Learning About Herbs

My mom has taught O all about herbs this spring. She can identify more herbs than I can! Yesterday they planted dill...yummy! Today they planted basil...I can't wait to make fresh pesto! In the background of this picture you can see Gracie's (our cat) container of grass that was briefly our Spring centerpiece. I can't believe that the grass is still alive!!!

Baby's 1st Rattles

I'm on a handmade gift roll! These are Little Kicker's first rattles. I used the free bunny and bear patterns from Wee Wonderfuls, and I'm happy with how they turned out. I put a bell in each animal so they make a sweet sound when shaken. O is VERY excited about showing her baby sister how to shake a rattle :)

Homemade Sidewalk Chalk

It is SO easy to make homemade sidewalk chalk! You need 1 cup of plaster of paris, 1 cup of water, and powdered tempera paint.


 
Mix the ingredients together.



Pour the mixture into a mold. We used our insect molds, the plastic container that Buddy came in, and the flower mold that we used to make chocolate flowers. The molds don't lay flat (I guess I should have realized that), so we spilled a lot of the mixture during this process :)
Let your chalk dry for at least 24 hours, pop it out of the mold, and have fun!!! O loved drawing on her gigantic outdoor chalkboard :)


 

When I Make Silence

I bought this beautiful little book from Montessori Mama for O's Easter basket. We've read it several times, and I've planned to incorporate it into our daily activities. Today was the day that I finally was organized enough to do it. We read the book and "made silence" right before we went downstairs for naptime. O LOVED the book AND making silence. After I read the book, she insisted on having a turn reading it. I was so glad to have this book as it is the perfect way to introduce "making silence." I'm looking forward to making it a part of our daily routine. Thanks to Montessori Mama for writing this sweet and beautiful little book!

The Magic Egg- Library Activity Kit

Last week's library activity kit was all about eggs and animals that hatch from eggs. It included The Very Hungry Caterpillar book as well as sequencing cards for butterfly and frog lifecycles. After reading the book, we reinacted it using this colorforms set (I bought it at TJ Maxx a couple of years ago). O loved the colorforms set, which made me happy since I'd regretted buying it :)








After O's nap we made fruit salad so we could eat like the caterpillar in the book. We were both especially excited about the watermelon in our fruit salad! We LOVE watermelon :)




Other activities that we did to go along with the activity kit (but didn't take pictures of) were going on a caterpillar hunt with a magnifying glass (we didn't find any caterpillars), looking at insect and butterfly Viewmaster slides, making plaster of paris insects, and going to the butterfly room at the Children's museum.

Hard at Work

O has been spending A LOT of time at her art shelf lately. She loves Pottery Barn Kids catalogs because there is a doll in there that looks like her baby doll, Emma. She enjoys cutting the magazines and gluing the pictures on top of each other. She glued about 10 pictures one on top of the other and was SO proud of her creation. She immediately hung it up on the refrigerator!

Toothpicks & Styrofoam

To make this activity I drew dots in shapes on a piece of styrofoam and gave O a container of toothpicks to match to the correct color dots. She was very engaged at first and seemed to enjoy herself, but she lost interest after completing 1 or 2 shapes. I should have cut the styrofoam and just put one shape on each piece. She enjoyed making her own designs with the toothpicks under the shapes I had drawn.

Embroidered Christmas Dolls

I have set an unrealistic goal for myself...to have all of my handmade Christmas gifts made before Little Kicker arrives in August. Here are the 1st of many handmade gifts. I used a free pattern from Wee Wonderfuls to make the dolls. The doll on the left is for Little Kicker, and the doll on the right is for my friend's baby girl. I can't decide if I like the doll better in different colors or all in red. What do you think? Also, I wish I'd shaped the red doll a little better, but it was my first one and I was being super cautious because I didn't want to ruin it :) Little Kicker's Christmas doll will match O's Christmas stocking. I ordered this pattern for Little Kicker's stocking, and I'll make O a Christmas doll using the same pattern.

A Listening & Matching Game- Rhyming Words

 
O and I had fun playing this rhyming game this week (I bought this game at Wal-Mart last summer). She is really into rhyming lately, and she is constantly coming up with real and nonsense rhyming words for different things she says, so this game was perfect for her. To play the game, you listen to a cd of different words, and you cover up the picture of the rhyming word on your card. O needed help, of course, but it was a great way to practice our rhyming skills while having lots of fun!

Cleaning Her Kitchen

O has recently shown an interest in dusting. Now she just needs to start dusting the whole house! Then I'll be happy (since I detest dusting) :)

Loving the Sand Tray

Sorting by Color

The object of this activity is to sort the insects & animals by color into the four separate compartments. I was trying to get O interested in sorting with tongs with this activity, but it didn't really work. She tried the tongs at first, but then she said she'd rather do it by hand. The tray is from Dollar General and the animals were an after Halloween deal that I found at either Target or Wal-mart.

Animal Families

I also downloaded these animal families cards from Montessori for Everyone. To introduce this activity to O, I put one card from each animal family out and had her sort the rest of the cards to the correct animal family. There are stickers on the backs of the cards for self checking. This was a really easy activity for her, and I wish I'd introduced it to her sooner.