More Felt Donuts

I finally finished the felt donuts for O and M (with Guh-guh's help!). I used the pattern and directions from Skip to My Lou. I would enjoy sewing so much more if every machine didn't give us so much trouble! It may be users' errors, but I'm not sure about that. O saw us making the donuts, and she immediately confiscated 2 of them. She said she "needed them for her kitchen." So much for my handmade Easter :)

Living/Non-living

The object of this activity is to sort the objects into living and non-living categories. I was unsure if O would "get" this concept, and I was relieved when she caught on immediately. She seemed to really enjoy this activity!

Scent Matching

 
I introduced scent matching recently, and O LOVED it! The scents were peppermint, banana, and strawberry. I put a little of each scent onto 2 cotton balls, and put each cotton ball into a salt or pepper shaker. There are stickers on the bottom of the shaker for self-checking. We took turns matching the scents, and I think we each had 5 turns before O was ready to move onto something else :)

Painting with Water

O and I painted with water after lunch today. I know that this is a no-no according to Susan Striker, but I've always loved painting with water. I like for most of our art activities to be open ended and creative, but I think a little paint with water and coloring book exposure is ok, too.

Wednesday Morning

O wasn't interested in her Montessori activities this morning, but she did enjoy cleaning the windows!

She then made a hospital bed on our coffee table. She doing a little self-diagnosis in this picture.

It always amazes me how quickly the morning passes! I had SO many things that I wanted to do today with O, and they just didn't happen.

Fun Outside

The weather has been beautiful this week, and we are really enjoying it. I love to spend the day upstairs with the doors open (we have 3 sets of sliding glass doors upstairs) because when the doors are open it feels like we are outside. Eventually we made our way outside for a few hours.
We fed the ducks. Although, we never actually saw any ducks :) O kept calling them, she said "ducky, ducky, kitty, kitty, kitty. They like it when you call them kitty."


 
Then we walked on our neighbors' dock to look at the water and inspect the many huge spiderwebs. At this point, O was the mama and I was the baby. She was very protective of me while we were on the dock :)



Then it was time for O to go to her office to work. Her office is a board that she sits on while she digs in the dirt. We also played on her swingset and swang on the hammock before relaxing in the grass inspecting rocks and weeds. THEN I found a tic on her arm! Yuck! That's the downside to great weather, I guess.

Twig

A generous reader sent a us a set of these blocks to try out and review. Thanks, Kelly! They are amazing! O gasped when I opened the box :) The possiblities for creative play are endless, and they are a great addition to our block collection. The colors are vibrant, and the blocks are beautifully made. The blocks are stained instead of painted, so that the wood grain is visible. These blocks will be around for O's children and maybe even her grandchildren one day!
Twig blocks are fun for all ages! Elliott, Guh-guh, O, and I have all enjoyed creating different structures :) O especially loves to build houses and tall buildings which she then joyfully knocks down! Here is a link to Matt's, the creator of Twig, website and the story behind their journey from Etsy to Fat Brain Toys at Ohdeedoh.










 

Barrel Painting

After seeing this activity on A Bit of This and That and What do we do all day?, I decided to give it a try. It's easy and fun.

 
I found a barrel and put a piece of paper in it. O dropped a penny, a marble, and a pom pom in the barrel. She then squeezed blue paint into the barrel. She shook the barrel, and then we rolled it on the counters. It fell on the floor, so we kicked it for a while. Here's one of her masterpieces.

    

Leapfrog TAG Reading System

I'm planning on my dad buying the TAG system for O for her birthday (he always lets me choose her gifts!), and since it's on sale at Amazon, I thought I'd go ahead and buy it now. However, I need help deciding which books to buy with it. What are your favorite TAG books and why???? Thanks!!!

Matching Paper Clips

I introduced this activity to O a few months ago, and she was totally uninterested. I put it away and brought it back out today. Today she loved it!

 
She rolls the roller on the paper clip dispenser, gets the clip and then clips it to the matching dot. The last paper clip didn't catch onto the magnetic roller, so we had to shake it a bit. I think smaller paper clips will work bettter with the dispenser.


Wow! Four Montessori posts in a row. Maybe this is a Montessori blog afterall. I was beginning to have my doubts :)  

Rainbow Pipe Cleaner Work

Here's another one from My Montessori Journey! (I LOVE that blog!) As soon as I saw this work, I knew O would love it! I love that it's so simple and easy to put together. As I read the book, O builds the rainbow. Fun! Eventually, I plan to add the bead component to the work, but for now the pipe cleaners are enough :)

Hammering is Fun!

This hammering activity has been on my list for a LONG time, and I'm so glad to finally get it together. O was very engaged in this work. She liked hammering, but she also enjoyed just pushing the golf tees (she didn't like me calling them golf tees. She corrected me and said "O calls them nails!") in with her fingers.


 
I love to see pictures of trays on other blogs, so I'm going to try to do more of that :) Here's an action shot (because I love action shots, too!).