A Munchkin's World

Afternoon Activities: Rainbow Rice

2011-11-03T13:49:00.001-06:00

The weather is getting colder again and we are looking for more things to do inside. I have started a new routine this last week or so. I get E settled down for a bit of quiet time in her room (no more naps now, so sad!), then clean up the kitchen from lunch and set out an activity for her before I take an afternoon break for myself. When E gets up from quiet time, she has something to occupy her for a bit and we can make the transition to playtime outdoors or in the playroom a little easier.

Last week one of our afternoon activities was our tub of rainbow rice. I have posted about it before here. It is so easy to make! For this activity, I put a few metal scoops and some cardboard tubes of different lengths in with the rice, along with a bowl or two. We had fun pouring the rice down the tubes and into the bowls, standing the tubes up in the rice and filling them up, and digging around with the scoops. E wants to do this activity again, but next time she wants to build a slide for the rice with the tubes that will stand alone.

Drawing Lessons

2011-06-22T14:32:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the things E wants to do this summer is learn to draw. She has been drawing up a storm recently, and at the same time frustrated by it, because she can't get things to look the way she wants them to.

We finally got to the head-people-with-legs-coming-out-of-their-necks stage, although she does not claim them as people. They are aliens. Not. People. To be fair, they do look more like aliens than people. This one is wearing its bathing suit and swimming in a puddle.

Directly after that, she began drawing birds. Big birds, little birds, all kinds of birds. These ones have nests to sit in and a sky above them to fly in.

Here's a toucan.

And fish. We went hiking last week around a lake and saw a dead fish. When we came home E was adamant that she would draw a dead fish for her nature journal. Since then, we've had all kinds of fish, often in the water with the aliens or large water-wading birds.

I picked up the book Drawing With Children by Mona Brooks from the library this week. I'm wondering if it will be a good resource for a 3 1/2 year old. I can see immediately it's use for older children, although there are quite a few drawings in the book done by 4 year olds.

Are there any drawing books you would reccommend for younger kids?

Make a Summer List

2011-06-20T13:42:00.000-06:00

I've been absent from this space for far too long. We've had a lot going on in "real life" and I'm finally finding my balance again. The last few months have been only about getting through one day at a time, and I'm so glad to finally be in a place where I can start to plan again. And since I am totally and completely a list making person, I give you the Summer List that E and I created this week!

My main goal for the summer is to get outside as much as possible. All kids NEED to play outside, and E needs a bit of encouragement to get out there. I'm working on it.

In no particular order, our list includes:

Learn to sew
Learn to draw
~~Go to the carnival~~ we checked that one off the list already!
Go on a hike every week
Keep a nature journal
Make a collage
Raise caterpillars
Paint
Make s'mores
Go camping with Grandma and Grandpa
Cook in the kitchen
Build a fairy garden
Make smoothies
Learn to read this one is straight from the three-year-old's mouth . . . we'll see!
Go to the pool every week
Go to the farmer's market
Pick strawberries
Grow a garden in progress!
Learn to write E's name
Learn to swing alone
Go fishing
Fly a kite
Plant sunflowers
Go to the zoo

I'm sure we'll find more to add to our list. I put it up on our fridge so we can remember the things we want to do and learn this summer. I'm thinking we need to make a list like this for each season!

Snowballs!

2011-01-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Our picture book for the week has been Snowballs by Lois Ehlert. E has LOVED this book and every time we pull it out to read, we have to go through it at least three times in a row! Good thing it's a short book!

As part of our Winter Wonderland curriculum (through Wee Folk Art), we made snowball cookies to go with the story. They are actually Russian Teacakes, but they really do look like snowballs!

The recipe:

1 c butter
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
3/4 c finely chopped nuts (we used pecans)
2 1/4 c flour (we used half white and half whole wheat)
1/4 t salt
extra powdered sugar for rolling

First, mix the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Then mix in the flours and salt, add the chopped nuts last.

Roll the dough into little balls. Bake at 400* for 10-12 minutes. They don't spread so just use one cookie sheet and squish them all on there.

Once baked, roll them in powdered sugar.

Let cool and roll again in powdered sugar. Enjoy!

Yarn Along

2011-01-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a single photo and share it ~

Ginny from small things

I haven't actually started knitting on my sock yet this week, but I did pull it out of the bag of UFOs that I have lying around. Hopefully, this will be a pair of socks for me! I started them a year or so ago, got scared when the pattern talked about picking up stitches, and set them aside.

I have since knitted several pairs of socks and overcome this fear! Yay! So I am ready to complete this poor pair that's been sitting neglected for so long.

The yarn is Crystal Palace "Maisy" - made from corn fiber and nylon. I thought that was pretty fun, and I figured that would make a sock to wear in the spring when you don't really need heavy wool socks. At the rate I am going with these, I'll finish them by next spring!

I'm working my way through Pillars of the Earth for a second time. I love this book! It's my book club's book for this month, so I thought I had better refresh my brain a little bit. It is getting all muddled up between Pillars and World Without End (which, if you didn't know is set in the same town, but a century or so later!). I'm also watching the miniseries on Netflix, it's not too bad!

Keeping Score

2011-01-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

I have gotten a lot done recently in my goal to simplify my stuff.

I cleaned out my kitchen cabinets.

I cleaned out my pantry - I have a large walk-in pantry. No walk in closets, but a walk in pantry. I know where my priorities are!

This week I got rid of (well, it's boxed up and ready to go to Goodwill):

4 flower vases
11 baby "accessories" (bottles, bibs, etc.)
1 fish bowl
4 candle holders/boxes of candles
1 microwave splatter cover (we don't have a microwave anymore!)
1 pretty autumn centerpiece that my cats keep eating and puking all over the house
3 kitchen appliances
6 cans of food to donate to the food bank (things that we just don't eat and I'm not sure why I have them!)

Plus a big bag of trash from the pantry and the spice cabinet. No more MSG boullion. Not sure why I had 4 jars, I never use the stuff!

That brings my grand total so far to: 82 items.

Doesn't seem like a lot, but my cabinets are thanking me right now. Really, they are!

Reading Challenge Week 1

2011-01-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Ok. I got the pictures fixed on yesterday's school post, so if you want to see our Tomten critters set up, go take a look at it. I'll wait here for you. :)

Here's our reading challenge for this week! I've decided to only "review" books that we really liked and read throughout the week. If I wrote about every book we checked out from the library, I'd never finish!

1. The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren. I LOVED this book. I will say it was a bit wordy for my just-turned-three-year-old. The story is about a little gnome-like creature called the Tomten, who visits all the animals on the farm in the nighttime. It is winter and he reminds them that soon it will be spring, winter won't last forever. If you take a look at yesterday's post you can see what we did with this book for our preschool time. E really liked it when I got out the props. I'm going to have to remember to do things like that more often. It really helped her remember the order of the story!

2. Little Cloud by Eric Carle. I'm sure many of you have read this book before, I'm not sure why we're just getting to it now! Little Cloud changes into the shape of many things: a rabbit, a tree, an airplane. I think I'll be keeping this book for another week and doing an art project or two with it. I'm thinking shaving cream! Messy and fun, yes, indeed.

3. Goldie and the Three Bears by Diane Stanley. E is on a Goldilocks kick right now. We read a really neat version last week, and I forgot to write it down. I'll have to find it and share. Anyhow. Goldie is a little girl who knows exactly what she likes, and what she doesn't. Sound like anyone you know?? Yup, me too. Goldie has a hard time making friends, because they are all "too boring," "too snobby," or "too rough." One day the school bus drops her off at the wrong house and she goes inside to call her mom. It is the Three Bears' house, and you can guess what happens next . . .

4. The Sleepy Owl by Marcus Pfister. We really enjoy all the books we've read by Marcus Pfister. The Sleepy Owl was no exception. Little Owl oversleeps and when she wakes up, all her friends are already flown away. She flies to a house to find someone to play with and wakes up a little boy. They try to figure out how to be friends when Little Owl is awake at night and the little boy is awake in the day. It's a cute story and I love the watercolor illustrations.r

School This Week: The Tomten

2011-01-13T13:20:00.002-07:00

I mentioned previously that we are trying something a bit different with our school time now. Instead of being really strict with our Montessori time, I am branching out a little bit. I looked through the Winter Wonderland curriculum over at Wee Folk Art, and I really like what I saw! Wee Folk Art has a 12 week seasonal curriculum that is based in literature. So we are trying bits and pieces of that along with our Montessori time, and so far it seems to be working well.

This week's picture book is The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren. This was a new book to me and I loved it. We read the book several times on Monday, and talked about the seasons and how the Tomten made tracks in the snow. This would be great to do a couple of activities from Montessori for Everyone; I'm thinking the four seasons matching or the animal tracks activity. Since I am planning on repeating this curriculum next year in the winter as well, I think I'll plan on using those then.

On Wednesday, when we read through the story again, I pulled out some props and we acted out the story as I read. I had made a set of rainbow gnomes for E for Christmas, so the red gnome was drafted to play the Tomten, and some of our Little People farm animals got in on the fun as well. The purple parrot is pretending to be a chicken. The white playsilk was for the snow, and the Tomten walked through the "snow" to check in on each animal.

After our story, we went upstairs to do some Montessori work. I had a mat rolled out for E already with the pink tower cubes set up. At first she did not want to work on that, but I told her she needed to do the pink tower first, and then she could choose a different thing to work on. She built the tower correctly by herself and then I showed her how the smallest cube could "walk" along the edge of each bigger cube. E thought that was pretty cool!

When she was finished with the pink tower, she did some good work with the brown stair and red rods before deciding it was time to go downstairs and do some music time.

I'm trying to incorporate some music into our school time each week. You'd think that would be easy for me, after being an elementary music teacher, but somehow it's always the thing I forget about. I'm going to save our music time for another post. I'd like to get some good photos first, so you can see what we did with it.

We did several art projects for our first week of Winter Wonderland. The curriculum suggests watercolor painting with salt, and I think we'll be doing that tomorrow. We had a friend over for art and craft time and made the glittery window clings from Family Fun. Ours did not turn out as expected, they're still beautiful, but I'm going to have to cut them out of the waxed paper and hang them with string.

The other project we did was something I saw on Art Projects for Kids. I drew snowflakes with white crayon on white paper and wrote E's name. Then I cut the paper into quarters and had her paint each piece a different color with watercolors. This turned out beautifully, and E was so excited to see her name revealed in the white crayon as she painted! (The picture is from Art Projects for Kids, so you could see what it looks like. I didn't want to post ours since it has E's name all over the front of it)

I'm linking up to Montessori Monday and Preschool Corner. Please take time to visit some of the other blogs linked up! :)

Yarn Along

2011-01-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Linking up with Genny again for the Yarn Along over at small things.

No WIP pictures this time, but an "action shot!" I got 3 mittens done this week - 3 because the first one was way too big, so I had to go down a size. I'll finish a fourth in the larger size, and then she'll have some to grow into!

Now I need to figure out which knitting project to start next. I'm thinking it needs to be something for me, but it will probably end up being something for E again.

What have I been reading? Ummmm . . . aside from numerous children's picture books? Not much. I will have a post up on Friday about our books for this week, as part of the reading challenge. Maybe by next week I will have gotten my act together and actually start a new book! I even have a couple on my bookshelf calling my name, I just haven't had time to pull them out and say "hello!"

Easing Back into Things

2011-01-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

I thought we were going to start school last week. Hmmmm. I have noticed that I tend to procrastinate more as I have gotten older. I didn't get half of the things done that I wanted to over the weekend, and since it was E's birthday week, and we were still recouperating from illnesses, I decided to just wait until this week to start up again.

We did, however, do some activities for Epiphany! I saw this neat and EASY art project, and thought we would do something similar. I don't have step by step pictures, but here's what we did:

I only have large white paper, so I had E color the whole page with different blue, gray, and black crayons. Since I wanted to do this project, too, I chose to paint my page with blue and black paint. I had E use crayons so she could move directly to the next step without waiting for paint to dry.

I made a star stamp (like our fish stamp) and let her stamp all over the paper with white and yellow paint. Then we let our paintings dry for a day and I put them under some weights to flatten out a bit.

The next day, I had cut triangles, circles and a star for each of us. We glued our triangles onto the paper, and topped them with a circle. Then it was time to decorate with glue, glitter, and sequins! After decorating was done, we added our star for the wise men to follow.

I put my picture behind our nativity set,

E's went up on our new art display I created on the back of my kitchen cabinets.

Read to Me Challenge

2011-01-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

I have a post about our Epiphany activities up my sleeve, but first a quick post about a neat challenge that we will be participating in this year!

We are excited to participate in the Read to Me Challenge over at There's a Book! The challenge is to read picture books with your little one during the course of the year, and review them and share with others so we can find lots of neat books to read!

We are shooting for the "Harvesting" level: 200 picture books over the course of 2011. Seeing as how we checked out 20 new books from the library this week alone, we should be able to complete that.

Check it out and join up! It should be loads of fun!

