Montessori Monday - Lego Water Color Sorting

Legos are, by far, E's favorite toy right now. Ask her what she wants to do and 9 times out of 10 it will involve building something out of these brightly colored blocks. Don't get me wrong, I think Legos are are one of the best toys out there, but I can only build camel houses and rainbow stairs so many times in one day. To extend here interest, I've been trying to come up with new and different ways to use them lately. A couple of days ago we decided to bring the Legos into the pool for a fun new way to play. Our exploration turned into a fun color sorting exercise that really engaged E!

I filled the pool with red, yellow, and blue Legos and provided 3 tubs of colored water to match. My little girl is not into sorting unless there is a practical purpose, so I put a bit of soap in the colored bins and told E that the Legos needed a bath. The red Legos needed to go in the red bath, blue Legos in the blue bath, and red in the red. To add a bit of fine motor work, I gave E a net to catch and transfer the blocks with. I also spread the colored bins of water around the yard for an added gross motor component. 

She really enjoyed this activity and it was a fun way to sneak in some sorting work!

What's on the Tray Wednesday

 For the first time in a long time I finally got E's seal of approval with her trays this week. She has gotten so much use and enjoyment out of these activities already and the week is only half over!

 First up are a set of sensory balloons that I finally got around to making. I think what makes them so great is that they are so open ended allowing E to do what she does best - come up with her own ideas of what to do with them. I made two of each texture allowing her to match them up if she desired. Matching was a bit difficult but she did enjoy sorting them into two categories : "crunchy" (noodles, pop corn kernels, rice) and"squishy" (baking powder, wheat germ). We also discovered these are very fun to throw!

I think E is finally getting ready for some lacing work. I have set this activity out for her several times in the past because she LOVES to play with beads and generally enjoys fine motor work, but this is the first time that she has really taken to lacing the beads on her own.

This is by far E's favorite tray of week! She loves Gilbert on the show Caillou so to go along with our cat theme I whipped up this little game. Using a favorite character has definitely helped to interest her in a work that would otherwise not be appealing to her. She has spent hours feeding Gilbert the fish, dumping them out, and feeding him again. I've encouraged her to count the fish as she puts them in but she hasn't picked up on that yet.

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Montessori Monday

Tot Trays

Hammering Golf Tees  -  

 E loved this work and chose it often throughout the week. I don't know how I managed not to get any action shots.

Bear Dressing Puzzle -

  

Though this was not originally planned to go on her tot trays this week, we stumbled across it in the basement over the weekend and she was so enthralled by it that I decided to keep it out. As she selected different outfits I made comments about what type of weather it looked like bear was dressed for. After awhile she started talking about it as well ("Sweater will keep teddy warm" or "Teddy's ready for a sunny day"). She also like selecting different faces and labeling the expressions (happy, grumpy, tired...). 

Salt Tray - I kept the salt tray out since she enjoyed it so much last week. I don't think she even touched it once this week. I am learning that I need to switch EVERYTHING out on a weekly basis no matter how much she time she spends working on something. She likes the excitement of discovering new things!

Practical, Practical Life Work

E loves helping me make coffee in the morning. She very carefully measures the beans in the spoon and transfers them to the grinder. Practical life work doesn't get much better than this!

Wet Pouring

I finally found some good pitchers for pouring work at the thrift store. This activity kept her busy and happy for a good 30 minutes while I prepared dinner the other night. She specifically asked for warm water to pour which I found interesting. 

 She asked for a cup so she could pour herself a drink.

Water just tastes so much better when you pour it yourself !

