Pouring Black Beans

Pouring black beans from one glass to the other and back again was a big hit with sweet E(2)!

The tiny glasses came from IKEA, and they are the perfect size for her tiny hands.
I finally got out the camera when she was pouring them for about the 4th time...

Rainbow Rice for Our Rice Pit

The girls and I dyed our rice in rainbow colors for our rice pit on Saturday! This was so easy to do that I don't know why I didn't do it years ago (seriously, this has been on my to-do list for at least 3 years!).

First, I put 3 cups of white rice in each ziploc bag.

Then, the girls took turns choosing a color of food coloring and then squeezing the coloring into the bag of rice. We added 4 tsp of rubbing alcohol, sealed the bag, and they squished and squeezed and shook the bags until the rice was completely covered in color!

Here are our bags of beautiful rice!



I poured the rice from each bag out onto packing paper to dry. We let it dry for about 5 hours before pouring it into the rice pit.

Here it is right after I poured it into the rice pit...it looks so pretty!


It didn't take long for my little monkeys to mix it together completely! They LOVE the rainbow rice!

Sorting Silverware

Sorting silverware was a huge hit with E(2)! As soon as she saw the tray, she got to work and knew just what to do!

The silverware set came from IKEA, and it's the perfect size for sweet E.

I love to spend our "school" time on our porch, so that we can hear the birds and enjoy the view of the lake. Fun times!

Sorting silverware is a recommended activity in John Bowman's Montessori at Home. I highly recommend this book!

We have a winner!

I've emailed the 1st winner of the giveaway. Once she makes her choice, I'll email the 2nd winner, so she can make her choices of prize! What fun!

Black Bean Bowl of "B" Objects

One of E(2)'s favorite "B" activities was playing with her bowl of black beans filled with "B" objects. She loved playing with the objects, especially the babies and bears.

She wanted to wear the tiny boots and put them on her toes.

She wanted to ride on the tiny bike, and asked me to hold it up for her while she pretended to sit on it. Such a silly girl!

She had fun finding the different objects as I requested them.


She LOVED finding the objects and matching them to a picture (I took a picture of all of the objects on a white sheet of paper and then printed and laminated it).



I have a feeling the black bean bowl may stay around a long time after we are finished with our "B" weeks!

Matching Tree Bark

E(2) and I have had a great time touching and talking about the bark on all of the different trees in our yard during our "B" weeks! E was very interested in the bark, and I was inspired by Playful Learning (which I was sent to review about a month ago) to put together a bark matching activity.

To prepare this activity, I took pictures of the bark of 4 trees in our front yard. I printed them on photo paper and laminated them. I gave each of the girls one picture at a time and told them to match them to the trees. They took off running to find their matches, and they had SO much fun!

This is a wonderful activity that really got the girls interested in learning more about the trees in our yard. As they matched the trees, we talked about the names of the trees. Last week when we were touching the bark, E picked up a pinecone and said "This pinecone! It goes with pine tree!"

As I'm writing this post, I'm thinking of more tree and bark related activities :) I love spending time outside with the girls and try to have them outside for hours each day, so activities like this one are perfect for us!

Sorting Gummy Bears

E(2) received a bag of gummy bears in her ABC Fun Pack, and she was SO excited about them! At first, she called them Yogi Bear (we went to a Yogi Bear Campground in May, and she's loved Yogi ever since), and I thought that she might not know it was candy. That was wishful thinking because she soon informed me that "It's candy! I eat it and it tastes dood (good)!"

I laid out 3 different colors of construction paper and gave her a small bowl of gummy bears. I told her to sort the bears by color. I thought about demonstrating the activity to her, but decided to wait and see what she would do. She knew exactly what to do and immediately got to work. She LOVED this activity especially since she got to eat a couple of gummy bears after she finished!

Cultural Exchange Packages

Our cultural exchange packages are rolling in (I had them all shipped to my mom's address, and she brought them to me today)...so far we have packages from New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. I've only opened the one from NZ, and it is AMAZING! Ours does not measure up, so I have some work to do! (Yes, I am super slack, and we have not sent ours yet!)

Cheerios Bird Feeders

E(2) and I made bird feeders for "B" week! We had fun putting Cheerios onto pipe cleaners and then then hanging them in the trees.

E ate more Cheerios than she put on the pipe cleaners, and when O(5) got home from school, she pretended to be a bird and ate all of the Cheerios off of a feeder! Silly girl.

This is E's first time making these bird feeders, but it's an activity that we do every couple of years.

Painting with Balloons

Since last week and this week are "B" weeks, we are doing lots of activities that start with the letter "B." Last week, the girls had lots of fun painting with balloons!

I blew up several balloons (and saw stars...they were NOT easy to blow up) for each girl, and put paint in several flat containers. (I usually cut the tops off of take-out containers to use as paint trays, and they worked perfectly for this activity).

O(5) really enjoyed seeing the prints that she could make with her balloon. While E(5) preferred to paint with a mostly deflated balloon.




E discovered the joy of having blue hands!

Luckily, the paint was washable!


Here's one of their creations.


Our next "B" art activity was "painting" with bubbles...I put watercolor paint in 3 small bottles of bubbles. Then I blew bubbles while the girls ran around with pieces of white cardstock to catch the bubbles. The theory was that when the bubbles popped, they would make a pretty and colorful print...wrong. The girls had fun catching the bubbles for about a minute, and the bubbles didn't leave behind any prints...just a couple of barely visible drops. Oh, well. They loved the idea of it, and it was a valuable lesson that things don't always turn out how we plan and that's ok.