Water is so much fun!

Because my little C loves to play with water, as I know most toddlers her age do, the next couple of posts will hopefully give you some ideas for playing and learning with water in a more structured way. This first "tivity" is one of C's all time favorites! It's simple to put together, cheap (which you know I like), and a great way to get in some fine motor practice for those little fingers. All you need to set this up is a paint palette (I got one at Wal-Mart for 99 cents, I believe), a small bowl, a dropper (I use a large medicine dropper that you can find in the medicine aisle at just about any grocery or drug store), food coloring, and water.

C has to fill each hole of the paint palette with water using the dropper and then refill the bowl by transferring the water from each hole back into the bowl.
We have fun playing with many different colors and she is always very focused during this "tivity."

Color Matching

Here is an easy, fun, and cheap "tivity" to work on color matching as well as fine motor skills. I visited my local paint store and picked out a variety of paint samples (make sure to get two of each color sample). I then cut up one of each sample and hot glued it to clothes pins.

C's job is to match up each color/ shade and clip the correct color clothes pin to each sample. It continues to be a little tricky because the shades are so similar, but it has proven to be great practice in concentration as well. We're still working on that!

Learning Letters and Messy Play

Here is a quick and easy way to review letters while driving in the car. I bought a super cheap cookie sheet at Wal-Mart and filled it with a set of magnetic letters (also from Wal-Mart for $1). While we're in the car, I ask C to find various letters and then we sing the letter sound song. She loves it and has learned all of her letters and most of their sounds in the process. She usually holds the letter up for me so I can look back quickly and see that she has the correct one. (Oooh, I hope that doesn't make me a bad driver?)

Kids love to get messy and moms like to clean things up. Right? Playing with shaving cream is the best of both worlds, getting messy and smelling clean. This activity fits into the "messy play" category as it makes a grand one BUT, if you can stand the mess, it's the greatest activity for a couple of reasons. It is very helpful with fine motor skills, those visual and tactile learners will benefit greatly from this activity. It is also a fabulous way to review letters, numbers, and shapes as it explores the senses in a fun . . . and messy way.

I usually use food coloring to make it a little more exciting and I TRY to keep it on a cookie sheet, tin foil, or wax paper (a vinyl tablecloth would work too). But be aware that it will end up in other places regardless of what you do to contain it. At least it's very easy to wipe up and the smell is a nice benefit. Squirt a little pile on your child's work space and let them go to town. If you do add food coloring, mix it in with a spoon so it doesn't get all over those little fingers.
C has a blast "finger painting" in it and after she plays for a while making swirls and handprints, we work on tracing letters, numbers, and shapes. I will do hand over hand to guide her in tracing various things.

Happy "messy play" today!

Rubber Band Land

This is a quick and easy "tivity" that works on fine motor skills. I just grabbed a bunch of rubber bands and wrapped them around our back doorknob. Then C had fun taking them off one by one and putting them back on. After she did that for a while, we practiced counting them as she took each one off and wrapped it around her wrist. This makes for some great counting practice! Since the bands were various colors, I also had her sort all of them by color.

I have just left the bands on the doorknob since then and every once in a while I'll see her playing with them!

Montessori Mania

I'm going to go back through my photo archives and dedicate the next few weeks to posting about a variety of Montessori "tivities" that C and I did over the summer of 2009. She was right around 2 1/2 years old at the time of these activities. I am continually changing C's Montessori shelf, so I rotate through most of these activities routinely. I try to use regular, everyday household items to make most of my activities with an occasional run to Michaels or Jo-Ann's. I hope you're able to find some useful and educational information from these activities.

Styrofoam Shapes. . . Materials include a thick sheet of styrofoam (found at Michaels), toothpicks, and four different color markers. I used the markers to make dots on the styrofoam in the shape of a circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. Then I gave C a container of toothpicks and she poked one toothpick at a time into the dots to make each of the shapes. This gives her the opportunity to not only identify each shape (which she was already doing), but it helps her learn the pattern of actually making the shapes herself.

An extension of this activity would be to use different colored toothpicks to match to the shapes. I also let C make her own shapes using the toothpicks after she finished up. She had a blast with this "tivity."
Cereal box puzzles. . . Materials include the front of a large box of cereal (preferably something that your child likes to eat). C loves Rice Chex and Cheerios so that's what we used. I simply cut up the cover into three or four separate pieces and then C went to town putting them in the correct order. This develops a child's puzzle working skills using a simple straight cut shape. It's an easy way to teach them to match up colors and letters before moving on to more difficult puzzles with irregular shapes.
As you can see this took some time to master, but C stuck with it. Whatever cereal you use, I would recommend having one cover that's not cut up for your child to check his/her work against.

The mat in these pictures is C's "work" mat. She uses this whenever she is doing an activity to define her work space.

Beleduc Body Puzzle

C received this puzzle as a gift from her Aunt C and Uncle J for Christmas and it has been a huge hit! Not only is it a lot of fun for C to play with, but it teaches her the muscular, digestive, and skeletal systems of the body at the same time. I love that it's wooden and seems to be very durable. There's also a boy and girl version of the puzzle for obvious reasons. After spending some time working with C and teaching her how to put it together, she can now put all five layers together on her own. She is fascinated with her own skin now and keeps asking me if she can take it off so she can see her muscles and her bones. And when she dances around, she'll say, "My bones are making me move!" What a great way to introduce the various aspects of the human body to an almost three year old!

