Learning When You Don't Even Realize It

I know, everyone thinks Kozy Kids is a place for only arts and crafts, games, fun, hugs and kisses, singing, or dancing... but we do a whole lot of learning and growing too.  I realized that I don't really talk much about some of the daily learning we do.  I think it is because it is so second nature to us that I don't think of it as "worthy" blog material ;)  So, today when Little Man was getting such a kick out of using his big boy cup I thought I better get a few shots of this, then I thought, look how big this boy has gotten, using his own glass cup at Shell's.  I knew I had to include it in our post today.  Self help/Independence skills not only help me, and believe me I start teaching them as soon as I can ;) but they help the child who is learning them.  They feel so independent, in control, proud, successful, and BIG.  

The little ones not only learn from me, but watch the big kids closely, and learn from them,.  Little Man has been watching Sprout and Roo put their cup on the counter everyday since August, and he watched his sister and friends last year, so when he finished his breakfast this morning he made sure I knew HE was going to put his cup on the counter and his bowl in the sink (which was the cutest thing ever, since he can't reach either one) I had to put the stool next to the counter, but with little help from me he accomplished his task and without waiting for the fanfare I wanted to bestow on him, he ran off to get ready for nap.  As much as I know it is inevitable that these little ones will grow up, it doesn't stop that little bit of loss I feel when it happens, okay, I'll be honest, A LOT a bit of loss when it happens.

You are right though to conclude that we do accomplish a lot of fun stuff during our time together.  If it isn't playing dress up or house, it could be building with blocks or train track.  Today we happen to introduce the letter Ee, the color PURPLE, a Square, the number 6 and VALENTINE'S DAY!!!  

We read Purplicious by Elizabeth Kann, at the end of the book it talks about how if you mix blue and pink you get PURPLE... so we decided to see if this book was really telling us the truth.  What fun we had investigating this hypothesis ;)

We started with BLUE first...

Then added RED...
and what do you think happened???

It turned PURPLE!!!
Right in front of our eyes!!!!

I love how Lil Bit is stretching to get to the top of her paper.

These two were very funny together...
They would continually touch one another's papers, but act very put out when it happened.
That didn't stop them though :)

Today, yeah we learned that blue and red make purple, but we also learned to share our space, to take turns with materials and toys, and to communicate with each other.  Miss Michelle learned that Little Man has learned things that she didn't even realized she'd taught him.  It was a good day.