Yarn Along

2011-01-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm joining up again with Ginny at small things

Working on a small project to keep my hands busy when I am watching the little one play. The begining of a pair of mittens for her, she desperately needs new ones! And now that we finally have a little snow, it will be nice to have some warm wool mittens to keep those little fingers warm. They will match the hat I knitted for her last year - it still fits and should for quite a while with the rate E grows!

Not really reading anything right now. Between Christmas and birthday I've been at my sewing machine constantly. I do a lot of knitted gifts, but sewn ones are much faster, and when you have a little girl who insists upon wearing skirts and dresses every day, you have to be able to whip up a few quickly. I am, however, perusing several books: Basic Montessori by David Gettman, to refresh my braing as we get back into the swing of things, The Essential Montessori by Elizabeth Hainstock, and Mothering Like the Father by Dianne Daniels. Mrs. Daniels came and spoke to my MOPS group not too long ago, I found her speaking to be pretty inspiring.

A Special Day

2011-01-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my little munchkin!! I can't believe she's three already! Where does the time go?!

We celebrated her birthday yesterday because I have to work tonight. She requested a brownie birthday cake (she's never had a brownie before so I'm not sure where she got that from), so that's what we made. It made me laugh a little because she insisted on making it herself. Well, helping, at least. If someone asked me to make my own birthday cake, I would have laughed at them and told them to get busy or go to King Soopers! E did a great job making the brownies, she poured the water and oil all by herself without spilling, helped me crack the egg, and helped me count as we mixed everything together. And they tasted really good, too!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

Hello, 2011!

I'm ready to get back into the swing of things, I think. Someone in our house turns 3 !!!! on Tuesday, and life can settle down back to normal after that.

I've been thinking of a few goals for the new year. Do you make New Year's Resolutions? I prefer to just think of it as long term goals for the year. Things that I know it's going to take me more than a day or a week to accomplish. I see a few bloggers writing about a word for the year, I like that idea. I think I even used it last year, but I don't remember what my word was. Things can change so much over a year! Right now, the word that comes to my mind is simplify. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by stuff, responsibilities, activities, commitments. I am hoping this year to simplify my life in general.

1. Simplify stuff! I want to get rid of 2011 things in 2011. I'll probably keep track of that here on the blog. I don't think I'll track the things I throw away, only the things I donate, gift, or sell.

2. Simplify schedule. Make sure we do preschool (Montessori time or otherwise) 2-3 times per week. We started off great this school year, but have really started to slack!

3. Simplify health. Eat breakfast and lunch every day! I am horribly bad about snacking and never eating a real meal until dinner time. And I wonder why I have no energy some days . . .

4. Simplify hobbies. I joined a destash-along on craftster.org, I am really going to try to do my sewing and knitting from what I already have on hand. I also joined a craftalong doing 50 projects in 2011 - I'm hoping this will help me to actually finish the projects that I start. Unless they're a gift for someone, a lot of the time they don't get any further than planning and purchasing materials! Hence the large fabric and yarn stash.

5. Simplify money. This is the year we need to plan a budget for food/household expenses. Hubby got a new job (yay!!!) but my hours keep getting cut at work when I need them the most. So either it's budget and stick to it, or work more days out of the week. Budget it is!

I started cleaning out the house with my kitchen. Today I boxed up 51 items for goodwill, mostly excess coffee mugs and sippy cups. And I haven't even touched my pantry yet! :)

Yarn Along

2010-12-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

I am excited to participate in my first Yarn Along Wednesday at over at small things. I LOVE this idea! One picture: what you're knitting and what you're reading.

I am close to finishing a pair of socks for my husband (aka bigfoot) for Christmas. They WILL get done! And I am reading Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. Still reading it. I've been reading it for months now. It's just not as exciting for me as Outlander was. Hopefully I'll be able to finish soon!

Pinecone Ornaments

2010-12-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

As part of our Advent calendar, last night we made ornaments for our Christmas tree. I was inspired by these pinecone ornaments over at The Magic Onions. I was all out of broken crayons, and thought using beeswax would be nice, but as I thought about it more, I wasn't sure I wanted a 2 1/2 year old playing with hot wax.

I scored on some pinecones at the thrift store this past weekend and knew we were still doing to do a pinecone ornament. I know, I know, I live half an hour from the mountains and I could have gone out and picked my own pinecones. But. I've been feeling lazy, and these pinecones already had been drilled and wire hooks added! Sweet!

We decided to make our pinecones a little sparkly. We painted them with glue and then added glitter. E loves any craft where Mama gets out the glitter!

This Year's Advent Calendar

2010-12-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

You might remember our advent calendar from last year. We are using the same one again this year, but I have changed it up a little bit.

I decided to hang the whole thing up this year, and I hung it on the wall in our kitchen/dining room. Last year it was up on the back of my kitchen cabinets and it was too high for E to notice all the time. Now it's right at eye level. And to keep track of which day we are on (and to show E how many days we have left until Christmas when she asks for the 47th time today) I hot glued a red pom pom to another clothespin.

A lot of our activities are the same as last year, but we have some new ones, too! Yesterday we made our own Christmas tree ornaments - a tradition from my family growing up that I was excited to share with E. We got bundled up and went to a parade in the dark; all the floats were decorated in lights! We have a couple of Christmas crafts coming up as well. I got a beeswax candle kit and one of our crafts will be to make the white Christmas candle for our Advent wreath.

We are doing a Jesse tree this year as well. I am really liking reading scripture together as a family after dinner each night, and E is excited to hang the ornaments on our little tree.

Happy Advent to all of you!

Friday Fashion

2010-11-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Before I had a child, I would see kids in horribly mismatched clothing and think that their Dads must have dressed them. And my child was never going out in public wearing mismatched clothes (or clothes with chocolate milk and ketchup on them, or even pajamas for that matter)! Ummm. Yes. Well, I try to make sure she's not covered in the remnants of breakfast or lunch before we go out. But the other two? Eh. Who cares! And so I give you a dose of some toddler fashion.

Along with declaring it pajama year, E has expressed a great interest in hats.

This white sunhat is her "bonnet" and of course it goes perfectly with the zebra tutu and striped sweater. All stripes match each other, didn't you know? And the mittens are just the thing when one is reading about the Three Little Kittens. That way you can share with them. And maybe you can all have pie.

Of course, you must always carry around your extra hats, because you never know when you will need to change your head-gear.

Like for nap time. One must always wear a different hat to bed than the one that was worn for playtime. I think it's a unwritten rule, or something.

Here's to tots picking out their OWN clothing!! :)

My Nemesis (Maybe TMI??)

2010-11-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Ha! No, really, potty training is seriously my nemesis. And I'm putting this out there in hopes that someone may have had the same problems that I am currently having. And maybe you can give me some advice!

We have been in potty training limbo for almost a year now! And it isn't getting any better. E mostly refuses to go in a diaper, makes a HUGE fuss anytime I ask her if she has to go potty or tell her it's time to go potty, and ends up wetting her underwear all day long.

I've tried incentives, I've tried taking away toys when she wets her pants. I've tried a potty schedule. I've tried to just ignore it and put up with the wet underwear all day, but it really annoys me!

I've even put her back in diapers for a couple of weeks to try and "reset." She loves our diapers - we use cloth and I made pretty ones with hello kitty and owls and all kinds of patterns. But now her "diaper butt" is too big to fit under her clothes, and I don't think wearing diapers should be something she likes at this point. Spending money on disposable diapers when I have perfectly good cloth ones makes me cringe.

And even when she's in diapers, she won't tell me when she has wet them.

At this point, I'm not sure if she's just being stubborn, is getting too involved in her play to bother going to the bathroom, or if she truly doesn't know when she has to go. I should mention that she has had surgery dealing with her urinary tract system about a year and a half ago. But I've mentioned my concerns to her urologist and he puts it all off on her age, not anything wrong with her system.

Any advice from one mom to another?
Thanks for letting me make my mini-rant!

What's on the Shelf?

2010-11-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are the new activities out for E on her practical life shelf right now.

I switched up her pouring and used some of the red (orange) lentils and black beans from last month's sensory box. I'm sure she's ready to try water pouring, but until she starts really paying attention to what she's doing with it, I'm not ready to try it on the school shelves.

Next to dry pouring is her spooning work: glass pebbles into a butterfly-shaped candy mold. Which E, often as not, chooses to use her fingers instead of the spoon.

I pulled out an old activity that we haven't used for quite a while: sponging water! E loves this activity, and will work happily with it for 20 minutes or so. And she's gotten much better about not dripping water everywhere, so I'm happy.

On the bottom shelf, I FINALLY found a cheap appetizer tray with four sections to use for sorting. Seriously, I don't know why this was so hard for me to find! Last week, we dyed four different shapes of pasta into four different colors. So her sorting can be done by color or by shape.

Next to the sorting work are our pumpkin life cycle three part cards. I saw a neat tray/box for three part cards at Montessori Services - it had separate sections for the three sizes of cards. I'm wondering if there is a way I could DIY it at home, it would be helpful to not have them sliding all over the tray all the time.

I also changed up our language shelf. Nothing big over here, I just swap the letters out every week or so. On the top shelf, we have our begining sound sort. Right now E is working with /n/ and /k/.

Our BOB alphabet books are on the top shelf as well, and I have the specific books with /n/ and /k/ out on top of the box. E is always welcome to take more books out of the box, but I like to put the letters we are working with on top for easy access.

Our Laurie CVC puzzles are on the middle shelf. E loves these things! I have eight different puzzles. Right now, I try to put out ones that have no letters in common. We talk about begining and ending sounds and she has to match the word to the picture.

Not pictured, but next to the CVC puzzles is our sand tray. Right now, I will write a letter, and I have E trace it after me. She wants so badly to learn to write her name, I thought this was a good first step.
On the bottom shelf is our alphabet puzzle. I have a couple of different puzzles that deal with alphabetical order, and I rotate them to keep up her interest.

Also on the bottom shelf, we have our geometric tile pictures. These are another favorite and right now they get used almost every day.

I'll try to remember to post pictures again when I change out the shelf activities in a few weeks!

Musical Munchkin

2010-11-04T12:59:00.000-06:00

Are we ready to start piano lessons yet???

How about violin?? (although E tells me all the time she wants to play the flute like Mommy.)

playing "violin" with two of the brown stair blocks

I wonder if there are any good suzuki schools around here. I can for sure do piano, but violin is a bit beyond me.

School this past week . . . or two . . . or three

2010-11-04T07:22:00.000-06:00

Whew! I took a bit of a break there! Life has been getting a bit hectic, trying to fit in my work, E's school, housecleaning, and holiday crafting!! I'm still feeling the pressure, so I probably won't be posting quite as much as we head into the holidays, but I'm going to try to get some school posts in here and there. We ARE doing school time - 2 to 3 days a week. I'm trying hard to keep 2 days with our Montessori work, the third day is often baking, nature walks, and art projects. Another day in the week we have MOPS, our moppettes program is awesome, they really do some good "bible school" type work with the kiddos.

Anyhow, last week we had "pajama school!" Every morning E woke up and wanted to do school work but would not get out of her jammies. Isn't it great to be home and not have to put on real clothes until you want to?

Tuesday was an awesome day all around. I went to take a shower and when I came out, E was already hard at work with the continents map.

She also made up her own extension for the shape stacker.

I finally got around to printing out the pumpkin life cycle three part cards. And I thought I would give it a go using the words as well as the pictures this time. E really enjoyed the work. I was pleasantly surprised that she was able to match most of the words on her own. She got triped up on "seed" and "seedling" - I think that one was the only one she didn't self-correct.

We also put together a pumpkin life cycle on a paper plate. I got this printable from A to Z teacher stuff, it includes a lesson plan (more for older kids) and these lift-the-flap type coloring pictures. I had E match the words on this as well, first I wrote the word on the paper plate, then I had her find the coloring picture that matched and glue it on top of the word I wrote.

Other work E did this week included the sandpaper numbers (she traced them all and helped me put them back in the correct order), and the brown stair. After she built the stair correctly on her own, I showed her how to match the pink tower cubes up to it. E thought this was the coolest thing ever! I just love the enthusiasm of the preschool set!

I'm currently (well as soon as I get off the computer) switching out practical life and language activities in the school room. I'll have a post up on what's out as soon as I finish.

Linking this post up to Montessori Monday at One Hook Wonder.

More Letter L

2010-10-11T20:54:00.000-06:00

We had so much fun with our letter L activities last week, we decided to continue with them this week. We went for a nature walk and collected the first fall leaves of the season. You have to grab them fast around here! One day they're green, the next they're yellow, and the third day the wind has been blowing and they're all gone from the tree!

E helped me press the leaves (very carefully) with the iron, and then we strung them up into buntings for our windows.

We also did a falling leaves craft a la No Time for Flashcards (can you tell what my favorite go-to website for kids crafts is??) I traced some of our fall cookie cutters for the leaves and let E paint them.

Once the paint was dry, I cut them out and we glued them on a construction paper spiral. It looks so neat hanging in our dining room, and it spins around when the wind blows throught the window.

