about a girl

Auroras

2012-02-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

We found this beautiful book about the story of the Northern Lights at the library recently. It is beautifully written and illustrated by Mindy Dwyer. After reading it L had a lot of questions about what exactly the Northern Lights are.

I found this little story on the Internet about the Aurora Borealis and Australis that L could read herself. We also looked at several pictures on the Internet and watched this wonderful video.

Then it was time to do some hands on.

We covered out sheets of water color paper with dark blue watercolour paint. Once it was dry we used black paint to do our silhouettes of the trees, mountains and a little cabin. We also added a bit of white for snow.

Once the paint had dried we drew dark thick lines across the sky with different colored chalk and then blended them by wiping a paper towel across them.

Here are the finished products. L's is on the top and Mommy's is the bottom one.

They ended up being quite effective and L proclaimed "They look just like in the book!"

Money Work

2012-02-02T14:50:00.000-08:00

L has been saving her coins in her piggy bank for ages now and we decided it was time to roll them so she could take them to the bank. L gets spare coins from us and also gets to keep the money from helping to return the bottles to the bottle depot.

The last time we did this L just helped to sort the coins and put them in the rollers. This time we added all the steps and also turned it into a lesson about money.

First step. Sort the coins. Turns out we had quite a few American coins as well so we had to talk about the difference and the fact that our banks will take American coins(although I'm pretty sure it doesn't work the other way around!)

While we were doing this we looked at the Canadian coin sheet I printed out and talked about the names of the coins and what was on each one.

Once we had finished sorting L found each of the coins to match the amounts I wrote out on another piece of paper and we talked about how much each coin was worth.

We started with the pennies. I made this sheet for her with columns in tens to help her count out the 50 pennies needed to go into the roller.

The most rewarding part. Putting the pennies into the roller. She was so proud that she'd done it all herself this time! She then moved on to the dimes and used the same sheet for $5.00 this time.

We didn't get through all of the coins so we will continue this work another day and then L will take all of her rolled coin to the bank to deposit into her account. She knows we use this money to pay for dancing, skating and swimming lessons and for skiing. I think it's great that she is learning to contribute to pay for the things she likes to do.

Lovehearts Art

2012-01-29T19:44:00.000-08:00

While I was checking out Kathy Barbro's tutorial for the Winter Birches over at the fantastic blog Art Projects for Kids I came across this super cool Valentine's art project.

L is super excited about Valentine's Day this year which she calls Lovehearts Day.

I was also excited to finally use the oil pastels I bought months ago. We did the project on some leftover water color paper. We used three different sized heart shaped cookie cutters to trace our hearts onto the paper.

L then chose her first color and outlined a heart with zigzag lines. She did that about three times for each heart in different colors and then kept filling in more and more colors. This was a pretty long project and I had to keep encouraging her towards the end but the result was totally worth it!

Here are the finished products. L's is on the left and Mommy's is on the right.

Easy, beautiful artwork

2012-01-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

When I saw this gorgeous Winter Birches art project over at Wee Folk Art I knew it was one L and I would have to try out right away.

After having a fairly mild winter we finally got snow this week and L had a snow day. It was the perfect day to bake cookies and try out this painting.

This beautiful piece of artwork was so easy to make.

For a full tutorial with step by step pictures go to Wee Folk Art. They used painters tape but since we didn't have any on hand I just used masking tape. It took off a little of the paper but in the end it still looks great and I think it adds a nice texture.

We haven't done a project like this in a while and it reminded me of how much fun it is to get out the paints and do artwork together. Thank you Wee Folk Art for posting about this great project.

Winter nature table/scene 2011

2012-01-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

We used a lot of the same elements from last years Winter scene this year with the addition of a little skating rink and this adorable little skater. We also added the wooden penguins that I received in my stocking. I love this scene so much that I think we will make it a Christmas tradition that we bring out every year and just change it up a little like we did this year.

I love now that L is getting older she can really help out and give her input into what we should do with our nature table.

Advent Activities 2011 Week 4

2012-01-16T14:25:00.000-08:00

Day 20

"make angels"

We made these last year and L was asking to make them again this year. They are very simple to make just using coffee filters.

Day 21

Okay honestly I just can't remember what we did this day. This is what happens when you don't record things right away! Lesson learned!

Day 22

"Auntie M and Uncle J arrive"

This Christmas was a very special one for us as not only was it our family's first Christmas in our new house but my husband's sister and her husband came to stay with us all the way from England. L was beside herself with excitement.

Day 23

"make angel decorations"

I saw these on a blog while I was blog surfing and now I can't for the life of me find it again to link back to . If these were your idea please leave me a comment so I can link back to you.

These are so simple to make just using a cardboard cereal box and a Styrofoam ball. We tore up some Christmas paper and modge podged it to the body, head and wings. Once they were dry I glued on the heads and wings with a glue gun. L made the little one and I made the big one. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

Day 24

"Go skating at the Winter Wonderland"

Every year our local arena does a wonderful job of turning a boring old skating rink into a magical wonderland with trees, lights and winter scenes. They turn the lights down and play Christmas music. It's such a wonderful family event.

Phew that's it I managed to do it. Looking back and remembering all of these activities we really did have a fantastic Christmas season.

Advent Activities 2011 Week 3

2012-01-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

Okay I know it's waaay past Christmas and I've been seriously neglecting this blog but I did want to record our advent activities this year before I forgot. So here goes...

Day 14

"make Nutcracker puppets"

L was seriously into the Nutcracker ballet this year so she really took care with making these puppets. You can download them here.

Day 15

"Ice and decorate the Christmas cake"

This is an age old tradition in our family that goes back to when my sister and I were little girls. We've had these decorations for ages. The best part is putting the cheeky brown sprinkles behind the reindeer's!

Day 16

"make picture frames"

I saw these over at The Magic Onions and fell in love with them. I was amazed how beautifully they turned out and wish I'd bought more frames. We'll be doing these again in the future for sure.

Day 17

"make ice ornaments"

These are just so beautiful and easy to make. L and my mom collected different bits of nature, then popped them into her bunt pan and filled it with water. It wasn't cold enough to leave it outside so they put it in the deep freeze until we used it.

Day 18

"look by the fireplace"

I got L one of those colouring pages that has black felt or something like it and you colour around it with markers. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture but she really enjoyed this activity.

Day 19

"Go to M Garden's "

This is quickly becoming a Christmas tradition with our family. A local heritage house in our area puts on an absolutely phenomenal display of lights on their huge estate. For the past two years now we've invited over our friends for dinner and then all gone to look at the magical lights together. It's a highlight of the season.

Advent Activities 2011 Week 2

2011-12-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Day 8

"Make candle holders for your teachers"

I had great plan on making cute little candle holders out of air hardening clay for L's teachers but when we opened the package I realised it was actually paper mache! I had to do some quick thinking and we ended up making bowls for them instead.

L had a great time mixing up the goo.

L and Granny had collected little rocks and shells from the beach the day before.

Good thing we started this project early as they took two days to dry by the fire. Here is the finished product. Not sure what they're going to do with them but it's the thought that counts right?

Day 9

" Look by the fire place"

I found this cute little 3D puzzle at the dollar store.

Day 10

"make snowman hand print ornaments"

These have been all over the blogsphere this year and last and I really wanted to do them with L. She did the hand print and I painted on the snowmen. She also helped push the shiny garland into them.

Day 11

"bake gingerbread cookies"

L made these Christmas gingerbread cookies to take to her sing along at school.

Day 12

"Look under the tree"

This was before we had any presents under the tree. L found a little kit to make this Rudolph ornament.

Day 13

"Look on the table"

I found this foam gingerbread house kit on sale at our local craft store. We'd never done one before and it was tons of fun. I love how it turned out.

First week of advent activities 2011

2011-12-11T01:29:00.000-08:00

This year since I don't have as much free time our advent activities have been a combination of little gifts, crafts, and Christmas activities.

Day 1

"Look on your chair"

L started off her advent calendar by finding a pair of Christmas socks with snowmen on them. I'm having a hard time peeling them off her feet long enough to wash them!

Day 2

"Find all of our Christmas books"

I was amazed at how many Christmas books we've acquired over the years. Some old favourites like The Night Before Christmas as well as a new collection of wonderful Christmas stories.

Day 3

"Make Christmas cards."

We took on the ambitious project of making cards for all 22 children in her class. We have been trying different styles of cards on different days and are about half done.

Day 4

"Look by the fish bowl"

L found this cute little snowmen pencil crayon.

Day 5

"Make candy cane ornaments"

Simple yet effective!

Day 6

"Make snowflake decorations"

We were making some modest snowflakes until Daddy got involved and took the snowflakes to a whole other level! This was really a fun family activity.

Day 7

"Look by the fireplace"

L loves The Nutcracker ballet and reading her Nutcracker storybook. For day six she found a little wooden nutcracker ornament that she could paint herself. She was absolutely thrilled to have a Nutcracker like Clara and carried it around all day before painting it.

The Voice of an Angel

2011-12-03T08:23:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how time passes. I realise I haven't been doing much blogging lately and I think it's because now I'm working part time my creative mom-jo is worn out! I did however want to write a post about a couple of L's birthday presents.

We wanted to get L her own CD player for her birthday but after looking around quickly realised they are pretty much becoming obsolete! We weren't quite ready to get her an Ipod but eventually found something much much better.

A karaoke machine!! It was the perfect gift for our little performer and L LOVES it. It even has disco lights! L uses her own CDs in it and either sings along with the microphone or dances to them. She can spend hours this way. The other night she preformed the whole Nutcracker Ballet with her assortment of dolls.

We also gave her a case for her CDs so she can be completely independent with the whole thing.

L's second favourite gift was a CD from her absolute favourite singer Jackie Evancho. After showing her this Youtube video last year, L has been Jackie's number one fan. We also recorded a whole Jackie Evancho concert from PBS and L loves to watch it and attempt to sing along.

If you haven't had a chance to listen to this girl I would highly recommend checking her out. She seriously has the voice of an angel.

L puts on her flower girl dress (or as she calls it her "Jackie Evancho" dress)daily to perform along with her CD. She even told me the other day the she is going to be Jackie for Halloween next year!

It's all good for me. I don't mind her having a singing angel for an idol at all!!

Happy Fourth Birthday L!

2011-10-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was L's birthday and it was wonderful. I can't believe my little girl is four!

As I said in a previous post we kept it simple this year and rented out our local pool for her party. It was really cool to have the entire pool to ourselves.

We kept the underwater theme going with L's cake. I'm usually such a stickler for only doing healthy food with no candies and artificial colors. I was seriously racking my brain on how to make blue. Then my husband made me realise that every other birthday L goes to the kids have crazy cakes with tons of sugar and TONS of artificial colors. L doesn't really even eat the cake and doesn't even know what the candies are so this year I went to town! Nothing was off limits as you can see by all of the gummies. All the other kids loved it and as I predicted L ate just one bite and then finished off two fruit skewers! I know I'm soooo hypocritical!

Autumn Nature Table

2011-10-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Although we had a summer nature table we were pretty lax on it and I forgot to take a picture. We recently went to a local Waldorf school open house to see what is was all about and seeing their Autumn nature table really inspired L and I to make a special effort on ours.

Here is what we came up with together.

Most of the things are treasures L has found on her nature walks with the addition of our ghosts and fairies from last year. I love the little owl I received in the summer Waldorf swap I did!

I'm glad we're back on track with our nature table. It just adds so much to our home and every time I look at it L has rearranged things or added something else!

Corn Husk Dolls

2011-10-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

L and my mom grew a wonderful garden this year. L is still getting a few cherry tomatoes off the vine. They also planted some corn. My mom wasn't very hopeful on their success but they were both delighted to find two tiny ears of corn.

They were much too small to eat but perfect for making corn husk dolls.

We first watched this video on Youtube to see how to make them.

Here's our little couple. They are really easy and fun to make.

I was imagining them being a nice addition to our nature table but L had other ideas. I seem to see them popping up everywhere around the house!

Birthday Invitations

2011-10-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

Last year for L's birthday I went a little crazy and spent ages on preparations, planning and decorations. We invited L's whole Montessori class and had a marimba band come in and play. You can read about it here and here.

This year I have to admit I'm just not as inspired. I think it has to do with the fact that I'm working now.

Anyhow we came up with a great compromise.