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Scissor Practice

I have been thinking about introducing E to scissors for a couple of months now.  I looked and looked in all of the local stores for some good beginner scissors and couldn't find what I was looking for. Then I saw a review from The Adventures of Bear for these scissors and thought they would be perfect for E but I never got around to ordering them. Finally I gave up and forgot all about introducing scissor work to E until the other day when we were working on our bear cave project. She carefully watched as B cut out his bear and asked to try when he was all done. I showed her how to put her fingers in the holes and she did successfully make a couple of cuts in her paper however she struggled with opening and closing quite a bit and the regular (non-saftey) blade made me a little nervous. Last weekend as I was browsing the isles of Walmart I noticed these scissors which I had not seen in stores before. These were exactly what I had been looking for all along! The safety blade gives me a little peace of mind and the spring action makes it easier for little hands to use. I love that unlike the Timberdoodle scissors they have holes like regular scissors so little ones learn the proper grip right from the start ( E started out with her fingers in the holes and switched to the grip she is using in the photo below. She resisted when I tried to correct her so I just let her go with it for fear of disrupting her interest. By the next day she was back to gripping them properly - just experimenting!) .  E has LOVED her new scissors and has chosen to work on cutting every night! She has such a knack for fine motor work like this and I love how focused she gets. Cutting paper is a very important job!

 Her cutting box, which holds her scissors and some scrap paper, is stashed in a low kitchen cabinet near E's desk which allows her free access to her scissors whenever she wants, yet gives me a heads up so I can supervise properly.

Tot School : Winter Animals

It's snowing!!!
We finally got our first measurable snow of the winter. Granted, it is barely an inch, but it still puts me in the mood to share with you some of the winter activities we have been up to over the past week. I have to confess that I didn't make it to the library this week (actually I did make it but I forgot my card) so we didn't have most of the books on our lesson plan and probably wont have any for next week either. Never the less, the kids enjoyed all of our wintery activities.

Though not really winter related, E continued to enjoy her tot trays at home. This weeks trays included rice pouring work, a salt try, and the tonging work from last week instead of the stacking sugar cube work listed on the lesson plan. E's favorite by far was the salt tray. We had tried this once several months ago and she wasn't quite ready for it. Though she is still a ways off from actually writing letters, she is definitely using it more appropriately now, making designs and prints in the salt. All great pre-writing practice! Here you can even see some squiggles that kind of resemble the letter S.

She also liked when I would write an S in the salt and then help her trace mine by guiding her finger!

vigorously erasing her designs

She spent quite a bit of time doing the rice pouring work and can do it well both left and right handed!

We started off the work week by reading The Mitten by Jan Brett. Thankfully we own that book so we were still able to stick to our plan. We followed up by doing a mitten lacing activity. This was the first time I had introduced lacing cards to the kids so I was interested to see how they did. E and C both gave it a real effort. It was pretty challenging but I think with a little more one on one instruction they could quickly catch on.

I am sure B could have done this, however he decided it was much more interesting to fashion his mittens into some sort of trapping device and enjoyed tying things up with them instead ( I wish I would have gotten a picture. It was amusing to see his little imagination at work!)

Monday was a gloriously beautiful and sunny day which is hard to come by this time of year in Ohio so we made it a point to get out and enjoy the great outdoors.

 E was afraid of the big red swing last time we visited the park ( several months ago ) but not anymore!

 Her favorite thing was the teeter totter! She had the biggest grin on her face and proudly chanted "teeter totter bread and water" which she must have learned from Nana and Papa because I have never taught her that.

 The tots both enjoyed looking for wild life. Here they are trying to spot a woodpecker that was making noise at the top of the tree. They were also convinced that there was a crocodile in that little creek :)

We spotted several brilliant cardinals along the way. I can't get over how beautiful they are against the bare trees and bright blue sky.

We finished the day with a fun painting technique using water colors and salt.

When sprinkled on the wet paint, the salt absorbs the water which concentrates the paint around each grain creating a speckled effect - art and science all wrapped into one!

Thursday we learned all about bears and hibernation. I turned the dining room table into a bear cave which provided much entertainment throughout the entire day. B even requested it as a repeat activity on Friday. We discussed the meaning of the word hibernation and talked about why some animals sleep all winter as we played. We went through many cycles of the year, gathering food in the fall, curling up to sleep in the winter, and waking up to stretch and eat blueberries in the spring.