I wanted to get to a couple more leaf activities, but there weren't enough leaves yet. Perhaps this week we'll be able to get a few purple ash and maybe our maple tree will start turning!

As far as Montessori activities go, this was not an outstanding week. E did not have much interest in doing work in the schoolroom. She did decide to do some work with the geometric tiles and geometric solids. I think one day she spent 40 minutes on one picture, putting tiles on and taking them off again.

She also figured out how to make the tiles stand up on the table, very exciting!

Linking up to Toddler Tuesday and Tot School.

Christmas Crafting in Progress!

2010-10-07T14:56:00.000-06:00

I finally got to the craft store to pick up the yards and yards of felt I need for all of E's Christmas presents. Can I just say right now that I LOVE felt? Especially wool felt, but even the Eco-recycled stuff is good. No finishing seams or hemming, no applique, and it stands up to play pretty darn well. I've been working for the past two naptimes on E's card table playhouse. I am discovering that our card table is pretty much on the tiny side - but I still think it's going to work out OK. I am pretty much done with the front side.

There is the obvious, um, a door to get in and out, a plant (stuffed, and I plan to make flowers she can stick on it as well), and a mail box (the door opens and she will be able to drop mail into the house through the slot). I also sewed a few "bricks" on there for ambiance. All that is left is the edging for the top and to back it. Not too bad for a couple hours work!

Other sides of the house will be a garden with an apple tree, a birdhouse, and at least one window. Gotta have some light and air in that house, ya know?

We Play: Pumpkin Spice Playdough

2010-10-06T12:42:00.000-06:00

I finally got to making up a new batch of playdough for E last week. We had been using the crumbs leftover from E's birthday party, um, 10 months ago. Pathetic? Yes. And it was just the storebought stuff. I made up a batch using my favorite playdough recipe, colored it orange, and added a little pumpkin pie spice. Mmmmmm! This stuff smells amazing! I set out the playdough in a plastic container, along with a couple of pumpkin cookie cutters. The first day I put it out, E played with it for an hour straight! Ahhh, the peace of a child playing contentedly! :)

Freezer Cooking Resources

2010-10-05T07:21:00.000-06:00

Recently, I've been asked a lot about my freezer cooking. I LOVE how easy it makes my days. I've had several questions about how it all works and I thought I'd write about a couple of good resources for freezer cooking that I have found.

Freezer cooking, once a month cooking, whatever you want to call it, is where you prepare meals in advance, freeze them, and they are ready to pull out and reheat when you need them. With a busy 2 year old running around, and the fact that I work part time a few nights a week, means that I really appreciate NOT having to chop veggies or brown ground beef every night. My husband (bless his heart) is also NOT a chef of any kind. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion he's actually afraid of my kitchen. So I can't count on him to whip up a meal when I'm tired or at work for the evening. Enter freezer cooking. I plan and spend one day each month or so (usually about every 5-6 weeks) cooking ALL. DAY. LONG. When I am done, I have a whole month's worth of meals in my freezer, ready to be reheated for a quick dinner.

I started freezer cooking with 30 Day Gourmet. I like this method because it's very organized. I got the book from my library and in the back are all kinds of worksheets and spreadsheets. Worksheets make me happy. There are also a lot of recipes online on their website. I don't like this method because the recipes are not particularly healthy - heavy on "cream-of" soups and breadcrumbs.

I found a couple more books for freezer cooking by some local authors:
Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer. I like this method because the recipes are healthier, and a bit more adventurous than plain old casseroles. Things I don't like about it are that I've found some of the recipes don't really reheat all that well.

Most recently, I found onceamonthmom.com, and I am really liking it. The recipes are pretty healthy (with a few tweaks of my own) and easy to prepare. I LOVE that all the planning work is done for me! Every month there is a new menu with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The grocery list is done for me and the "game plan" so I know who needs to do what on our big cooking day (I usually cook with a friend). The only thing I found is that the grocery list seemed to be off for this month. We ended up with 2 huge bags of cheese left over and didn't have enough green chilis. I think I'll do my own grocery list for next month.

Letter L Day

2010-10-04T14:56:00.000-06:00

We had such a busy week this past week. It always gets like that the week before I do my freezer cooking. More on that later, but needless to say, not a lot of Montessori work got done. We did have one good morning of work before we had to rush off to the library and dance class on Friday. The highlight of E's Montessori work this week was all of the knobbed and knobbless cylinder work she chose to do. I finally got around to making some cards for the knobless cylinders, and she really enjoyed using them.

Our really fun day was Thursday, when we hosted another of our "Letter Playdates." This week was Letter L. We read Is Your Mama A Llama? by Deborah Guarino. Then we moved to the kitchen to make our fridge letters. I had a few options for the kiddos this time around: leaf stickers, fabric leaves to glue on, or real leaves (from last year that I saved) to crumble over the glue. I think ALL of the kiddos chose leaf stickers. Their Letter L for Leaves turned out really nice! And I was impressed that all the "big" girls could peel the backs of their own stickers.

Then, for snacktime, we enjoyed some lovely "L" treats: lemon bread/cake, longjohns, and ladybugs! E and I assembled the ladybugs the morning of the playdate out of strawberries, grapes, and mini chocolate chips. They turned out really cute and E had a lot of fun making them!

I am going to continue our letter L theme into this week with a few more L books (Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney and Leaf Man by Lois Elhert). We are going to do a nature-collecting walk to get some leaves, and hopefully we will make our own leaf pictures like the Leaf Man book. Has anyone done leaf preserving with Mod Podge? I tried contact paper last year and wasn't impressed.

Friday's Book Basket

2010-10-02T07:20:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I'm posting this a bit late this week, but I haven't done one the past couple of weeks and we read a few really neat books that I wanted to share with you!

We love Jan Brett books around here. I had a few when I was little and my Mom got some for E a while back. This week we read Annie and the Wild Animals. Annie can't find her cat anywhere, so she is looking for a new pet. She makes corn cakes and leaves them at the edge of the forest. A moose, a bear, and other forest animals come to eat the corn cakes, but Annie doesn't want them for a pet. E loved this story. She kept asking to read about the corn cakes. Jan Brett uses the border illustrations to tell you what is coming up next, so I showed that to E and tried to get her to guess what animal Annie would meet next.

Another favorite this week was Max's Dragon by Kate Banks. Max is looking for rhyming words, which E loves to do. His wagon becomes his dragon and then it takes of into the sky as a cloud. After reading this book we went outside and looked at the clouds. Finding pictures in the clouds is a fun activity that really helps to develop imagination. After that, E has been finding pictures in everything: leaves, her dinner, dust bunnies . . .

The last book I have to share with you is There Was an Old Monster by Rebecca and Adrian Emberly. This is such a cute book, in the style of "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly." E wasn't sure she wanted to read a monster book, but once we got going and read about how she swallowed ants that had him "dancing in his pants" she was hooked. I think there is a musical version of this book as well, but we haven't checked it out yet.

Happy Reading!

A Trip to the Farm

2010-09-30T06:42:00.000-06:00

Last week we got to make our first (of several, hopefully) trip of the season to a farm. The farm we visited was definitely geared toward children - there were lots of kids activities, not a lot of pumpkin picking or produce. We went with my mom's group; and since the farm is in Grandma's town, Grandma got to come too!

There were goats, sheep, and a llama or two to feed

Giant legos to build with

A huge chicken coop - turned corn crib to play in

Swings of all kinds and a kid-friendly zip line

A hay-bale maze to play in, with bridges to cross

Hammocks to laze in

And LOTS of other animals: turkeys, chickens, pigs, donkeys, horses, and cows!

E had such fun playing at the farm with her friends!

We Play: Little People

2010-09-29T06:51:00.000-06:00

I recently re-organized our toys and ended up bringing some of E's Little People up to our living room. This has ended up making them her most-played-with toys. And the best part about it is that she is starting to play with them independantly. I still get constantly baraged with "Mommy, play with you [me]" requests, but now when I tell her to go play on her own for a little while, she will usually pull out some Little People. Or sit and pout on the couch. It's not all roses around here! :)

She likes to line them up and create scenes with the Little People. I thought that was only something little boys did with their trucks. Nope, little girls get in on the action with doll figures! It's that "sensitive period for order" I keep reading about in my Montessori books.

The other day she got out Noah's Ark and had a grand time pretending that Noah and Mrs. Noah were the Mommy and Daddy and they went on vacation in their boat with all their animal children. The great part about this was that it was all initiated by E. I loved how she got out a playsilk and used that for the water!

Happy Playing!

Some Finished and Almost-Finished Projects

2010-09-28T07:12:00.000-06:00

Now that summer is pretty much over, I finally finished the Shades of Summer Dress for E. It took a lot of time to make that twirly skirt!! But she loves it. It is made from cotton yarn and is SUPER soft! As with most of the things I make for E, it is too big right now. I'm going to put a ribbon in it to cinch up the waist. If I'm going to spend so much time knitting clothing for E, I want her to be able to wear it for more than a month! Hopefully, she will still be able to wear it next spring. Maybe it will be her Easter dress. I think it will also look cute with a long sleeve t-shirt underneath it on cold, dreary winter days.

My almost-finished project is my FIRST pair of socks! They are made with some neat Ty Dye yarn from Knit One. They are a little too small for me, as I intend them to be a gift, but I did try them on. Oh My Goodness!! I can see why people can get obsessed with hand-knitted socks. They are like little massagers for your feet!! :)

What have you finished recently? Any works-in-progress to share?

Our Week in School

2010-09-26T21:14:00.000-06:00

We are finally settling down into a routine! Hopefully that means I will find a bit more time to blog about what we've been up to. Right now, we are doing school time Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. I am trying to make at least two of those days work time in the school room, Fridays are sometimes work time in the school room, and sometimes other projects to go with our theme.

I have dubbed this week "the week of towers." E chose to work with all the sensorial materials that she has been avoiding. She built stairs and towers with the pink tower, brown stair, and yellow and green knobbless cylinders. First, she built each material as a staircase, and then she stacked them up to make a tower.

Other sensorial work she chose this week included the geometric solids - doing a card sort of sphere and cylinder, shape tiles, and the sound jars.

E is still into all the language works I have put out. This week, I changed up her begining sound sort. Now she's working on /t/ and /f/. She gets it in three ways: our alphabet box (if she asks to do the alphabet box, those are the drawers I pull for her), the sound sort cards, and our alphabet BOB books (I leave STU and EF out for her on top of the box). I also changed out the Laurie CVC puzzles, now she's working on car and pig.

E also learned to put together the whole continent puzzle on her own this week! That's quite an accomplishment for her - puzzles on the whole are not her strong suit.

As far as practical life activities go, E has been helping me in the kitchen quite a bit. This week she helped me make Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins. No pictures of that, cooking with a 2 1/2 year old is enough - I don't need the camera, too!

On the shelf, she worked with the clothespin color wheel, as well as tonging apple buttons into an ice cube tray (she ended up using her fingers instead), and our spooning material.

This week was one without art projects! I know, I know, how could I let the week go by!! We've been playing a lot of games instead. E's favorites right now are from our Leap Frog game box: Alphabet Go Fish and Dominoes. She's getting pretty good!

Outdoors time this week was a visit to a farm. This was such a fun trip! I'll have to do a separate post on that, because I used the film camera and the pictures are all still being developed.

Linking up to Tot School and Toddler Tuesday.

Homemade Holidays

2010-09-26T07:36:00.000-06:00

I know, Christmas is still a little less than 100 days away, but I feel like I'm WAY behind. It's easy to get that way when you try to make most/all of your Christmas gifts by hand. Plus, E's birthday is a week and a half after Christmas, so I have get get started on things early. I thought I'd share a few ideas that I had for handmade gifts that I am loving right now!

The Montessorian in me LOVES this soft globe. I had been wondering how to make a globe without spending a fortune or spending a week meticulously painting. The continents in this globe are the regular Montessori colors.

E would adore this card table play house. It looks like the seller even has room for a few more orders before Christmas. I will be making E's, though. Most likely using the tutorial from Sew Much Ado. Now, where can I find pink felt on the bolt?

Sally the Eco-Fairy has been on my to-make list for more than a year. She's so cute. I actually have all the body parts finished, I just need to sew her up. And make some clothes - I decided to go with wool felt clothes instead of knitted, should be quicker that way.

The newest edition of Living Crafts Magazine has an adorable doll house felt board that I just love. I'm hoping that it will get a rave review from the munchkin, as well.

Speaking of Living Crafts, I just love their tablecloth and napkins set with crocheted edges. Now, if I just knew how to crochet. I'm strictly a knitting girl. But they might still look really neat with just the blanket stitch edging.

12 Crafts Till Christmas has a super-cute doll bassinet and diaper bag play set that is totally calling E's name. Last year was the "year of the felt food." I think this year is going to be the "year of the dolly."

Enough talking, time to get started! Do you think 100 days is enough to get all this done??

Tot School

2010-09-14T12:33:00.000-06:00

We had a busy week of school and other activities last week. So busy, I couldn't get to the computer to write about it! So busy, in fact, I forgot to take a lot of pictures. But I guess that's how you know we've been working hard!