Our local Aquatic center rents out the pool for private parties. This is the perfect solution. We can invite L's whole class and their families as well as other friends and family and there is no preparation or clean up for us! Yippee! They even have tables we can set up in the foyer for snacks and birthday cake after so L won't feel like she's missing out.

Here are the invitations we came up with. I wanted to keep it really simple since we have to make so many.

First L covered water color paper with a mixture of blue water color paint, water and modge podge. She then crumpled up a plastic bag and dabbed it all over the paper to create a water effect.

Once that was finished she sprinkled sparkles all over the paper(her favourite bit!)

I cut out the invitations and L added little fish stickers.

On some of them she also added sequin air bubbles. Too cute!

I put the party info on the back and viola! a free set of party invitations.

Last year we asked for no gifts but a donation to the food bank instead. This year we have still asked for no gifts but have asked that the children make their own birthday card for L so she will have a keepsake.

Me on the Map

2011-10-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

L got the book Me On The Map by Joan Sweeney last year for her birthday. We have both enjoyed reading it together as well as doing activities to go along with it. L has mapped out her bedroom and pointed out our province on the map of Canada as well as our continent on the globe.

When I saw this fantastic idea on Counting Coconuts a while back I knew we had to make one for ourselves.

I started off making six circles out of craft foam using a compass.

I found almost all of the images on Google Images. L colored this picture of the Earth and then stuck the stars on for space.

I traced the continent onto orange paper and L pin punched it out.

For my province we talked about different things we see and do here. I printed off the images and L colored them.

We also did circles for my town and my house. I took pictures of L by different places and then printed them out.

Once all the circles were completed I punched a hole in the top of them and put a ring through them.

I really love this activity. It's a great way for children to narrow down their place on the map and also a wonderful keepsake. Thanks again Counting Coconuts for the great idea!

Hunting for Fossils

2011-09-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful family day searching for fossils. Vancouver Island has many places which are perfect for amature fossil hunters. We equipped ourselves with hammers, picks, buckets and of course a lovely picnic lunch.

The weather was gorgeous.

These two fossil hunters took their work very seriously.

In the end we were successful and found what we think are two trilobites!!

A wonderful day was had by all. Even when L fell into one of the pools and had to wear Daddy's top as a dress while her clothes dried!

After our finds we have gotten the fossil hunters bug and hope to go out hunting again soon.

First Finger Knitting

2011-09-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

L and I learned how to finger knit today. We watched this video on Youtube together and then she tried it out herself with this wool I'd been saving for ages for just this occasion.

L caught on pretty quickly and I just had to keep reminding her to start pulling off at her pinky each time.

I sat with her and helped along the whole way and she ended up making this bracelet. She was so proud and decided she wanted to make something else. I told her to go and ask Granny if she had any extra wool. Well L hit the jackpot there. She came up with a HUGE bag of wool scraps!

L ended up choosing this cheerful yellow to make a headband with. Once again I helped and encouraged her.

I'm so happy that L is now able to finger knit and that she enjoys it as much as I'd hoped she would. I think it will take a few more sessions before she is ready to do the whole thing on her own but she is well on her way!

Gone Fishin'

2011-08-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

Blackberry picking and Birthday gifts

2011-08-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

There are two reasons why I haven't been posting much lately. The first is that we are really just laying back and enjoying the last days of summer. The second is that my husband has become slightly addicted to playing poker on Facebook and has been hogging the laptop!

Anyhoo, last week our longtime family friend Uncle P came to visit us from England. L really enjoyed playing with him since he is up for almost anything.

Here they are picking blackberries. L amazes me with her dedication when blackberry picking. She will stay out there for hours hunting down all of the 'low' blackberries. She was the same last year. It also surprises me that she doesn't eat them all!

After we pick them we wash them and freeze them on cookie sheets. Once they are frozen I put them into Ziploc bags. Perfect for smoothies etc. I love free food!!!

L is invited to a birthday party on Saturday. My philosophy on gifts is that the person giving them has to be directly involved in the whole gift process. We decided to make a little memory game for L's friend using rocks we found at the beach. We had a great time trying to find round flat rocks together. I painted on the little beach themed pictures and L painted the two rocks at the top. We then modge podged them and put them in this little basket.

We tested out the game a couple of times to make sure it worked and may just have to make one for ourselves!

Summer of Science Part Two

2011-08-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Lately we've been learning about matter and how it can change.

I introduced L to the three states of matter with this tray. We talked about how matter is anything that takes up space and how it can be in three different states. Once we discussed this L looked around the house to first find solids and then liquids and breathed in lots of gas (air : ). It's wonderful to see the delight in a child when they first discover something new and the whole world opens up to them. L was excitedly running around the house pointing to things and saying "my shampoo is a liquid, milk is a liquid....."

We then talked about how some things can be all three states at different times. We used water for our example. L is examining a glass with water in it, ice cubes and the steam from boiling water.

We've also been talking about reversible change and irreversible change. L could see and experiment with how water can change into ice when frozen and then melt back into water when heated, which is an excellent example of reversible change.

We saw an example of irreversible change when we did the "heat" experiment with apples.

We also did an experiment on decay and talked about how all living things will eventually die then decay and turn back into soil. This led to some interesting discussions as you can imagine but I tried to keep it light and scientific.

We took a large piece of watermelon that had been in the fridge for a while and did an observation of it. L drew a picture of it in her science journal and we dated it.

Here it is a week later.

Here is L doing her second observation in her journal and noting the changes. She didn't last very long out there as there were too many wasps and she retreated to the kitchen periodically going out to "observe" from the deck.
We left it out there until it was so small and shrivelled that we just dug it into the soil.

Our weather has been the pits this summer so it's been and ideal time to do all of our science projects. Before I found Sid the Science Kid I have to admit that I was really unsure of how to introduce science to L but the show has made it super simple and tons of fun. I also have a wonderful book of 101 Science experiments that we will move on to soon.

And the winners are.....

2011-08-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who entered the Australia classified cards giveaway.
The three lucky winners (picked very randomly by my husband) are

Natasha from Leptir, Sandra and Homeschool @sg. Congratulations and I will try and contact you or you can email me at montessoribeginnings@yahoo.ca to get your classified cards.

To the rest of you who entered don't worry as I will be doing similar giveaways for all of my Continent Boxes as they are finished. Next up is Antarctica. Can't say exactly when I have it finished but hopefully sometime soon!

Australia Activites Part Two

2011-08-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

Although we did these Australia activities ages ago I am only now getting around to posting about them. You can see my first post with more Australia activities here and my Australia Continent Box post here.

I found these wonderful books at the library. The first Sun Mother Wakes the World is a retelling of an Aboriginal creation myth with gorgeous artwork. The second book Are we there yet? by Alison Lester was a huge hit and a must in my opinion for anyone studying Australia. It is about a family who sets out in their camper and travels the whole way around Australia. L was super excited to see the same pictures as her landmark cards and we looked up some others on google images to see the exact same picture.

This is a picture of the materials I used to present the didgeridoo, Australian music and Aboriginal artwork to my music class. To read more about it and for the link to True Blue Wonders see this post.

We also made our own boomerangs. Your can find the template here. I traced the template onto a cereal box and cut it out and then L used it to trace her boomerang and cut it out. We decorated them and then tried them out.

These were a super fun outside activity and I would recommend trying different thicknesses of cardboard.

Included in the continent box are a few recipes. One is for Lamingtons which is basically a few day old cake covered in chocolate and then dipped in coconut. We tried out a bit more of a healthy option with bananas on a skewer and dark chocolate. We LOVED them! Warning this is a messy project but very tasty!

If you are working on your Continent Boxes and would like to win my classified cards you can enter to win here.

Australia Continent Box and Giveaway (Finally!!)

2011-08-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

Okay the Australia Continent Box is pretty much done and I thought it was high time I posted about it since L and I finished covering it months ago.

So here we go. This is the simple box which I found at a craft store and painted brown. Eventually I will put a sand paper cut out of the continent on the top as well.

Inside we have four fabric folders of classified cards. These are landmarks, plants, animals, and people. The cards also have short definitions on the back. I was debating on how to put the names of each category on the front of the fabric folders but luckily I learned in my Assistants course that the best thing to do is to have a card at the front with a few pictures of whatever the folder is about. This way the folders can be used for readers and non-readers. Since these Continent Boxes are ultimately intended for the classroom I am going to add them in.

Here is a picture of more of the contents. At the top we have a tea towel with Aboriginal artwork and an Australian flag sticker.

Below we have some postcards of Aboriginal artwork, animal magnets, Australian coins, a wood carving of an Aboriginal boy, animal stickers, two magnets of Australian scenes in the shape of Australia, and an embarrassingly upside down felt cut out of Australia.

Here we have a map of the different states, some recipes, a tiny pewter koala with baby, Vegemite, a toy koala with boomerang, a real boomerang and the boomerang template. I'm also still working on a CD with all of our Australian music. We have the wonderful books from the Rebecca Johnson Australia series.

It's amazing how life works sometimes. At the exact time we were doing our Australia unit I went to a small import shop that was going out of business. To my delight they had this didgeridoo on for a ridiculously cheap price and I couldn't resist. It was perfect timing to bring into my music class and have them all try it out. At home we've all been learning through Youtube videos!

I've also pictured the learning materials that came with the True Blue Wonders package.

Wow looking at these pictures I'm amazed at how much I was able to fit into that tiny box!! A huge thank you to our wonderful bloggy friends from Australia (you know who you are!) for sending us some of the cool things in the above pictures.

So now for the giveaway. I've decided to share all of my files (via email) for my classified cards, definitions, pictures and recipes with three lucky winners. All you need to do is leave a comment below. You will get three extra entries if you blog or Facebook about this giveaway and leave a separate comment. The giveaway will be open until Monday August 8th. Good luck!

Land and Water Forms at the Beach

2011-07-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

It's finally been nice enough to go to the beach! L did the land and water forms at school this year so she was excited when I suggested we do some at the beach.

strait

bay

This was first a lake and then we added an island.

We did some others but my hands were getting way to sandy to keep taking pictures. This was super fun and L loved running to the ocean to get the water to fill them up.

Cloud Gazing

2011-07-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

We've been learning about clouds. I had this wonderful vision of L and I lying on our backs in a grassy field gazing at the clouds with the sun on our faces.

Hahaha. So far we've had two days that didn't involve the oppressive blanket of stratus clouds!

We really are hoping that our summer will start soon!

For our cloud study we first used some classified cards on the four main types of clouds, Cumulus, Cirrus, Stratus and Nimbostratus. I have to say a huge thank you to my bloggy friend Aude over at My Montessori Preschool. She did a wonderful unit on clouds earlier in the year which you can read about here. She was generous enough to send me the file for these great classified cards. (Also a huge thanks for the wonderful things she sent for my Europe continent box, gotta love the people you meet in the blogsphere!).

Here are the cards. There are two pictures of every type of cloud. On the one with no label I put the definition on the back.

L made up a cloud book using cotton balls. I printed up the labels and she cut them out and stuck them on. She had a blast making this book.

Rain cloud experiment. We also got this from My Montessori Preschool. The purpose is to slowly add drops of water to the cotton ball 'cloud' and see how much it will hold before it starts to rain. L did this three times in a row.

We also tried making a cloud in a bottle which we both agreed was a fail. I found some instructions on the Internet but we weren't impressed with the results.

Although we know stratus clouds really well now I'm looking forward to the days when we can name the other clouds and predict the weather.

Summer of Science

2011-07-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

This summer we've been all about science experiments. As I mentioned in this Dental Health post we've been watching Sid the Science Kid and the show has really inspired us to do the experiments and also add in some of our own.

Flowers

L cut two white tulips from the garden. We added about ten drops of blue food coloring to a glass and put the tulip into it. After a couple hours we could already see blue dots along the edges of the petals. This picture is after one day. We also tried different colors but the blue was the most effective.

Exercise

We saw this one on Sid the Science Kid. Learning about how exercise is important and how you can feel your heart beat faster once you've done some exercise. First L and I thought about different ways you can exercise your body and then we tried them. Below she has drawn her observations in her science journal. We tried out biking, hula hooping, running, soccer and dancing.

Does it Dissolve?

I saw this experiment over at The Picky Apple . We first talked about the definition of dissolve. We got five different substances, coffee, sugar, lentils, flour and oats. L poured water into the glasses and then made predictions on what she thought would dissolve and what wouldn't.