Sorry for the terrible photo quality ( my good camera should be fixed soon) but I hope you can still appreciate the cuteness of these jammied little ones all curled up in their cave on a snowy winter day!

In the afternoon, the kids made a simple bear cave craft. They colored in a brown bear I traced for them and glued cotton on a paper bag cave to make it look snowy. I taught them a this cute little song and they enjoyed acting it out with their bears and caves!

Time for Sleeping
(Sung to the tune of "Sing a Song of Sixpence")

Now it's time for sleeping
The bears go in their caves
Keeping warm and cozy
Time for lazy days
When the snow is gone and 
The sun comes out to play
The bears will wake up from their sleep
And then go on their way.

Bear going in cave

Tucking bear in with a blanket to keep cozy (her idea!)

Bear waking up and going on its way

Brady had a snow day on Friday so I nixed the rice poring that I had originally planned on and threw together a quick winter animal sensory box instead. 

The kids always enjoy sensory boxes and, as usual, added their own items as play progressed. Some how or another we ended up with a tractor, a truck, a toy garbage can and a cookie jar that was really a shark included in our little forest by the time they were done. I found it interesting (and cool) that B chose to use a plastic container as a shark rather than grabbing his actual toy shark. 

We finished the week playing with play dough and using animal figurines to make tracks in the "snow". 

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Tot School: Snow Days

Our first week of January's lesson plans was a huge hit! The kids had such a blast with the activities and it was such a nice feeling to be prepared.

At home, the introduction of "tot trays" were a huge hit. E's favorite was the screwdriver board tray. She has been quite interested in screwdrivers for several months now so I knew she would enjoy this work. The only downfall was that the styrofoam, was too soft and allowed her to "cheat" by just pressing the screws in instead of screwing them. She still got good practice manipulating the screwdriver and it kept her entertained for a good long time but I'd like to to it again using actual wood.

She also spent a good amount of time with the tonging tray which I was pleased to see! She has always been a fan of fine motor work like this.

The letter S tray got little attention but I kind of expected that. She is beyond simply exploring objects that I collect for her and not quite ready to help me hunt for objects that start with a particular sound so she had little interest in it.

We had a short work week because of the holiday, but managed to fit a lot of snowy activities in none the less. We kicked off the theme on Thursday with some faux snow sensory play. I took turns giving each kid a cup with a teaspoon of the powder and let them pour in 1/4 cup water to hydrate the snow. It was a neat science activity and we all enjoyed watching the transformation occur right before our eyes. Once we made a bunch of snow, I dumped it into the water table and let the kids have at it.

 I was prepared for this activity to be messy but I must say that it was even a bit much for me. The consistency of it was strange and really difficult to sweep up and it got pretty slick on the floor, but the kids had a great time so it was worth it.

For another sensory activity, the kids finger painted with shaving cream puff paint (shaving cream + glue). B and E jumped right in and had shaving cream up to their elbows in no time. C was not sure what to make of the texture at first but he eased his way into it and enjoyed the activity in the end.

I introduced the little ones to a simple patterning activity while B was at school on Friday.

 It is difficult to get the toddlers to focus enough to do this type of work when they are together but I gave it a shot anyway. C was mainly interested in seeing how far he could throw the pom poms but E did correctly complete two of the cards with minimal assistance. She dumped the pom poms off before I could get a picture of her work but I was excited to see that she understood the concept. I think I may offer this work on one of her tot trays soon in hopes that she will be able to focus a little better at home.

We wrapped up the week by making ivory soap snow balls. B enjoyed helping me grate the soap into flakes and they all joined in adding water and squishing it together. They all chanted "oowy goowy" over and over together as they mushed it up.

 I gave them each a pile of the mixture on a sheet of parchment paper and let them mold it to their hearts content. The little ones especially enjoyed this activity. I showed them how to form a ball and they attempted to do it themselves. C began stacking his balls so we worked together to create a snowman. E enjoyed smashing her snowmen down just as much as making them which was totally fine!

Overall a great week was had and I am looking forward to jumping in again next week!

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