Montessori Monday

Tot trays have been hit or miss around here lately. I continue to set them out because you never know what will spark an interest, but most of our work has come in the form of every day life. Here's a look at what we've been working lately. 

Sponge Water Transfer

 E loves water and was definitely interested in this tray, however she was more into washing her table than she was transferring water. Not my intentions for the activity, but it works.

 Practical Life - Buckling Car Seats
    E discovered her old infant seat that I brought out of storage to clean up for the new baby. She was very interested in the buckle so we grabbed a baby doll to practice bucking in - Great work for those little hands!

Practical Life - Peeling Oranges
    E loves helping prepare dinner. As soon as she hears me in the kitchen she comes running and asks "what can I do"? This night she worked very hard peeling oranges for our salad and was quite proud of herself!

 

Practical Life - Making Smoothies

    As with this weeks water transferring activity, tonging and pouring work set out on E's trays seldom engage her in and of themselves. She prefers work with practical life applications. Here she is very focused as she uses tongs to transfer smoothie cubes from a bag into the blender and then pour in juice. 

Practical Life - Serving Water
This picture made me realize that I really need to set up a water station for E. I asked her to set the table for  dinner and she took it upon her self to pour us all drinks from her water bottle.  I am having a hard time deciding how and where to set it up but it is definitely on my to-do list.

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 !

linking up with

Montessori Monday

E has officially mastered her first practice life skill, feeding the dogs. She's been helping with this task for a few months now although it has only been a couple of weeks that we have really been working on it regularly. This is her feeding the dogs back in January. Notice how the bowl is no where in sight

Here she is is feeding them a couple of weeks ago. Much better but the majority of the kibbles are still outside the bowl.

This is what I found when I went and checked how she did with feeding the dogs last night. Not too shabby, ehh?

E had really been enjoying her care of the environment work as well.  I know I've mentioned it about 100 times, but she LOVES doing dishes! Step into my kitchen on any given night and you will find the sink overflowing with suds and a drenched, but ever so happy baby scrubbing her little heart out.

 

Oh, and remember the grass we planted a couple of weeks ago? Well it has really taken off and E has done a great job keeping up with the watering. Just about every night she visits her nature center and waters her grass on her own. 

 

And there you have it, our Montessori work of the week!

Bellissimo

I love weekends that are the perfect blend of relaxation and productivity. It is not always easy to achieve the perfect balance but it is a beautiful thing when it happens, it's bellissiomo in fact! And speaking of bellissimo, we took a spontaneous trip to Italy this Saturday. The best part was we didn't even have to get out of our PJ's! We turned our kitchen into a pizzeria for the day, tuned the radio to the "Little Italy" station, and spouted off fun words like "bellisimo" and "mamma mia"!

E was an excellent Sous Chef and fulfilled her responsibilities of  testing all ingredients to make sure they were suitable.

It was the perfect cooking project for a short attention span because we could easily split the project into two shorter segments. I had all the ingredients and tools laid out for us to make the dough when E woke up from her morning nap. It made for a seamless process and it gave us the opportunity to talk about everything we would need before we started. After we made the dough, we let it chill in the fridge for the rest of the afternoon while we played. When E awoke from her afternoon nap we got busy rolling out the dough and assembling our margarita style pizza. I almost opted for no sauce but was glad that I didn't because spreading it on the dough ( and eating it ) was E's favorite part. We popped them in the oven and in just 15 minutes dinner was ready. E enjoyed eating her homemade pizza and the best part was with the whole wheat dough and fresh toppings I didn't even feel guilty about feeding her pizza. I can see a lot more weekend cooking projects in our future!

On a different note, I finally had a little time to do some crafting this weekend. There is no better way to enjoy nap time than with a hot mug of coffee and a good project in my hands! Here is a sneak peak at what I am working on.

 

It's a braided rug that I am going to use as a "work rug" for E's Montessori activities.  I love the bright colors and the fleece is so soft and cushy. I can't wait for it to be done so she can use it!

Well anyway, that was our weekend in a nutshell. I hope you all enjoyed yours as well. 

Bella Notte