The current unit we are working on is foods 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!”
Here’s what we did that was new this week:
Music:
My mother-in-law shared in the comments this little saying for mealtime and I think it is pretty cute:
My bowl is for food, yum,yum,yum,
My fork and spoon help me to eat.
My cup is for drinking,
And I never forget
to say thank You, Lord,
for my blessed meal.
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:
Our new sign for the week was “please.” My husband and I were taught good old-fashioned Southern manners when we were growing up and we have discussed our desire for our children to be taught in a same manner. Thus, the sign for “please” is really important to us. G picked up this sign very quickly because the results are so favorable for her: she gets what she wants. I am trying to distinguish between “more” and “please” by having her use “please” at the beginning of a meal or when introducing a new food to her during the meal, while “more” is specifically to ask for more of a food she has already had. We are also doing this during playtime.
I took G along with me to the grocery store again and we talked about all the foods we placed in the cart. Additionally, we used the grocery store circulars that come in the mail each week as an opportunity to talk about foods. We pointed to the different fruits and talked about their colors.
We ate a lot of varieties of fruit this week: apples, cherries, bananas, and oranges. So we are working our way through the alphabet with food as well!
We also baked snickerdoodle cookies with her this weekend. She helped to roll the dough balls in the cinnamon and sugar mixture very well until she decided she wanted to eat the dough!
Progress:
G has made quite a bit of progress in the feeding herself department. She can operate the spoon and fork and leaves the plate on the table for the most part. She has also started to drink from her new straw cup very well and puts it down upright most of the time. We still have the random outbursts of dropping food and her straw cup, but for the most part the food stays on the table. She also picked up “please” very quickly and uses “more” and “please” very frequently.
