Cutting Wooden/Velcro Fruit

I had a Cutting Wooden/Velcro Fruit activity on E's shelf a few months ago, and she loved it.  However, she always took the fruit back to her play kitchen, so I stopped trying to keep it on the shelf as an activity.

I decided to work with her on this a little more after I watched her take 2 (raw) sweet potatoes from the pantry and take them to the kitchen table.  She then pushed a chair up to the kitchen shelves, climbed in the chair, and reached for a knife from the knife block while saying "cut, cut."  I think my heart almost stopped when I saw her reaching for (and almost getting) the large knives, and I quickly stepped in and got her off the chair.  I gave her a child's knife and let her pretend to cut the sweet potatoes for a while. 





After that I sat down with her to cut wooden/velcro fruit.  She REALLY loves this activity.  It's hard for her to orient the knife exactly right, and I used to have a craft stick out with her fruit that worked fairly well.  However, now that she is bigger, she only wants a knife.  O has also had fun working with E and showing her the correct way to hold the knife to cut the fruit. 




More than anything, E just loves to sit surrounded by her wooden food.  She loves to pull it apart and put it back together, and she loves trying to cut it.  She was so busy playing independently with her play food that I didn't know what to do with myself.  The house was clean; lunch was ready; O was at school; the computer was broken; and I didn't want to interfere with her independent play.  It was a strange feeling for a busy mama :) 

A Beautiful and Simple Science Experiment

This is a science experiment that we do every year when the white Camelias bloom...

First, O poured water into 4 test tubes (I bought these on clearance after Halloween...they were filled with gummy body parts in candy jelly, which we threw away).



Then, she squeezed LOTS of food coloring in to each test tube.  The tubes were red, yellow, green, and blue (the food coloring was so dark that you couldn't really tell which color each tube held at first).



Our last step was putting one beautiful white Camelia into each test tube. 


Within about 3 hours, the petals were already starting to turn colors. This was SO exciting because this is the FIRST year this experiment has worked (and it's our 3rd year doing it!). I realized last year (too late) that it wasn't working because we weren't using enough food coloring.




All of the petals fell off the blue and green flowers after only one day.  Luckily, the girls didn't mind.  I'm so glad this project finally worked!


Thanks to Nonie who inspired me to use the test tubes for this experiment.  They worked perfectly...you should try it!

Magnetic Drawing Board

E LOVES this magnetic drawing board.  I bought it for O from Target about 3 years ago, and it has been used by both girls often.  E asks us to draw cats and dogs for her, but she mainly just likes to "daw" (draw) by herself.  I love that she has a no mess way to draw (she can't resist tasting markers, crayons, paint, and pencils, and she has drawn with a pencil all over my kitchen table). 



I'm not sure if you can tell, but E is wearing mittens on her feet in this picture.  She insisted that she wear them on her feet, and she wore them like this all day.  I love my silly girl!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? I Spy Bottle

I recently added this Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? I Spy bottle to E's Montessori shelf.  We had fun reading the book and looking for the different animals in the bottle.  I made this I Spy bottle for O a few years ago using lentils instead of rice. 



I really wish I'd put the pictures on both sides of the little cards.  It can be frustrating to look for the animals when all of the cards seem to turn over to the back at the same time and stubbornly refuse to turn back over no matter how many ways we flip, shake, and roll the bottle.  Although, to be honest, I was the only one who was frustrated...E didn't seem to mind at all :)

Candy & Cereal Bracelets

One of the activities in O and E's February Box of Fun was making candy and cereal bracelets.  I put a ziploc bag with fruity cheerios and twizzlers (pull and peel) in the box.  O was VERY excited when she saw it since she had never even seen "color" cheerios or pull and peel twizzlers. 











O and I had a lot of fun making (and eating!) our bracelets! 

Other activities included in the box of fun were Valentine's day cards to color, heart doilies, a blank canvas to paint, twisty straws, a mini sticker book, a felt board activity, and heart headbands.

Lacing Beads

Lacing beads is one of E's favorite activities on her Montessori shelf, and she chooses it almost everyday.  We have a bead lacing set made by Ryan's Room.  It is made up of a wooden snake head with wooden beads and disks to string to make the snake's body.  The beads are a little too big for E to handle with her small hands, but she does well with the disks.  I love to watch the intense concentration on her face when she does this work.

Learning to Finger Knit

O and I (and sometimes E since she has to do everything her big sister does!) have been learning to finger knit for the past 2 weeks.  I was surprised by how easy this has been.   We followed the directions here.













Before we started learning to finger knit, we watched the History of Yarn.  O loved this!  We watched it twice in a row, and she wanted to watch it a 3rd time.  Thanks to Amy at Early Bird Homeschool for sharing these fun links!

Living History

We've had a wonderful and educational weekend!  Our history loving girl (O) had a great time at a Living History festival (Revolutionary War) held near our house.  I read about the festival in the newspaper on Wednesday, and luckily, we had the American Revolution: A Nonfiction Companion to Revolutionary War on Wednesday (Magic Tree House Research Guide #11) from the library.  We read the research guide on Wednesday night before bed, and I checked out a couple of Felicity books Meet Felicity: An American Girl : 1774 (The American Girls Collection, Book 1) from the library on Thursday (which we read on Thursday night and Friday night). (can you tell that we love to read?)  O loves listening to the American Girl books on the ipad, so she listened to the Felicity books during her quiet time on Friday.  That seemed like enough background knowledge, so off we went on Friday night for a lantern walk through the woods during the American Revolution.

On Saturday morning we went back to learn even more about the Revolutionary War.  O had a great time learning to wet felt wool roving. 






She also loved learning to sew a yo-yo.  She's been wanting to sew a quilt for a while, and I think a yo-yo quilt may be in our future :)









  We had fun walking on stilts, playing games from the 1700s, watching a blacksmith make a meat hook, and many other things.  The only thing the girls didn't like was the cannon fire.  E is still talking about the "boom, boom, oud" (loud). 

Do-A-Dot Art Painters

E loves to paint with her dot painters that her grandparents gave her for Christmas.  They are perfect for way for toddlers to paint with almost no mess.  E had a taste of her blue dot painter, so she had a blue tongue, blue lips, and a blue nose.  Luckily, she looks pretty cute in blue! Here is the set that we have  Do-A-Dot Rainbow Art Set (Set of 6) (this is an affiliate link!).