Matching Animals Figurines to Animal Pictures

E LOVES animals so I thought she might enjoy a matching activity using one of her favorite books and animal figurines.  She doesn't quite get the concept of matching yet, but she's catching on and she really enjoys it.  This is the activity that she has chosen off of her shelf first all week.

To do this activity, I put the book along with several animal figurines into a basket on her Montessori shelf.



We look at the book and match the animals to the pictures in the book by placing the animal figurine on the picture.









Sometimes she'll choose an animal and we'll flip through the book looking for that animal.  Other times we look at the book and match the animals as we read the book.

All About Blue

I recently introduced the bag of blue objects to E. She really loves taking out and exploring each object.







Then she puts the bag on her arm and walks off as if she's going shopping. Could she get any cuter?!!   (I don't think so!)

Drying a Tray with a Sponge

I saw this work at O's school, and I knew it would be a fun one for us to have at home.
To do this work, E shakes water from a bottle onto a tray. She then dries the water with a sponge. E LOVES it! She did it over and over and over and over...

We talked about the concepts of wet and dry while we did this activity.

The bottle is a salt shaker from Dollar General. Don't make the mistake (like I did!) of putting too much water in the bottle...you only need a very small amount.

Putting Objects in a Clear Container

It doesn't get any simpler than this! I gave E a clear plastic container and a bunch of wooden Kapla blocks. She had a GREAT time putting the blocks in the container and dumping them back out again. She also enjoyed trying to put the lid on the container once it was full. Next week I'm going to give her a bunch of golf balls to put in the container. I know she's going to LOVE it!

Never Underestimate The Baby!

On the day that I posted that E wasn't ready to put the popsicle sticks into a small opening in a cup, she took a rug to my mom, sat down, and started doing just that!

Look at that concentration! I love to watch my children when they are so focused on their tasks. I only videod her putting the 1st 3 popsicle sticks in the container, but she continued until they were ALL in the cup. She amazes me! I've learned 2 lessons from this...observe rather than assume and NEVER underestimate the baby!

Dropping Popsicle Sticks Into a Container

Here's another one of E's favorite activities! This cup has a top with a small opening that is the perfect size for popsicle sticks. However, E is not ready to put the sticks in a small opening. I took the lid off, and she had a great time dropping the sticks in the cup. They make a pleasing "ting" when they hit the bottom. She LOVED this activity, and she kept putting the cup to her mouth to take a drink :)

She liked putting the lid back on the cup and then taking it off to dump the sticks out. What fun!

Changes

I will miss my ballerina princess enjoying her Montessori homeschool because she's now attending a REAL Montessori school! She started school last Tuesday, and she loves it. I miss her so much, but I know that she is having a great time and is learning so much. Her class and all of the materials are amazing. Her teachers are great, and she loves them. I'm so happy that she is spending more time with other kids and has more opportunities for making friends.

This is how I amused myself after E, Elliott, and I got home from dropping O off at her first day of school :)


O refuses to tell me what she does at school if I ask her, but if I don't ask her, she'll gradually share details. She loves to wash dishes, and she was very excited about cleaning a mirror and shining shoes. She also said she did the spindle box, and she came home with several sheets from the metal insets.


This blog will be changing a little...although, not that much since I really haven't done much Montessori work with O in a few months (we had to move the Montessori shelf out to the garage since the baby was pulling up on it, and it's on casters and top heavy...also, we just don't do much "school" work in the summer since we spend most of our time outside on the beach and in the lake). I'll be posting about all of the various activities (mostly Montessori inspired) that I do with E, the art, nature, and cooking activities that I do with O in the afternoons, product reviews (about 4 coming up fairly soon along with a couple of giveaways), and handmade gifts (I'm WAY behind on this...I still haven't posted about a couple of handmade gifts from last Christmas).

Thanks for reading!

All About Red

I've recently started taking down the bags (one at a time) from O's color hunt game to teach E her colors. She LOVES exploring the objects in the bags, and I think she may know the color red (although, she hasn't said the word red yet).

I love how she put the bag on her arm to wear it like a pocketbook.

She was especially enthralled with the red hairband. (I had to watch her very closely because she was very tempted to put it in her mouth). She was very persistant in trying to put it on her wrist to wear like a bracelet.

Her persistance paid off, and she eventually got the hairband on her wrist. I love to watch her when she is so focused on a task. I love that she persisted until she accomplished her goal and never became frustrated.


Btw, you may notice that E wears a lot of tie-dyed shirts...our craft activity during our beach trip was tie dying shirts. I took lots of E's stained and plain night shirts and play shirts and made them beautiful. I love tie-dye!

Putting Objects in a Large Container

E is REALLY into putting objects into containers and then taking them out again. Since this is her area of interest, I've been focusing on this for most of her activities. When I saw this large container at my mom's house, I knew it would be perfect for E. (the container came from Sam's Club and held pretzels). For the first couple of weeks that we had the container, we just put various objects in it and rolled it around on the floor and shook it. This was a lot of fun, but not as much fun as it could be...

So, I asked Elliott to cut a square hole in the side (I try to avoid cutting things with large knives, if at all possible, since my finger incident). After he cut the hole, I covered the sharp, plastic edges with duct tape. I gave E a basket of toys and showed her how to drop them in and then take them out of the hole.

I love that this container is large enough for her to use a variety of toys and objects that are not chokable.

Velcro Sandwich Activity

E LOVES O's play kitchen and all of the food in it, so I thought she'd enjoy having some wooden/velcro food activities on her Montessori shelf.

I put a wooden sandwich with fillings that attach via velcro in a basket on her shelf. She was very excited when I showed her this activity. She had fun pulling the sandwich apart, and she was not very interested in putting it back together again. We worked on labeling the bread, pickles, cheese, and tomato in the sandwich and the colors of everything. I plan to put different wooden food items on her shelf each week to keep it interesting for her.

Basket of Fabric Squares

One of baby E's Montessori activities is exploring a basket of fabric squares. The fabric squares are sample fabrics that E's grandmother collected when she was recovering several pieces of furniture. We rub the different fabrics with our fingers and on our faces and talk about the different textures. E enjoys this activity!


So soft!

Moveable Alphabet Activity

Lisa from Reading with Hannah sent us 2 boxes full of wonderful activities, books, and a crayon roll. We have had so much fun with everything and are amazed by her generosity. This is one of the activities that O really enjoyed.

Each of the cards has a picture of an object on it. O labeled the object and then spelled out the word with the included construction paper letters. Then she opened the cards to check her work. I love that the cards opened for her to check her work (although she said "I don't need to check them because I know they are all right." She's a very confident girl!)