jelly again/ birthday countdown calendar

waiting for daddy.....


I only had one request from my sick little guy today.. " make Jelly?" With a very nasty ear infection and croup, I decided that I could let him make the only thing he wants to eat.
And its funny, making Jelly is really boring. But for him:

He tore open the packet (fine motor skills and hand eye coordination)

Poured the water in (hand eye co ordination and talked about how its dangerous to touch boiling water)

Stirred until it had dissolved (talked about how crystals "melt" with boiling water, cause and effect)( he also loved making the jelly spin faster when he moved the spoon faster and slower when he moved it slow)


Added cold water ( hand eye coordination)

Got out the jelly cups from the cupboard ( self help skills)

Poured it into each cup (we had to work out that we could only pour a small amount to start with so we had enough for everybody)

And so while we did this very "everydayish" activity, he was able to do by himself all the things that Jumeirah usually does for him when we make jelly (she did help a little bit but was more interested in her own thing today) so he got to do most of it, and work on so many little skills at the same time. . Plus he absolutely loves the stuff so it meant I had it on hand in the afternoon! And he was so proud of himself when he'd had done it, he got her a cup of jelly from the fridge and said "Look! I did it, Jeira!" And she (in a voice that sounded remarkably like mine) says " Good work, Jared! You did a good job!"

The best part really is the taste testing bit :)





For the last few days, since her friends birthday party on the weekend, Jumeirah keeps telling me all the things shes doing for her party. It changes regularly and I normally respond with a " yes, well we'll see" or a " how about we chat to daddy about it?". I finally got jack of it and said "Its not for three weeks yet!" and she asked " well, how long is that?"

And so we set to work making a Birthday Calendar Countdown.
We typed out all the days from here until her birthday and made it into a calendar style grid. Each day has the date, and the days of the week are listed above each column.
I left the middle empty so she could draw a birthday picture in the middle. I told her that each morning she could come and cross off a day and watch as the days get closer to her birthday.

ballerina fairy on the top of her cake


She really loved doing this and regularly goes and counts the days left and works out how many preschool days she has between now and then.
Its been a good way to help her get a greater concept of days and weeks and it will finish on the 3rd of December, just in time to get ANOTHER calendar to cross of the days until Christmas!!
Hopefully the second one will contain chocolate :)