleep. The schedule is a bit different when her grandpa arrives to meet her, then she plays with him. keeping up with schedule is only possible it she sleeps early, on time. Otherwise everything just gets so out of hand. Again, Weekends are a bit different. Going out, sleeping before this outing, staying up awake till late night, visiting relatives etc etc.
Activities these weeks:
On a weekend, we went to Cornish. Fatima for the first time explored grass. At first she was uncomfortable to touch it. She place her hand on grass and removed immediately and rubbed her fingers against her palm. After few attempts she got comfortable enough to crawl on it.
Open and close a box! yes this is one of her favorite activities these days. These are the boxes she is trying on:

In and out: One day I happen to notice her putting a small toy in her toy cup. She did it several times which reminded me of nesting cups. I simply grabbed these containers from kitchen and with out demonstration she did the activity. Putting the containers in and out in order.
Her place mat and new high chair, which allows her to have all her meals with family.

On her way to learning to eat with spoon.....

Treasure basket- how to peacefully engage your infant (week 41 & 42)

Its been long since I had made any materials for Fatima, and all this time the treasure baskets where a saver. I cannot emphasize enough on importance of Montessori treasure baskets, specially for moms who really want to engage their little infant for a long time. Montessori treasure basket is traditionally a large wooden basket which has 50-100 items in it. These items are regular household items like brushes, small utensils or kitchen tools, soft toys, varying fabric based materials, rattles/sound bottles, balls, or anything that can be explored by your little infant. The items must be safe i.e. no sharp corners or no choking hazard. Making this basket is really inexpensive and effortless. One advantage, besides exploring, is that treasure baskets keeps y
our baby engaged for like ages. Now there are versions of this traditional Montessori basket like theme baskets or basket with less items (5-20 items). The theme baskets hold items of one particular category like: kitchen items, color bottles, fruits/veggies (real or toy), smelling bottles, soft toys, different fabrics etc. To present this basket sit facing towards the infant, keep the basket in between and slowly take out an item, explore it and return it to the basket. Repeat this with another item and then invite the child to do so. once the child is engaged move your self slowly from the place and let him explore. When finished, return each item to the basket one at a time and keep the basket at its place.
We made a treasure basket for Fatima before (see here), it was kind of a theme basket. Now we have these two baskets for her:
This is a all in one basket. It has some lids, a book, a sensorial ball, a wooden spatula, a wooden bowl with knob lid, a small cup, a teether, some sound bottles, two little rubber teddies, some disks.

This is a gift she received form her aunt. Its a beautiful wood and crochet basket with a hidden section in it. There are some plastic toys (a gift). She loves this basket so much. Fun part for her is to first use the knob to open the lid then to put all toys out and then open the inner section.

One newly introduced basket holds color bottles. I have replaced the object permanence box (OPB) with this basket. She was least interested in OPB, removing it for time being was really needed. The color bottles are just some bottles filled with different food colors.

In my next post I shall be covering a whole lot of things....Insha Allah!