Too Easy

When cleaning out a few under the bed boxes yesterday, I came across this ring holder. I thought it would make a fun activity for O. I showed her how to put the small hairbands on the ring holder and push them down, then she had her turn. This was much too easy for her, and we won't do it again. I wish I'd thought of this a few months ago :(

Toothpick Work

This is a variation on the toothpick work we've done in the past. Before we used a parmesan cheese shaker which had much bigger holes. O enjoyed putting toothpicks in the container. This time we used an actual toothpick dispenser. The holes are much smaller, so it required more concentration and fine motor control. O did great and she really enjoyed it. She also enjoyed taking the lid off and putting all of the toothpicks in the jar that way :)

The Lentil Tray

When I saw the lentil tray at Lapaz Home Learning, I knew I wanted to make one for O. I finally got everything together and introduced it to her yesterday. She had lots of fun (and didn't make too much of a mess). She called the lentils babies. She calls every small thing either baby or niney (tiny). Scoops are surprisingly hard to find, and we are thankful to Auntie EB for giving us one of her scoops from her wedding favors table. Thanks, EB!

Color Box 1

Yay! We did the color box 1 today using the color tablets downloaded from Jojo Ebi's Lulu Shop. I am VERY happy with how they turned out. This was a very easy work for O since she master matcher :) I'm looking forward to introducing the 2nd box tomorrow or Friday. I also need to do a three part lesson with yellow since she's not saying the word reliably.

Goodbye Floor Bed :(

O has slept on a floor bed since she was around 7 months old. After our trip to California, we moved her to the guest room bed since she slept so well on that trip. She has slept so much better, so we decided that its time for a real bed. My mom brought the bed tonight, and I hope we'll get it set up tomorrow. Its going to take up a lot more room than the floor bed, so I don't how we are going to arrange things. Hopefully, we'll be able to figure it out tomorrow.

What is your favorite Montessori material?

I'm thinking of buying a few more Montessori items, and I'm wondering what other mamas consider as "must haves." We love the knobbed cylinders, but O is a little young for a lot of the other things I've bought. I want to have sandpaper letters, but I can't decide whether to buy them or make them. I think I can make them fairly easily, but I don't know where to find the board to put them on. I also want the red rods, and I know they would be easy to make but I'm not sure if it would be cost effective to make them since I can buy them for $25. Any input is greatly appreciated!

More Matching

Are you tired of reading matching posts yet? This is the last one for a while, I promise! I bought this set of Go Fish cards for O to match since its animal mamas and babies. O LOVES to label everything as mama and baby. She even calls our big tomato plant mama and the little one baby. She really loves these cards and was totally focused (despite the upside down sunglasses) on the activity. She looked closely at each card before matching it. After she finished she said "mama, baby, milk" and put the 2 cards together face to face so the baby could nurse. Then she swung them back and forth and said "rock, rock." She such a nurturer!

I Spy Matching Game

I bought this I Spy Preschool Game for my 3 year old niece for Christmas, and she really enjoyed it for about a week. By then she had it memorized, and it no longer offered a challenge. Since O loves to match, I thought I'd try it with her. I suspected that she was too young to do the game since its for ages 3 to 6 years, but I decided that it wouldn't hurt to try. I put out 3 cards and handed her a matching card one at a time. The first time we did it she got all of them right, and I was very surprised. Today we did the game again, and she barely looked at the cards and she didn't match any of them correctly. She obviously wasn't into it. Then she decided that Niney (Tiny) wanted to match. She held Niney's hand and had her match the cards. Niney matched them all correctly! It was so funny. O LOVES Niney, and she goes with us everywhere!

Feeding O's Matching Obsession

Since O loves to match, I'm always looking for matching cards. This weekend I found Brainy Baby Wild Animal cards at Fred's for $1.50. I bought 2 sets so she could match them, and she's really enjoyed it. The cards are super sturdy, and I hope they'll last a while. I'm also going to try to find some small animal figurines for her to match to the cards.
I also bought these puzzle cards by School Zone. There are 3 cards that the child puts together to make a picture. I put the 1st 2 together and handed O the 3rd card for her to match. (she was sitting directly across from me, but moved to the side while we were working)

Hard/Soft Sorting

O learned the attributes hard and soft today. I had 6 items in a bowl- 3 hard items and 3 soft items. We talked about the different concepts as we touched the items and sorted them into 2 containers. O was really thinking during this lesson, and she really enjoyed it. She kept wanting to do it again, so we ended up sorting the objects 3 times in a row.

