Streams and Vines board game

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.

Games

L has reached an age where she really enjoys playing games.  Here are a few that have been keeping her entertained.

Digging for objects I've hidden in some sand in her pail and then matching them with the correct word.  (yes I accidentally put hen down twice!) I got the idea for this one from Montessori for Learning.

 Counting the garden.  Always fun.  I drew small pictures of different things in our garden and then we went around together.  L counted and I wrote down the number beside the picture.

 The rhyming game.  I saw this on The Activity Mom and knew I could quickly whip up one of my own.  I used pictures, words that L can read and larger words that I had to read.  The object of the game is when you get a card that rhymes you put a penny on the happy face.  When it doesn't rhyme you put one on the sad face.  We play until all of the faces are covered.  At first L didn't really get this but by the second time she was understanding and enjoying!

 Go Fish.  We just started playing this last week and L can't get enough of it.  She always asks "can we play goldfish?"  I used the number cards from a game we have called Phase 10.  At the moment we are using four cards of each number from one to seven and each player gets five cards to start.   You get rid of any pairs and then ask another player if they have a card that matches one of yours.  If they don't they say "go fish" and you have to pick a card from the ones in the middle.  The first player to get rid of all of their cards wins.  This game is so fantastic for number recognition and I could imagine making up your own number cards in the shape of fish!

What I like best about all of these games is you can whip them up in very little time and they cost virtually nothing to make!

Finally some Montessori again

Although we've been very busy with our Macedonian visitors we've managed to get a few activities in.  Next week I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal and really having time to make up some new activities for L.

I've seen this dropper activity on lots of blogs and have always wanted to do it with L.  I finally found some of those bath mat things at the dollar store and she really enjoyed it.  Although she didn't do much on the clean up!

I saw this one over at Leptir's blog.  L was totally bugging me to get it finished so she could try it out.  I put a dot on the back for self checking but she still doesn't get it.  At the beginning she just tried to match the dot.  Arg... but then she got the hang of it.  Putting the clothes peg on was an added bit of excitement.

Baba and Dedo left some money for L so on our way back from dropping them off at the airport we went to Ikea.  We got her a little igloo tent, some finger puppets and these tiny beads with little different shaped bead boards.  Once you do a pattern on the board you are supposed to be able to iron it and get a shape but we haven't gotten that far yet.  For some reason she wanted to put a pile in the middle to choose from.  This was a great work for her as it helped her to work on her patience and just take one bead at once.  She actually sat and filled the whole outside of the circle which was no easy feat!

Our first lettuce from the garden!  L was soooo excited to cut some leaves off the lettuce.  Her and Granny check the garden and tend it everyday. Thanks to Granny L is turning into quite the little gardener and knows most of the names of the plants in our garden!

Budding meteorologist

I finally got on board and decided to turn all of this rain into an activity.  We made our very own rain gauge.  It's very low tech and not very scientific but loads of fun.

First we got a wooden spoon and L marked off centimeters along the bottom and then I wrote on the numbers.

We used an old 2L bottle and I cut the top part off and turned it upside down to act as a funnel.  Then all you do is stick in your spoon and let it rain.

Our first attempt at this was disastrous.  We placed the rain gauge on the ground by some flowers and then went to bed.  In the morning while having breakfast Granny noticed something on the lawn.  It ended up being the wooden spoon that our dog Petra found and decided would be an excellent chew toy.  She'd also knocked over the bottle.  Luckily L was pretty philosophical about the whole thing and we went out and got another wooden spoon.  Now as you can see we keep it up where the dog can't get it!

Once L has measured the amount of rain she comes inside and finds the correct number among some numbers I've put in a small container.  She then counts out the corresponding number of rain drops and glues them on to her Rain Fall chart.

I have to say that although the forecast calls for rain all next week I'm hoping L doesn't have to use many of those raindrops!!

Just a reminder that this is the last day to enter my needle felted creation giveaway.  If you would like to enter just click here.

Montessori Monday

I am so happy to finally have my laptop back! Oh yes and my husband ; ) he's finally finished his training. So now I can post whenever I get the urge.
For Easter we got L an African safari book that has puzzle like pieces you can put in and out and also stand them up to put in an African plains scene. I decided to get L to pair them up with these African animal cards I found at a boot fair ages ago. L really enjoyed this but it was very easy for her. After she paired them up we sorted them into meat eaters and non-meat eaters.