She then poured the substances into the water glasses one by one and stirred them up. She was able to easily see if they dissolved or not. I made up labels for Dissolved and Didn't Dissolve and she put the substance labels under the correct headings.

Here are her observations in her science journal. Sometimes she will write things as well or ask me to write if there are too many words.

Heat

This one was also from Sid the Science Kid and it was really cool. L learned about how heat changes things. We demonstrated this by cutting up some apples and putting them in a pot with some cinnamon. L tried to mash them up but they were way too hard. We added some water and put them on the stove for about 20 minutes, stirring them constantly.

L tried to mash them again and they were super soft. We enjoyed some yummy apple sauce and talked about how this was an irreversible change. We also talked about what other food gets softer when we cook it such as spaghetti and potatoes and what foods get harder such as pancakes and eggs.

Here are her observations.

We have many more experiments lined up for the following weeks. I really love the idea of keeping a record in her science journal that we can look back in to remember all of the different experiments. Thanks Sid the Science Kid!

How many 'light bulb' moments can one person have!!??

2011-07-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my course and my husband and L are back from their European jaunt. It's amazing how quickly time flies. My husband is exhausted but I think they had a great time over all. What a brave man to take a 3 1/2 year old on 6 plane rides and to two different countries in another continent! I'm so proud of them both.

As for me, well it's taken me a while to post because I just don't know how to really describe my Montessori Assistants course and the affect it's had on me. I wish I was more eloquent and the perfect words would just come. I feel anything I say will not do it justice. I guess I'll start with saying that my instructor Eduardo J. Cuevas who is an AMI trainer was outstanding. The way he presented the material and just his general manner gave me so many 'aha' moments it was incredible. I really feel like my life and outlook have completely changed in just two weeks.

Before I was passionate about Montessori and Montessori education but I didn't realise that I'd only just scratched the surface. I now realise how in depth and what a real science the Montessori Method really is and would love one day to take the full training. I hope to try and collect my thoughts a bit and write some more posts about different topics we discussed and what we did over the two weeks.
I guess to sum it up it really just impressed on me that I am going in the right direction and that this is what I want to do and pursue in the next phase of my life!

I'm also so happy to have my little girl home and all to myself during the day. We have been busy and there will be posts coming very soon! Looking forward to catching up on my favourite blogs and exploring some new ones as well.

Check out this interesting take on Montessori Education

2011-07-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

Check out this youtube video about Montessori Education....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcgN0lEh5IA

Update

2011-06-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

Things have been super busy around here as L's school has wound down for the summer. This week is very exciting as on Thursday L and her Daddy leave for England! They are going for his sister's wedding and then heading to Macedonia for a week to visit all of his relatives.

The reason I'm not going........I will be attending a two week Montessori Assistants course in Vancouver the exact same time they are gone. Of course they only offer it once a year and it just happens to be the same time as the wedding. After a lot of soul searching and discussions with hubby I decided to miss the wedding and go for the course. This is something I really want to do and am very passionate about.
I am super excited and can't wait to soak it all up! With L gone I won't be posting much for the next couple of weeks although I am bringing my computer with me so if there is something interesting in the course I want to share I can blog about it.

I'm also excited about being able to spend more time with L this summer. I really miss our time doing activities and projects together and have lots planned for the rest of the summer.
Wishing all of you a happy and hot summer filled with family and friends.

The Littlest Matryoshka

2011-06-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

I just have to share this sweet little book that we've been reading called The Littlest Matryoshka. It is about a set of six Matryoshka that have been lovingly crafted by a Russian doll maker and sent across the sea to a toy shop in America. You can read more about the story and see some of the illustrations here. This page also has some great thought provoking questions about the story.

L and I both love this story and have read it most nights before bed. We found it at our local library and I would recommend it for all ages.

It has inspired her to get out her own set of Matryoshka to re-create the story and make up ones of her own. I love how L plays on her own and really uses her imagination. The other day my mom said she was playing in the sand box and chatting away when she got one of the small pails, brought it over to our dog Petra put it under her and then proceeded to pretend to milk her squirting noises and all! My mom just about died of cuteness and the dog was a really good sport too!

Driftwood Xylophone

2011-06-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

Wee Folk Art recently posted this video on their Facebook page on how to make a driftwood xylophone.

It was a nobrainer that we HAD to try this out.

A few weekends ago L, Daddy and I went to the beach and tested out pieces of driftwood to see if they were resonant. We collected them and lay them across two large logs. Once we played them we sorted them out according to pitch putting the lowest at one end and the highest at the other.

Here is L rockin' out on our driftwood xylophone! It sounded just like the one in the video!

I collected a few more pieces and we did this for music class this afternoon and made a huge xylophone with rolled up beach towels to go along with our study of African music.

World Music-Asia

2011-06-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching a Music Appreciation class at L's Montessori school this past year. The children are ages 3 to 6. Lately we have been studying music from the different continents.

For each "World Music Class" I ask one of the children to roll out a mat and another to place the colored globe on it. I then ask another child to find the continent we are going to be studying on the globe.

I usually have three part cards prepared for the particular instruments from that continent or in this case country. Since Asia is so big we have narrowed it down to the music of China for this year.

I presented instrument cards for the erhu, dizi, pipa, ruan and yang qin. We talked about how they looked and their European counterparts. We also listened to this gorgeous video which demonstrates all of the above instruments. The children held up the appropriate card when they saw the instrument being played.

(photo from Google Images)

Years ago I was lucky enough to be given a dizi or Chinese flute from one of my students. I was able to play a Chinese song on it for the children and then let them all try it out for themselves.

(photo from Google Images)

We also prepared for learning about music from Asia by first learning the notes of the major scale "do re mi fa sol la ti do". The children are lucky enough to have a set of bells in the classroom so they are all familiar with the sound of the scale. We also sang the song "Do a Deer".

The pentatonic scale is made up of only five notes which are do re mi sol la. This scale is used in folk music all over the world but when played you can really hear the distinct sounds used in Chinese and Asian music. I first played the scale for the children on this little xylophone and then we sang it together.

I set up four work stations on different tables. The first was the xylophone with stars on the notes of the pentatonic scale. The other two tables had five water glasses which had been pre-tuned to the pentatonic notes. I drew little lines on the glasses with window crayons and the older children poured water to the lines. We also had a station where we'd selected only the five bells from the pentatonic scale. The children took turns at each station. The collective sounds produced were beautiful and the head teacher (who was cleaning the washrooms at the time ) said it sounded like she was in China town.

(hmm I've just noticed in this picture that someone has moved the stars around)

This was a simple and effective way for the children to hear and make the distinct sounds of the music from this continent.

And the winner is.....

2011-05-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who entered the gnome home giveaway. I got my husband to pick a random number between all of the comments. I figured this would be as random as you can get since he knows next to nothing about my blog : )

So the winner is comment number 6 from The Guilletots. Congratulations Aude! I'll be sending you off your new gnome home soon!

Those Pesky Blueberries!

2011-05-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post L is really big on dental health and brushing her teeth at the moment. She is paranoid about getting cavities.
The other day she had lunch with my mom and had some fresh blueberries for dessert. After lunch she went to the toilet and while she was washing her hands she looked at her teeth in the mirror. Well she came out of the bathroom to my mom and her face was a study. She was horrified and said " Granny, I have cavities in my molars!!".
My mom tried not to laugh and suggested she brush her teeth and see what would happen.
Phew crisis averted it was only bits of blueberries!

Don't forget to enter the gnome home giveaway if you haven't already!

L learning to needle felt

2011-05-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

I usually do all of my needle felting at night when L is in bed but I finished up the gnome home for the giveaway in the afternoon. L saw me needle felting and of course wanted to try. I was really reluctant at first and explained to her that the needle is super sharp but she still wanted to try.

I set her up with my foam on her knees. She chose a cookie cutter and then filled it with some of my wool scraps. I told her to keep her other hand on the couch or holding on to the foam. She forgot early on, held on to the cookie cutter and poked her finger. There were a few tears but it didn't deter her and she carried on. I'm really glad it happened so she is aware now of how sharp the needle really is and is more careful.

First she did this butterfly and felted on the string to fly it around. It kind of blends into the flowers here but I love the colors and how it turned out.

She was so excited about her creation that she wanted to make another one. She chose this bunny cookie cutter. I helped her to start with joining on the tail and the eye because you have to hold the wool while you poke but she did 99% of it herself.

I LOVE how these turned out and the fact that L made them by herself (under constant supervision). They now have pride of place on our nature table. L is going to make some more to give to her teachers for a thank you at the end of the year.

If you like what you see don't forget to enter the giveaway for the gnome home!

Gnome Village and Giveaway

2011-05-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

L and I were walking in the Fairy Woods the other day when we came upon this tiny gnome village!

These little gnome homes were actually what I made for the recent Waldorf Nature Table swap organised by One Hook Wonder. I was inspired after seeing these guys at the Felted Fern

I love seeing them all together and imagining all of the little creatures who live in them. They've now been sent off and will be soon arriving at their new homes.

Giveaway now closed.

I enjoyed making them so much that I decided to make a larger one for a giveaway! If you find these little gnome homes enchanting and would like to enter to win this larger one just leave a comment below.

You will get extra entries if you let me know you follow my blog or if you blog about this giveaway!

I will randomly pick the winner on Monday May 30th and will send the little home anywhere around the world.

Good Luck!

Dental Health

2011-05-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

Dental health and teeth have been the hot topic around here this past week. I've been wanting to introduce L to different science experiments and have her start a science journal. Although I'm really not a big fan of TV for children I'd heard a lot of good things about the show Sid the Science Kid. I recorded a couple of episodes and watched them. In my opinion they are a great way to introduce the ideas of exploring, experimenting and recording observations.

So L and I watched the "Teeth" episode where Sid asks why he always has to brush his teeth. The teacher explains how cavities are formed and about how teeth work.

Talk about the power of suggestion!!(this is why L doesn't watch TV normally). L is totally obsessed now with brushing her teeth and cavities! Thank goodness this is a positive thing!

Here are some of the activities we did.

L explored inside her mouth and all of her different teeth. We also talked about what they were called.

We tried different types of food and L noted which teeth she used for each food.

Her favorite part was recording her findings in her new science journal! Here she has drawn pictures of her different teeth and asked me to label them as she sounded the words out. We did have a debate over if teeth was spelled with an "f" or "th" at the end. The "f" won out much to my chagrin.

On the next page she drew the different foods she tried and I helped to write which teeth she used to eat them.

I have several shows recorded and we are going to watch them together and then do the experiments. Once she has the idea down we will move on to trying our own experiments as well.

Games and Activities

2011-05-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Since L is now at Montessori school and I am working part time we don't do many specific Montessori activities at home any more.

We do however play lots and lots of games. Some L does on her own and others we do together.

Mighty Minds. L has been doing these since she was very young and has progressed to the hardest cards in the set now. The beginning cards show you what pieces are needed while the harder ones leave it up to the child to decide.

Sight word memory game. I write the sight words we are working on at the time on card stock and we play memory together.

L has never really been a big fan of creating on her own with blocks. Instead we play a game where we each take turns building a simple tower and then the other person has to try an copy it. She LOVES this game and it usually leads to "free building" after a few turns.

We've also been talking a lot about odd and even and greater than and less than. I put different items on a tray for her and let her decide which were more. She then decided if the amount was odd or even.

We've followed up this concept with a cute little penguin card game where who ever has the greater amount of penguins on their card gets to keep both cards.

This is our newest game which is so cool. It comes with tons of little wooden circles and this balancing tree frame. Each person rolls the die and then places that color on one of the platforms. It gets trickier and trickier the longer we play.

For those of you who asked about the game I'm afraid I got it at a local market. Not sure if they are for sale anywhere else.

What are your child's favourite games?

Tadpole Disaster!!!

2011-04-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

We've been raising tadpoles for the last three and a half weeks.

We got them when they were at this stage from a nearby pond with plans to release them once they turned into froglets.

It has been such a wonderful learning experience to see the tadpoles growing and going through the different stages. L colored, cut out and glued this Life Cycle of a Frog.

I also made up some three part cards for her with real pictures.

