Do-A-Dot Art Painters

E loves to paint with her dot painters that her grandparents gave her for Christmas.  They are perfect for way for toddlers to paint with almost no mess.  E had a taste of her blue dot painter, so she had a blue tongue, blue lips, and a blue nose.  Luckily, she looks pretty cute in blue! Here is the set that we have  Do-A-Dot Rainbow Art Set (Set of 6) (this is an affiliate link!).

A Sea Shell Necklace

While we were at the beach we collected shells with holes in them so we could make sea shell necklaces! We originally planned to use dental floss for the necklaces, but I didn't like the idea of O having dental floss around her neck, and it would have been very difficult for her to string the shells onto the floss. Then, I realized that pipe cleaners would be perfect. It was easy for O to put the shells on the pipe cleaners, and I didn't have to worry about the necklace being a strangulation hazard :)

O was very proud of her necklace!

Painting with Ice Cubes

O and I made ice cubes for painting last week and finally painted with them on Thursday.
1st O poured water into the ice cube tray

Then she squeezed in the food coloring. She had a lot of fun mixing colors. We put straws in the ice cubes to use as handles while she painted.

We put the ice tray in the freezer and forgot about it for a week. I finally remembered, and O had lots of fun painting with her ice cubes :) She painted on posterboard with the shiny side down. You need thick paper since the ice cubes melt and things get quite watery :)

After she was finished, I put the ice cubes back in the freezer to save for another hot day!

A Sand Volcano

This week's book is Let's Go Rock Collecting. O LOVES this book, and there are so many fun rock activities to do that I'm sure we won't get to all of them.

Our first story stretcher was making a volcano on our beach. To make the volcano, we filled a plastic bottle with lukewarm water, 2 tablespoons of baking soda, and food coloring. We took the bottle down to the beach, and built the volcano around it. Elliott poured vinegar into the bottle, and we watched the volcano erupt!
We made the volcano erupt several times, and O stirred the mixture around with a stick to make it erupt again after we took a boat ride.
O and I were both excited to have Elliott involved in some of our story stretcher activities!

Have You Seen My Duckling?

Our book of the week is Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafuri. We've enjoyed reading the book along with several other "duck" books and discussing the stories. We've done several simple things for story stretchers from this book. We learned the Spanish word for duck and the sign for duck, and we sang "5 Little Ducks Went out to Play." O matched miniature plastic insects to the insects in the book as we read the book.
We went outside to see the ducks. We didn't see any ducks, but O had fun trying to catch minnows. We also played "Have you seen my duckling?" O was the duckling, and I pretended like I couldn't see her (don't worry mom. She was NEVER out of my sight!), and I asked everything around me "Have you seen my duckling"? This game was a big hit, and we've played it several times since then. O knows, of course, that she is never to be out of our sight while playing in or near the water. We have a very strict rule that we never play hide and seek outside, and she is always amazed when she sees children in books playing hide and seek outside since that is the ultimate in naughty/dangerous behavior :)


 
We took bread out to feed the ducks, but ended up feeding the minnows instead. The minnows were excited. We also practiced being very still. If you stay very still in the water, the minnows will nibble your toes!

O's favorite story stretcher was this pond/lake habitat that we made using beach sand and water. I gave her several ducks, plastic insects, and people to play with, and she was engrossed in this activity for quite a while.

 

Circle Time

O and I started having Circle Time in the mornings a couple of weeks ago, and we are having SO much fun! During circle time we sing LOTS of songs (days of the week, months of the year, continents, My 5 Senses, and various Spanish songs). I have been amazed by how quickly and easily O learns through music. We do lots of rhythmn stick activities, and in this picture we are singing a Spanish counting song while tapping the Spanish beanbags with the rhythmn sticks. After we sing our songs and do a brief Spanish lesson, we usually do our library activity kit. Since this week is the last week that I'll have access to the library kits (until I go back to work in October), I'll start designating a book of the week, and we'll do story stretchers revolving around that book. I also plan to incorporate sign language activities and yoga into our circle time as well. We've spent so much time doing our circle time activities this week that I haven't even turned our Montessori shelf around at all :(

Around the World- Library Activity Kit

Last week's library activity kit was called "Around the World." It came with 5 books about children from different countries. Each book focuses on a different aspect of their lives- housing, eating, travel, etc. The books were great, and O really enjoyed them. She also loved this puzzle with different children in their various outfits. In addition to the books and puzzles, we studied a globe and completed the contintents map while singing the continents song. I told O that we live in North America, and she said that when I was in her tummy we lived in South America (she's ALWAYS telling me stories about when she was the mama and I was the baby in her tummy).









She was intrigued by this map from Let's Explore. (Ours is the mini-version, but I REALLY wish I'd bought the larger version as it would be much easier to work with.)

 



We also read A Ride on Mother's Back and talked about the different countries in the book:)

The Magic Egg- Library Activity Kit

Last week's library activity kit was all about eggs and animals that hatch from eggs. It included The Very Hungry Caterpillar book as well as sequencing cards for butterfly and frog lifecycles. After reading the book, we reinacted it using this colorforms set (I bought it at TJ Maxx a couple of years ago). O loved the colorforms set, which made me happy since I'd regretted buying it :)








After O's nap we made fruit salad so we could eat like the caterpillar in the book. We were both especially excited about the watermelon in our fruit salad! We LOVE watermelon :)




Other activities that we did to go along with the activity kit (but didn't take pictures of) were going on a caterpillar hunt with a magnifying glass (we didn't find any caterpillars), looking at insect and butterfly Viewmaster slides, making plaster of paris insects, and going to the butterfly room at the Children's museum.

A Few of Her Favorite Things...

are blocks, rocks, shells, and playsilks. The simplest (and most natural) toys always seem to be the best :)

Floam Fun

It's been a while since O has played with floam, and she really enjoyed herself! She asked to play with playdough, but when she saw the blue floam, she quickly changed her mind. Floam is a nice texture variation to playdough, but I still prefer homemade playdough :)

Another Buddy Update

Buddy is now officially out of the water and shrinking. O was upset when she heard that he would shrink, but I consoled her by telling her that we could grow him again.



When we took Buddy out of the water, he was 10 inches long. He's shrinking by about an inch a day. This is a great introduction to measurement skills!

Bead Sequencing Set

O had fun with her Melissa and Doug Bead Sequencing Set this week. To do this activity, you put the pattern board in the holder (this is not easy to do!) and match the beads to the pattern board. This was a fun way to practice patterning skills!

Library Kit- Make Believe

Our library kit this week was a make believe kit. The book included was Abiyoyo, which O LOVED! The activity was this set of sequencing cards. We had so much fun with these cards. After O put them in the correct order, we told a story that went along with them. She always wanted me to start the story, so I'd say "First... (while pointing to the first card)." Then I said "Then" and I paused and let her fill in the 2nd part of the story. For the last card, I said "Finally" and she told what was happening on the last card. This was a great activity!