This week I presented part of the "metal insets" to E. We don't actually have metal insets, we are just using our geometric cabinet. I discovered a few weeks ago that she could trace the inside of a stencil, so I wanted to pull this out for her. She was so excited about it! Right now, we are only working on the first step, tracing the inside of the frame.

E also really likes the new language works I've put out this fall. The Laurie word puzzles are her favorites right now.

She has also done some beginning sound sorting with our alphabet box and the alphabet cards from Montessori for Everyone.

She does not choose sensorial work very often. I certainly hope that changes as she gets a bit older! But this week she did choose to work with the matrushka dolls. (Ours are from the Simpsons - ha!)

Practical life work this week included things like sweeping pom poms off the floor and helping to clear the table and load the dishwasher after dinner.

We started our apple unit this week, and did a couple of art projects. E painted green leaves onto a tree trunk, and then glued red pom poms down for apples.

Later in the week, we did some apple printing (though the final product doesn't really look like it!) and made a letter A for Apple Prints to hang on our alphabet wall.

You may remember one of my goals for school this year is to get outside more. We had planned to go on a short hike in the mountians this week, but then there was this fire. So we settled for taking a walk around a pond near our house and playing at the park. Still lots of fun, and hopefully the fires (yes, now there are more than one!) will be calmed down by the end of this week and we can go to the mountians then.

I'll be linking this post up to Toddler Tuesday and Tot School.

First Day of School!

2010-08-31T14:06:00.001-06:00

Today was the day! I've been preparing materials, organizing shelves, and talking up "school time" with E for the last couple of weeks, and we finally started school today. She was so excited to start!

E did great work today. I am AMAZED at the change in just two months. She is truely ready for these materials. When we were working with our friend K, there was a lot of whining and "You [I] can't do that." Today, E eagerly chose materials off the shelves and would have worked much longer than the hour and a half I had allotted, if we didn't have other places to be this morning!

We started our day with our Morning Song. Really, we start every day with this song, singing as we get dressed.

Morning has come, rise with the sun.

Come, now, and sing, everyone.

Morning has come, rise with the sun.

Give good cheer.

After our morning song, we talked about the weather using our chart from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

The first work E chose was her shape stacker. She just played with it for a little while, and eventually we worked on fitting together the square shapes, and sorting the shapes into their correct piles. We didn't work on biggest to smallest so much today.

After that, E chose to work with a new material - some CVC Laurie puzzles. I have "cat" and "dog" out on the shelf so far. We worked with one puzzle at a time and talked about beginning and ending sounds. She's good with beginning sounds, but I don't think she really understands what I'm talking about when I ask about the ending sounds.

Then we did some geometry work - both the geometric cabinet and the geometric solids. She chose the rectangle drawer and just did it like a puzzle. We reviewed the names of the geometric solids, and I showed her the cards I made with pictures of other objects that match the solids. Right now I have out rectangular prisms and spheres. Together, we sorted the cards to fit with the correct solid. Rectangular prisms were things like a tissue box and a train car. Spheres were things like an orange and a soccer ball.

Some more sensory work followed, as we built a tower with the green knobless cylinders. This required a lot of help from me, constantly reminding her what she was looking for (the largest cylinder).

Her best work of the morning was pouring lentils. She must have poured for 15 minutes! We also got to have a lesson (or three) with the broom and dustpan. She was so proud of herself that she cleaned up her own mess!

While E was pouring, I pulled out a tweezing work - apple buttons into a flower ice cube tray. Of course, she had to do the work after me.

To end our morning, we put together our giant Alphabet Train floor puzzle. I helped with alphabetical order, but she found all the pieces and put them together. And then had great fun pushing it along the carpet!

What a morning! After all THAT, we went for craft time at church, and then out to lunch to celebrate our first day of school. Now I think I need a nap. :)

Linking up to Toddler Tuesday at One Hook Wonder

Friday's Book Basket

2010-08-27T06:59:00.000-06:00

I have three gems to share with you today!

First up, an old favorite. Every week on Monday I ask E what kinds of books she wants to look for at the library. We go to the library on Tuesdays. This week she wanted pony stories and Elmer. Elmer by David McKee is such a cute book. Elmer doesn't look like all the other elephants and decides to paint himself elephant color to fit in. E loves the last couple of pages where all the other elephants paint themselves up like Elmer! Be on the lookout for a stART project soon using this book!

Another favorite this week was Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni. We love Lionni books at our house. This one is about a clever inchworm who escapes being eaten by several different birds. Inch by Inch was our book for our letter I playdate this week. We made inchworm breadsticks for a snack and made our letter I for ice cream picture a la No Time For Flashcards.

E's favorite book this week was Sylvie by Jennifer Sattler. This was a new one for us! Sylvie the flamingo asks her mom why flamingos are pink. Her mom tells her it's because of all the little pink shrimp they eat. This gets Sylvie thinking . . . what if she ate something else? E especially loved the page with the paisley swimming suit (of course).

Do you have any favorite books to share this week? Leave a comment!

Craft Corner: Train Table

2010-08-26T08:35:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, there was a very ugly table. A VERY VERY UGLY table. With fake wood veneer that was buckled and peeling off. But it had cute legs - isn't that always important? And it was a good size, and pretty sturdy. And so it sat in the storage room, getting dusty and spiderwebby, waiting to be thrown away or turned into something awesome.

Then E needed a train table for her tracks, and I thought of that UGLY table again!

So I peeled off as much of the veneer as I could, and hot-glued some felt to the top.

Trimmed up the sides and glued them down as close to the edge of the table as I could.

And voila! Just like new, but better, because it has a purpose now. And I still have felt leftover to make a felt board. (The original reason for purchasing navy felt.)

We Play: Outside

2010-08-25T06:55:00.000-06:00

We had some outdoor fun last week with my sister. She has a wildlife biology degree, and had a good time teaching E about some of the plants in our area. E learned about gumweed, wild onions, gullys, and got to smell a ponderosa pine tree. (What - you've never done this? It smells like butterscotch!) She got pretty good at spotting the onions and gumweed!

Off we go on the trail!
Don't ask me why she's wearing
stickers as bandaids, though.

Looking at some plants with Auntie

Smelling a Ponderosa

E the hiker!

Friday's Book Basket

2010-08-20T07:26:00.000-06:00

Welcome to week two of Friday's Book Basket! This week, we have a lovely version of The Ugly Duckling to share with you! Retold and illustrated by Rachel Isadora, it is set in Africa. E and I loved looking at all the different animals that lived on the farm - giraffe, lizzard, meerkat, monkeys. The Ugly Duckling grows up to be a black swan! I always loved looking at the black swans at the zoo when I was a kid. The illustrations are very colorful and remind me of Eric Carle. We've had some good conversations about speaking nicely to other people, and how it feels to get your feelings hurt as a result of this book.

One of E's favorite books this week was Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale by Marcus Pfister. We love the Rainbow Fish books around here. Yesterday, E told me Rainbow Fish was one of her favorite things in the whole world! I guess that's a pretty good endorsement. If you haven't happened to read any of these books yet, start out with The Rainbow Fish. After that, there are a bunch of adventure stories featuring the same characters, and this is one of them. I love that the author uses lots of different words. The fish were terrified of the whale, they ate krill, when they were angry they spoke hostile words (the book is about an argument).

Babies by David Bedford and Leonie Worthington is a cute, simple lift-the-flap book. We got it because of the meerkats on the cover. E has a thing for meerkats. It's a simple poem about what different baby animals do. E loved to pretend to dress herself in the meerkat's swimming suit (does anybody else's kids do this? Hillarious!) and play the fox babies' maracas and tambourine. This week we just read the book and enjoyed the pictures, but I can see it as a good jumping-off point to learn about these different animals (especially the turtle babies, who "know the way back").

A Quick Question

2010-08-19T20:43:00.000-06:00

I've been curious about E's language development recently. She has her pronouns mixed up! Instead of "I", when talking about herself she says "you." And when she is talking to someone, that person is always "I" or "me."

I understand where the confusion is coming from. I am wondering how to correct it. Or do I just ignore it and she'll figure it out eventually? I have tried correcting her language, saying "Say "I" want a snack," or "Say, do you like pink, mommy?" This just makes her mad! She knows I understand what she's talking about! I've also tried explaining to her (as much as you can explain to a 2 year old) that E is "I", and mommy and daddy are "you."

Any suggestions? I'm not too worried about it at this point, more curious. I do wonder if she will correct herself eventually, but she's so STUBBORN about it sometimes!

We Play: Building a City

2010-08-18T13:46:00.000-06:00

Have I mentioned before how much I love thrift stores?? Oh, let me sing the praises of thrift stores! I buy most of my clothes there, much of E's clothes as well. And toys. Well, toys can be tricky. Because, usually, if a toy has been donated to the thrift stores around me, it's all loved up. Dirty, sticky, broken. And not to mention PLASTIC. But sometimes I hit the jackpot. This week, I found the neatest nesting blocks! They are a city!! Each block is a building in the town, from the large train station and garden center to the tiny ice cream parlor and phone booth.

E and I had fun this week putting together our city. We used some of the cars from our train track and some wooden people and trees and put a whole town together.

I have noticed, at least for E at this age, that the process of building the city is much more fun than the play with it once it is built. We had a grand time deciding where buildings should go and "planting" trees, but after that, she laid all the people on top of their houses, put them to sleep, and went off to other activities.

Happy Playing!

Getting Ready

2010-08-15T20:53:00.000-06:00

E is 31 months old

I have been enjoying all the posts from those of you who are getting ready to start a new school year. I am getting excited to start up again as well! So even though you haven't read anything from me related to school work for a while, it's on the agenda. I'm planning on giving E (and myself) the month off and we will be starting up again in September.

I have been thinking about what to work on with E and planning out our school time. Sometimes, I do think I enjoy the planning more than the executing. OK, who am I kidding, I ALWAYS enjoy the planning. Everything always works out perfectly in my imaginary dream planning world. Not always so in real life!

I'm hoping I can get E more interested in our Montessori materials - part of the reason why we're taking a nice break. I loved having K for the summer and he sure loved coming to do his "work," but E had some difficulty with him being here. She only wanted to do the materials he was working on - not her own - and he is a year and a half older than her. So they are definitly in different places! I'm hoping that we'll have a nice break this month and start in September with a clean slate.

Things I want to do with E this year (as far as preschool is concernced) are:

* continue with our Montessori work as much as she wants, setting aside at least 2 times a week to focus on it (but hopefully MUCH more!)

* utilize a "theme unit" twice a month or so. We're going to start with apples in September, but I am planning for this to be child-led for the most part. What we do for theme units around here is: lots of books about the subject, crafts, outings, games, and practical life and science works.

* continue with our letters of the week. We don't really do one letter per week, it's more like two a month or so. We'll finish uppercase and move to lowercase. I want to use the Heavenly Homemaker's new ebook Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve along with this.

* learn by memory the prayer before meals, guardian angel prayer, and selected Bible verses. The verses will probably go along with our letters of the week.

* get outside more! I am pretty much an indoor kind of gal. Unless there is something specific to do outside, I tend to stay in. There is so much beautiful scenery and great parks around here, I want to visit at least one new park a week. (I guess that's not really preschool per se, but if I don't put it down somewhere, I won't hold myself to it!)

Happy new school year to everyone!

Friday's Book Basket

2010-08-13T06:25:00.000-06:00

I'd like to start a new regular feature around here: Friday's Book Basket. We read SO many books each week, and E is really starting to request her favorites. Although, sometimes it takes some deciphering to figure out which book she wants. This morning she wanted the "deer book" (actually about a couple of dogs - no idea where she got the deer from), and the "cat book with the butterfly" (about a cat who travels in a box to an alien, who didn't want a pet, he wanted a remote-control butterfly). I'd love to be able to share some of our favorite books with you all! And I hope to get E's input on them as well.

Boris and the Snoozebox by Leigh Hodgkinson is a cute book about a cat who just wants to take a nap. He crawls into a packing box to snooze, and finds himself transported all over the place to people who want ANYTHING but a cat. This is the "cat book with the butterfly" as mentioned above. This morning alone, I have read it three times. The illustrations are really neat mixed media!

Mabel Dancing by Amy Hest is a beautifully told story about a girl named Mabel who is supposed to be sleeping during her Mama and Papa's dancing party. I love the language in this book, very descriptive. It made me think of the ball in The Sound of Music. E loved that they talked about fancy ball gowns and dancing. She's such a girly-girl!

A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy was a book I liked more than E. A blue and red sock goes looking about the house for his match. E did like telling me that the socks didn't match, but other than that it didn't really hold her attention.

Our Trip Back East, Part 2

2010-08-12T13:50:00.000-06:00

After spending a day wandering around the Land Between the Lakes, we drove to Gatlinburg, TN. Wow, I did not know how touristy that town was going to be!! The Ripley's guy must be from this area, because we saw several Ripley's attractions on the main street.

I'm not much into tourist traps, so we didn't spend any time in town.