L couldn't wait until they got "gills"

Yesterday we had painters here to power wash the house and our deck before they paint our house next week. Apparently they used bleach and left the almost empty bottle on our patio table where the tadpoles are. I noticed the bottle for the first time this morning when L was playing out there

and had a bit of a freak out and took it away.

Well tonight while we were playing out there I went to check on the tadpoles. The poor little things were all lying lifeless on the bottom of the bowl. I called L over and after some questioning I got out of her the fact that yes she did indeed pour some bleach into the tadpole bowl.

Ahhh. It really was an eye opener for me. She seems so advanced in so many ways but this is such a reminder that she is only three! She doesn't know what bleach is and I just thank God that she gave it to the tadpoles instead of to herself! The painters will be getting a few choice words on Monday when they come for sure.

I'm also super sad about our poor tadpoles. I'd gotten pretty attached to them and was really looking forward to experiencing the rest of the stages with L.

Of course L took it all in stride and said "Well we'll have to get some more next spring". Still too young to really understand.

RIP little tadpoles.

You know your child is Montessori when....

2011-04-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

I recently posted about L's fish Charlotte that she got for Easter. The other day we were talking and I asked her how she liked having her own pet which was her responsibility to feed and look after to which she replied, "I'm going to show Charlotte how to look after herself" !

I couldn't help but laugh.

Look What the Easter Bunny Brought!

2011-04-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

We don't do chocolate and candies at Easter in our house. This year now that L is reading we did an egg scavenger hunt. Each egg had a clue inside telling L where to go next. Along the way there were things beside the eggs to give L clues of what would be the final "treasure".

Here she is reading her clue and finding a library book on Bettas. Hmmm......

She also found a little fish net and some Betta food.

Anyone know where I'm going with this.....

Remember this?

Well it's now home to "Charlotte" the male Siamese Fighting Fish. Proudly named by L while saying "no it's a girl it's a girl" According to L she's also not a Siamese Fighting fish because she's nice. She's just a Betta!

It was a complete joy to see the amazement and excitement on L's face when she pulled the cloth off to reveal her new fish. L is very excited to have her own pet to take care of . She can't wait to give Charlotte her breakfast and dinner.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Early Spring Nature table with swap peg dolls

2011-04-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Finally I have to time to spend writing the backlog of posts I've been wanting to do! I've been in Vancouver at a training course this past week. Hopefully now things will settle down and I will get my work/life balance back!

So here is our early spring nature table. We've had it for just over a month now and I've put all of the gorgeous little peg people I received from We Bloom Here's peg doll swap.

Many thanks to the ladies from Time to Craft, Ozarkmountain mama, Wonderfully Crazy Home, StichyCraftyMama and Kriebevel L and I love all of your wonderful creations.

My vision for this table was for all of the forest folk to gather round the little pot to witness the first signs of spring. We planted some chia seeds in the blue pot in hopes they would grow quickly. Well they are totally not cooperating. So we have our poor wee folk still looking at a few little green things and mostly mud!

I'm still holding out hope!

We've also added things that we've found on our outings and in our backyard.

We had to cut down a beautiful tree a few weeks ago because it was too close to the house so we saved a few pieces of it to put on our nature table.

Swiss Family Robinson

2011-04-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

Our latest chapter book has been Swiss Family Robinson. I found a children's version at the dollar store. Score! There are still some bits I need to edit for L as I think there is too much talk of guns and killing but she loves the rest of it.

I told her teacher we are reading it and she has introduced L to the land and water forms so she can see what an island is. L is totally stoked!

We also got a coconut from the grocery store to try. Daddy drilled a hole and L drank the milk with a straw.

He then broke it apart and we enjoyed the yummy coconut just like in Swiss Family Robinson.

When we got to the part about them using a pulley to bring up all of their provisions into the tree I told L we would give it a try. Not having any rope we tied some long scarves together. L stood at the top of the landing and I tied on our provisions one by one as she pulled them up. It was a good idea to start but after what seemed like the 100th time I was second guessing myself. LOL

We then made our tree house at the top of the stairs. L was the mommy and I was one of the sons along with the other stuffed animals. She made us dinner and then put us to bed.

We have really enjoyed this book and doing activities to go along with it. I think it is especially good as it has a drawing of what is happening on every second page so L can follow along. There are a lot of new concepts for her to try to get her head around.

Next up is getting Daddy to show her how to make a bow and arrow!

Life

2011-04-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks since I've posted anything and well the only reason for that is that "life" has been really happening around here lately.
This is the first time in two weeks that I've been able to have any real free time to sit down at the computer. That is because for the past two weeks I've been working! That's right. After almost four years of staying at home it's finally become imperative that I get a job to bring in some more income. The first two weeks have been a shock to all of our systems as I've had to train 34 hours a week. Things should settle down in the next few weeks to 15 hours which is totally manageable but not until I've spent a week in Vancouver away from my family doing a training course.

Needless to say not a lot of "blog worthy" things have been going on around here. We have been keeping L busy with a few projects that I'll hopefully get around to posting about soon. We also have our nature table up and running and I'll take some pics if it's every sunny again!

Amazingly enough in the evenings as a way to relax I've also been working on some of the Continent Boxes. Australia is finally done and I'm just waiting for my mom to finish sewing (yup my mom! I don't sew a stitch!)the little three part card holders and I will blog about it.

We've also been plagued with two computer viruses. A few days without the computer and $140 later we seem to be sorted.

So that's a quick update if any one's been wondering.......I've really missed having time to read all of my favourite blogs and also do things with L. Thankfully things will calm down soon and hopefully be back to normal with a little more cash! : )

Signs of Spring

2011-03-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

Every year around March the herring run takes place here on Vancouver Island. We drive along the coast every day to get to L's school and we've enjoyed watching all that is involved.

There have been hundreds of seabirds on the beach and sitting on roofs of houses and lots of fishing boats close to the shore.

We can see how the water is much lighter where there are huge schools of herring.

Yesterday was so beautiful that we went down to the beach to check it all out for ourselves.

The tide was out and we marveled at the amount of herring row everywhere. We found this little ball of eggs that we explored.

Soooo many seagulls!

The row covered everything, even seaweed.

What a wonderful spring day at the beach!

Charlotte's Web and other chapter books

2011-03-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

L and I have both been enjoying reading chapter books at bedtime together. We started off with Heidi which L loved and have now moved on to Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. I remember loving this book(and movie I think)when I was a girl and couldn't wait to start reading it with L.

L and I are vegetarians and I've always said that once L really knows what meat is, where it comes from and how the animals are kept she can make her own decision. I think this book is a good introduction to how animals are used for meat(although I admit a bit unfair to have them be cute little characters that talk!).

To go along with the book we made shadow puppets to use in the shadow puppet theatre we made for the Carnival of the Animals. We have Fern, Wilbur, Charlotte, Templeton and the goose who isn't shown in the pictures.

I'm over the moon that our new house is so bright that L can just use the natural light from our bay window for the shadows.

Here I think L is acting out the part where Templeton's rotten egg breaks and stinks out the whole barn! It was hard to get a still shot as the characters were moving all around trying to run away from the stink!

Do you have any favorite chapter books you love to read to your children?

Blog Book

2011-03-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

Way back last October I ordered a book of my blog from Blog2Print for my birthday. I was going to blog about it then but totally forgot.

This is the finished product. I love it!

This book also totally changed my outlook on blogging. After flipping through it I realised how much stuff L and I had actually done. I also realised what an amazing priceless record this book is of our early time together. From that day on I decided that although I love the connections, ideas and many friends I've made through blogging my number one priority for my blog is to record mine and my daughter's journey.

This has taken a lot of pressure off me as before I was feeling like I had to post something "for my followers". Now I only post if it's something I want to record for future reference. One day I hope L will be able to use them for her children.

I highly recommend turning your blog into a book. It's an amazing feeling being published and being able to flip through and see all that you've accomplished!

Peg Doll Exchange with thoughts of Japan

2011-03-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

First off I would like to say that we are just sick watching all the devastation and horror that has happened in Japan. Our hearts and prayers are with all of the people who have experienced such tragedy.

Please check out Jo Joebi's Japan Quake Appeal Auction if you would like to get involved over the Internet or of course there are many other ways to donate as well.

Lets pray that the country's situation can stabilise so the recovery and healing may begin.

On a lighter note I have been participating in the Wee Peg Person Exchange over at We Bloom Here. Weeks ago I decided to paint these little Japanese girls. Turned out to be very timely. I had a cute little story to go along with them but in the present circumstances I decided to just give them names.

From left to right we have Maki whose name means "true hope", Shinobu "endurance", Yasuko "child of peace" and Saki "blossom of hope"

I also ran out of large doll so made these two cheeky little brothers from China, Gang "strenght" and Guang "light".

I hope they all find happiness in their new homes!

Making Lunch

2011-03-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

L has been asking to make her own lunch lately. She asked if I could give her a shelf in the fridge to be able to access her own things. So here it is. Luckily she has basically the same things every day for lunch so it was easy.

The staples are usually baby carrots, cucumber, baby tomatoes and pita bread. We also switch it up with pea pods, cheese, eggs, muffins and hummus sometimes.

L gets out all of her lunch food from the fridge and puts it on the counter. She then gets her stool and a plate from her cupboard and gets to work.

Don't forget the clean up and putting the food back into the fridge. L clears her plate into the green bin and puts it in the dishwasher(hopefully!).

I've also set up a bit of a snack shelf in the pantry where L can get her porridge oats, cranberries and container of Heritage O's, coconut and cranberries which she can scoop into the smaller dish. She also has yogurt and cheese in the side shelf of the fridge and a fruit bowl on the kitchen table.
L's is beside herself with pleasure at being able to make her own lunch. What an independent girl!

L's New Bedroom

2011-03-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

L has never really had her own bedroom before. We decorated a nursery for her in our house in England but there was no built in heater in it so she ended up sleeping in our bedroom the whole time we were there. Once we moved in with my mom they had to share a bedroom.

Finally in our new house she has a whole room all to herself! It was my top priority once we moved in to make L's room as special as we could for her.

So here it is!

I tried to keep it as Montessori friendly as possible. All of the artwork and mirrors are at her level. She has her book shelf in here with a chair for reading or she can chill out on the bottom bunk. She also has her little kitchen and all of her food in here to play with.

I love her little canopy bed. It's so magical when we put the lights on at night. L is over the moon with the whole thing and takes the bed safety rules very seriously, always climbing down the stairs backwards.

The influence of Daddy and ......

2011-03-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

As many of you know the Montessori Method is all about keeping children in reality. I am kind of on the fence on this one I guess. I really like a lot of the ideas in the Waldorf philosophy as well and the former blog Childhood Magic really helped me see the benefits of children having fantasy and imaginative play in their early lives.

So like I said I'm on the fence. L doesn't watch TV or cartoons. We do however have a few DVDs that she watches such as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and The March of the Penguins. Some reality based and some not. We also read her a variety of both kinds of books. I think L has a pretty good understanding of real animals and pretend cartoon ones. We also watch a lot of videos on Youtube. I think this is a fantastic learning tool. We've watched Kookaburras laughing, African dancing, children's songs and many other things. I do however preview all of the videos before we watch them together and am very strict on what she can watch.

My husband on the other hand really doesn't understand why I don't want L watching TV and any video she wants. After a long battle I think I've finally succeeded on the TV thing. Youtube however is another story. Somehow he thinks if it's on Youtube it's not the same as TV. Hmmmm.

Anyhow the other day when we were leaving our music class about Australia and didgeridoos L said next week I'd like to do music from Antarctica. I said well since nobody lives there there isn't really any music from Antarctica. L replied "Yes there is Papa Pinguin!".

ARRRRGGGGG!!! DADDY! I admit it is a catchy song and we've danced to it before but I wouldn't show her the video. I tried to explain that it was just "pretend" and that there is no real music from Antarctica and as we were driving away I heard her say "I'm sure I saw snow there."

Check out this great article by Pilar Bewley on Keeping it Real Montessori Style
What do you think?

Continent Boxes Swap

2011-03-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

I'm taking ages to finish off my Australia continent box and it's driving me crazy! My printer running out of ink and life is getting in the way.
I have finished all of my three part cards and definitions as well as a few other printouts though.
Originally I was going to do a giveaway for all of that but I've had quite a few people who expressed an interest in doing swaps so here is what I'm going to do.
Anyone interested in doing a swap please email me at montessoribeginningsatyahoodotca. If you participate I will email you all of my Australia three part cards and recipe cards. I will also send you some Canadian items if you don't live in Canada.
If I get enough people interested from around the world then I'll set up an actual swap with everyone.
Okay I'm off to work on the rest of the box......

