Learning to Dress Dolls/Stuffed Animals

O is great at undressing her stuffed animals and dolls, but not so good at dressing them :) When I saw several small costumes on sale at Target, I thought that they would fit her small monkeys and be a great new shelf activity. She was thrilled with this activity! I decided to use 3 monkeys instead of just one so they could each wear a costume and then she could play with all of them together.



O insisted on keeping the outfits on the monkeys, so they sat and watched us do our montessori activities this morning.

This activity was NOT easy for her, but it was fun!

Matching Continents

I was excited when O chose to match the continents from her puzzle to the control map today. She really enjoyed it, and we sang the continents song while she worked. You may notice that she is wearing babylegs on her arms and legs in the picture. She was a ballerina and she was adamant that "I KNOW ballerinas wear them on their arms AND legs." She also mentioned that she was cold. Surely she was teasing since I'm pretty sure the temp was in the 90s today!

I'm going through my posts and finding a few saved in draft that I never posted...this post is at least one month old :)

Balancing Animals

I introduced this simple work to O last week, and she really enjoyed it. The balancing animals are from the dollar section of Target (bought last summer), and they are meant for martini glasses. O had to place them very carefully on the rim of the cup so that they wouldn't fall off. I was surprised that this was a little difficult for her. It was a great lesson in moving slowly and carefully :)

A New Spin on Matching

Since matching pictures has gotten a little too easy for O, I decided to spice it up a little! I found a small butterfly calendar at Michael's and cut the pictures out and laminated them. I then cut the tiny pictures that were on the back of the calendar and laminated them. O had to look VERY carefully at the tiny pictures to find the matches. (Next time we may incorporate the use of a magnifying glass into this work.) This was a lot of fun, and she was very curious about how I cut out the tiny pictures. She's a little obsessed with cutting :)

World Map Rug

O and I are both SO excited about our new world map rug! She was so excited that she was running around the house screaming. This is very uncharacteristic behavior, and I asked her why she was screaming. She said "Because I'm SO EXCITED about my rug!" Who knew that a rug would be so exciting for an almost 3 year old? :)

The rug just arrived today (Thursday), and we've already had so much fun with it. I found all of my old Beanie Babies (O was very excited about this, too!), and we put them on the correct continents. We also stepped from one continent to the next while singing the continent song. She loves marching around in circles on the rug while singing the continent song :) What a great buy!

Matching Animals to Their Tracks

This activity came from Montessori for Everyone. First we played the animal tracks game in the sand tray, and then I showed O how to match the cards.

 
Checking her work.

 

A Montessori Morning

We've been spending so much time playing on the beach in the mornings this week that we've had very little time to do our Montessori work (we sing our circle time songs while playing on the beach on the mornings that we skip circle time). Since we got an early start Thursday morning, we were able to have "school" for about 45 minutes after coming in from 2 hours on the beach. O really enjoyed her work!

Matching balloon textures.


 




Hammering golf tees. She always chooses this activity.


 




Completing the What doesn't belong? cards.


 

Matching triangles







She chose several other activities, and we took turns doing several things. When it was my turn, she ran to get her wooden camera so she could take a picture of me :)

Seasons & Clothes Matching

I recently introduced seasons and clothes matching from Montessori for Everyone to O. I didn't give her all of the cards because I thought it would be a little overwhelming. She did very well and enjoyed the activity.

 
I put different colored stickers for each category on the backs of the cards to aid in self checking.

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!

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.

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.