Winter Nature Bingo

This fun winter nature bingo card came in the winter issue of O's Just for Fun magazine. I made a color copy of the card onto cardstock (I wish they'd included a removable card or had a downloadable card from the website), laminated the sheet, and cut out the card. We put the card on a clipboard and have taken it outside with us when playing in the yard. We use a wipe-off marker to check things off as we find them. O enjoyed this game the first time we played, but she lost interest quickly. I'm planning to take it with us next time we go for a walk in the woods, and I think we'll all really enjoy it!

Winter Birds Science Shelf

A very kind and generous reader sent us the book, Science is Simple, a couple of months ago. One of my favorite things about the book is the idea of having science tables. I set up a science shelf (it replaced our playdough shelf since O prefers to play with playdough at the table rather than the shelf) in our kitchen.

Our first subject was winter birds. We've enjoyed making art using bird rubbing plates. I set up a sensory box using birdseed, and O LOVES it! We watch birds with binoculars and listened to birdsongs on our Backyard Birdsongs book. We made a bird feeder using a pinecone, peanut butter, and birdseed. We put it on the railing of our deck and predicted whether the birds or squirrels would get to it first. Then we sat down to wait. We waited and waited and waited. Evidently our birds and squirrels are well fed because they didn't eat the birdseed for almost a week!

We've enjoyed taking daily nature walks in the woods, and we spotted a woodpecker a few days ago...that was very exciting! We're loving the wonderful weather we've been having lately, and I'm so glad that my girl loves playing in the woods as much as I did as a child :)

Do NOT Buy This Skwish Ball for Your Baby!!!

E was just playing and mouthing this Skwish ball when one of the beads came off in her mouth. This toy is marketed for babies ages 0 to 12 months, but obviously it is very dangerous and should not be given to children who still put toys in their mouths.

I'm still shaking at what could have happened. Luckily, she didn't choke on the bead, but just let it drop right out of her mouth. We've had this ball since O was a baby and both girls loved it. I'm sad to see it go, but I'm very thankful that E is ok.

What's That Sound?

On Friday afternoon O and I gathered items from our den and kitchen that made sounds. We then took turns wearing a blindfold while the other person chose an item and made a sound. Then the person wearing the blindfold had to guess which item it was. This was a fun and simple game that I'm sure we'll play again soon!

Paint Chips Word Family Game

The idea for this great word family game came from The Snail's Trail.

I wasn't sure if O was ready for this game, but she recently started covering up parts of words while we were reading and asking what the words were. She LOVES doing this, so I thought this word family game would be fun for her. I was happy to see that I was right! O LOVES this game. She has read more than a hundred words, and thoroughly enjoys herself. She's been obsessed with rhyming words for close to a year, so that makes this game even more perfect for her. Check out The Snail's Trail for directions and a list of word families.

Handmade Toss & Catch Toy

Here's another forgotten post that I just found saved in draft...it was written last summer. I think this is the last of the old posts. I guess I'll have to find time to start writing new posts again :)

I made this throw and catch toy for O months and months ago, and she is just starting to like it :) To make the toy, I cut a milk jug in half and put duct tape around the cut edge for safety. I attached rubber bands to the ball and to a hole I punched in the jug. Then I showed her how to toss the ball in the air and try to catch it in the jug. My 5 year old niece LOVES this toy, and now O does, too! (I think she was too young when I first made it...she was 2).

Bug Race Game

Here's another printable game for you!

To play the Bug Race game, you roll the dice, count the dots, and mark through the correct number. Keep marking off the numbers rollled until a bug reaches the other side of the page and wins the race!

Thanks to Confessions of a Homeschooler for linking to this great game and to Blessings for creating it!

Domino Parking Lot Game

O and I had a lot of fun playing the domino parking lot game last week! Thanks to Amy from Let's Explore for the link :)

To play the game, you simply count the dots on your domino and then drive the domino to the correct number. We had lots of fun making beeps, bumps, and screeches as we drove, and baby E looked at us as if we were crazy :)

A Fun Fine Motor Activity

Here is a fun way to get your kiddos to practice their fine motor skills, and it was very simple to make.

To make this toy (I don't really know what to call it), you need an empty water bottle (cut in half), duct tape, pipe cleaner, and 3 bottle tops.