Australia

2011-03-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

Okay the continent box is taking ages to complete so in the mean time I thought I'd post about some of the activities we have been doing.

I have to say it's been soooo fun learning all about Australia and I have learned just as many new things as L. I also wanted to start off by saying that the reason I picked Australia to start with instead of North America is because even before we began our activities it was constantly a topic of conversation. We've been Skyping with some wonderful friends there and my dad just got back from a holiday there. So to me it seemed like a natural progression to start with this continent. I also decided to just keep our studies concentrated on Australia for now. When L gets older and we revisit it we will talk about the other countries in this area.

So here we go....

I found this wonderful site that has a page with tons of Aboriginal symbols. L and I talked about rock paintings and the different symbols and their meanings. We then made up stories with our painted symbols.

L's is in the middle. The cool thing was that L could tell my stories by the symbols I painted.

Here is the link to that fantastic printout.

Next we talked about Didgeridoos and listened to and watched lots of examples of people playing on Youtube. We talked about how they are made and that they were originally invented by the Aboriginal peoples of Northern Australia.

We also talked about dot art and looked at many examples.

Here are our own versions out of wrapping paper tubes.
We painted them brown first and then added our dot art decorations. I painted on the animals on L's and she added the dots.

L really wanted to play like a real Aboriginal person so we painted her with white paint with some Aboriginal symbols. L was VERY serious about the whole thing and put on a little concert for us. (I hope this doesn't offend anyone. We have being studying all types of Australian culture with the utmost respect)

I found this amazing song on Youtube call True Blue Wonders which uses the didgeridoo to make the sounds of different Australian animals. This is what L is playing to in the picture.

You can also download this song and it comes along with lots of great teaching materials.

Today we listened to it in my music class, tapped along with rhythm sticks and made didgeridoos. They were such a hit that we're doing it again next week!

The most amazing bit is about four days ago a small import store in our area had a going out of business sale and unbelievably they had an actual didgeridoo on sale for only $35!!! So of course I had to get it and we've been learning to play it ever since. The kids in the music class went crazy for it and couldn't get enough!

Pics to follow in another post.

L's new environment Part 2

2011-02-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

Okay part two. The first two pictures are of L's activity shelves in our spare bedroom. I'll do a quick run down on what is on the shelves at this particular time. Some activities are always there and some I constantly change up.

The top shelf holds a baskets of my crafting supplies. The next shelf down is L's craft shelf which holds different kinds of paper and coloring books, crayons, markers, pencil crayons, stamps and ink, scissors, glue sticks and chalk. She is also allowed access into my baskets if she needs something specific.

The next shelf is her language shelf which holds her handwriting binder, language activities, upper and lower case letters, chalk board and chalk and her eye spy bottle. This shelf gets changed up every week or so.

Second from the bottom is her games and puzzles shelf. L loves puzzles so we have tons of them. I have them all out because she uses all of them.

The bottom shelf holds her Lego, wooden blocks in the bag and her other puzzles. Her work mats are to the right of the shelves.

The second set of shelves. From the top are all of her board type games. Next is her "science and geography shelf" This shelf also changes but at the moment is has her bug viewer, animals and insects and also her Leap Frog globe. We LOVE this. I'm usually not a fan of these kind of things but I found it at a boot fair for $2 so I couldn't resist. You place the pen on the picture and it tells you all about the animals and places on the globe.

The bottom shelf holds her puppets and shadow puppet theatre. This also changes depending on what we're working on. Next to the shelves are my super messy activity drawers where I store all of our past activity materials.

The living room is still a work in progress but at the moment we have L's table for crafts and activities, her easel(with just crayons and pencil crayons! I'm not going any further with that white carpet underneath!). For the moment we also have her instrument basket here until we get the music room set up properly. I'm also planning to put our new nature table in the bay window.

I'm setting up a special space for L in each of the rooms in the house. In part three I will hopefully have L's snack space, the music room and L's new bedroom which we are painting next weekend.

I'm also almost finished our Australia continent box and will be posting about our activities some time this week.

L's new environment Part 1

2011-02-23T16:23:00.000-08:00

I'm so happy to finally have proper spaces for L's things. Our house is mostly unpacked so I wanted to record how we have set up L's spaces to enable her to have as much independence as possible.

Kitchen

This is my favorite room for L other than her bedroom. She has her own cupboard where she can set her own place, get her aprons for baking and cooking and also her cooking utensils. There are cloths for clean up and for use at meals.

We also have a dishwasher(yoohoo!)which L puts her dirty dishes into after her meals and is able to unload her clean dishes into her cupboard (when she so feels that is!) She also loves to put in the washing powder and turn it on.

Beside the table is her stool and her bucket with her mop, dustpan and broom and head for her long broom. She is able to sweep up crumbs and mop up spills, like the drink she spilled all over the floor yesterday!

The best bit is the water dispenser in the fridge door! Liquid independence!

We also have a wonderful pantry which will eventually have a shelf for L's snacks as well as a fridge with low shelves to hold L's cold snacks.

Hall Closet

L has her own hooks to hang her jackets on when she comes in and is able to put her shoes on the low rack. There is a basket for her hats and mits.

L's bedroom closet

This is one of the first spaces I organised when we moved in. It's so important for L to have a place for all of her clothes so she can get dressed in the morning. The blue hanging organiser has compartments for (starting at the bottom)tights and undershirts, underwear and socks, pj's, and bathing suits.

The low rack holds her tops and pants. L is able to hang up her dresses and jackets on hangers now(thanks to school).

L is soooo proud to have her own laundry basket that she can carry to the laundry room. She helped me do laundry the other day and put away all of her clean clothes. Lets see how long that continues!

So that is the end of part one. Part two will have L's spaces for activities in our house.

We're In!

2011-02-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

Phew! We made it! We've been in our new house for almost a week now and we're loving it! We are on the top floor and have lots of windows and natural light as well as lots of space for L to run around and dance in.
I'm especially excited to be setting up our home to enable L to be as independent as possible and will have some pics and a post about it coming soon.
Most of our boxes are unpacked(as long as you don't count the garage!)and we just have to get some more book shelves here and there. L is excited to paint her bedroom and we are still under negotiations for colors.

We've still been big into learning about Australia and when I get my act together I'll have some posts on our activities as well.
I've missed posting and reading all of your posts and am looking forward to getting back to the bloggy world!

Have to share a conversation between L and my sister the other day while she was visiting.
L had her "dancing dress" on and was flitting about. My sister asked her " would you like to play hockey one day?" To which L replied as she was doing a twirl " No. Too sweaty!"

Moving!

2011-02-02T11:21:00.000-08:00

Yep, the day has finally come (well almost come)when we are moving into our own house! It's been over a year living with my mom and although it's had tons of advantages, as you can imagine we are so ready to have our own space!!
We have sold my mom's place and have bought a two story house with an ocean view! Woohoo. We have a large deck upstairs so we can sit and eat our meals outside in the summer while watching the sun set over the water. Ahhh can't wait.
My mom has her own separate suit downstairs so although we each have our own space we are still together.
We move in on the 15th so it's all hands on deck here and needless to say not much else going on post wise.
One of the things I'm most excited about is finally being able to set up our own space to accommodate L's growing independence. She finally gets her own bedroom and with it will come more responsibilities.

So I probably won't be on here much in the next couple of weeks but after that expect lots of new house and set up posts along with our first Continent Box.
For those of you who expressed an interest in a swap I'll get back to you once the dust has settled!

Fairies in the Woods

2011-01-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted about the beautiful woods we have across the road from our house. L and her Granny take the dog around the trails a few times a week and always check to see if everything is where it should be. The other day we were cleaning out the crawl space and I found a bunch of fairies I made out of Fimo years ago. Unfortunately they were covered in mold so I thought the woods would be the best place for them.

We really enjoyed finding new homes for them.

I realised after that I didn't really get any pictures of their wings which they do have, all except the wizard that is.

Fingers crossed that they enjoy their new home and that the people who are lucky enough to spot them just enjoy them and leave them be!

Continent Boxes-Swap and Upcoming Giveaway

2011-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

When I was first learning about Montessori I thought one of the coolest things was the Continent Boxes. I still do! Of course I figured that L would be doing them at her school but when I asked her teacher about it she didn't know what I was talking about. They only have Continent Folders left over from another teacher from a different school.

I was pretty happy actually because after seeing so many fantastic ideas in the blogworld I secretly wanted to make my own. So now I plan to make them first for L and when she has covered them I will donate them to her school.

This is where you come in. I'm almost finished Australia(thanks to some great Aussie friends) and once I completely finish the printables I will be putting all of them up for a giveaway.

Also I'm looking for people who would like to do a Continent Swap. I've seen some very successful ones done in the last little while.

I am looking for people who would like to swap things from South America, Africa, Asia and Antarctica for things from North America(mainly Canada) plus any of my printables I have made from all of the Continents.

If you are interested please leave me a comment with your email address or just email me at montessoribeginnings@yahoo.ca

Stay tuned for the upcoming Australia printout giveaway.

Streams and Vines board game

2011-01-17T17:32:00.000-08:00

L loves to play games or do activities after dinner and before bed. I've been wanting to do a variation on Snakes and Ladders for ages and after seeing one in the store for $19.00!! I was spurred on to finally create it.

Our version is called Streams and Vines( including one waterfall). The little girls(cut out from a cute Christmas card)have to make their way home, sometimes getting a shortcut by climbing the vines and other times getting a setback by flowing down the stream or if they're really unlucky falling down the waterfall!

I wanted to make up a game for L to practice her counting but also added the element of some cards for her to practice her reading as well. The cards say things like "Get on a frog and hop back three spots" , " Get a ride on the bird to the nest" or "Move up 4 spots".

This game was so simple to make and the best part was it was totally free!! I just painted a piece of cardboard, cut some paper up for the cards, used a frog, needle felted bird and die we already had and recycled the little girls from an old Christmas card. L loves it and after the first couple of games has got the hang of it.

Bath Flutes

2011-01-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

One of the best gifts L got for Christmas this year are these water flutes. She uses them in the bathtub and we both love them. As well as having fun playing there are so many learning opportunities.

You tune the flutes by adding water up to the line of whichever note you would like. L is able to see how making the tube smaller by adding water makes a higher sound and filling with less water makes a lower sound.

They also come with music sheets which have color coded notes. You tune the flutes and then L just follows along with the colors. L can play Mary Had A Little Lamb and Old MacDonald. She can also make up her own songs.

This is not a review post. I just thought I'd share how much we both love this Christmas gift!!

Die Moldau

2011-01-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

Being a musician myself one of my hopes is that I can instill the same love of music in my daughter. My approach to introducing L to music is not to have her know all of the composers, when they were born and what they look like. To me at three years old those things are irrelevant and not necessary. I would much rather have L really listen to and appreciate music. Have her be able to really feel something when she hears a piece and be able to listen well enough to hear different changes in melody, instrumentation, tempo and dynamics.

To start L's introduction to Classical music I have used program music. This type of music is composed to tell a story. I think this is the easiest way for L to hear how composers manipulate music and instruments to represent different things or ideas.

This week our piece was Die Moldau, a gorgeous symphonic poem by Bedrich Smetana which describes the sights and sounds along the banks of the Moldau or Vltava river that flows through Prague.

L and I listened to the music a few times and talked about the different "themes" such as a Peasant wedding, the great castle and even water nymphs. We then looked at some pictures from the Internet.

Once we had an idea in our heads we set to work painting our scenes.

Here is our voyage along the Moldau river.

(I've included the timings in for each scene from this Youtube recording)

The piece begins with two flutes each playing fast moving notes to represent two little streams or tributaries that flow into the Moldau.

You can see our pillow boats on the side waiting until we get to the bigger river.

The stream pattern is then passed on to the lower strings to represent the streams joining(00:53) and flowing into the main river. This is where we get in and listen to the main river theme played by the violins (00:59).

Okay we're on our way. First off we pass by a grand forest and we can hear the the French horns and trumpets introducing the "Hunting in the Forest theme"(1:54)

We then float along the banks and can hear the music from a Peasant Wedding(2:48). We moor our pillow boats and get off to dance with the guests.

