Beleduc Girl Body Puzzle

O's grandparents gave her this puzzle for Christmas, and she loves it. The puzzle is wooden and very sturdy, and she has learned so much from it. In fact, I need to find some of my old biology and anatomy books, so I can expand on her learning by teaching her the names of the bones and muscles.

Rainbow Glockenspiel

I was recently tagged by Jo for a product review meme. Since I already had this post saved in draft, I thought it would be perfect :) I'm REALLY bad about participating in this kind of thing, but this one worked perfectly for me.

This is what you need to do. Write a review of any kids product, it can be a toy, a book or anything which you have personally used. Pass this meme to five other blogger friends





Guh-guh and Grandpa gave O this beautiful rainbow glockenspiel from Nova Natural Toys for Christmas. It's beautifully made of wood and metal, and I think it will last for years and years. O loves to make music with it, and she and Guh-guh have fun playing "name that tune." Guh-guh plays a song, and O guesses what it is. What fun!

Family Movie Night

For family movie night this week, I borrowed a dvd from the library that teaches dancing. O loves Baby Ballet and Tot Tap, and she danced on her yoga mat while watching. We've watched the dvd several times, and O is always enthralled. I can't wait to sign her up for dancing lessons in the fall.
She had to make an outfit change halfway through the dvd.


 

Styrofoam Sculpture

The idea to do a styrofoam sculpture came from Young at Art by Susan Striker. I was so glad that we finally received biodegradable styrofoam with a recently shipped purchase. We glued a few pieces of styrofoam to the cardboard, and then we just wet the styrofoam so it would stick to the other pieces to form the sculpture. This was a fun family art activity that we all enjoyed working on together.

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.