One Year Old Preschool: Food and Feeding – Milk and Brownies

We are still working our way through a unit on Food and Feeding.  The theme verse for this unit is “Give us this day our daily bread” from Matthew 6:11.  The purposes of this unit are: learning to eat with a spoon/fork and a plate/bowl, increase communication at mealtime through sign language, and instill a basic understanding of the provision of God in our everyday lives.

Much of what we did this week was reinforcement of what we did the last week.  We continued to pray before every meal and worked on placing the cup upright and keeping the plate on the table.  We also continued to use the sign for “more” to great success!  She really understands that “more” means “give it to me!”

I have been learning as a parent that consistency is the key to learning, so constant direction and reinforcement has proven rewarding.

Music:

A good old-fashioned favorite that goes over vowel sounds:

I like to eat

I like to eat

 I like to eat, eat apples and bananas.

(Change all the vowel sounds in the whole saying to A, E, I, O, and U).  This is also a great way to get your mouth going before you have a public speaking engagement (especially if you put a pencil lengthwise in your mouth whilst saying or singing it).

G really loves bananas and has started to say nana for bananas.  She also recognizes them on sight and will not be deterred from her focus on them, once she sees them! 

Devotion: 

We are praying at the beginning of each meal and making sure that we are repetitious in how we approach the prayer if not in what we say.  However, we are including the specific phrase, “Give us this day our daily bread” and “Amen” in each prayer.   I have really enjoyed this practice in discipline for myself as well as for teaching G.  It truly has been good to give thanks unto God for His daily provision in our lives and constantly reflect on my (and our family’s) need of Him.

 Activities:

This week we focused on adding the baby sign for “milk.”  G has rarely done this one so far, but with reinforcement, I am certain she will pick this one up soon.  Usually instead of doing the sign for “milk” after I ask her if she wants milk, she will sign back with either “more” or “please.”

She has also started to go over to her high chair when I announce it is time to eat.  I have been trying to distinguish each meal time for her (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack) by announcing what meal we are having.  I also tell her what each of the items we are eating are called.  This may seem simple, but it really helps when communicating to her if she knows which ones are “more” foods.

We once again made a trip to the grocery store and talked about all the foods we put in the cart and marked off the grocery list.  This may seem simple, but I know there are some basic connections being made in that little head of hers.

We also baked a batch of brownies, which you can see were a big hit!  D is not much of a sweets eater, but he really loves giving G dessert at the end of her dinner meal!  Brownies are one of the few deserts that EVERYBODY in our family loves.  I love getting G in the kitchen to “help.”

 Progress:

We have had a little set back on eating with a spoon/fork, she has kind of reverted back to wanting to eat everything with her hands and does not want help by being fed.  Thus we have started putting the food on the spoon/fork and then handing her the utensil to put in her mouth all by herself.  She has continued the signs for “more” and “please” with great success and seems to pick up new signs relatively quickly.