We dance until late into the night and the moon comes out. We climb back onto our boats just in time to float past some water nymphs frolicking in the moonlight which is played by the two flutes again(4:27).

We continue along and hear the river theme again(6:38). The river gets choppier and choppier as the music gets more agitated(7:17). Finally with great excitement we go down "The Rapids of St. John" and the huge waterfall(8:18). Phew we held on tight and didn't fall out of our boats!

Around the bend and the "Ancient Castle Vysehrad" (8:31)comes into view introduced by a regal theme played by the brass. We wave to the people in the castle and stare in awe at it's grandeur.

Then it's time to move along the river as the music becomes calm again(10:00) and we've finished our journey.

L was so excited to take Granny on the Moldau she woke us all up at 6:30 with the pillow boats ready!

Here are some other posts on the music and compositions we've explored so far:

Peter and the Wolf

Carnival of the Animals

Carnival of the Animals part 2

The Four Seasons

The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra

The Joy of Music

I've linked this post up to The Adventures of Bear's Artists and Art series. To see more in the series go to the button on the right side bar.

Recycling Christmas Cards

2011-01-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

We have been using our Christmas cards to make thank you cards. We did this last year and I cut out bits from the old cards for L to make collages. This year she did all of the cutting, pasting and designing herself.

We've also been making little boxes out of them. For any of you who don't know how to do this I made a little photo tutorial.

First cut your card in half. Then draw an X on both the inside bits.

Fold up each end almost to the center of the X.

Then do the same for the sides. Not quite as close to the center this time.

Cut along the lines created by the folds just until they intersect.

Fold the two side pieces in and then fold the end over top of those pieces. Do this on both sides. You may need a bit of tape or glue to secure them if your ends aren't very long.

Do the same for the other part of the card and you have a cute little box with a lid to store precious Christmas ornaments or treasures in!

Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

2011-01-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have been teaching a music appreciation and understanding class at L's Montessori school. The children are between the ages of 3and 5. It has been great fun and we have spent the last few weeks learning about why music is written, how it makes you feel, rhythm, dynamics, and the orchestral instruments.

Each week we talked about a different family of instruments using three part cards(Woodwind, Brass, Strings, and Percussion) had some demonstrations and got to try some of the instruments out.
Once the children were familiar with all of the instruments we listened to The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten. This piece was originally written for an educational documentary film on the instruments of the orchestra. It begins with a simple theme played by the whole orchestra and then by each family of instruments. Britten highlights each instrument individually in a series of variations.

I presented this piece by laying all of the instrument cards out on a mat in their family groups. As the piece began I pointed out which group was playing. Once the individual instruments were introduced we all "air" played them along with the music. This was super fun as we started with a tiny piccolo and ended standing up playing the timpani.
It's a fairly long piece and I wasn't sure if it would hold the children's attention but amazingly we "air" played every instrument in the orchestra! It was great fun and a good way to familiarise the children with the instruments without actually having them all in the room.

Here is a link to a description of the piece and the order of the instruments and here is a link to the piece on Youtube.
You can also print out these Instrument Nomenclature cards from Counting Coconuts that Mari-Ann so generously shared.
Happy Music Making!

I've linked this post to the Artists and Art series at The Adventures of Bear. Clink on the link in the right sidebar to see more.

What we heard this Christmas.....

2010-12-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

L has been saying and singing some super cute things and I just wanted to record them before I forget...

There was a man on Christmas Day and Santa was his name-O! S-A- auntie-O!

I hope our Santa is small so he can fit down our chimney!

Last night both my husband and my mom were out (which is a very rare occurrence)so I put L to bed and as I was about to kiss her good night she said "Mommy what are you going to do now? Talk to yourself?"

Jingle bells, Jingle bells jingle all the way oh what fun it is to ride on a one horse slope and hay!

Daddy-L what would you like for Christmas this year?
L-A present.
D-What kind of present?
L-One with paper on it.

Merry Christmas and Last Week of Advent activities

2010-12-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

Our last week of advent calendar activities. Phew! L was on Christmas holidays this week. In a way I miss the days when it was just L and I doing lots of Montessori activities and crafts so this past week was really nice.

Day 20

"Sing Christmas carols"

We had friends over in the afternoon and had a great singalong with all of the instruments. My friend is a wonderful singer and it was so much fun with her singing harmonies to our favorite carols. In the evening we had another family singalong.

Day 21

"Make puppets from the Nutcracker"

We have a very condensed story version of the Nutcracker which we have been reading and have also been listening to the music from the ballet. I printed out the puppets from here. L was so excited and colored, cut and taped them all with almost no help from me. (I did get to color one or two of the puppets : )

Amazingly we watched the whole ballet on Youtube performed by the Royal Ballet in London. I couldn't believe L sat and watched the whole thing. It was also enjoyable for me as I've never actually seen it! I've always been playing in the pit orchestra!!

After watching we put on the puppet show with me singing all of the parts. Too much fun! Next year we will definitely go and see it live.

Day 22

"Make Christmas ornaments"

We made salt dough ornaments for all of the family as presents from L. She used our Christmas cookie cutters and once they had baked for a couple of hours she painted them and then wrapped them all up. She will hand them out to everyone on Christmas day.

Day 23

"Look in the bathroom"

I just couldn't resist getting these little fairy clothes pins from the dollar store. I know they're not very Christmasy but they're sooo cute! We're big into fairies at our house right now.

Day 24

"Go to Mommy and Daddy's bedroom"

Today was very special because Daddy got home really early from work and was able to do L's activity with her. I found a discounted Christmas package of Wiki Sticks last year and saved them for this very occasion.

Well that's it folks. We're packing up and heading off to a beautiful resort and spa for the next couple of days(thanks Dad!) and then going up to the Mountain to go skiing.
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season with their families and I'm looking forward to reading all about it!
Merry Christmas!

Third week advent calendar activities

2010-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

We had a great week of advent calendar activities!

Day 13

"make gingerbread cookies"

We took these to L's sing along at her school.

Day 14

"Make raping paper"

I used a simple spelling on the little card so L could read it herself. A simple idea of just painting the edges of the cookie cutters with acrylic paint. We used this to wrap her teachers gifts.

Day 15

"Get Christmas books from the library"

We got two cracking books. One called The Gift of Christmas which is about the experience of Christmas through all of the senses with beautiful pictures. The other is a super I Spy Merry Christmas book also with amazing pictures.

Day 16

"Make reindeer food"

I found the "recipe" for this magic reindeer food here.

It was a great practical life activity. We used layers of oatmeal, green and red sprinkles(which my mom had left over from when I was a kid!!)and white sugar. L was adamant that the sugar was salt because sugar is brown not white! I realised she's never seen white sugar before!!!

The card says

Sprinkle on your lawn at night,

The moon will make it sparkle bright

As Santa's reindeer fly and roam,

This will guide them to your home.

The tricky bit will be trying to convince L she only needs to sprinkle a tiny bit and not the whole jar!!

Day 17

"Look under the bed"

Day 18

"Make Christmas fairies"

We made these cute little fairies using coffee filters. L has a story about a Christmas fairy in one of her Christmas books so she loved doing this. They stayed on the tree only long enough for the picture to be taken and then after making one for Granny they were all flying around the house to the music from The Nutcracker Suite. We turned off all of the lights and just had the twinkling Christmas lights. It was magical.

It's funny how great experiences just happen. I'd planned on these only being Christmas ornaments but we had a blast flying them all around and playing with them. I even found a wonderful Fairy song to play on the Penny Whistle!
(Since posting this I found some tiny glow sticks and taped them inside the fairies. They almost came alive as they glowed dancing through the air. We are going to make them again in the summer to dance at night in the garden!)

Day 19

"Decorate the Christmas cake"

We've had these decorations since I was a girl as well as the time honored tradition of putting chocolate sprinkles after the reindeer. My parents ended up having to get another one after my sister and I had had one too many fights over who got to do the "poo" honor!

This was L's first year and it was wonderful to be able to pass on the tradition!

Christmas Ornaments

2010-12-16T10:47:00.000-08:00

After seeing this super cute idea over at By Hook and Thread I knew I could make some sweet Christmas ornaments for L's teachers.

I was pretty ambitious and I have to say the tiny needle felting is hard!

Here are the results.

Winter scene and Christmas Needle Felting

2010-12-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately we had to do away with our nature table while our house is on the market : (

I did manage to make this magical little winter scene though. I hoped to make so many more things for it but just haven't had the time yet.

I saw these awesome paper trees on a blog somewhere and can't for the life of me remember where. The idea came from Martha Stewart though. Here is the tutorial. I used the skewer for the one in the middle and the rest I just glued the pieces together.

The snow is made from quilt batting.

A lot of my needle felting this Christmas has been inspired and some downright copied from the amazing fibre artist Daria Ivovsky. She is truly amazing!
I originally made this mother and daughter as gifts but when I finished I just couldn't part with them.

This cute little bendy Christmas elf was made for my sister. She's currently hanging on L's advent calendar.

When I saw the gorgeous ballerina on Daria's Flicker page I knew I wanted to attempt one for a little friend of ours who loves dancing!

You can bend her in all sorts of positions.

I've also been doing some teeny tiny needle felting which I will post about tomorrow : )

Counting down with candles

2010-12-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

I saw so many wonderful Christmas ideas on the Internet last year and marked some of them to try this year.

One of my favorites was an idea I saw on The Wonder Years. She used her birthday ring to count down twelve days before Christmas.

I decided to use that idea but to count down all the days from the 1st of December. Every night at dinner we light the correct number of candles and then go around the table and say what we are grateful for.

L loves this new tradition and always starts off the gratitude. I'm amazed and touched by some of the things she comes up with.

We're eagerly anticipating when all of the candles are lit, even the special one in the middle!

Our second week of advent calendar activities

2010-12-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

Wow things have been pretty hectic around here the last little while. It took me a while to be able to even remember what we did this past week! We have our house on the market and have an offer accepted on another house so it's all systems go around here.

We have been able to make time for our Christmas activities thankfully although they have to be carefully tidied up and put away as soon as we're finished : )

Day 6

"make Christmas cards"

I saw this super cute idea on Chasing Cheerios last year and wanted to use it for our Christmas cards this year. I painted L's hand and the little trooper did about 25 of these!!

Day 7

"Look on the stool in the bathroom"

Cute puzzle from the dollar store(Mommy needed a break!)

Day 8

"Look on doll's bed"

Making Christmas tree ice cubes for our drinks at dinner.

Day 9

"make Christmas presents"

This is another idea I saw last year on Chasing Cheerios. She made these pipe cleaner snowflakes and soaked them in a borax and water solution over night forming beautiful crystals. I didn't want to use borax so I found another site on the Internet saying to use Epsom salts instead. I made the snowflakes(L was more interested in making letters and spelling peoples names out of the pipe cleaners)and put them in the Epsom salt solution over night but sadly I had no luck. Has anyone else tried this with a non-toxic substance with positive results?

Day 10

"make a candle holder"

We actually prepared this while it was still snowy. L collected some greenery from outside and then arranged them in the bunt pan.

She then covered them with water and we put it in the freezer and we forgot about it until day 10.

We ran the bunt pan under some warm water until the ice came out and then put it outside with a candle in the middle. It turned out so beautifully and the picture really doesn't do it justice. If it was colder here I would love do have one for each day of our advent calendar. I saw this idea somewhere on the Internet last year and have seen different ones popping up all over the blogshpere this year. They are gorgeous.

Day 11

"See the Christmas lights and make pizza with E and S"

On Saturday night we had friends over and Daddy made his special pizza. We all braved the rain and cold to see the "magical woods" in our town all lit up like a fairy wonderland. Santa was even there! A very special night for everyone.

Day 12

On this day L actually had cute little Christmas tree hair ties in her calendar pocket but these were to wear on our trip to the mainland to see Grandpa. We also went to see the gingerbread house competition which was amazing. This little gnome wonderland won first place. It was unbelievable!

Phew we made it through another week!

Our first week of advent calendar activities

2010-12-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

This year I've decided to do our advent calendar a bit differently. Instead of putting things in the pockets now that L can read some things I put in little messages.

Day 1

"Go to pig pillow"

On her pig pillow she found a little wooden snowman all painted up and one for her to paint.