We spent all of our time in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Wow is this place GORGEOUS! Hubby and I were poking fun at the Appalacian Mountains - being from a Rocky Mountain state and all. But they are so different from the mountains back home. MUCH greener and I do love all the deciduous trees, and streams you can actually walk/swim in because they're not ice cold!

We took a couple of hikes to pretty waterfalls - Laurel Falls and Abram's Falls.

Laurel Falls

Dipping our toes

Abram's Falls

Another toe dunk

I think this is E's last year to ride in the baby backpack. She's getting HEAVY!

We drove to the top of Clingman's Dome - the highest point in TN - to see the view. We were going to walk up to the observation tower, but 5 minutes after we got there it started POURING rain. I forgot rain gear, we only had an umbrella.

We took a hayride around Cade's Cove and took a look at some of the historic buildings. We also spent a little time at another 1850s farmstead, but the one at Land Between the Lakes was MUCH cooler.

Another highlight of the trip (for me, anyways) was getting to hike on the Appalacian Trail. I read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson several years ago, and I have been wanting to backpack at least some of this trail since then. Backpacking with a 2 year old is a bit difficult, so we settled for a quick hike. I'll be back someday!

Next stop: Charlotte, NC!

We Play: Trains

2010-08-10T22:52:00.000-06:00

Hey, girls can play trains, too!

I try to rotate E's toys regularly so that she doesn't have too much out at once. I had her train set put away for quite a while. I even had picked up some more track and extra pieces and had never put them out. Today, we pulled out everything train we had and set up a huge city!

E had fun figuring out how the magnets worked to hook up the trains, then running them over and under the bridges.

not sure why this picture is showing up sideways . . . hmmm . . . .anyways . . . .

Usually, in our house at least, the simpler toys are the best! No batteries, noise, or flashing lights. Just some imaginations and good old "chugga chugga choo choo!" noises. Happy playing!

Our Trip Back East

2010-08-09T22:23:00.000-06:00

Well, I think I am done with all the post-vacation chores. I'm caught up on laundry, the litter boxes have been completely emptied, and my fridge is stocked with food again. And I have all my pictures back from our trip, so I'm ready to share them with you! I hope I don't overwhelm anyone - we took 4 rolls of film, plus 350+ digital pictures!! Yes, we are "that" family who is always taking pictures on a trip. Not too touristy, though, I hope!

After visiting family in Kansas, our first stop on our trip was the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. What a pretty area!

We visited a nature center where they had local animals - hawks, owls, turkeys, even a bobcat! And hummingbirds everywhere. E really liked the kids area - she did ALL the puzzles, saw the butterfly crysalis and tree frogs, and made Daddy read her The Lorax a couple of times.

One of the highlights of the trip was here: a living history 1850s farmstead. This was so neat! We got to walk around in all of the houses and buildings, and there were people (in the AWFUL heat and humidity) dressed in period clothing doing chores around the place. There was a girl quilting, a man chopping wood, and another man playing the banjo. There were also a few animals running around: hogs, horses, and chickens.

Back in the museum, E got to dress up like a little pioneer girl! Isn't she cute!

Next up, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park! And, just because I can, I'll leave you with a crazy horse picture.

Family Questions

2010-08-08T22:16:00.000-06:00

Well, we're back from our trek across the country! I will tell you about all the fun we had on our trip later this week, we ended up visiting 8 different states!!

Today I wanted to share with you a fun idea for getting your family talking around the dinner table. I don't know about you, but I married a "strong, silent type" guy. My hubby is a true introvert, and truth be told I'm pretty introverted as well. I am always looking out for little tricks to make dinner more than just a time to eat. At my MOPS group's spring tea last year, the Mentor Moms gave jars full of questions to each of us. They have been a lot of fun to use at dinnertime! The jar was decorated very simply with a ribbon an a sticker that says "Family Questions."

How it works: someone chooses a question and reads it aloud. Then, everyone at the table answers. Even E at 2 1/2 gets in on the action. When we sit down at the dinner table, she often says "Want to ask a question!" right away. Here are some examples of questions you might use to make your own Family Question Jar.

* What is the happiest day of your life so far?
* Things you dream about.
* What is your favorite sport to watch? Why?
* What's the most exciting adventure you've had in your life?
* What is your most favorite meal of all time?
* Name 3 things the person to your left does that make you happy.
* What is your least favorite vegetable? Why?
* Tell about something special that you own.
* What have you learned about being a friend?
* If you could live on any planet which would you pick?
* What does the person to your right do that tells you they love you?
* If you could be a character in a book, who would you be?
* What is love? What does it look like?
* Have you ever been lonely? What did you do about it?
* If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
* Have you ever been blamed for something you didn't do?
* What is your favorite holiday? Why?
* Things that take courage.
* If you could make a new animal what would it look like?
* What is the bravest thing you've ever done?
* Things you hope you can still do when you're 85
* Things people like about you.
* What is your favorite song? Sing it!
* What is (was) your favorite bedtime story? Tell about it.
* What is your favorite way to spend your free time?
* List 5 things you would like to do this year.
* Things you would do with a million dollars.
* What is the most important thing that you do?
* If you could be any animal, what would it be?
* Name 3 friends and tell something about them.
* What kind of job would you like to have? Why?

As you can see, some of these are more for kids, some are more for older kids/adults. I simplify some of them for E, and Hubby and I have to answer them, too. I hope you get some use out of these for your family as well! Feel free to add your favorite conversation starter question in the comments.

How to Keep a Munchkin Busy

2010-07-18T19:08:00.000-06:00

We are leaving in a couple of days to go on a HUGE road trip. Although E is a pretty good little traveler, I'm a bit nervous about being in the car for long 6-8 hour days. We're planning on making lots of stops to run around, but she needs something to occupy her in the car, too! I picked up a couple of backissues of Living Crafts from my favorite yarn store for me to peruse in the car, but I couldn't wait. I found the cutest little drawstring backpack, and I knew I had to make one for E. She chose the fabric from my embarrassingly large fabric stash.

Then, what to fill it with? We decided that she would bring some of her finger puppets and some of her castle dolls. I am going to surprise her with a magnetic storyboard and an I-Spy pouch. And of course, a 400 page coloring book and new crayons for my little artist!

Other than the coloring book, it all fits inside quite nicely!

Hopefully when we return, our internet will be working properly again, and I will be able to resume normal posting. See you all in August!

Montessori Monday

2010-07-13T06:41:00.000-06:00

I'm still having internet issues, so Montessori Monday is up on Tuesday. Oh, well. The issues probably won't get resolved until August, so bear with me! This week, I had one stubborn 2 1/2 year old and one 3 1/2 year old monkey in school. Isn't that fun?!? E is reacting, I think, to the fact that I am spending time working with K instead of solely with her. And K just has a fantastic imagination. This week he pretended to be Curious George. He did work, and worked well for the most part - just pretended to be a monkey the whole time! I am debating on whether I should run with this, and create a few monkey works for him - how about a monkey/ape sorting activity - or downplay the whole thing so he doesn't get out of hand.

Sensorial:
E worked on geometric solids. She worked on matching them to their face cards again. I finally got around to getting the cards from Montessori for Everyone, so hopefully we can work with those this week. E really likes the ovoid shape. She put everything else away, but wanted to carry that one around to do her other work.

I presented the circle and rectangle drawers from the geometric cabinet to E. She enjoyed them and wanted to do more drawers, so I guess I know what's on the agenda for this week!

K worked with the yellow and green cylinders, matching them up together.

I also presented the brown stair to him.

Practical Life:
E and K both got to cut bananas for snack.

K's favorite activity is STILL sorting the fruit!

We did a little spooning and pouring, I think I need to change out those activities so they'll be more interested.

Language:
Both kids have been interested in the sandpaper letters and alphabet drawers. And I've been scouring my home, trying to find small objects to put into the alphabet drawers! I had K do a sort between two drawers, then of course E wanted to do it too! I do have a few more drawers available now, so that made it more fun. They loved finding new objects!

K worked with sandpaper letters and the sand tray. He loves this and wants to do the whole alphabet!! I think I'll start him on some more pre-reading skills, and pull out the moveable alphabet for him.

Math:
K worked more with the counting sticks. He asked me to make more for the rest of the numbers. (Mine only go to 5). I don't think more stones will fit on the sticks, so I guess it's time for cards and counters!

E loves to work with the sandpaper numbers. She traces them (sometimes even correctly!) and names them. Sometimes we work on putting them all in order. She wants to be like K and write the numbers in the sand tray, but usually we just end up making shapes and pictures instead.

Good and Bad

2010-07-07T15:18:00.000-06:00

Good: We've been doing a lot of Montessori work the past week!

Bad: My internet has been acting up and my computer somehow lost the posts I wrote for Tot School and Montessori Monday!!

Good: I still have the pictures from the week . . .

Bad: But I don't have an extra hour right now to re-write the posts. They'll have to wait until next weekend.

Good: I have a whole bunch of new materials printed out from Montessori for Everyone - knobbless cylinder extensions, and beginning sound card sorting.

Bad: I'm out of laminator pouches, so we can't use them until we get to the store!

Good: I received the sunshine award from Martianne at Training Happy Hearts!!

Bad: There IS no bad! I get to pass the award on! :)

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blog world. And, the rules for accepting this award are:

Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
Link the nominees within your post.
Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

I am passing on the bloggy love to:

I hope you'll check out their blogs and maybe find a new source of inspiration for yourself!!

Watercolor Butterflies

2010-06-30T22:02:00.000-06:00

Watercolors may seem kind of scary for preschoolers to work wtih, especially if you're anything like me. I had visions of the yellow being covered in brown, green and purple. Even now I cringe at the thought!! But once I finally got up the courage to try it with E, things went okay! (Of course, I did have to buy my OWN watercolors, just in case the above tragedy actually occurred!) The one thing I will say is to make sure you buy watercolor paper. Construction paper just doesn't cut it, and will leave both of you frustrated with a soggy mess! And yes, the yellow will get some other colors of paint on it. I let it dry just a bit and wiped it off with a rag when we were done.

I showed E how to wash her brush out after each color, and how to mix the color with water to make the paint. I did have to remind her several times to "paint then rinse." She loved painting her butterfly, and the free form watercolors we did were a favorite as well. Using a larger brush also helped.

These butterflies are from ideasforkids.org. I saw this balancing butterflies project over at Childhood Magic. E and K were so excited when they came into the kitchen this morning to find the butterflies they had painted would rest on their hand or shoulder!!

I am also interested in trying wet on wet watercolor painting with E. Sounds like fun, especially since she loves to "do art" so much!

We Play: Playsilks

2010-06-29T21:51:00.000-06:00

E has been playing a lot of dress-up lately! We don't really have a dress-up wardrobe, though. I'm working on it, gathering hats and accessories on my garage sale and thrift store days. We do have several playsilks that I dyed for E for her birthday last year. Honestly, I think I like these better than dress-up. Every morning, E brings me a silk and asks for a swimming suit, underwear, a skirt, a dress, a hat, whatever. I tie it on for her in the appropriate place, and she's off for the morning, happy as a clam!

This outfit consisted of a red dress, purple shawl, and yellow head kerchief

She loves these so much, I am considering dying several more to play with, and maybe even some really long ones to cover the unfinished ceiling in our basement playroom. I'd love to learn how to tie dye them! *hint, hint, Missy!*

July Sensory Bin

2010-06-29T13:11:00.001-06:00

We loved our birdseed sensory bin from May so much that I did not make another one for June. I was pondering ideas for a new tub and decided to go really girly and sparkly! So here is our box for July, just a little bit early!

It's so sparkly!! Three types of pony beads, large opaque, large translucent, and small opaque, plus craft jewels and scoops and a neat Japanese style spoon. Obviously, this is not a box for smaller children who still put things in their mouth, and I only let E use it when I am watching. She's pretty good about that kind of thing, but you never know . . .

Tot School: Plus One

2010-06-27T19:05:00.001-06:00

E is 29 months, K is 3 1/2 years

I had intended to take the summer off from "school time," but my neighbor approached me about teaching her little boy a couple of days a week. I couldn't pass up that opportunity, so we are doing school for the summer now! I gave E a couple week break this month, and we go on vacation the end of July, so she'll get another break then. Other than that, it's going to be business as usual, but with and extra child (or two) around! E is almost 2 1/2 now, and we're really starting to get into the Montessori materials. I'm trying to follow her as best as I can, having K around should help her get more interested in some of the materials she's been unwilling to try. It's always more fun to try something after you've seen another kid do it. K is 3 1/2, and attends a regular preschool during the school year. He has taken to things very well, I've only had him for two days so far, and it's interesting to see what work he chooses and how long he works with things. E is still in a toddler mindframe much of the time, and will often pull something out, work for 2 minutes, announce she's done, and put it away.

This week, I had E work with the knobbed cylinders. I had her do #1 and #2, and then I showed her how to do both at once. She did pretty well with it!

I also introduced the yellow box of knobless cylinders to E this week. I showed her how to line them up like stairs, and how to stack them into a tower. I think she likes them because they are bright.

