Bead Snake Game

We received the rest of our montessori materials yesterday, and O and I are so excited. She loves the beads, and she begs to play with them. She's way too young for the bead game, but I let her explore the beads while she sits at the table.

Spring Matching Cards

Since Spring is almost here, I decided that we needed some Spring matching cards. I downloaded these beautiful cards from Montessori for Everyone. After printing and cutting them, I laminated them in my laminating machine (I love my laminating machine!). I'm very happy with how they turned out, and O loves them. She wasn't really into matching this morning- she was overtired and grumpy, but she was quick to match a few pictures when she saw me doing it.

More Help Needed

I have another question from the wonderful Montessori mamas out there. How do I introduce the knobbed cylinders? I know that I should only intro one at a time, but is there a specific one that is best to intro first? Also, is there a specific procedure for introducing this work or should I just show her how to take them out, examine the pieces, and fit them back into the right slot? She has played with the cylinders informally while they were sitting on the floor while I was trying to figure out where in the world to put them (I still haven't figured it out because they won't fit on the shelf, and this house is sooooo small). She did a great job putting the cylinders back in the right places. I think this is going to be a favorite work, but I want to do it right. Thanks for any input!!!

Knobbed Cylinders

I ordered some REAL Montessori materials, and I am so excited! I've wanted the knobbed cylinders for a while, but they were MUCH too expensive. Thanks to Shannon I found out about an online store that had a huge sale. I got the knobbed cylinders (and lots of other things that haven't come in yet) for 50% plus another 15% off and free shipping. O was more excited about the packing popcorns and bubble wrap than anything else. However, since opening the cylinders she's shown lots of interest in them, and I think we are going to have a great time working with them. Yay!

Popsicle Sticks & an Insulated Mug

Another fine motor work! Dh was given this insulated mug at his conference last week, and he planned to give it away since he knew we wouldn't use it. As soon as I saw it, I thought of popsicle sticks. The little opening is the perfect size for a popsicle stick. My mom introduced this work to O while she kept her today. O really enjoyed it and has done it at least 3 times. The most fun is shaking the cup and dancing after she is finished!

Arranging Wooden Flowers

I found these wooden flowers at my mom's house and thought this would be a fun, fine motor activity for O to do. She really had to concentrate, and it was not easy for her to get the flowers into the holes. She stopped about halfway through. I should have only given her a few flowers at a time. I left the work for her to finish later, and she came back and did a few more after about 15 minutes. For the more experienced Montessori mamas out there... what do you do when your child doesn't finish her work? Did I do the right thing by leaving it for her to finish later? Should I have had her clean it up since she wanted to do something else? What is the Montessori way of handling this situation? Thanks for any input!

Ice Cube Tray & Clothes Pins Work

My mom found this ice cube tray for water bottles in her cabinet and told me to think of an activity to go with it for O. I immediately thought of clothes pins... they'd fit perfectly. And they did! O had a great time putting the clothes pins in the tray. I only gave her enough for the 1st row to start off with because I thought it would be too overwhelming to have much more than that. I was wrong. She kept asking for more until the entire tray was filled. This is definitely a work that we will do again soon.

Arranging Flowers

The idea for this activity came from Montessori Mama's wonderful blog. I'd never thought about having O arrange flowers since she is so young, but I decided to give it a try. I bought some pretty silk daffodils and cut them into individual flowers. I had them ready to use, but then I noticed that my mom had a vase of real daffodils on her kitchen counter. Its always better to use the real thing, so I removed the daffodils from the vase and took everything into the den. O was VERY excited when I told her that she could put the flowers into the vase. She loves flowers, so this was the perfect activity for her. She had a little trouble since the vase was so tall. I'm hoping I can find some small bottles for her to put her fake flowers in now that we are at home. Thanks, Jennifer, for another great idea!

Matching Shapes

Once again, O loves to match. After making 6 shape cards, I remembered that I had this set in my closet. The cards are a little wordy (they have the color and shape names in English and Spanish), but it wasn't a problem. O matched them all correctly the 1st time. Fun, fun, fun!

Open/Close

We've been working on the concepts of open and closed lately, so this activity from Montessori Mama fit in perfectly with that. I found the bag clips from Family Dollar, but I was disappointed that they only had red and blue. O was excited when I showed them to her, and she immediately grabbed a blue one and said "boo." She open and closed them for a bit, but she had the most fun putting them in and out of a tall white container (I'm not sure where this container came from. It just appeared on the shelf. Grandmas- did one of you bring it over?). O was holding the container somewhat upside down while she was putting the clips in it, so they kept falling out. She was a little perplexed as you can see by the picture.

Nesting Dolls

O always loves playing with the nesting dolls that I got from trips to Ukraine and Poland years ago. She is fascinated with these beautiful dolls, but we have to watch her closely because she sometimes plays too rough with them.

Matching Art Cards

More matching! O really does love to match, and she loves these beautiful cards. She calls the Matisse "daddy" and the Manet "mama." I downloaded the pics from Jojoebi's site, printed them, and laminated them. I am looking forward to making more soon.

Water Play

O loves to play with water. I planned to have her at the kitchen counter, but it was too high, so I set her up with a tub of water at the kitchen table. She's standing in her kitchen helper. She played with this tub of water for more than 45 minutes, and I had time to work on our Christmas scrapbook!

Color Matching

O loves to match colors! I laminated construction paper and then cut it in half to make matching pairs. O has fun learning her colors and matching the cards.

I Spy Bottle

O and I had fun trying out the "I Spy" bottle that I made for Charlie. We found an object on the picture that we wanted to look for and then turned and shook the bottle until we found it. I hope Charlie likes the bottle as much as O does!

Look at that Concentration!

This was one of the morning activities that I set up last night. Look at that concentration! I love watching O when she is so focused on her work.

Nesting Blocks

These nesting blocks are our version of the pink tower. Until today they have been in O's room, which means they are rarely played with since we are usually upstairs in the den. We brought them up this morning, and she has had a great time working with them. I showed her how to stack them, but she was much more interested in putting them in each other. She especially loves the smallest block and likes to carry it around.

Tuesday's Activities

Tuesday afternooon was very busy. O played with cotton balls briefly (this idea came from Montessori Mama). I was disappointed that she wasn't more interested in working with the cotton balls, but we'll try it again another time. O had fun doing the shape puzzle, sweeping the porch playroom, blowing bubbles, bouncing on the joggling board, and picking catnip for Gracie.

More Clothes Pin Fun

For this activity I clipped clothes pins around the edge of the bowl, and O pulled them off and put them in the bowl. She did NOT want to put them in the bowl the 1st time she did this which was no big deal, but a little strange. She took all the clothes pins off and took the bowl to the kitchen. She doesn't like things to be out of place, and she knew that bowl belonged in the kitchen. I tried this activity again today, and she really enjoyed it.

We Love Eric Carle

O had a great time matching pictures from Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? to the pictures in the book. The idea for this activity came from Montessori Mama who is full of creative and fun ideas. Instead of drawing the pictures, I took the easy way out and took pictures of the pages in the book. I printed them in wallet size and laminated them. O loved this activity because she loves her Eric Carle books. She chose a card from the basket and flipped through the book until she found a match. When she found the matching page she excitedly said "Theyitis!" (There it is!) What fun!