Savor...

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth

Empty the dustpan and poison the mothHang out the washing and butter the breadSew on a button and make up the bedWhere is the mother whose house is so shocking?She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stewAnd out in the yard there's a hullabalooThe cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrowFor children grow up, I've learned to my sorrowSo quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleepI'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

A Mother's Prayer...

Lord of all pots and pans and things,
since I've not time to be

A saint by doing lovely things
or watching late with Thee

Or dreaming in the dawn light
or storming Heaven's gates -

Make me a saint by getting out the meals
and washing up the plates.

Although I must have Martha's hands,
I have a Mary mind -

And when I pick up boots and shoes,
Thy sandals, Lord, I find.

I think of how they trod the earth,
whenever I scrub the floor.

Accept this meditation, Lord,
I haven't time for more.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy love,
and light it with Thy peace.

Forgive me all my worrying
and make my grumbling cease.

Thou who loved to give men food,
in room or by the sea -

Accept this service that I do,
I do it unto Thee.

-author unknown

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!

Green Toddler

This is related to the previous post. . . here is what happens if you leave the bottle of food coloring within a toddler's reach! Yes, that is green food coloring all over my daughter's hands and body! Yes, it stains. . . . something awful! She was a green munchkin for several days before it all came out. Lovely, I know!

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.

MTM: Food groups

I haven't posted about a Muffin Tin meal in a while, so here is what we had this past Monday for lunch: Annie's Organic Snack Mix Bunnies (carbohydrate), pistachios (vegetable protein), left-over smoothie from the morning (fruit and dairy), left-over organic grilled chicken from yesterday (protein), cucumber and yellow bell pepper slices (vegetable), and dried cranberries (fruit). I always try to include something from each of the major food groups in either C's lunch or dinner. Nothing fancy, but the muffin cups make it so much more appealing! As you can see, C is eager to dig in!

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!

Early Morning Treat

Greek yogurt + blackberries + blueberries + bananas + carrots (yes, that's right, I said carrots) + a splash of whole milk= a delicious (and healthy) early morning treat!

Our Family. . . in miniature

This will be one of C's homemade Christmas gifts this year. (I made one extra little girl, just so there's no confusion!) I thought she could be one of C's cousins or a friend. I really enjoyed making these and I will eventually make more to represent our extended family. She will love playing with these in her little wooden dollhouse. The house came with a little family but, in my opinion, they are not very cute. So I thought these wooden figures would be more fun and a little more personal as well.

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. . .

Our Jesse Tree

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. -Isaiah 11:1

I am finally finished! As my Uncle Kenneth would say, "Praise God!" I am thrilled that I was able to complete the ornaments before the start of Advent and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed making them. I LOVE crafting and painting, so this was a perfect combination of the two. I found each image online (based on the scripture passages that we are using for our tree) and used graphite transfer paper to trace the images onto the wooden ornaments. Then I hand painted each one using acrylic paint (and a very tiny brush) and finished them off by outlining each image in black. I also painted the backs of each ornament black so I could easily write on them (see below). Here are days 1 through 10:

Days 11 through 20:

And days 21 through 27:

My husband and I are determined and having been praying for God's grace and guidance to instill in our daughter a biblical focus on Christmas rather than the secular perspective that our society is so easily caught up in these days. It is important to us that we teach C the true significance of the Christmas season. I researched family Advent traditions and the Jesse Tree seems to do a beautiful job of spotlighting the major events/ figures in the Bible leading up to Jesus' birth. The Jesse Tree is a way of telling the story of Jesus' genealogy and the history of God's plan for salvation. It starts with the story of creation and ends with the birth of Jesus on Christmas day, with such important stories as the fall of man, the flood, the chosen prophets, and the lineage from Jesse to Jesus in between. There is an ornament and Scripture reading for each day of Advent. We will use this tradition (along with others) to teach C the Old Testament lineage of Jesus and it will also serve as our count down to Christmas and the celebration of Christ's birth here on earth.

We will start on the very first day of Advent, November 29th, which makes 27 ornaments total.
On the back of each ornament I wrote the central figure in each scripture story, the scripture passage(s), and the order in which they will be read. For the next several years, until C is able to fully grasp scripture from the Bible, we will use her child's version of the Bible.

I am still in search of the perfect Jesse "tree" to hang our ornaments from. What I have in mind is very specific and it may be that I don't find what I'm looking for this year. Not a problem! I will continue to look for what I want (or make it myself) and we will just hang each ornament on our Christmas tree for now.

Here is the handmade Advent "box" that C will open each evening at the dinner table.

We will light our Advent wreath candle(s) and C will open the Advent box to find the Jesse Tree ornament for the day, an Advent prayer, her Bible (to read the coordinating scripture), and a sweet little treat to help count down the days until Christmas.

And here is the wooden box I made to store all of our ornaments in from year to year.
I am so excited and feel God blessing us in our effort to teach our precious child in His ways. My hope is that someday C will look back on our time during Advent with fond memories and appreciate the time we spent together as a family in anticipation of the birth of Christ.

Today I am Thankful for. . .

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Worship the Lord with gladness.

Come into his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord is God!

It is he that made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him, bless his name!

For the Lord is good; his mercy endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

-Psalm 100