Day 2

"Make snowflakes"

L needed some help with these or she would have cut her snowflakes to bits! We also did a snowflake matching activity from last year that was way to easy for her this year.

Day 3

"Go to the mat"

On the mat she found this "growing" Rudolph. Super exciting! It's twice that size now.

Day 4

"Put up Christmas tree"

We ended up getting a tree from a fundraiser at L's school. It's absolutely massive and takes up a quarter of our living room! L had so much fun putting all of the ornaments on the same branch.

Here is a picture of some of the carnage!

Day 5

"Make snowman pancakes"

Yummy wholewheat pancakes with blueberries!

I'm loving reading about everyone's advent activities across the blogsphere! Check out this cool mailbox idea over at Walk Beside Me.

Birthday Follow Up

2010-12-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

In an earlier birthday post I talked about how in lieu of presents I asked all of L's friends to bring a donation to the food bank. I still wanted something for L to have to remind her of her party and her friends so I came up with this idea....

I set up a little fabric painting station and had all of her guests paint a little square of fabric with fabric paint.

Here they all are drying.

Then my lovely Mom sewed them onto a piece of fleece to make a birthday memory blanket/quilt.

My Mom recently had a birthday as well. For her gift I contacted all of our family and her friends and asked them to write down a few fond memories they have of times with my Mom. I put them all in this decorated jar added some electric candles to make it glow and wrote "Mom's Memory Jar" on the lid.

She had a wonderful and touching time sitting by the fire reading and reminiscing!

Winter Wonderland

2010-11-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

It seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was posting about the beauty of Autumn and cleaning up the garden. Oh wait it was only a couple of weeks ago!!!

Now we've been blessed with this!

We woke up a few mornings ago to a gorgeous winter wonderland. My husband and daughter were ecstatic as they are both total snow bunnies. I like it for a while and then want my nice mild west coast weather back : )

Daddy and L have made the most of our unusual snowfall by making cute little snowmen and women and doing lots of tobogganing.

Now I'm really in the mood to start my Christmas crafting!

Gnome Board Game

2010-11-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

L loves to read but is not that keen on reading books. I came up with the idea of making a little playscape for her gnome children but make it in the format of a board game.

How it works is each player picks a gnome and then takes turns picking a card and reading it.

The cards have directions for the gnomes such as "Take a nap in the cave" or "Get the fishing rod. Catch a fish".

The winner is the first gnome to collect a fish, stone and flower although winning is not really the point of the game. The little fish are needle felted with a small piece of paper clip needle felted inside that way the gnomes can actually catch the fish with the tiny fishing rod which has a magnet glued to the end of the string.

They especially like to catch the fish while standing on the bridge.

All of the flowers except two are glued down along with the bridge and river but the other things are stored in a little draw string bag when not in use. That way she can change up the board however she likes.

This game has been brilliant and we all love playing it. At first I'd planned to keep the cards in order as we picked them but now that L knows what they say she just rifles through until she finds the one she wants her gnome to do.

As L's reading vocabulary expands I'll change the cards to keep her challenged.

Observation

2010-11-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a Montessori parenting class with Cynthia Dyer who writes the blogs A Montessori Musing Place and The Montessori Child at Home. It is so enlightening and thought provoking and has really helped me to think about some of my actions and the way I deal with certain situations.

Last week we talked about observing your child in the home. This is something I've done since day one with L(mostly because I'm obsessed!). We talked about how you need to sit back and just watch. Not intrude and also to let your child make mistakes. This was a hard thing for me to learn but over the past couple of years I think I've mostly gotten the hang of it.

The other morning I had the opportunity to observe my daughter in her Montessori classroom for the first time. I had some idea of what to expect by just watching her behavior when I drop her off. Turns out it is the same while she's inside the classroom as well. My daughter who at home is bright, focused, outgoing and social turned into this child who was well I guess the best word would be stunned.
I've always known L was an observer, a child who will sit back and process her environment and the situation before acting but in the classroom she seems to have taken it to an extreme. I wrote on my observation sheet that L looks stunned and distracted, waiting for others to show her what to do and not taking her own initiative. She did have a moment of intense concentration while doing the binomial cube which is a new work for her.
As I mentioned this did not come as a surprise to me. I find it more curious I guess than anything else. I know it will take her a lot of time to adapt to her new situation but it was almost like watching another child.

Speaking of another child. It's seems that L has just processed all of the different types of behaviors she observed from the other children in her class and is now trying out some of the more questionable ones at home. This has been a real challenge this past week. My sweet, mostly co-operative little girl has turned into Miss whiny contrary Mary. She's been having tantrums, being rude and generally disagreeable with almost everything. My husband and I seem to have two different approaches to her new behavior. He's says we need to "discipline" her and I am trying to be patient yet firm and follow what I've learned in the parenting classes of being consistent and using natural and logical consequences.
Yesterday and this morning have been much better so I'm hoping she's starting to realise that we don't tolerate certain types of behavior in our house.

Ahh the joys of parenting!

Cleaning up the garden

2010-11-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's having a child at the right age, all of the Waldorf blogs I've read or living here but this is the first year that I've actually sat back and marveled at the absolute beauty of the changing seasons.

I noticed all of the buds, bulbs sprouting up, birds, bees and insects of spring.

The lovely warm weather, smell of fresh cut grass and lush green leaves of summer and now the gorgeous canvas of golds, reds, oranges and yellow that fall has given us.

We have been anticipating the raking up of all the fallen leaves and it was finally dry enough to get outside and rake!!

L really enjoyed helping with every step

with a little bit of fun along the way!

We even made a lovely elf leaf crown like the ones from Twig and Toadstool although the leaves were so wet it didn't last long!

This is the first year I'm actually looking forward to the delights that the winter season will bring!

Birthday Memory Bags

2010-11-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

Okay this will be the last birthday post I promise(at least for a while : )

Another tradition I wanted to start this year was creating birthday memory bags for L. Each draw string bag is supposed to have a number on it and represent one year of L's life.

In L's first year bag I put in the outfit she wore home from the hospital and her baby booties. Each bag also contains a picture book of that year and a letter to L talking about what she accomplished that year, her height and weight, her favorite foods and her friends etc.

Next year I will include a tape measure in the box and she can compare her different sizes and weights each year.

Here she is trying to put on her very first pair of shoes!

I think I saw this idea on the Internet somewhere but I really can't remember where. All I know is I think it's a wonderful thing for L to look forward to each birthday and another way to take the emphasis off of presents.

Window Crayons Rock!

2010-11-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

L got some Crayola window crayons from a neighbour for Halloween. We tried them out the other day and they totally rock!!! I can't believe I didn't know about these before. We both spent ages coloring and creating.

The best bit is not only is it a great artistic and creative activity but it's also a fantastic practical life activity. L enjoyed wiping down the window with a wet cloth and drying it just as much as the coloring!!

Gifts and Your Child

2010-11-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

I was going to post about how we deal with gift giving and receiving in our house after L's birthday and just discovered this timely post on the subject over at The Magic Onions.

For L's birthday we made all of L's gifts. My husband made her the marimba and a wood doll bed and my mom knitted clothes for her doll. A close friend made a quilt and pillow for the doll bed.

Over the last few years I've been able to train all of our family members on what appropriate gifts are and usually can recommend gifts for close family. A good option I find is getting them to pay for a class that L would like to take like swimming or dancing.

We invited L's whole Montessori preschool class to her birthday party so there were a lot of people. We put on the invitations to please bring a donation for the foodbank instead of a gift. This took away the pressure on us but also on the guests.

Look at all of the donations we received!! L and I gathered them up and took them to the foodbank after her birthday. We got a tour of the foodbank, learned about how it all works and got a list of items they are always short of for next time.

I think this was the perfect time to start this tradition while she is still young enough to not question it and we'll carry it on now for every birthday. L got more than enough gifts from her family and it's a great for her to learn about giving and sharing. I also think we'll put together a small donation for every birthday in our house.

Luckily for me I love to do crafty things so I always have something homemade for gifts that we give. Whenever it's one of L's friends I try to involve her in the making of the gift such as a necklace or card.

With Christmas looming and L's birthday over I need to get myself organized to start making all of the Christmas gifts.

What do you do about gifts for your littles for Christmas and Birthdays?

3rd Birthday Celebrations part 2

2010-11-01T07:30:00.001-07:00

There is a group of local young people in our community that have started an African marimba band. They play at local events and family dances. We went to see them last March and since then L has been besotted.

We have to go and see them every time they play, she always talk about them and pretends to play the marimba.

So we decided to try and make her one of her own. My wonderful husband found some plans for a small xylophone on the Internet and spent hours in the garage creating it.

Here is the finished product.

L couldn't believe her eyes when she removed the cover. She had to have a go and then another and another.

We also made a marimba cake for her. I melted some dark chocolate into tin foil molds and then cut the cake in the shape of the marimba. I used black licorice for the little key holders.

The best part was that we actually managed to get the marimba band to play for her party!! It was a surprise and L was in awe when they came to the door and started setting up.

My heart nearly burst when all the children were dancing and playing instruments and my little L was playing her marimba alongside her idols.

Now that my husband has the hang of it he's hoping to make one of the marimbas in the front of the picture for Christmas. I can't wait!!

3rd Birthday Celebrations!

2010-11-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

After long hours of preparation we finally had L's birthday and party.

I was so inspired by all the birthday decorations from the Childhood Magic blog that I wanted to make some for L's birthday.

Here is the felt birthday banner. I love it and we'll be able to use it every year!

My mom and I made pennants out of the left over pieces of felt and I made some Waldorf window stars to make the place look more festive.

The spread. I make a point to only give L healthy food and birthdays are no exception.

The birthday crown. My mom and I spent ages making this felt crown which represents the four seasons and L refused to wear it. Typical. At least we have it now and hopefully she'll be more into it next year : )

Some time last week I realised that I nothing prepared for all of the children to do. Yikes! In a panic I put together this crown decorating table.

Fabric painting which will make up a gift for L

and bracelet making.

The kids managed to make a complete and thorough mess of it all but had a fab time!

Rainbow Birthday meal

2010-10-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

Friday was L's third birthday. I've been sooo busy the last couple of weeks preparing for everything and now it's finally all over. We had a fantastic weekend and I think L totally enjoyed herself.

I was lucky enough to time our final rainbow meal for her actual birthday.

We had pesto pasta (L's favorite) for our main course and rainbow veggie and fruit platters.

L and Daddy set the table with candles for each color of the rainbow.

The poor little sausage was sooo tired from all of her birthday celebrations that she barely made it through dinner!

This whole rainbow eating adventure has been such great fun and has given us something to look forward to every Friday.

I would totally recommend tying it out with your little one!

Indigo and Violet...phew!

2010-10-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

Things seem to have been pretty hectic around here lately. I've been busy preparing for L's birthday and birthday party next weekend as well as making her Halloween costume.

I also started teaching two music classes this week and have been looking for other work.

I really wanted to fit in our last rainbow meal this week so we could celebrate L's birthday with a complete rainbow meal with all of the colors.

I decided to combine indigo and violet since really we had a hard enough time with blue to try and do indigo as a whole meal on it's own.

So here we go. It was actually very successful. We had blue corn chips with hummus and red(which is actually totally purple!!)cabbage coleslaw with raisins and cashew nuts. We also tried a Chinese eggplant which I fried up with some garlic, onions, mushrooms and green pepper. It was totally yum!

L also had to have olives which are her favorite!

We had blackberry and elderberry juice to drink and plums for dessert!

So there you have it. Indigo and Violet. We have now managed to eat all the colors of the rainbow!! Woohoo!

I'm so looking forward to next week when we will eat all of the colors of the rainbow in one meal!

Stay tuned for that plus tons of upcoming posts on birthday preparations and celebrations!

October Nature Table

2010-10-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

Here is our October/Autumn nature table.

I used my mom's sparkly black and gold stole over top of some orange silk placemats. I love the effect and it seems so Halloweeny.

I've also used lots of leaves preserved in beeswax and some tiny gourds.

Here it is again without the flash. (Dear Santa, I've been a really good girl this year could you please bring me a better camera : )

We made the cute little ghosts by dipping some white felt in a glue and water mixture and molding them over some peg people. I found the idea and tutorial over at WeeFolkArt.

