Circle Time

O and I started having Circle Time in the mornings a couple of weeks ago, and we are having SO much fun! During circle time we sing LOTS of songs (days of the week, months of the year, continents, My 5 Senses, and various Spanish songs). I have been amazed by how quickly and easily O learns through music. We do lots of rhythmn stick activities, and in this picture we are singing a Spanish counting song while tapping the Spanish beanbags with the rhythmn sticks. After we sing our songs and do a brief Spanish lesson, we usually do our library activity kit. Since this week is the last week that I'll have access to the library kits (until I go back to work in October), I'll start designating a book of the week, and we'll do story stretchers revolving around that book. I also plan to incorporate sign language activities and yoga into our circle time as well. We've spent so much time doing our circle time activities this week that I haven't even turned our Montessori shelf around at all :(

Hooray!!!

Today was my last day of work until after Little Kicker is born!!! It was a LONG day...we left our house at 6:20 am and just got home at 11 pm, but it was a good day. I love my job, but I'm glad to be done with it for a while :) I typically work one day per week, but for the past 6 weeks I've been working 2 days per week (since things are crazy in the public school system, especially special ed, at this time of year). I was surprised and dismayed by how totally wiped out I've been by working 2 days in a row. When I was pregnant with O, I was working 1 full time job and one part time job (about 60 hours per week) and commuting 2 hours a day. I was tired and sick all of the time, but I survived it. This time I had to spend a day recovering just from working 2 days :( I actually felt so bad on Saturday that I thought I was getting the flu. I'm sure that the fact that I'm still taking Unisom to control the nausea plays a big part in my overwhelming exhaustion. Hopefully, I can stop taking it soon.

I have LOTS of plans for a fun summer with my girl (and her daddy, of course!)...weekly science projects, weekly art projects, lots of circle time activities, weekly books with story stretcher activities, a few new Montessori activities, playing on the beach daily (weather permitting i.e. if I can stand the heat), daily gardening experiences, playing in her sweet pea teepee, building our sunflower house (once the sunflowers are tall enough), 3 weeks of FREE vacations, etc. So...stay tuned!

How to Make Thrift Store Shirts Super Cute...

Embroidery, of course! Can you tell that I'm on an embroidery kick lately???
Since we are planning on starting EC from the beginning with Little Kicker (as opposed to 10 months old which is when we started with O), I realized that we need more t-shirts to make the process a little easier. I found 3 t-shirts at the thrift store for about 50 cents each. The embroidery patterns are from Wee Wonderfuls.















These t-shirts were SO quick to embroider. I completed 2 of them in the car on our way to our Memorial Weekend destinations :)

Around the World- Library Activity Kit

Last week's library activity kit was called "Around the World." It came with 5 books about children from different countries. Each book focuses on a different aspect of their lives- housing, eating, travel, etc. The books were great, and O really enjoyed them. She also loved this puzzle with different children in their various outfits. In addition to the books and puzzles, we studied a globe and completed the contintents map while singing the continents song. I told O that we live in North America, and she said that when I was in her tummy we lived in South America (she's ALWAYS telling me stories about when she was the mama and I was the baby in her tummy).









She was intrigued by this map from Let's Explore. (Ours is the mini-version, but I REALLY wish I'd bought the larger version as it would be much easier to work with.)

 



We also read A Ride on Mother's Back and talked about the different countries in the book:)

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.