We haven't done anything with color tablets for ages so when I found these old paint samples I'd brought from England I thought I'd see how she did with color grading. Amazingly this was really very easy for her and she did three different color grades in a few seconds. I used the uncut paint sample for a control card that she would turn over to check her work.

I also got these plastic shapes ages ago for sorting. They are supposed to be used to link together to make jewelry. L can now do this so we've been having fun making all sorts of things. I also took it as an opportunity to introduce patterns. I think L sort of gets it but she wasn't in the best frame of mind for it. I think next time I will take the rest of the basket away and just use a few pre-selected ones to make the patterns.

I saw this brilliant idea for counting on The Wonder Years and thought I would change it up a bit using our ladybugs and not putting dots on. Just in case it's not clear in the picture the numbers are written on the top of the stick and L has to pick one from the glass. She then places the correct number of ladybugs on the stick. She liked this one a lot and has brought it out several times.

The lead up to Easter....

Here are a few things we did last week. Thank you to Karen for the inspiration for this counting activity. I'm still looking for better containers to put the sticks in but for the first time we used these glasses. This only lasted until we got thirsty ; )



Talk about great minds think alike. By the time we had done these next two activities I'd seen them on so many blogs!! I love those little chicks they are so cute. L actually thought up this one herself. When we were in the Dollar store I picked up the chicks and then the bag of eggs and she said "ah to put the chicks into!" As soon as we got home she had to "re-home" them.

She didn't like this one quite as much as the cheap chicks(hehe) kept loosing their beaks when she tonged them.

More Easter fun to come....

Blog Inspiration

All of these activities have either been inspired or have been taken directly from one of the wonderful blogs that I follow. Thank you to all of those out there who take the time to post so many wonderful activities and crafts. I always get excited when I see something that I know would be so cool to try out with L.

A while back I made up little shopping lists for L by drawing a little picture and writing the word beside it. We then put all of her food out on the table and she takes her shopping bag and looks for the things on her list. She also likes to add some things of her own to her bag but she has a lot of fun doing it. Thanks to Making of a Montessori Mum for giving me the idea.





I saw this one on Chasing Cheerios ages ago and just kept it in the back of my mind until L was old enough to do it. Please try and disregard my poor drawing skills! I made a list of some things around our house and then L went around and counted them. I then wrote down the number for her. After she'd finished we sat and I asked her again how many we had so she could practice her number recognition. She LOVED this activity and I think I'll make one up for outside soon as well.


A little while back Amy from The Wonder Years did some posts about painting with water colors. They were truly beautiful and inspiring and as soon as our market(with the goats) opened up I purchased some. The whole family sat down and painted and then we made these beautiful birds from Amy's post. I love them and can't stop looking at them. Amy was also featured as a guest blogger over at The Magic Onions. Two fantastic blogs. Please check them out.

Our spring star. This was a mommy activity that was so much fun to make and not as hard as it first appeared. I first saw these on the most beautiful blog called Childhood Magic and found the tutorial here. It says to use kite paper but I couldn't find any so I just used tissue paper which seemed to work fine.

Counting activities

This last week we've been heavily into counting activities. In this first one I replaced the fish with circles with the numbers 1 to 5 on them. When L catches a number she gets to count out that number of fish.

We also made our own materials. Here L is painting her egg carton caterpillar to use for..

this penny balancing activity. I wrote the numbers 1 to 5 on the caterpillar. L counts out the correct number of pennies and tries to balance them on each number.

While L was painting her caterpillar I was using the other half of the egg carton to make these little ladybug flowers. It's basically the same concept. L flies the correct number of ladybugs back to their flower homes.

It's interesting that when we first started these activities L could easily do 1 and 2 but then either lost interest or didn't get the concept of 3 and above. After doing these type of activities for a few days she is handing me three of something with no problem.

Finally some Christmas activities

It's taken us a while but it's finally beginning to look like Christmas around here. My mom made L this beautiful advent calendar last year and she is so excited about it. The pockets are tiny so I've been putting in things like stickers, raisins, tiny oranges, stamps and little reindeer clothes pegs that she uses (with help) to hang up Christmas cards. We also have a tiny snowman snow globe for the 24th.

