The Very Hungry Caterpillar Story Stones

We had such a great time with the Brown Bear story stones I made that when I saw these Very Hungry Caterpillar stones at Thrive 360 Living I knew they had to be my next project.

I made a small version for a birthday boy who was turning two.  They were such a success and LJ was so interested in them that I made a larger version for him.

I bought a wooden box from the Dollar store to keep them in.  At first I was going to paint a caterpillar on the outside of the box but then I realized I'm too cheap and would rather recycle the box for something else once we're done with these!

We love the Very Hungry Caterpillar book by Eric Carle so LJ was really into reenacting the story.

The front of the stones make up the green caterpillar and if you put them in order you can turn each one over as you tell the story to see what he eats.  Sooo much fun!

Brown Bear Brown Bear-Toddler Story Stones

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?"

We love this book by Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle

 

I thought it would be fun to make up some story stones for LJ and L to play with.  It's been years since I made these Enormous Turnip story stones for L.

This was one of those projects that sounded fantastic at the time but after about the fourth animal I was seriously wondering what was going through my head.  Anyhow I pushed through and now we have these cute story stones to go alone with the book.

 

 

For those of you who are interested in making your own story stones I just used regular acrylic craft paint and then covered them with a layer of Modge Podge.

The Littlest Matryoshka

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!

 

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?

Gnome Board Game

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.

The Four Seasons Vivaldi style

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.



Story stones and August nature table

After reading about these story stones on Counting Coconuts I thought it would be something both L and I would really enjoy.  L still brings out her Peter and the Wolf puppets and wants to put on the puppet show all  the time.

One of our favorite stories that I tell L when she's warming up from swimming in the ocean is The Enormous Turnip.  This was the first story I decided to do with our stones we collected from the beach.  I just used acrylic paint and then covered the stones with a layer of Modge Podge.

While I was painting those L was painting stones to represent the animals from Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Once they were finished she matched them up to her book.

We then put them in order all around our nature table.  The little girl represents the children : )

We also made some colored sand the same way we made colored rice and added some glitter.  It looks much more spectacular in real life!

We Modge Podged some sea glass to make it sparkle!

Hope you are all enjoying summer's radiant, heart warming sunshine!  Happy story telling.

Gnomey Fun

Gnome jumping.  I think L had more fun with this than the gnomes ; )

Gnome circle time.  We made the accordion books from Childhood Magic last week and L wanted to make some for the gnomes.

First outdoor gnome outing.

Granny made them this little gnome carrying sleeping bag.  L is showing them all around her garden.

For a tutorial on how to make one of these you can visit WeeFolkArt.

Gnome Home

As most of you who read this blog may have noticed although I love Montessori I also love a lot of things about Waldorf.  Especially the beautiful crafts.  There are so many wonderful blogs out there for inspiration.

I've been wanting to make a Gnome tree house for L for so long and was finally able to get my husband on board.

Once he gets into something he goes all out.

Here is the finished product!

My husband did the woodwork and I made the gnomes and accessories.

L made the upstairs fire pit and painted the pots while my mom made the rag rug (or as L calls it the activity mat).  It was truly a family affair.

L can play for ages with the little families and it's wonderful to sit back quietly and listen to the goings on in the house.  The other day all the seats were around the rug and they were getting ready to watch a puppet show!  The rabbit also loves to play soccer with the children.

If you have any questions about anything we made just leave them in the comments section.  We got tons of inspiration and tutorials from here, here and here.