An Easy Beach Collage

I took my roll of contact paper with us to the beach, so we could make an easy beach collage. I cut 2 equal pieces of contact paper and laid one sheet sticky side up on the table. My niece decorated it with flat shells, leaves, and flowers from the dunes. She LOVED making her collage and was totally focused on this activity. O was not interested at all. She was a bit fussy and only wanted to blow bubbles :) After my niece finished decorating her sheet of contact paper, I covered it with a 2nd layer of contact paper to seal it. She was very proud of her beautiful creation!

Painting with Water

I took O's paint with water book with us to the beach, and it was quite a hit! The older girls (ages 3 and 4) enjoyed it much more than O (she was done after 1 picture). They each painted at least 3 pictures. It was a great way to paint without a mess and with lots of fun!

No Sew Tutus

Since O loves to play dress up, and she loves to dance my mom and I decided that we should make her a tutu. The original plan was to make it for her birthday, but then my mom decided that making tutus would be a great craft project to do at the beach for all 3 of our beach girls. To make the tutus you need 2 yards of tulle for each tutu and a stretchy headband. Cut the tulle into 3 inch wide strips that are about 20 inches long. Then just tie them (using a slip knot) onto the stretchy headband (my mom found the headbands at the dollar store in packs of 6). Mom and Aunt Linda did all of the cutting (thank goodness!), and I helped make O's tutu while they made the tutus for the other 2 girls. They also made flower and ribbon headbands using floral wire and tape, fake flowers, and ribbon. They made flower wands using floral wire, silver pipe cleaners, fake flowers, and ribbons. Total cost for 3 tutus, 3 flower wands, and 3 flower and ribbon head bands was about 20 dollars and a few hours of fun! The girls had a fantastic time dancing on the beach, and I know that O is going to love her tutu for a LONG time!

Sponge Ball

We're back from the beach! We had a great time, and we weren't ready to leave :( We didn't do any Montessori work while we were on vacation, but we did several craft projects. I saw this sponge ball on this blog, and I've been wanting to make it ever since. My mom had the same idea, so she bought the materials to take to the beach for an easy craft project. To make the sponge ball cut a sponge long ways into 3 pieces. Then take as many pieces as you like (I used 6), and tie them together at the center using a zip tie. O helped me arrange the sponge pieces, and then she had fun playing with the sponge ball in the pool.

Summer Concert

We took O to her 1st concert Friday night, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She LOVED playing in the sand, and she danced a little, too :) There were lots of kids there, and they were all so cute jammin and rolling around in the sand.

O was "swimming" in the sand

We're Having a Great Time!

We left for our vacation on Friday, and we're having a great time so far! We started our vacation by visiting a local nature park.
Helping row a boat through a cypress swamp. She's been singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" ever since!

O observed bees making honey.
She was very impressed with the fish, and she kept asking to see "more fish."
She liked watching the king snake crawling around in its cage. This gave me the creepy crawlies, but I tried not to let O see that I don't like snakes.
She pounded rice in a rice mill.
Trying out a tree trunk chair.

Helping Pack

O was ready to pack for our vacation, and since I had lots to do to get ready I let her do her own thing.
She was very busy taking everything out of her drawers. She attempted to fold each item, but quickly moved on to the next thing when she was unsuccessful. She was very proud of attempt at "packing for beach." After she cleaned out her drawer she was insistent that we were packed, and she was ready to go :) I kept sneaking glimpses of her just because she was so funny to watch. She was very focused, and this kept her busy for at least 30 minutes :)

Touch Board

I finally made the touch boards using these directions. Thanks, Steph! I've been thinking about making them for a while, so I was glad to finally gather the materials and make them. Unfortunately, O was not interested in this work AT ALL. I think its probably too easy since she knows the difference between rough and smooth. I'll introduce Touch Board #2 when we get back from our vacations, and hopefully she'll be more interested.

Brown

Today was brown day! O loved being a kangaroo :)

Another Homemade Book

The pictures aren't the best, but I am very excited about this new book. It was so quick and easy to make! I printed wallet sized and 3x5 pictures and glued them to 4x6 notecards. I narrated each picture, then laminated them using my laminating machine. Elliott took the pictures to his dad's office (thanks, Grandaddy Harry!) to bind them into a book. Its a very sturdy book, and O LOVES it. I'm planning on making A LOT more soon. You can see the other books I've made for O here and here. This book doesn't look as nice as the board books, but its much sturdier. I've had a problem with O trying to pull the pictures (sometimes successfully) off the board books, but I don't have to worry about that with this book :)

Pipe Cleaner Letter Cards

My friend, Jennifer, had the great idea to make letters from pipe cleaners and glue them to flashcards. I'd made letters from pipe cleaners before, but I'd never thought of gluing them to notecards. This was a super easy and fast project. I ran out of red pipe cleaners before I finished making the alphabet. I plan on using these letters in conjunction with O's phonics bags. Thanks, Jennifer, for sharing this great idea!

Color Sorting

Thanks to the One Little, Two Little blog for posting the link to this great color sorting game! We started with blue, red, and yellow, and I think I'll add in orange next time. O was a little skeptical at 1st, but she had fun once she started. She didn't want to participate when I called the activity "color sorting," but she was ready to work when I changed my wording and said it was "color matching." The girl loves to match :)

Baking with Sand

O had a great time baking mini sand cakes and pies this morning on the beach :) Her grandmother gave her some old baking tins that belonged to Elliott's grandmother. We are going to have a lot of fun playing with these, and maybe we'll bake something we can actually eat one day!

Picking Tomatoes

O LOVES to pick the grape tomatoes. I had to remind her to pick only the red tomatoes, and she picks them if they are just slightly red. She also loves to water the plants with her "wawa can," which is actually a recycled plastic bottle that she and my mom decorated. Our tomato plants that are in the earthbox are now about 7 feet tall. They outgrown the tomato stakes, so they are leaning badly at the top. Hopefully, they won't fall over!

Purple

I think purple is my favorite! The hat and bubbles were last minute additions to our purple photo shoot, and they made the picture. O loved blowing bubbles, and I just love the hat! It was my favorite hat when I was around 7 years old, and there is a picture of me wearing this hat hanging on my wall in my bedroom at Guh-guh and Grandpa's house (remember that picture, Anne?)