We worked on the pink tower with only 5 cubes. She still builds it wrong! I usually help her once, asking "which cube is the biggest?" and then letting her work on her own. At some point, she'll have to start seeing her mistakes, right??

Other work E chose this week included the sound jars (she LOVES these!), and writing numbers in the sand tray, using the sandpaper numbers as a reference. She doesn't do very well at all with this, but she loves to "write" in the sand. I allow it as long as she is actually trying to write. When she starts putting her whole hand into the tray, I remove it and tell her we can try again tomorrow.

E also chose to work with the geometric cabinet this week, after watching K with it. I did finally get all my knobs glued back on, so I am hoping to introduce some of the drawers next week to both K and E.

K flitted around a bit at first, which is normal, I would say, for being in a new environment! He really enjoyed our sorting works, he did the fruit sorting and the butterfly tonging exercises I had set up for quite a while.

I also showed him the yellow knobless cylinders, after I had presented them to E. He thought stacking and unstacking them was pretty cool. It amazes me how different his thought process seems to be, only a year older than E. He really thought about where to put each cylinder so that they were all arranged correctly.

But his favorite work of the week was the sandpaper letters and sand tray. He traced the letters after me, then worked on tracing them in the sand. His "letters" looked absolutely nothing like what they were supposed to, but he was concentrating on them so hard!

To wrap up our week, both E and K worked on pin-punching a butterfly. Neither one was very interested. K gave up after a few pokes, and E ended up coloring hers, although she did come back to it this weekend to do some more punching.

Fruit and Veggie Printing

2010-06-25T07:00:00.000-06:00

I love my mom's group. The moms are awesome, the kids are so much fun, and we are always having really cool playdates! This week, we met up at a local park for some fruit and veggie painting. Each mom brought one type of fruit or vegetable to paint with. There were oranges, bell peppers, apples, strawberries, potatoes, and corn. We loaded up some plates with a little bit of paint and let the kiddos have at it - outside, no messy paint all over someone's house! And when they were done, they went to play in a cooler full of water and got all clean. What a great time!

Strawberries made cute heart-shaped prints.

Rolling corn was fun - and messy!

Bell peppers made neat outlines like flowers.

The finished masterpiece!

Butterfly Poems

2010-06-23T13:02:00.000-06:00

Before becoming a mother, I was an elementary music teacher. I enjoyed my job a lot, but I like being a mom even better! It may sound silly, but I feel teaching music to a classroom full of kindergarteners was easier than trying to "teach" music to my daughter! I'm not sure why, exactly. After reading this post about a weekly and daily rhythm from Childhood Magic, I decided that we need to focus on music one day a week. So Wednesdays have become "Music and Movement Day!" E loves it. Today I brought out my guitar to play a few songs, and let her pluck around as well. Since we are beginning to study butterflies, I grabbed some of our playsilks and taught her these fun caterpillar/butterfly poems I used with my preschoolers way back when.

Caterpillar, Butterfly

One will crawl, one will fly

Which moves low? Which moves high?

Caterpillar, Butterfly

This poem is fun to wiggle on the ground when speaking about the caterpillars, and to walk on tip-toes when speaking about the butterflies. And of course, playsilk wings are a MUST.

Way up in the skies, a butterfly flies,

When way down below, a caterpillar goes slow.

He munches and munches on jungle leaf lunches.

"I'm so full and fat!" he says with a pat.

"I'll spin a cocoon by the light of the moon,

Curl up in my bed, and sleep," he said.

Not a sound did we hear, 'till the special moment was near.

The weeks soon passed by, and out flew a butterfly!

We act out the poem one line at a time. Playsilks can become butterfly wings, jungle leaves, and the caterpillar's cocoon. If you have some small percussion instruments laying around, it's really fun to add "sound effects" to the poem as well!

We Play: Blocks!

2010-06-22T06:51:00.000-06:00

E loves to play with two things: blocks and her little animal figurines. She loves stacking and lining up all the blocks, and then putting her little animals in just the right places. She lines everything up and puts all the "baby" animals with their "mamas." I recently came across a set of cardboard bricks - the same kind I had when I was growing up - at a garage sale. E has been building and building with them. I love how big they are, we can build animal apartments, walls, and towers. I remember building the walls to houses with them when I was little. The possibilities are endless!

These pictures remind me so much of my brother, sister, and myself when we were kids!

New Materials

2010-06-21T06:43:00.000-06:00

I've been working on a few new materials while we are on a short break from school. Next week we'll start up again for a month or so, and then we'll really get into things in August. E's friend, our neighbor across the street, will be joining us a couple of days a week, starting next Thursday! E is excited to have a friend for school time, and I'm excited to work with two children, instead of just one.

E loves butterflies. And since she got over her fear of ants, she pretty much likes all kinds of bugs. She is fascinated by them, as are most children. I put together this felt board to teach the different parts of a butterfly. The only thing missing are the legs, I thought she'd just loose 6 tiny felt legs.

Even though E can't read, I have labels for each part. She enjoys placing the labels on the picture. She usually says the right body part, but doesn't have the correct label.

The other new material I have made recently is the sound cylinders. I made these out of baby food jars. I gave them a good spray painting, and filled them with different items from my pantry. I have 6 different pairs. Inside are things like cornmeal, dried beans, oats, and rice. I measured them so the amount in each is the same. E loves this work, and gets so excited when she finds a matching pair.

Next up on my list of things to make are the metal insets. I'm planning on tracing our geometric cabinet shapes and making the insets out of cardboard. E has been interested in tracing things recently, so I think it's time to start!

Craft Corner: Plant Markers

2010-06-17T13:07:00.000-06:00

My dad loves to work in the yard. His mom, my grandma, grew up on a farm, and she still has a giant garden. My dad has been yearning for a garden ever since I can remember. When I was little we had a small garden, with tomato and cucumber plants. Now, he's trying out square foot gardening, in some fancy garden boxes he built this spring.

What does every dad who gardens need for Father's Day? Some fancy plant markers so everyone knows what plant is what out there in the garden!

I made my plant markers out of oven bake clay (I used Sculpey), aluminum foil, and an old coathanger. If you have older kids, this would be a really fun project to do together! You can find the clay and all the tools for it at the craft store. Honestly, the only tool I use is a long blade (like a razor blade), and you could probably use a knife for that. Oven bake clay is used a lot to make beads and such, so bead templates and things to poke the holes through the clay were included in my tool set.

First, take aluminum foil and crunch it up into the shape you want your plant markers to be.

Then take out your clay. Each brick is scored into four sections. I used 3 sections for each plant marker. I cut up one section each of two different colors into slices:

And stacked the slices together, alternating colors.

Next I squashed them all together into a big roll. How you do this will make a difference in how your final product looks, so think about it before you squash. I didn't think before I did this one, but you can see some prettier patterns in the last couple of pictures.

Roll the clay out to the desired size, and cover one side of the aluminum foil.

See, only one side is covered.

Take the last section of clay (either color, it doesn't matter) and roll it out for the back side of the plant marker.

Take your coathanger, and some wire cutters and cut off one corner. Sandwich this between the foil on the back side of the plant marker and the plain clay. Cover the back side with the clay.

Now - to make it pretty! Roll out a long, thin snake of black clay and use this to edge the whole plant marker.

Then, out of the same black clay, roll out another long, thin snake to make the letters.

Bake according to your package directions. Mine was 15 minutes at 275 degrees.

Let cool, and show off in your garden. Or, give to your dad or husband for Father's Day!!

Please Stand By

2010-06-15T06:36:00.000-06:00

I've been having internet issues the last several days. I think they are finally resolved, so be ready for some new posts coming soon!

Wordless Wednesday: Fun in the Sun or What We've Been Up To!

2010-06-09T12:28:00.000-06:00

Wordless Wednesday: Summer

2010-06-02T15:25:00.000-06:00

A Little Practical Life

2010-05-31T20:24:00.000-06:00

We are just now starting to get into the swing of things with our Montessori materials. We actually did a lot of work this past week, you can check it out on this Tot School post from Friday. E has been getting more interested in practical life activities, and her favorite one right now is helping me water the plants outside. I bought E her own watering can, I fill it up for her from the hose, and tell her which plants to water. She is learning the names of the plants as well as how to use the watering can and carry it without spilling.

Carrying the watering can

Watering the small lilac

Watering the big lilac

Watering the daisies

And the peonies

Tot School

2010-05-28T14:17:00.000-06:00

E is 28 months old

We had a pretty good week of Tot School, working on our bird materials and our new Montessori materials. We have been outside a LOT this week, putting mulch down in the backyard, weeding the garden, and watering the new plants. I bought E her own watering can and she loves to help me water the irises and tomatoes. As for our indoor work, we had 3 good days of school, plus our letter of the week playdate this morning. All in all, a successful week!

Math and Sensorial:

E worked with the geometric solids, naming them and matching them to the little wooden cards that came with them. There are a couple of triangles, a square, circle, and rectangle. I had her find all the solids that matched a shape: for example, for the square she found the cube, rectangular prism, and the square pyramid. She is still not convinced that the sphere is a sphere and not a "ball."

I pulled out the pattern block pattern cards from confessions of a homeschooler, and E did several of them in one sitting. She made me do some too - they're fun and relaxing, even for adults!

She also worked with the geometric cabinet. I pulled out the cards that go with the demonstration tray, and she matched up the shapes to all three sets of cards (solid shape, thick outline, and thin outline).

E loves to work with the sandpaper numbers. She tries to trace them with her finger, but mostly we work on naming them and putting them in order.

We did a bit of work with the knobbed cylinders - she's been begging for #4, so I pulled it out. She lost interest in it pretty quick when she found out it was too hard for her right now.

She also worked with the pink tower, but no pictures! She didn't want to make a tower with it, only a staircase. So that's what we did and we let the baby cube walk all the way down and back up. She is having difficulty seeing her mistakes when she builds the tower. I am thinking of pulling out every other block to make it easier for her to notice when she places one wrong.

Language:

E has also been begging for the sandpaper letters, so I had to come up with some ways for her to use them that don't involve tracing. She's not ready for that and I don't want her to learn it wrong. So we used the letters in conjunction with our alphabet box. She worked on letter b. I REALLY need to get more miniatures for my box!! She would do this work for hours if she could, but I don't have enough items. I am going to buy the picture sets from Montessori for Everyone, just have to get around to it!

The other alphabet activity we worked on was a major undertaking. We laid out all all the letters in order (singing the alphabet song) and then matched our magnetic capital letters to them. Some I handed her the capital and told her to find the lowercase, and some I showed her the lowercase and had her find the capital to match. Some took a bit of thinking time, but she completed all of them with minimal help from me. (She mixed up p and d, for example, and h and n).

Science - Birds:

I finally got around to making my bird materials (from the Feathers for Lunch lapbook from homeschool share). E did a part to whole matching activity:

(Does anyone know the names of all these birds? I got most of them, but there are a few I can't find, and of course, they're the ones E wants to know the names of!)

We labeled the parts of a bird:

Did a sort of characteristics of a cat and a bird:

And made a cute bird craft!

Whew! I think that's enough for one week, don't you?? To see what more tots are doing, check out Carissa's blog!

A Peek Into Our New Learning Space

2010-05-27T07:20:00.001-06:00

Now that I have everything unpacked, sorted, and checked; now that I have our room cleared out and shelves put up; now that everything has a home -- would you like to take a peek at our new learning space? I've mentioned before that our original plan was to have the schoolroom and playroom together in the basement (along with my sewing table and exercise equipment, and . . .) I've found over the past months that this just won't work for us at this stage. E is far too distracted by everything else in the playroom to work well, and I was afraid of materials getting damaged or having to put them up every time we had friends over. (That's what we were doing with our Tot School shelf - how exhausting!) So we converted our upstairs loft office into a schoolroom last week. The computer is still in here - someday it will probably move down to the main floor, but not yet. All E's Montessori materials are on shelves that take up one whole wall, and other "Tot School," theme work, and practical life work are on her old Tot School shelves. Here, let me show you!

Tot School shelf and E's table

Table, random cat (Felicity), and half of the Montessori shelves

Other half of the Montessori shelves and a relatively clean computer desk

And I know some of you are curious of what exactly is on those shelves, so here is a breakdown of the Montessori shelves. The Tot School/PL shelf still gets rotated quite frequently, but the Montessori shelves will stay mostly the same so E knows where everything "lives" - where to get it from and where to put it back away. I apologize for the picture quality - I was so excited, I took these the night we got the shelves up. Couldn't wait until morning for better light.

the entire wall

Math and Geometry

top: cards for the geometric cabinet

middle: spindle box, sandpaper letters, Melissa and Doug pattern blocks

bottom: geometric solids box, geometric cabinet and tray

Sensorial

top: knobless cylinders, touch boards, brown stain

bottom: knobbed cylinders, pink tower, (spindle box)

Language

top: alphabet cabinet (miniatures), sandpaper letters, alphabet BOB book set

bottom: moveable alphabet, (knobbed cylinders)

And, just in case you're still curious, here is what was on our Tot School/PL shelf when I took all these pictures. Like I said, this changes regularly - you'll have to wait until this week's Tot School post to see what is on the shelves this week. :)

E wants to point out that there is a "gwobe" on top of the shelf.

top: counters and popsicle sticks, spelling E's name, what's different activity

middle: sorting, pouring

bottom: button snake, bird cards and figures, color dominoes

I just found out that I might have another "student" for the summer! My neighbor saw my setup and wants her son to come work with E and I a few times a week. He goes to regular preschool during the school year. I'm excited, I think it will be a good chance for me to see if I want to pony up the money for Montessori teacher training or not, and it will be a good for E to get to work with another child.

