Here Comes Grasshopper C!

When I asked C several weeks ago what she would like to be for Halloween, she replied, "A grasshopper, Mommy." I asked her again a few days later (thinking surely she had just said the first thing on her mind and that her mind would be changed by now) but, again she replied, "A grasshopper, Mommy." Sooooo. . . A grasshopper it is for my sweet C! (We have really large grasshoppers that jump onto our kitchen windows and C loves to sit and watch them from inside so she can see them up close.) Grasshopper costumes aren't readily available as a common choice in the stores and online, so I got my creative juices flowing and this is what I came up with. Everything is handmade except for the wings and the hat.

I used a very simple, no-sew pattern to make the tutu and the shirt pattern is made from felt and rhinestones. I just love this picture of her with the hat covering her eyes. C was playing peek-a-boo with the photographer so she was able to snap this picture before C lifted the hat back up! So fun!
Hope your Halloween is as festive and fun as ours! We are spending the evening eating and trick-or-treating with some good friends.

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!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkin on Sunday and C wanted absolutely nothing to do with getting her hands slimy and sticky with pumpkin seeds and guts. She was content to sit on the table and watch me while Daddy took pictures.
It was so easy to carve since I bought a pumpkin carving kit and I even designed the face myself. Unfortunately, as I was scraping a few last pieces of the guts from the inside, I knocked out one eyeball and a tooth so it ended up looking a little... oh, how should I say this... dull.
C loved it though and that's all that matters. When I was finished she said, "I love my jack-o-lantern!"

And I love this time of year!

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!

"Novice Crafter"

Okay, so in my "About Me" blurb, one of the ways I described myself was as a "novice crafter." I have always loved crafting (thanks to my Mom), I'm just not so sure how good I am at it. I tend to perseverate on one thing for a period of time, get burnt out, and move on to something else. My biggest (and most expensive) crafting hobby by far is scrapbooking, but since C was born I have not had a whole lot of time to dedicate to this craft. I tend to make the online books for documentation and as gifts since it is a whole lot faster than traditional scrapbooking. But, I keep all of my supplies, materials, and photos in hopes that one day I will have time to "catch up." Ha! In the meantime, I really enjoy finding quick projects that I can make with materials I already have at home and that only take a day or two to complete. I rely on my blog hopping to find these fun little projects and tutorials. So without further ado, I will unveil my first "mini craft" that I found on this fun and fabulous blog. It was so simple to make and looks great on our mantel as a Halloween decoration. Of course, I like to involve C as much as possible and this was a great project for her to get involved with. She enjoyed "helping" me. Her help consisted mostly of tearing up tissue paper, but hey, she had tons of fun and that's all that matters. By the way, after I was finished, C said to me, "I really like your pumpkin faces Mommy, but I really only like that orange one, and that orange one, and that purple one. The white one and green one are scary." So honest!

Happy Crafting!

Bathing Baby

This is the scene I witnessed this morning when I walked into the bathroom looking for C. . . .

So cute! She is such a little mommy. She picked out two of her own bath toys and a washcloth to bathe baby. . . "Wal-Mart baby," that is. Let me introduce you to all seven of C's babies: there's Abbey, Daisy (she has daisy bows in her hair), Bennett (one of my old Cabbage Patch dolls), Nana's baby (that's right, a gift from Nana), Baby Boy (yes, a baby that is a boy), Huge Baby (my childhood baby doll that is apparently huge), and Wal-Mart baby. If you haven't guessed it by now, this baby is from Wal-Mart. C proudly uses these names with her babies and we just chuckle to ourselves at her sincerity.

It didn't take long for C to become so wet that we had to change her shirt and then she continued to bathe and brush baby's teeth for quite a while. At one point she was using her electric toothbrush as a mixer to make pancakes (in the sink). I love her imagination!

"Wishy washy, wishy washy, wishy washy, weeeeee!"

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.

Bribery with Nursery Rhymes

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye.

Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing.

Was not that a dainty dish to set before the King?