Our Version of Dressing Frames

I bought this Zoolio activity set before our cruise in December. I thought it would a good, quiet activity to take to dinner. O wasn't very interested, but my 3 year old niece loved it. After we got back, I put it away in the closet until this week. O has enjoyed trying out the different activities. It includes 6 removable pages that have a different activity on each- velcro, zipper, snaps, buttons, weaving, and a pocket kangaroo. O also likes carrying it around like a purse. Actually, this is her FAVORITE thing to do. She puts it on her arm, turns to walk away and says "bye" like she has somewhere very important to go! This toy well-made and attractive, and the best part of all is that I bought it 2nd hand for about 3 dollars! I LOVE 2nd hand shops!

Stringing Beads

We've been working on stringing beads lately using O's snake bead stringer that was a baby shower gift. Its made by Ryan's Room, and we really love it. The beads are wooden and nicely made. O has a little trouble stringing the big beads, but she's learning. Somehow my Kleen Kanteen jumped into this picture. I LOVE that thing!

Making a Rain Maker

Our favorite exhibit at the Arts Alive Festival on Saturday was put on by the local Montessori School. It was a station set up for children to build their own rain makers (not that the rain need any encouragement!) using plastic cups, popcorn kernels, tape, and stickers and markers to decorate. O loved sitting on the mat to decorate her rain maker.

Learning to Pour

Look at that concentration!



O practiced pouring today using popcorn kernals. She did a great job, and she absolutely loved it! After pouring the kernals into the bowl, she poured them back into the pitcher using a funnel. This was so much fun! She was very focused on this work for quite a while.

Egg Carton Fun

Egg cartons are great for sorting. Today O got her egg carton off her shelf and put shells in it. She was very engrossed in this work. I prompted her to take the shells out and put them back in the basket after she was finished. She counted as she put them back...2, 3, 4, 6, 9. For some reason she refuses to say 1 :) See Montessori Mama's blog for more fun things to do with egg cartons.

A Matching Game

The idea for this matching game from Games to Play with Toddlers by Jackie Silberg. I traced around several of O's toys with a pencil onto a notecard. Then I outlined it using a black Sharpie pen. I put the objects in a drawstring bag (from IKEA) and spread the cards out in front of O. As she reaches into the bag to pull out an object we say "Abracadabra, 1,2,3. Reach in the bag. What do you see?" She pulls out an object and matches it to the correct card. LOTS of fun! It was also quick and simple to put together :) Next time we play, I'll have her close her eyes while she reaches into the bag to make it a little more exciting. Another variation is to give her one card at a time and have her feel around in the bag until she finds the correct object. I may also expand on this game by taking pictures of some of her small toys and printing them out for her to match the object to. A similar game was posted about on Z Recommends. Enjoy!

Easter Egg Work

My mom brought O a basket of Easter eggs when she came to keep her this week. Here is one of many activities we've done with the Easter eggs. We talk about the colors of the eggs, count the eggs, and talk about the concepts of open and closed. O likes to put the small eggs into the larger eggs, and then she loves to shake the eggs until she finds one with a smaller egg in it. Opening the eggs is also fun, but its not so easy to close them :)

Putting Cards in a Box

This fun and simple idea (that I would never have thought of myself) came from Jeremiah at Z Recommends. Thanks, Jeremiah! I turned a box upside down, cut a slit in it, and showed O how to slip the cards in it. She had a great time! She was very proud to show her daddy when he came upstairs to play.

Arranging Wooden Flowers Again

I decided after some input from other mamas that the wooden flower arranging work was a little too difficult for O right now. I thought I'd put the work on a shelf out of O's sight and reach. However, my little monkey is taller than I realized. She stood on her tiptoes and somehow reached the wooden vase (I'm really not sure how she even saw it) and brought it to me and said "mo." She tried to reach the flowers, but couldn't. When she was trying to reach them, she stood on her tiptoes and said "each, each" (reach, reach). I got 3 flowers for her to put in the vase. It took lots of concentration and effort, but she put the 3 flowers in the vase. She asked for "more," but she was distracted by something and we put it away. I was glad she was distracted and didn't want to do more because I think that it would have been too much for her.

Knobbed Cylinders

I FINALLY introduced the knobbed cylinders to O last night (thanks for your input mamas!), and O really likes this work! Our cat, Gracie, was also interested in learning about the cylinders. Although, she's a little distracted in this pic :)