I cut the bottle in half, put duct tape around the cut edge for safety, made holes in the side of the bottle for the pipe cleaner, put pipe cleaners through the holes, made holes in the bottle tops, and put the other end of the pipe cleaners through the bottle tops. I used an ice pick to make the holes in the bottle tops...unfortunately, I was a little hammer happy, and I hammered the ice pick through the bottle top and into my kitchen table. I was pretty surprised when I lifted the ice pick up, and it stuck! Oops!

The idea for this activity came from Julie K in Taiwan.

This post was written a loooooooooooong time ago...July, I think. O wasn't very enthusiastic about this activity, and I eventually put it away. When I took it back out in December, she was very excited and she has really enjoyed working with it.

Loving the Olympics

We've been letting O stay up late every night to watch the Olympics, and she has thoroughly enjoyed it! She especially loves to watch ice skating. I recently printed an ice skater coloring sheet and an Olympics flag coloring sheet for her to color and cut. Thanks to Laura from My Montessori Journey for the link to the flag coloring sheet!

O's Job Chart

O and I recently made a job chart for her to follow each week. The job chart is from Mod Eco Kids, and you can find it here. After downloading and printing the chart, I laminated it so O can mark off her completed jobs with a wipe-off marker. O has done great with her jobs, and she even stopped me when she saw me cleaning the bathroom sink. She said, "Mama! That's MY job!" I love it when I hear those words :)

It's been about 6 weeks since I wrote this post (it's been hiding out in draft since then). O has been great about completing her jobs, especially feeding the cat. However, we almost always forget to mark her completed jobs off of her chart. I need to put the chart in a more central location so that we can remember to check them off!

Handmade Fairies

We love fairies! My mom made faires for the girls from pipe cleaners, embroidery floss, silk flowers, and felt for Christmas (with a little help from me). She followed the directions from Wee Felt Folk.

My mom put the fairies in an unfinished box that she will finish with the girls to make fairy houses. She made specific fairies to match a series of stories that she tells the girls at bedtime. She plans to eventually write a book of the stories for the girls, and we've started planning how we'll illustrate it. She also gave the girls unfinished dollhouse doors to make into fairy doors. O has had a wonderful time playing with her fairies, and we've recently had some fun new additions to our play that I'll be reviewing next week.

A Fun 1st Piano

CSN Baby sent us a "My 1st Piano" to review. Although the ages for the piano are from 6 months to 2 years, both O (3 and a half years) and E (5 months) really enjoy playing with it. It is a sturdy, well built piano that will surely be handed down to O and E's children one day.

The piano features a 25 key, two-octave keyboard. It comes with a songbook and a removable color strip that fits (not very well...we had to cut ours to make it fit) behind the keyboard for play by color teaching. O enjoys playing songs of her own creation, but I'm hoping she'll develop an interest in using the color strip to play "real" songs. I think this piano is great introduction for O and E to the world of music, and I'm hoping it will spark their interest in taking piano lessons one day :)

E's Treasure Basket

I'm SO excited that E is big enough for a treasure basket of household items to explore. The idea for a treasure basket full of different textured items came from How To Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin. This was one of the 1st Montessori books I read and one of my favorite.

I had a lot of fun gathering objects for E's first treasure basket. The items include a small, velvet pillow, a toilet paper tube (I let her mouth this for a few minutes before removing it...I didn't want it to come apart and get in her mouth), a silver rattle (that belonged to Elliott when he was a baby), one of O's unit blocks, a baby food jar filled with mulitcolored pony beads, a sea sponge, a small metal whisk from O's play kitchen, and a plastic bottle with a marble inside. E LOVED exploring (tasting!) all of the objects in her basket. She even threw the velvet pillow about 3 feet. O and I were amazed, and I think E was surprised, too :) E was happily engaged in her play for about 15 minutes or more which is A LOT for her 5 month old self! I'm looking forward to putting new objects in E's special basket each week!

Learning to Sew

Guh-guh has been teaching O to sew on the sewing machine. They made an Angelina Ballerina pillowcase for O, and O was so excited that she insisted that they make one for Baby Sister, too. She's such a sweet big sister!

Lately, O has REALLY enjoyed watching the dvd that came with my sewing machine. When I was sewing a few days ago, she came and sat on my lap so she could show me what to do. She already knows more about my sewing machine than I do!