Pre-Reading Skills

2010-05-25T13:05:00.000-06:00

I've been doing a lot of work recently with E on her pre-reading skills. We play lots of games of I-spy around the house and when we're out at the store. I recently came across some new BOB books that are for pre-readers!

I picked up the Alphabet set at my Barnes and Noble the other day and E has been doing so much better at finding the beginning sound of words.

Another activity we've been working on is our alphabet cabinet. This is still a work in progress for me, but I do have a couple of drawers ready for E to work with. This week, she got to work on /b/, /l/, and /c/. In each drawer there are miniatures that start with the letter of the drawer. I'm always on the lookout for good miniatures for our alphabet cabinet!

Since our Montessori materials arrived, I have brought out a new work for E - sandpaper letters. I use them mostly for letter recognition now, she learned her capitals first through a couple of puzzles and our Leapfrog fridge alphabet. She likes to feel the letters (not really tracing yet, just feeling them) and we match our capital letters to them as well, so she learns which letters belong together.

We also host a bi-weekly playdate with our friends, where we learn about a specific "letter of the week." It's a fun chance to get together with friends, read a story, do a craft, and eat foods that start with the letter of the day. Check out some of our previous letter playdates!

And of course, I can't leave out reading to E. I think that's the MOST important thing. We are constantly reading stories. Fiction, non-fiction, fairy tales, picture books - anything and everything is fair game at our house. Current favorites are: Skippyjon Jones, Olivia, Hooray for Fish, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Mother Goose.

Tot School

2010-05-22T13:43:00.001-06:00

E is 28 months old

This week's Tot School was kind of sporadic. We attempted to continue our bird theme, but got a little sidetracked when our NEW MONTESSORI MATERIALS arrived!!!! The rest of the week, I tried to interest E in some work that was already on our shelves while her schoolroom/our office was getting cleaned out and new shelves put in.

Tot School Work:

E made a flower with her M&D pattern blocks. This one was done with no assistance from me.

She "wrote" a "story" with our magnetic alphabet. She said the story was about a "cat and a bird."

She built a "forest" with the brackets for the new shelves.

She did a little bit of sorting work.

Montessori Work:

E started out with cylinder block #1 and worked with it over and over. I showed her how I could use a blindfold with the work, and she insisted on wearing it, too. Only when taking the pegs out, though. :)

She also wanted me to show her the pink tower, so the next day I did a presentation on that. We worked on finding the biggest block, and she got to knock them all down when she was done.

In the Kitchen:

I am trying to make time more often for E to help me in the kitchen. She has her first chore - to clear the table after dinner! She concentrates so hard when she is bringing me plates or glasses. This week, we made cinnamon and sugar cookies (kind of like snickerdoodles) for a picnic. E poured the ingredients in the mixing bowl:

She helped me mix everything together:

Then she rolled the dough in cinnamon and sugar and squashed them on the cookie sheet:

And finally, she got to eat one for a snack!

Like Christmas in May??

2010-05-20T06:41:00.000-06:00

Look what came to my house yesterday!!

All of our Montessori materials!! Shelves are bought, ready to put up. E was so excited it took her an hour to fall asleep for her nap. I let her choose one thing for me to present to her (and kept my fingers crossed that it would be something I remembered how to present, and something at her level), and this is what she chose:

Wordless Wednesday: Butterfly Girl

2010-05-19T07:35:00.000-06:00

Tot School: Birds

2010-05-16T07:48:00.000-06:00

E is 28 months old

Another week of Tot School to post! This week was rather busy, and we didn't get to many of the activities I had planned. Instead, we worked more on the activities on the shelves. But no worries, because we're going to keep our bird theme for the next couple of weeks, and I have lots of things planned - I just have to print out my materials!

On the shelves this week:
were some old-but-good activities. We worked on making a pattern with lacing beads in blue and green. E could figure out the pattern with prompting, when left on her own she put on whatever bead she wanted.

She did a little sorting this week, with the spoools, cubes, and spheres. I tried to introduce the blindfold to her this week, but she wasn't having it.

E had so much fun this week with her new pattern blocks!

We have been working hard on counting - specifically one-to-one counting, haveing E touch the things she is counting so her numbers don't get ahead of the objects. She likes to tell me she has 3 feet.

What's different? A printable from Montessori for Everyone. E needed a lot of help to do this one. Like the lacing beads, she'd rather put that X wherever she wanted, even if she did know where it was supposed to go.

Button snake! I've put this out every couple of weeks, and this week is the first time she pulled it off the shelf. I had given E a presentation about a month ago, so we did a refresher, and I left her to it. She did great and put probably 3/4 of the felt squares on the button, naming all the colors as she went.

E worked on spelling her name with this activity from 1+1+1=1. I think I will do another set with lowercase letters as well. I found some upper and lower case matching pages and made a little alphabet book. We don't have any dot markers, so I gave her a highlighter and had her color the letter that was the same. So far we've done A, B, C, and D - we'll be continuing this work in the next week or so.

BIRDS:
I mentioned in an earlier post that I found these great Planet Earth bird cards at our library sale. E has had a lot of fun going through them and asking what each bird or animal was. (There are some bats and insects in the cards, as well) I put the cards and the few plastic bird figurines that we have in a bowl for her to look at when she pleases. I hope to get a few more bird figures for her to look at soon.

We made a bird feeder with a pinecone, peanut butter, and birdseed. Don't tell E, but a couple of hours after we hung it on the tree, a squirrel came by, chewed the string off, and took the pinecone! I put the extra birdseed out back on our patio, and we have been watching the birds eat that instead. (And the squirrels, too) Yesterday we saw a mama and papa house finch, two robins, and the aforementioned squirrel!

Books about Birds:
We found several good bird books at our library! E's favorite is the bird alphabet book. I'm just warning you now, letter B is for Blue Footed Booby. You will have to decide for yourself if you want your child asking for the "booby book" or not!!

The Bird Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill
Crinkleroot's 25 Birds Every Child Should Know by Jim Arnosky
The Robins in Your Backyard by Nancy Carol Willis
Feathers for Lunch by Lois Ehlert

To see what more tots are doing, check out Carissa's Tot School site!

Wordless Wednesday: Drums

2010-05-12T09:47:00.000-06:00

pretty good technique, actually!

Toddler Tuesday: Pattern Blocks

2010-05-11T13:16:00.000-06:00

I got E some pattern blocks last week, thinking that they would be too hard for her. But I had a gift card and needed to use it, so I got them anyways. Boy, did she surprise me! I'm so glad I got the regular set instead of the toddler set - she loves them and has worked with them every day since I put them on her shelf.

First we did a little shape review. She remembered square and triangle. The hexagon she thought was an octagon. I introduced her to the trapezoid, and I even had to look up the rhombus (diamond shape) because I had forgotten what it was called.

I worked with her on a board or two and then left her to it!

I helped a little bit with this one, but then left her to work some more, while I cut out some patterning cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler. E was interested and wanted one. After a while, I looked over and saw this:

with no help at all! Good work, E!

Thank You, Uncle Sam

2010-05-10T14:21:00.000-06:00

I am so excited, we got our tax refund, and today I am ordering my Montessori materials! I have pared down my list a little bit and I think I know exactly what I am getting, but if anyone has any suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them!

Basically, I am buying what I will need for E's first year of primary. There are several things I am planning on making, as well. On my list is:

Red Rods
Pink Tower
Brown Stair
Cylinder Blocks
Knobless Cylinders

Geometric Cabinet and cards
Geometric Solids

Lowercase Sandpaper Letters - print
Moveable Alphabet - should I get the large or the small??

Sandpaper Numbers
Spindle Box

Is there anything I'm forgetting? I'm planning on making things like the color boxes, sound and scent boxes, dressing frames, etc.

My dad is coming over soon to help build shelves on one wall in our office. That, combined with the bookshelves we already have for tot school, an old nightstand, and her little table and chairs set will make a wonderful schoolroom. We have decided to put all her school things in the office and to keep the playroom separate for now. I had nightmares about friends coming over and destroying our materials by accident!! We will still have our computer desk in the office, but other than that it will be just E's work room. I will be sure to take some pictures and share once everything arrives and I have it all set up.

May Sensory Bin

2010-05-07T14:11:00.000-06:00

This month's sensory bin is for the birds! I put in birdseed, a couple of metal scoops, a bowl, and bright colored feathers. E discovered the feathers can stand up in the birdseed and make a little "feather forest!"

Our playdough this month is yellow and smells like lemons! I put out a couple of flower cookie cutters for her to use as well. No pictures of that, it's just playdough . . .

stART: It Looked Like Spilt Milk

2010-05-06T07:08:00.000-06:00

Last week, E and I went to a FANTASTIC playdate at a friend's house. I get such a kick out of watching her play - it seems like all of her friends are little 2 and 3 year old boys. They were running around like wild things and E just stood there watching them for the longest time, wondering what in the world they were making so much noise for! But, anyhow, I digress.

We got to do a lovely story and art project that I didn't have to plan! It was great! First, we read It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw. This is a really neat book about . . . . clouds, of all things! Specifically, how clouds can look like other things: spilt milk, a squirrel, a pig, whatever.

Then we got to the art project. We were provided with blue paper and white paint in squeeze bottles. The kiddos squirted paint all over their paper . . .

folded the paper in half and smooshed it real good . . .

and then opened it up to see what they had created! E thought hers looked like a crab.

Here are some of the other children's masterpieces!

Wordless Wednesday: New Ride

2010-05-05T06:36:00.000-06:00

Book Love

2010-05-04T15:04:00.000-06:00

Last weekend my mom, my sister, and I went to a huge used book sale at the library. We went on Sunday - you get a bag of books for $4! As many as you can stuff into the bag. LOVE sales like that!! No Montessori books for me, but I did pick up a few fiction titles to keep me busy, and I found some real gems for E.

In The Beginning by Steve Turner is a BEAUTIFUL book about creation with gorgeous artwork!

Counting God's Creatures by Jan Mecklenburg is super cute and has all sorts of "critters" in it.

What is a Flower by Jenifer W. Day is a good picture dictionary of common plants and flowers.

Rain by Robert Kalan has interesting pictures - the raindrops are the word RAIN repeated over and over. It goes through colors and ends with a rainbow.

Cookie's Week by Cindy Ward is a cute book about a troublemaker cat. No . . . we don't have any of those at our house. Not us!

We also picked up In My Town by Richard Scarry, because E and Daddy both have a thing for Lowly Worm. And I found some really neat Planet Earth "animals of the air" flashcards - they look like they were from the dollar spot at Target. I wonder if I can find any more sets - these are AWESOME!!

Eloquence

2010-05-04T07:01:00.000-06:00

I came across this post from Education by Design the other day. I love how it describes Montessori education so eloquently!

"How does Montessori get them ready for the REAL world?"

"Montessori IS the REAL world."

Tot School: MORE Ocean Animals

2010-05-01T14:48:00.001-06:00

E is 27 months old

I kept things easy on myself this week and repeated our ocean animals activities from last week. E has been loving the seashells, and has gotten much better at using the tongs with them. Heck, I even have trouble with a few of the shells, so she's doing great!

lacing beads

matching ocean animals to picture cards

alphabet matching

seashell sorting (and pouring)

scissors practice

memory game

stacking blocks

A friend dropped off a new puzzle for E as a late birthday present. It's one of those fishing puzzles - we didn't have any of the magnet puzzles, and E thought it was pretty cool. It's kind of difficult to figure out where the pieces go, because there are no images underneath. So I painted dots in the colors of the different fish to help her figure out where things go. She's getting pretty good with it!

We made pancakes one morning for breakfast, and it was E's job to mix the batter. She thought it was pretty neat that she was eating the pancakes SHE made!

We did a LOT of art this week! We painted a nature catcher (idea from Welcome to Our Wonderland):

We did a sparkly fish art project to go with the story Rainbow Fish:

We made letter K for Kites with a friend:

And we went to a playdate where we read the story It Looked Like Spilt Milk and made neat cloud/spilt milk pictures:

We also planted our vegetable garden this week. Whew! We've been busy!!! Be sure to check out Carissa's site to see what more tots are up to!

stART: Rainbow Fish

2010-04-28T12:36:00.000-06:00

E just loves the Rainbow Fish books. So this morning, we did a sparkly rainbow fish craft! I used the fish stamp I made, and she stamped glue fishes all over the paper. Then we used all different colors of glitter to make the fish sparkle just like Rainbow Fish. The result doesn't really look like fish, but E had a great time and loves her picture anyhow. :) It's all about the process, right??