There are five layers to the body puzzle which are pictured below:

Skin:
Muscle:
Digestive system:
And the skeletal system:
C uses the picture cues on the left hand side of the puzzle to help her know which layer comes next.
And here she is working her way through the puzzle. . .

We love this puzzle! Beleduc has a variety of layer puzzles and other fabulous, educational toys and games! Check them out if you have a chance.

Button Sorting

Here is a quick and easy to assemble sorting activity. . .

I used a deviled egg tray and a handful of matching buttons and. . . voila! An instant sorting activity that is attractive to the toddler eye! What little one doesn't love playing with buttons? It also serves as a good color and shape review.

C's Nana gave us these delightful buttons from her sewing stash. Thank you, Nana! (I told you we'd put them to good use eventually!)

Water Transferring

Happy 2010! I'm back after a Christmas/ New Year's hiatus! I'm going to backtrack and post about a few activities from December. Another one of C's favorite Montessori "tivities" is playing with water. Add a little food coloring into the mix and you're guaranteed a good time!

Here she is engaged in a water transferring activity that I set up for her.
I used a silver tray, two small pitchers (99 cents each at the thrift store), and a small funnel. Simple, yet so much fun!

Scissor Time

One of C's "tivities" for the week is using her toddler scissors to cut strips of paper. I used thick card stock instead of regular paper so it wouldn't be as likely to bend while C is trying to cut.

It is quite a feat for a 2 1/2 year old to get everything coordinated and working just right to accomplish a fine motor skill such as cutting. It has taken C some time to learn the proper way to hold the scissors and the paper, but she is very persistent and highly focused with this activity. (I can't say that for most things at this age, but this seems to be the exception.)
She absolutely loves using her scissors! Every time I go to cut something with my scissors, she runs to get hers and generously offers her assistance.

And she snuck away to cut some more. . .

Harvest Tub

Here is C playing with her harvest/ Thanksgiving sensory tub. . .

This tub includes popcorn kernels, pipe cleaners, scarecrow and leaf beads, silk leaves, various wooden boxes, paper quarter rolls, and a scooper.
And here she is enjoying a rubber stamping "tivity." Ah, the joys of being two!
And, yes, this ink is washable!!!!

And this picture is for you, Mom and Dad! Here is our BEAUTIFUL Hibiscus plant! We get blooms just about every other day. C reminded me that it needed to be watered yesterday. Every morning she looks out the back door and gives me an update. We usually end up having to go outside to check out the new blooms, buds, and withered flowers from the day before. She is in love with this plant! And it serves as a beautiful reminder to me of your love for C and of God's amazing creation.

Halloween Sorting and Transferring Tivities

Here is a sorting activity on C's Montessori shelf right now. I used Halloween themed erasers that I bought in the dollar bin at Wal-Mart and the tray came from this fabulous website. This was very simple for C, so next time I create a sorting activity it will be a little more involved.

She really enjoyed playing with the little erasers though and she had fun teaching baby how to complete the activity. Her world revolves around "baby" these days, so anything she can do that involves baby is wonderful and exciting in her book.

And here is a transfer activity using Halloween colored pom-poms and a tong. This activity works on fine motor skills (pre-cutting and pre-writing skills) as C has to transfer each pom-pom from the bowl to a circle on the paint pallet using the tongs.
And finally here is an ordering activity using various sized apples. C is learning to order items from smallest to biggest and vice versa. Everywhere we go we question C about the size of things, so I printed various sized apples and C set to work ordering them from smallest to biggest. She really enjoys doing this and I will continue to put this type of activity on her shelf until she really has mastery of it.

So here is a picture of her work shelf for the week. . .

Happy Learning!

Number Sorting Tivity

My next several posts will be a series of Montessori-based activities that I currently have on C's "Montessori shelf." The first one is a number sorting activity with orange pom-poms (Halloween themed, of course). C has to use the tongs to place the correct amount of pom-poms in each numbered container.
We've only done numbers 1 through 3, but will eventually work our way up to 10. This activity addresses number recognition, counting, associating quantity with a number symbol in their proper sequence, as well as fine motor skills.

In other news, no Muffin Tin Monday today. We had our small church community meeting tonight so I didn't have time to "be creative" (a.k.a. "not thinking ahead"). I made a stuffed Delicata Squash with ground turkey, yellow bell pepper, asparagus, and cheese for dinner. It was delish and fairly simple to throw together! C wasn't too fond of the squash itself, but she ate everything else along with some carrots and applesause (with some pomegranate seeds mixed in). This type of squash has a sweet, corn-like flavor to it and is an ideal stuffing squash.

This past Saturday, we went with some dear friends to the Arboretum and had a fabulous fall day together! We enjoyed the beautiful blooms, the pumpkin patch, and all the storybook houses throughout the park.

I just love this time of year! Happy Harvesting!

Halloween Sensory Tub

Young children learn about the world through their senses. They explore their environments through sight, sound, touch, smell, and often times taste. Sensory tables are a great way to allow a child to explore different textures and experiment with various objects that they probably don't have contact with on a daily basis. I thought it would be fun to create a mini sensory "tub" for C to explore.
I threw in black beans, feathers, small and large sequencing beads, pipe cleaners, silk leaves, pumpkins, google eyes, pom poms, various sized containers and cups, scoopers, sticky eyes, various halloween and harvest trinkets, and voila! Hours of hands-on, self-directed

learning. . . I mean fun. . . takes place!

C has really enjoyed exploring her "tub!" We had a great time playing with it together today.