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?

Tadpole Disaster!!!

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....

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!

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.

Swiss Family Robinson

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!

Signs of Spring

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

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?

Making Lunch

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

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 ......

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?

Australia

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

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

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.

Fairies in the Woods

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!