A Day at the Garden

2010-04-26T21:39:00.000-06:00

This past week we visited the botanic gardens in our city. I took the opportunity and made it into a learning game for E.

I found these great flower three-part cards at The Adventures of Bear. And while E is not ready for three-part card work yet, she loves the pictures. She calls them her "flower keys" because they remind her of keys on a ring after I laminated them and put them on a ring clip. She took them with her all over the gardens and we found almost every flower. She was so excited when she found a match! We even found a dandelion, which I'm sure the gardeners just love. ;)

Ugh! Sorry these pictures are not the best. I'm still getting used to my digital camera outside in the sunshine!

The flowers we were looking for were: dandelion, phlox, cherry blossoms, pear blossoms, sunflower, daisy, magnolia, and daffodil. We found everything but a daisy and a sunflower - they are not blooming yet in our part of the world. We also found many tulips, grasses, lettuce, onions, and a few ducks and geese in the ponds. Oh - and koi, E LOVED the koi pond.

Tot School: Ocean Animals

2010-04-23T13:30:00.001-06:00

E is 27 months old

For Tot School this week, we learned about different animals that live in the ocean. I used this Tot Book for many of the activities.

E sorted seashells. I had several different kinds and sizes, so she sorted into four cups. She tried SO HARD to use tongs for this, but it turned out to be too difficult and she resorted to using her fingers.

We worked on counting from 1 to 5 with the ocean animal counting cards. We used more seashells for counters. E can count pretty well, at least through 11. She has trouble knowing when to stop, though. I'm hoping these cards will help with that.

I made cards with pictures of ocean life on them and their labels. When she's ready, I'll turn them into three-part cards, but for now she is working on matching her plastic animals with their picture. The different sharks and whales can be tricky for her, but she's doing well with the activity as a whole!

Letter matching with ocean animal ABC cards. I used our wooden magnetic letters for her to match with the cards. She LOVES this activity. I will have to find some lowercase letters for her to match to the uppercase as well.

I put out a tub of water and all of her animals that live or spend time in the water for her to play with. I also included some rocks and her little mermaid dolls. She has had great fun swimming all the animals around, and even went down to the playroom for some additional animals. She said the monkey needed to go to the swimming pool. Um . . . ok??

Our non-theme activities this week included a car matching puzzle, stacking/nesting blocks, and her farm lacing beads.

We made some fish sun catchers for art this week. I still have to get them hung in the window, but I think they are beautiful, and E had a blast making them.

Our other art activity this week was a color lesson, E had to color each animal the color of the words. I worked with her on it, as she didn't notice the different colored words right away. But she told me what each animal was and what color the words with it were, found the correct color, and did some scribbling. :)

Outdoor Challenge: Week 2

2010-04-21T15:17:00.000-06:00

Here's what we've been doing in the great outdoors (or our backyard) this past week. This is part of the Outdoor Challenge from 5 Orange Potatoes.

Wednesday we went out to swing. Well, to push the swing. E put rocks and stick in her swing and gave them a ride.

Thursday was a BEAUTIFUL day! We played in the sandbox and ate ice cream outside. And dripped some on the ants. E stayed miraculously clean, even with her chocolate mustache and beard!

Friday was a park play day with some friends. And I FORGOT my camera!!! I wish I had brought it, E found some cute, fat robins and wanted to "pet them." She spent a good 20 minutes chasing the birds around. They never flew away, just ran out of reach of her. I think they were looking for a treat.

Saturday and Sunday we worked in our backyard. Grandpa came over and helped us plant two trees. E decided she would help dig, too!

Monday was Grandma day, and while I was at work, they collected rocks and drew with sidewalk chalk on the patio.

And Tuesday, I finally got to work in my garden! It's almost ready to go.

Now I just have to get to work on the huge pile of weeds in the corner - that's going to be E's play area once we get it cleaned out.

Wordless Wednesday: A Little Bookworm

2010-04-21T09:01:00.000-06:00

Toddler Tuesday

2010-04-20T14:14:00.001-06:00

E is 27 months old

I thought I'd write a Toddler Tuesday post this week instead of Tot School. E did a lot of fine motor practice this week.

She sorted buttons by heart and square shape using tongs.

Stacked towers of different colored pegs - then we counted them and she knocked them down!

Sorted some Noah's Ark beads into their different shapes.

Put ladybug push pins into a styrofoam ball.

Practiced her scissor skills by cutting straws.

We also did some letter and number work this week. E did her number puzzle. It was so cute to hear her work. "Where's the 2? There it is! 4 goes here." And so on.

E did a new letter activity this week. I took her magnetic wooden letters and had her match them to the ocean animal alphabet cards I printed out. She did great with it, and wanted to do it several times in a row.

Outdoor Challenge, Week 1

2010-04-14T13:32:00.000-06:00

We have had so much fun participating in the Outdoor Challenge through 5 Orange Potatoes. I decided to do a weekly post on our outdoor fun, rather than trying to get a post written each day.

Thursday was a day at the park. E loves to run across the bridges and go down the slide. And of course, swinging is always her favorite!

Friday was a super fun day! We spent the day in the mountains, took a hike to a lake (sort of), and got to see a lot of birds.

Here's the lake we went to see - umm, yeah, it's that thing under all the snow! Note to self, wait until May to go hiking in the higher elevations, please! Trekking through snow with a toddler on your back is not really all that fun!

Saturday, E spent the morning with Grandma. They went for a walk and found some "pretty yellow flowers!" I didn't get any pictures of the walk, but I did take one of the flowers E brought home for me!

Sunday, we took a walk at a pond near our house. We got to see horses and touch some really soft leaves.

Monday was another Grandma day. They had a lot of fun drawing with sidewalk chalk in the backyard and playing catch.

Tuesday, we went and bought a new sandbox. It was horribly windy - my neighbor's fence got knocked down, our gate broke, and you can see in the picture what it did to our patio furniture!! Needless to say, we didn't stay out long.

I think I'll put today's pictures with next week's post. Anyhow, to see what more kids are doing outside this month, visit 5 Orange Potatoes.

Letter J for Jellybeans

2010-04-13T13:36:00.000-06:00

I love these projects I've been seeing for using leftover Easter candy in crafts. I'm all for cutting down on the sugar consumption of the tykes. (as well as myself!) I love the marshmallow easter egg over at No Time For Flashcards, and this week E and I are planning on doing some peep bunny pantings a la A Mommy's Adventures. She doesn't know they're for eating yet. Thank goodness! But she does know that jellybeans are for eating. And she got some in the eggs the Easter bunny left her at Grandma's house. So we had a few friends over for our stories and crafts playdate and made letter J's for Jellybeans!

To go along with our letter J day, we read Jump, Frog, Jump by Robert Kalan, and had yummy J snacks, like juice, jelly donuts, jelly sandwiches, and jicama (we got a little adventurous!).

Tot School

2010-04-11T22:34:00.000-06:00

E is 27 months old

Since we have been on a bit of a break, we have 3 weeks of fun-filled learning activities to cover!! I'll try to keep on track, so things don't get too out of hand . . . :)

I got a couple of new school toys right before Easter. E loves to work with this peg set. She builds towers, and then wants to leave them out the rest of the day. We had to get out another rug the other day, so her towers could stay up to be admired and she would still have room to work!

Right now I am letting her work with them however she wants - pretty much just stacking them to build towers of different sizes. In the future, I plan on having her sort by color, pattern, and count with these as well. Oh, yes, in the second picture, she had to build towers for her mermaid. I love this age!

The other new activity I purchased was the Melissa and Doug animal lacing cards. I have put these away right now, because E is just not ready for them. She begged for them the other day, so I let her try them. I showed her how they worked and she tried for about 5 minutes before pronouncing them "too hard!" So I hid them, that way she won't ask for them again!

We used our spring cards again, and this time I tried to teach E how to play concentration. Or memory, or whatever you want to call it. You know, that game where all the cards are face down and you try to find the matches by turning over one card at a time? You know it.

She did ok with this, when I was playing with her. Even when she was playing alone, she seemed to like the surprise of turning a card over and seeing what image was on it. As you can see in the picture, she hasn't grasped the concept of only having two cards turned over at a time. But she was finding matches and pulling them out of the mess of cards on the rug, so I'm going to call this one a success.

Another activity we worked on in several different forms was sorting buttons. E did this with and without tongs, and sorting by several different shapes. She's working hard on sorting the shapes, not the colors, right now. I picked up a bag of Noah's Ark beads the other day, and I think she'll be sorting those this week.

This past week, E did a lot of work with her stacking blocks. I can't wait for her to get the real pink tower and work with it. The hollow-ness of the blocks is making things difficult sometimes. She looses blocks inside other blocks!

See, here the littlest block is hiding somewhere under one of the bigger ones!

After stacking them in a tower, she wanted to line them up. This is what she came up with:

So we talked about big, small; biggest and smallest. After a little prompting, we ended up with this:

which makes a great staircase for a little Easter chick to walk up and down on!

E got a tracing book for Easter and I pulled out a couple of pages for her to work on last week. I've never tried this kind of work with her before, and I wasn't sure how she would do. But she is getting very interested in trying to draw things, instead of just scribbling, so I thought we'd give it a go.

Not too bad for a first try! We need to practice stopping, but she has starting down, and can figure out which direction the line should go.

The last school work I have pictures of is a new puzzle E has been working on. She's getting better with these, but she's not ready for the multi-piece puzzles yet. Does anyone know where I can get more of these puzzles without knobs and with no pictures printed on the board? She is figuring out where things go pretty easily now.

Art these past few weeks included dying Easter eggs, a couple of letter of the week playdates, and painting.

I plan to post about the letters of the week: G for Grass, and J for Jelly Beans! And I will share the Easter egg pictures, as they are super cute, but they are on my film camera. Yes, I still shoot with film, and quite often! I have a fancy SLR that I love, and haven't gotten the money saved up yet to get a digital SLR. So, once I pick up the photos, I'll have some more things to show you!

Hello again!

2010-04-08T08:44:00.000-06:00

You may have noticed I took a bit of a blogging break over Easter. I'm sure many of you understand how the computer can be a major distraction!! So I thought some time apart during Holy Week would be a good thing. And now I'm back and ready to get going!

I have a large Tot School post coming up for the weekend. It's, like, 3 weeks of tot school, so I want to make sure I get that posted! I also will have some alphabet fun, Easter pictures, and a craft project or two ready to go soon as well.

Did you know that April is Children and Nature awareness month? Neither did I! But 5 Orange Potatoes did, and has put out a challenge for us all! The challenge is to get outside EVERY DAY for the rest of April and document it with a photo. Rain or shine, or in the case of us here in Colorado . . . snow! I'll be participating in this challenge with E. She has recently developed a paralyzing fear of . . . ants . . . and so she doesn't like to go outside right now. Maybe this challenge will help cure her. One can only hope . . . Silly Girl! Or, I may end up with a bunch of pictures with a crying girl begging to go back inside. Ha! I'll be sharing all my week's photos together over the weekend.

I hope you will all join the challenge, too!

Some awards to share!

2010-03-30T14:23:00.000-06:00

I have received two awards in the last couple of weeks and I'd love to share them with you! I am so happy to receive them. I am such an itty-bitty blogger, and it is so nice to be recognized and realize that, yes, people are reading what I put out here.

Our Country Road was so kind to give me the Sunshine Award. The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspires others in the blogworld! If you haven't had a chance to check out Our Country Road, you need to!

Char from Fun Frugal Mommy passed on the Happy 101 award. She always has such fun ideas on her blog!! To accept this award, I get to write 10 things that make me happy!

My little munchkin's grin
Spending time with my husband
Finishing a craft project
Seeing the sun on the mountains
A good cup of coffee
My new pink bible, and time to read it every morning
Spending time with friends and family
Hiking
Spring weather and flowers
Reading a good book

Now I get to pass these awards on to some of my favorite bloggers!

Receiving the Sunshine Award:

Montessori Beginnings
Counting Coconuts
Little Hands, Big Work
Raising Itty Bitty Bookworms
One Hook Wonder

Receiving the Happy 101 Award:

Our Cup of Tea
Pink and Green Mama
Home with the Boys
Montessori Spanish
Chasing Cheerios

Butterflies for Spring

2010-03-23T13:36:00.000-06:00

Well, technically, it is finally spring. You wouldn't know it by the forcast, we're supposed to get about a foot or so of snow this evening. E wanted to do a "craft project," and I've been wanting to give these a go with her. I'm sure you've seen them all over blogland.

Basically, you take a coffee filter and color it with a marker. I had some pastel markers lying around so we used those. Then you spritz it with water and let the colors run together. We finished them by pinching their middles and securing them with a clothespin.

Then, I clipped them to our Lenten centerpiece (sticks with purple tulle wrapped around them). A bit of spring color for our kitchen!

This centerpiece will turn into an Easter tree for Easter Sunday morning, complete with sparkly eggs and E's Easter basket.