New activities can sometimes frustrate M when she isn't able to do them right away. It's hard to know at times whether or not to encourage her to persevere or to put the activity away and save it for another time.
It was really fun recently, though, to see M initially frustrated with a skill and then figure it out and come to really, really enjoy it at the end.
To help M practice her "spoon skills" I set up two big pans, one of them filled with assorted play foods. I supplied her with a big spoon and asked her to transfer individual items from one pan to the other. She got such a kick out of "catching" oranges, pears, and canned beans and was so triumphant when she had transferred the entire batch.
