And the winner is.....

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!

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

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

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

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

 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?