I made up this Christmas tree matching activity where she needs to use a magnifying glass to match the teeny tiny Christmas tree with it's big partner. I got a little over zealous when shrinking the trees and they are really tiny! I thought the magnifying glass would be more powerful.

I put this large die in her advent calender and made up this activity to go along with it. The Christmas pictures all have numbers on them and when she rolls a number she has to put an almond on the corresponding picture. When we did this yesterday she had no interest in it at all. Hmmm we'll try again another day hopefully with more success.

I saw this idea over at Sunrise Learning Lab and modified it a bit for L. I stuck on the Christmas trees ahead of time and cut out the stars. It was great for talking about big and little and the top where the stars go and underneath where the presents go. We put dots of glue on the trees together and then she stuck things on. When she was done she said, "It needs a Santa." Luckily I was able to find one of her advent Santa stickers. I really like how it turned out.

It's beginning to look at lot like..... Halloween!

We've started preparations for L's Birthday/Halloween party now that my mom is here. We've been making decorations and costumes left, right and center. Halloween is by far my favorite holiday so I'm in my element.

Here's L doing her counting activity with some spooky things to count.

Some double doodling. This is really cool. It's just some paint in a Ziploc bag and cotton buds for drawing. I got the idea from here.

Some decorations for the party. Bat idea was from here and cat idea from here.

A many step number and counting activity

Sometimes I get inspired by an activity idea and want to do it right away with L (without really thinking it all through). This is a case in point. The idea was to take all of the objects out of the bag, sort them and then place them into the numbered bags that I'd made but I soon realised she needed another step. So this is how it went.

Take objects out of the bag

Sort them (too funny how she put them all around the edge of the mat like she does with the puzzle pieces!)

This is the step I added. I found it was too hard for L to just recognise how many things were in each pile so we counted them and then put them by their number.

Then put them into their corresponding numbered bag. L loves this last step!

This activity has a lot of steps and I introduced each one as she completed the last one. She really seemed to like it and brought it out again the next day. She isn't 100% with the numbers yet so I sit with her and help her if she asks me.

Some new activities for L

Here are some of the things that L has been doing.

This is one of her favorite games. I think almost every animal she possesses is on it's home continent here! I tell her where they go and she puts them on, although she knows quite a few of them herself. Especially the koala bear. He has the honor of being the first animal on every time. L knows Australia and North America (because that's where Canada is) and is becoming more familiar with the other continents but still doesn't 100% know them. You can see she's also put some of her dolls on. Her two favorites always live in Canada and the Cuba dolly from her uncle obviously lives in South America.

I also made up this hammering activity

which lasted for three golf tees and then she just gave up on the hammer and put them in with her hands. Fair enough. She brings this one out quite a bit and sorts them differently every time.

L has shown a real interest in numbers and counting lately so I've been slowly introducing the written numbers to her. I've been too lazy to make sand paper numbers so have used these ones from a card game we have. Here she is sorting them into piles and is supposed to be saying them as she sorts them. She still gets confused some times and I find it really interesting that she is having a much harder time remembering the numbers than she did with her phonics. Maybe it's because the numbers aren't in any context whilst every time I introduce a new phonic sound it comes with three pictures with the same sound for her to latch onto.

OK I have to admit I've formed quite an attachment to these little tropical frogs. Expect to be seeing them pop up in many future posts. Here is a counting activity where she puts the frogs on the dots on the lillypads and counts them. I sit with her for this and make sure she is on the right track as counting objects is still really new to her.

We love this one....

This is the set up for....

Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log

eating some most delicious grubs (yum yum)

One jumped into the pool

where it was nice and cool

then there were four little speckled frogs(glub glub)

dry them off and do it again!


Once we're done we pour the water back into the bottle and put the lid on.



L and I have both fallen in love with her little tropical frogs and always play with them so I set up this activity. We do it together because of the water component(okay and also becuase I like it so much :) I switched from the sponge in the initial set up to an old face cloth so it was easier to wipe the frogs and the table. At the moment this activity is on her shelf but luckily the bottle has a safety cap so she has to come to me to open it. She is also wearing an old top but in the future she will wear an apron or bib.