What She's Into...

Most of our Montessori work is put away until we start back with our school, but we have a few things out that see daily use. O LOVES the lentil tray! I'm so happy to see her enjoying it so much because she ignored it for months after the initial "newness" wore off.
She also is really into washing the windows!
She gets the knobbed cylinders down every other day or so. I planned to put them away for a while, but they are so big that I didn't have anywhere to stash them. I guess that's a good thing, since she has enjoyed working with them so much lately.

A Shell Memory Game

Can you tell that I love making/playing memory games? The idea for this game came from The Write Start. When I saw her post, I knew we would definitely make this game. Its so pretty and fun! If you haven't checked out The Write Start yet, you need to!

First we washed and dried the shells. Then we put the stickers on the shells. I looked several places before finally finding the same exact stickers that were used on the inspiration post (at Target). I was pretty excited especially since all of the other sea life stickers that I'd found were flashy and tacky :) O helped stick a few of the stickers on the shells, but she was a little rough and I was afraid she would tear them.
Since she's not quite ready for a full-fledged memory game, we did a matching game instead. I put a set of shells in each basket, and she chose one from the 1st basket and then found its match in the 2nd basket. She REALLY enjoyed this!Here she is with all of her matches!

Chalkboard Birthday Cards

The chalkboard is great for making birthday cards, too! I uploaded a pic from our birthday card photo shoot to snapfish, and I'll make a postcard to send to Grandpa for his birthday. He's going to love it, and O had a great time making it! Also, I discovered that I love writing with wet chalk :) We left the chalk out in the rain last night, and it was so much more fun to write with it when it's wet. I really don't like the feel of chalk on my fingers, so this was a very pleasant discovery. I think we'll just use wet chalk from now on!

Making Wrapping Paper :)

O and I had a great time wrapping a present for one of her friends today. We started with a piece of newspaper. She painted it with her dot painters. Then decorated it with stickers and colored with markers a bit.

Then it was done! We had a great time with this project, and O was very proud. She told me that she want to "get in O's car seat and mama drive to see Momo NOW!" The party is not until Sunday. I hope she can wait that long!

The best part about this is, not only was it fun, but its recyclable! We'll be wrapping all of our Christmas presents in newspaper this year. Although we will use the gift bags that we reuse every year :)

Sorting Body Parts...

... using Mr. Potato Head, of course! O loves Mr. Potato Head, so I thought she would love a sorting work with Mr. Potato Head parts :) I chose 3 sets of eyes, 3 arms, and 3 sets of teeth/lips. I showed O how to put the different body parts in the different openings in the tray.
She caught right on and had lots of fun! This work will definitely go on the new shelf once we start school!

O's Number Puzzle

O was thrilled to work with her number puzzle this afternoon. I'm just happy that I found this wooden number puzzle for only 25 cents :) I am a bit disappointed that I couldn't get the pen marks off of it. Does anybody have any ideas for getting pen marks off of wood?

Matching Lids and Jars

This a simple activity you can do with jars from around your house. We have lots of jars since we can't recycle glass here. O was VERY excited when she saw me setting this up, and she couldn't wait to get started. I found as many different sized jars with lids as I could. I took the lids off and put them in a basket and put the basket to the left of the jars. O immediately got to work, and she did really well. I was afraid that I had too many jars, but it was the perfect number :)
After she finished matching the lids to the jars, she immediately starting taking the lids off and putting them back in the basket. She was ready for "more game" as she calls it! I think this girl is ready to start back with our school work!

Fun with Thank You Notes

I've been trying to think of a way to have O involved in writing the thank you notes for her birthday gifts, and I figured it out today! I wrote Thank You on her chalkboard (she helped, but I erased her "help" before I took the pictures!) and had her stand in front of the board with the gift while I took pictures. I had her say "Thank you, Guh-guh" (or whoever the gift was from) as I took the picture. This was a lot of fun, and O seemed quite proud to be taking pics for "tank too notes." Unfortunately, the lighting was a bit off, and we'll have to take a few more pics tomorrow (I was hoping to have the notes sent tonight!). I am uploading the pics to Snapfish, and then sending them out as postcard thank you notes. For the gifts that I didn't want to take outside and the gifts of money, I used pictures of O from her birthday party. Obviously, this isn't a picture that we'll be using :) I added her name after I took these pics, and I actually got few shots of her looking at the camera!

Animal Soundtracks

My mom gave O this fantastic game, Animal Soundtracks, for her birthday. We have had a GREAT time playing it! To play the game you listen to a cd with different animal sounds. When you hear an animal that is on your card, you put a dot on their picture. Its a simple game that is great for toddlers and preschoolers. It's great for increasing attention and auditory comprehension skills :)

Finding Rocks in Putty

My mom had this great therapy putty left over from her teaching days, and she let O and I borrow it. O had a great time finding the rocks in the putty. The putty is similar to silly putty, but its much firmer and requires a good bit of effort to find and pull the rocks out of the putty. I was impressed with how focused and determined O was during this activity :) This activity is great for increasing hand and finger muscle strength and fine motor skills, and it's great for teaching persistence and determination!