When C asked me to recite a nursery rhyme to her last night at dinner, I had an ever so clever idea. The only thing left on her plate was a pile of fresh steamed broccoli. Through the course of the meal she had stuffed a couple in her mouth, but the majority of them sat untouched on her plate. So I told her I would recite a nursery rhyme only if she ate a piece of her broccoli first. Now I want you to know that I don't use bribery with my daughter very often, but I just couldn't let this opportunity pass by. And low and behold, it did the trick! She proceded to pop a very large, beautiful green broccoli floret into her mouth and subsequently asked for "Hickory Dickory Dock." After I finished reciting the rhyme, she quickly popped another broccoli floret into her mouth and asked for "Humpty Dumpty." After her next piece of broccoli was safely in her mouth, she requested "Three Little Kittens." Uh-oh! (I don't know this one by heart.) I explained to her that I didn't know "Three Little Kittens" so could she please request another one, to which she replied, "You should really learn that one Mommy!" Ah! What a kid! Luckily, we continued this drill until all the broccoli florets were eaten and she was satisfied with her nursery rhymes. I am so thankful for the beautiful book of nursery rhymes that C's Nana gave to her before she was even born. It has been a true source of delight for her since she was a tiny baby and apparently it can be used as a bribery tool as well! Who knew?

Happy Muffin Tin Monday to you!

I instituted Muffin Tin Monday in our home after coming across this really fun blog several months ago. The idea is to create a lunch to eat from a muffin tin or muffin cups. Every week there is a different theme. What a fun and special treat for C to look forward to every Monday. She is starting to catch on to it and every Monday morning when we change the day of the week, she announces, "It's Muffin Tin Monday!" I decided to make C's dinner the muffin tin meal since I am introducing all kinds of new foods to her during our dinner time. It's a great way to sneak in different foods that she may not otherwise try; but because of the presentation she gets excited and is more willing to try something she has never tasted before or has previously refused. How's that for sneaky? I haven't been real faithful in following the themes for each week, but I do try to make the meals correlate with the the various seasons. It's such a simple idea and a great way to add something special to an otherwise ordinary Monday. I look forward to creating other educational themes and holiday ideas for C to enjoy. And my hope is that as she gets older she will want to create her own Muffin Tin meal ideas.

Our Halloween themed muffin cup meal from today included: organic multi-grain pumpkin shaped bread with a pomegranate seed mouth and organic raisin eyes, organic pork with a festive pumpkin skewer, fresh steamed organic green beans with a ghost skewer (that says, "BOO," as C always announces when she sees a picture of a ghost), and scary eyes (organic prunes with mozzarella cheese and bits of raisins).

And I'm happy to report that the entire meal was eaten up, except for the green beans which she finished before bed (along with some blackberries and a bit of an organic "granilla" bar, as C calls it).

Can you tell I'm on an organic kick? I don't mean to be annoying, honestly I don't. I'm just in the process of switching our family to a mostly organic, gluten-free diet for several different reasons. We'll save that for another post though. . .

Hope your Muffin Tin Monday was as happy as ours!

Montessori obsession

I have a slight obsession with all things Montessori lately. I have been reading, researching, and educating myself on the philosophy behind this unique style of education. Let me back up a little bit though. It all started when, at the age of 1 1/2, I decided that C needed to go to school. Ha! I don't know which crazy hormone went haywire, but I thought she should be in school as quickly as possible. And so I went shopping. . . school shopping, that is. I ended up registering at two different preschools and when it came down to making a decision, something inside me (a loving nudge from God) said, "this isn't necessary." Needless to say, she didn't go. When preschool registration rolled around again this year, I felt that same loving nudge telling me this wasn't what C needed. My views on preschool and education in general have changed drastically since this little person entered my life, but I'll save those opinions for another post. Since I feel so strongly that the most important place for my child to be at the tender age of 2 is with me, I knew that I had to begin to create a rich learning environment for her right here in the comfort of her own home. This is where she will thrive the most and this is where we (hubby and I) can provide her with everything she needs at this time. But it is not a job to be taken lightly! I needed a way to incorporate the joy of learning with the sheer joy of being 2. That is where the whole Montessori obsession began. It just makes sense to C and me. It is a natural extension of our daily lives without feeling like "school." So throughout this blog, I will post about various activities that I have created for C. (She calls them her "tivities," so that is what I'll call them from now on.)

Blog On!

Okay. . . here goes! I’ve decided to start a blog. This will be a fun way of documenting the stories, adventures, crafts, creations, and educational ac"tivities" that my daughter and I do together. There are so many small, simple moments and memories that are created everyday. My hope is that by documenting just a few of these for my sweet C, she will someday have an idea of the joy she brought to our lives and see the hand of God at work in the shaping of our family and of her childhood.

My days with C are fleeting. . . I treasure every moment. . .