"School"

This year the kids started preschool at the Montessori Academy in Eagle. It has classes through June, but we stopped the end of May to come up to the ranch. I told Clyde we'd have school at home but he told me he was going to go work with his dad every day. On my birthday I tried to send him out with his dad and he said he'd rather do school. So we started to set up a school. We made up some different "works" and set up a table and a shelf. Clyde's favorite is probably his snack work where he is learning how to shell pistachio nuts. He couldn't do it, so we included a little baby knife in the work and now he pries them open. We also have some motor skills works: in one they use a teaspoon to transfer macaronis from one bowl to another and in another they use a baby medicine syringe to transfer water between two cups. I used a chip and dip bowl to make one where they separate the different coins. Clyde and I talked about how the colors are different and the sizes are different and also how some have smooth edges and some have ridges. We included a geometric puzzle, a magnetic puzzle and a new mosaic puzzle I found where they put square and triangle pieces into a square grid and can make patterns or pictures. Clyde specifically asked for a "folding work" so we have dishtowels in a basket for that. Then he told me he thought a magnetic letters work would be good so we got a small cookie sheet (he told me we needed something metal for the letters to stick to) and the bucket of letters for the fridge. We added their bug viewer and some lacing cards yesterday. There's also a little table with pencils, scissors, tape and paper bits. They even each have a hand towel that serves as their mat for doing works on the floor. A world map rounds it out. It's a small school, but so far has been really good for them I think. Clyde named it Norwood School.