This is one of my favorite nature tables so far. Every time I look over at it I get excited for Halloween!

2010-10-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

L has been able to sound out cvc words for a while now but this past month she has completely exploded in her interest and ability to read and also to sound out words.

She is really interested in what letter sounds are in words and is constantly breaking up words to figure out the sounds.

This is the first word she spelled out after one of our walks.

Something that has been immensely helpful has been these word family game cards. I saw this brilliant idea on The Snail's Trail using paint chips ages ago and bookmarked it for when we were ready. I couldn't find the right kind of paint chips so I just used colorful paper.

These totally helped L to hear and see how different words can change just by changing one letter. After using these cards she is constantly thinking up different groups of words that rhyme.

Usually after school when we are sitting down for lunch our conversation(lead by L)consists of sounding out different words and her friends names and figuring out who has L's in their names. She is bored of sounding out cvc words and wants to do things like watermelon! How do you tell a kid that we need to walk before we can run!!

I made up this activity for her where she picks an object out of the mystery bag and then she finds the letters to spell it. She sometimes needs help putting them in the correct order as she likes to find the beginning and ending sounds first.

We also did an activity that I thought would be ages away where I wrote action words like "jump", "clap", "run" and "sit". I would show them to L and she had to read them and then do the action. She ripped them off no problem and loves them.

She is totally in a self led sensitive period for reading and sounding out words and I'm trying to keep up with her. In a way it's difficult doing phonics because most of the words she tries to read in everyday life aren't phonetic! Very frustrating for her and me.

I ordered the first series of the Bob Books and L really enjoys these.

A warning to parents who teach their children the letter sounds at an early age. They might just want to use them!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-10-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. I thought I'd share some of the decorations we made to celebrate.

The weather up until this weekend has been glorious so L and I were able to pick some leaves for preserving in beeswax. I am now addicted to dipping leaves in beeswax! They just turn out so beautifully and smell divine!

Some of them I strung on clear thread to hang from our light fixture and others I put on our nature table. For a tutorial on how to do this visit The Magic Onions.

L and I also made paper lanterns with a balloon, tissue paper and glue. I cut out some leaf shapes ahead of time. This is a great project for little ones. L did this lantern herself using a paintbrush to apply the glue and tissue paper. I can't wait to light it with an electric candle for our Thanksgiving meal.

We bought some mini gourds and corn and I just had to try to make some of the pinecone fairies from Twig and Toadstool. The mother is on the mantel with the gourds...

and here are her two little sons. These are so easy to make and are sooo adorable.

We are also planning on making the Gratitude Leaf Mobile from Twig and Toadstool(I love their ideas!)

Happy Thanksgiving fellow Canadians!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

2010-10-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to get down a few things L said this week so I can remember them later!

When she was looking at one of her wooden doll puppets from Hungary. "This doll is similar to Mary Poppins. They both have rosy cheeks!" My question is when did she start saying "similar"??

After a friend had come over to look after L for an hour while mommy and daddy were out
Me "How did things go with MJ?"
L "Well...it's complicated"

Last night while I was reading a book to L before bed and I had an attack of about five sneezes in a row. L said "Mommy, cough away from the book!"

Check out what other littles are saying at Not Before 7!

September nature table/playscape

2010-09-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

It's almost October and I realised I haven't posted our September nature table. For this month I decided to do something different and make a needle felted playscape for the nature table.

So here it is.

All of the woodland creatures who live in the tree stump can move in and out of holes and up the little staircase.

When I finally finished it and put it on the table L looked at it in awe and asked "can I play with it?"

It was a nice feeling to be able to say yes!

I'm contemplating selling some of my needle felting but I'm not sure if there would be a market for it?

Oh also if you like this sort of thing then check out this link to see some amazing nature tables and playscapes!

Singing the blues for blue week

2010-09-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

I think L summed up our blue meal perfectly when I asked her how she liked it this is what she said

"Well, I had fun....but I didn't really have fun."

L got a raging cold half way through last week and then gave it to me. We still went ahead with blue week even though we weren't feeling that great.

So has anyone else ever considered how many naturally blue foods there out there(keep in mind we still have indigo and violet still to go)? There are seriously hardly any!!

I though I came up with a brilliant plan by finding a recipe for natural blue food dye!! I added it to some leek and potato soup and viola mildly blue soup.

Yup that's all we had. L declared she didn't like it and just ate the pita bread. In the end because she was sick we cut up an assortment of veggies for her which she enjoyed a lot more.

For dessert we had blueberry muffins which we'd made earlier. After the meal I felt sick and had to lie down.

All in all I'd say blue meal =FAIL

Hopefully next week will be more successful. I have a few ideas in mind.

To end on a brighter note. Here is a picture of the fruit bouquet we made for the family potluck at L's school.

It went down a treat!

The Four Seasons Vivaldi style

2010-09-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Lately we've been listening to Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

I painted four of these bare trees for each of us. I then put on one of the seasons and while we listened to it we talked about that season and painted our tree how it would look at that particular time of year.

I hung the finished products up by our kitchen table so we can talk about them and see them whenever we eat. We can also see the changing season out the windows as we talk.

The next activity we did was focusing on a specific season and that was Spring. We listened to the first movement and focused on the form. In this movement there are four particular themes that you can hear. We have a different scarf for each theme. The green scarf represents the trees, colorful red birds, blue river, black and gold thunderstorm and pink and yellow sunshine.

At first I called out each theme as it came and L picked up the corresponding scarf and waved it like a tree or bird etc.

The second time she was able to hear the themes herself and had a ball running back and forth picking up the scarves as the music changed.

The order is trees,birds,trees,river,trees,thunderstorm,trees,sun,trees,sun and trees. They are quite easy to identify after listening to it a few times and as I said even L got them after the second try.

I got this fantastic idea from here.

While I was searching for a recording of The Four Seasons on Youtube I came across this these amazing videos of sand animation. The whole family watched them totally amazed and L and I wanted to try it for ourselves.

So here we are in our tiny bathroom in the dark : )

I used a deep white plastic tray and rested it between two small stools. We added some sand and put a reading lamp underneath the tray. I had the laptop in there as well and we watched the videos as we drew.

Here are some of L's impressions.

This was so fun and cool and I know we're going to be going into the bathroom quite often : ) It would also be a novel way to learn how to write letters.

Check out the artists and art button on the right to see what others have done this week.

How to Grow a Child's Brain

2010-09-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a earlier post we went to a parents evening at L's Montessori preschool about How to Grow a Child's Brain. My husband and I were totally impressed and I thought I'd share some of what we learned.
The presentation was by a wonderful Brain Based Learning Facilitator named Gary Anaka. He entertained and enlightened us by using techniques such as Brain Gym exercises and audience participation with physical movements and repetition. Even my skeptical husband was enthusiastically applauding and saying thank you at the end.
What I found most useful was the list of Brain Boosters he gave us to help grow a child's brain. These are what I'm going to share with you.
What Gary said is our motive as parents is to grow your child a three pounder! That's a brain we're talking about. Early childhood is the most critical time for brain development. Oh and for those of us over thirty he said our mission is to try and keep our three pounder : )

So here are the top ten brain boosters according to Garry Anaka

1. Movement-the number one most important thing for a child's development. Get your child moving and outside. Walking, running, jumping anything to get them going. This is why sitting at a computer or sitting watching TV are more brain killers than boosters. Movement helps and is essential for learning. It's amazing how Maria Montessori got it so right!

2. Learning-a child needs to be constantly learning new things. Repetition is the key so read those books over and over until your child can recite them back to you. That is your child's brain growing!

3. Nourishment-It's essential that your child gets enough oxygen(fresh air), water and a proper diet. Some brain boosting foods he suggested are walnuts, avocados, apples, blueberries,bananas, dark chocolate and dark leafy greens like kale.

4. Safety-a child needs to feel safe in his or her environment before their brain is able to start learning and developing. If a child is constantly in the fight or flight part of their brain because they feel threatened they are not able to develop. So the next time you are about to loose control and yell at your child or get into a yelling match with your husband take a deep breath and think of the negative consequences it's going to have on your child's brain.

5. Play for fun-I love this one. Something that is so important is unstructured play, outside in nature. This is where I love the Waldorf philosophy. Gary says children should be allowed to play without parents always setting rules and structure to games.

6. Reading-Reading to your children or having them read is so important. Apparently it takes a child hearing 1000 stories before he or she is able to read.

7. Story Telling-This is also where I like the story telling elements of Waldorf so much. He gave us a quote from Einstein "Imagination is more powerful than knowledge"

8.Experience-"rich experience grows a rich brain" Gary Anaka

9. Novelty-novelty grows the best brain so remember to spice up your routine and do something different every once in a while

10. Caring-I know that everyone who reads this blog does this already as they are taking an interest in their children. Love, attention and affection.

So there they are. Nothing we didn't know already but it's sure nice to have them all affirmed knowing we are on the right track and our child's brains are growing every time we do one of these things that comes so naturally to us.
Here are a few websites he suggests to check out:
www.mindworkspress.com if you go to the SPECT Atlas part you can see fascinating brain scans showing the effects of different things on the brain such as drugs and alcohol and abuse.
www.brainplace.com
http://www.brain.com/

Check this out!

2010-09-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Check out Sunbeams and Sanity's generous giveaway of Positive Discipline Cards but don't enter because I want to win ; )

Going Green

2010-09-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

I've been looking forward to green week in our Rainbow Eating Adventure since the beginning. We finally got to it and it was a great success.

We started off by making our famous "green" smoothies. These are something we usually have in the morning but we made an exception for this occasion.

First a banana and some generous handfuls of yummy spinach. L then puts in hemp protein powder and almond milk. Usually we add a bunch of whatever fruit we have on hand(this is actually a picture of a different smoothie)but this time to keep the green color for our meal we didn't add any blueberries. Add a little ice and you're good to go. A great way to get leafy greens into your child's diet!

For our main course we had L's all time favorite pesto pasta. I used spinach pasta for the first time and it went down a treat.

Along with the pasta we had sugar snap pea pods, cucumber and green pepper.

We had kiwi and green grapes for dessert but I absent mindedly erased the pictures from my camera before I put them on the computer. Oh well I'm sure you all know what a kiwi and grapes look like!
So that was green. L ate so much that when she had her bath afterwards her round stomach looked like a little Buddha belly.

Polishing Silver

2010-09-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

L was helping my mom clean out the cutlery drawer when they came upon her old spoon collection. What a great opportunity to practice polishing some silver!

We used two types of polish. Sensodyne toothpaste in one bowl and a baking soda and water paste in the other.

Here L is working hard scrubbing with the baking soda solution.

Rinse and dry with the tea towel.

I liked the toothpaste best and L liked the baking soda. I think they were both equally effective.

A rare bloggy sighting of the spotted owl...I mean mommy!

Ahh polishing silver is so rewarding. I love to see the spoons go from black and tarnished to shiny and sparkly!

A day of learning for everyone

2010-09-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well today was L's first day of Montessori pre-school. The morning routine went along smoothly and she even helped to make her own breakfast and put he dishes in the dishwasher. Long may it continue. I did have to keep her moving along but we were nice and early and the whole process was positive. Except for the last bit.
When we did our cards the last one in the sequence was driving to school with a picture of a car.
We went outside this morning and she said which way should I go? Which door should I get in? This confused me and I said where you car seat always is. She says, "But I'm driving." "I'm driving to school."
Somehow L had figured that the last bit was and then SHE actually drives to school!!! I explained that she needs a license to drive and that when she gets bigger she can learn.
Thankfully these were the only tears. Once we got to school she was so happy and chatty and I left her with no problem. When I picked her up she was playing in the playground. She looked totally wiped but was having fun. The teacher said she had a great first day and was very outgoing and chatty. Yeah!
She was starving and after lunch I wanted her to take a nap but she went to her shelves and got out her napkin rolling activity and then proceeded to tell me how to do it.
I did eventually get her to take a nap though. Phew!

The best thing about today for me though was not actually L's first day of school but our first parents night. It was all about children's brain development and how to grow your child's brain and was presented by Gary Anaka a wonderfully dynamic Brian Based Learning Facilitator.
The evening was so enlightening and my husband and I were both captivated.
I'm so excited about what we learned that I'm going to talk about it in an upcoming post.
For now just let me say to you my bloggy friends that we're all on the right track!