Mixing Colors in a Bag

For this activity you need cornstarch, sugar, water, a ziplock bag, and food coloring. Mix 1 cup of cornstarch, 1/3 cup of sugar, and 4 cups of water. Fill about 1/3 of the bag with the mixture. squeeze the food coloring into opposite sides of the bag, zip it closed, and squeeze to mix. We mixed yellow and blue to make green, and then we mixed blue and red to make purple. It was a quick, fun activity, but O was a little too fussy to really enjoy it :( It was also a great way to reuse the old ziploc bags that I just can't stand to throw away :)

Mommy/Daughter Arts and Crafts Time

I've decided that since O is a little older (2) and is getting more independent that it may be fun for us to sit down at the table together and each do our own separate arts and craft activity. It worked well today and was fun! O colored with markers and decorated herself with "da-doos" (tatoos) while I worked on a scrapbook paper memory game. Then she played with a little troll doll that her Grandaddy Harry brought her yesterday. Check out that cool forehead "da-doo"! She's VERY proud of it!
Here's her other masterpiece!

Shining Pennies

O and I shined pennies this morning. It was fun, quick, easy, and educational! If you do this activity with a child under age 3, please be very careful since pennies are choking hazards for kids who still put thing in their mouths. First, we mixed a 1/2 cup of white vinegar and a tablespoon of salt and stirred it up. O usually holds the measuring apparatus while I pour in the ingredients, then she pours them into the bowl.
Dropping the pennies into the vinegar and salt mixture.
Drying the pennies and admiring their shininess.
Here are our clean and shiny pennies! They actually don't look that great in the picture, but they are MUCH prettier than they were before we started. We also dropped a few quarters, nickels, and dimes into the mixture and talked about how the chemical reaction that cleans them only works with copper. That's probably over the head of a 2 year old, but I thought it was good to expose her to new information :)

Buddha Board

O's grandmother gave her a Buddha Board for her birthday, and we LOVE it! Its a lot like an aqua doodle, but MUCH cooler! It looks a little like a laptop, which is fun for O. It comes with a paintbrush, and you simply paint and draw with water. O is learning to use a "light touch" because the lines are much darker and smoother if you use a light touch. She was VERY excited when she discovered that she could dip her fingers in the water and draw with them, too. I also really like drawing on the Buddha Board, and I've actually used it a lot more than O over the past few days. I highly recommend this product! Thanks, Grandmother!

O's 1st Pattern

O played on the screened porch while I fixed breakfast this morning, and when I went out there I saw these shoes that she lined up. This picture is actually upside down from the way we were looking at the shoes, and the last red one (the 1st red shoe in the picture) was not lined up. I told her that she'd made a pattern (we've never talked about patterns before!), and I asked which shoe came next. She said red, and put the shoe in its place. You can't ask for a better material for making patterns than crocs!

Paper Plate Tambourine

The idea and instructions for this activity came from this blog. 1st O painted 2 identical paper plates. After they were dry, she put penne pasta on one plate, and I gave her the 2nd plate to put on top. After she put it on top, I stapled them together. Easy, quick, and fun!
Now she has another piece to add to her bowl of music!

Coloring with a Friend

O was VERY excited when we came upstairs this morning and saw that her cousin had left her baby doll here. The doll (whose name is Cindy Lou Who, but O calls her Madeline) played, colored, and ate with O this morning. They had a great time!

Making Chalkboard Paint & Slime

Since we have a new chalkboard, we thought it would be fun to make chalkboard paint. We used these instructions.

O practiced her pouring skills by 1st pouring 1/4 cup of cornstarch into a bowl. She then poured in 1/4 cup of water. She stirred a little, then I helped her mix it together well.
She chose to make her paint blue since its her favorite color. I thought the blue was really pretty when she was stirring in the food coloring.
My niece also joined us in this fun activity.
The kids had fun painting on the chalkboard, but the red paint was the only color that really showed up.
After painting for a while, we poured more cornstarch in a dish, added some water, and had LOTS of fun making slime. I think my sister and I may have had more fun than the kids :)
These were definitely activities that you want to do outside! We just used a garden hose to rinse everthing off, so the cleanup was fast and easy.

Here's their artwork. Beautiful, right?

A Few Birthday Party Activities

I had several different activities set up around the yard during O's birthday party.
O's birthday ring- I LOVE her birthday ring. It makes me happy to just look at it :)

O is decorating her hat and bag with fabric markers. The kids used the bags for their pinata prizes.
Playing in the sandbox was fun!
The kids loved the pool. They floated and fished with a magnetic rod and reel fishing set that I bought from Target (for 4 dollars!).

Baking for the Party

My mom came to stay with us for a few days before O's party to help us get ready. Thanks, Guh-guh! My mom and O are baking peanut butter cookies to use for the ice-cream sandwiches
Mixing up Cheerio treats with sprinkles
Making #2 sugar cookies
O was very proud of these cookies, and she definitely know the number 2 now! She kept asking for "more number 2 cookie, please."
Decorating the cookies.