Classics- Rock Painting

Rock painting is fun and easy and a classic Montessori based activity. My niece and I went searching for rocks. Didn't find many big ones but that's ok! We still had fun painting the small ones. (I painted a lot myself!) "Indy" didn't have much interest in it at first, much to my surprise. (I fear he is much less interested in a lot of stuff I present. Maybe it should be more challenging? Also, since Big Brother is home all the time now he wants to hang with the Big Boys and not me. :( Oh, well. I keep on trying anyways. ) Eventually he painted a few when I told him we should paint some gold to use as treasure in the Moon Sand etc. We used some sparkly paint like the gold and they came out really cool looking. My niece LOVED painting the rocks and made sure she had plenty to take home.

Flour and Peas and Sieves oh my!

"Indy" ALWAYS asks to play with the flour when we cook anything involving it. I let him every now and then. When I saw this idea at The Wonder Years I knew I had to try it. I used flour and black eyed peas that we usually use for counting activities. He put the black eyed peas into the flour and stirred it up. Then he used the sieve to fish the peas out. It worked really well. Our sieve wasn't as small or cute as The Wonder Years one but it was small enough for him to handle. He learned to tap the sieve against his other palm to shake the flour out. Of course all the tools were soon abandoned for his hands!

Weekly Unplugged Project- Water

This week Unplugged Project was water. Which just happens to be one of our favorite things to play with. Anything to do with water is usually a hit around here, including taking baths and washing dishes.

The first thing we did was the Montessori based "thermic bottles". I took my thrift store glass bottles again and had him fill up two Ice Cold bottles using a small funnel. I filled up the room temperature and warm ones. Two for each temperature. I was not sure if he'd be able to tell the difference between the warm and room temperature ones but he knew right away that they were different and matched them up after carefully testing each one by wrapping his hand around each one.

We also did water transferring using a dropper. We used cups of Yellow and Blue water and wehn mixed in the flower ice cube tray it turned green. Magic, huh? He kinda lost interest in this about half way through. Using the dropper is way too time consuming for him. I need to find a bigger, better dropper anyways.

The last "water" activity came from Flip Flops and Applesauce. Rainy day splatter painting. I cut out the half circles and had him use the scalloped edge sissocers to trim the bottom edge. Then he glued them onto the paper. After drawing a few handles myself he wanted to do the rest so he did. Then the fun part we used watered down blue and white paint to make light blue and dipped an old toothbrush in it and SPLATTERED it all over the picture to look like rain.

More Practical Life

This idea came from Our Montessori Journey. So easy to set up! Just get a basket of Pom Poms and a hand help dust pan and brush and let the kids go crazy dumping and sweeping. For a kid who has trouble cleaning up after himself and has never sweep anything in his life he really liked it. Sure, he threw the pom poms around the room a few times, but he always picked them up and put them back in the basket. This means he will be cleaning up a lot more of his own spills from now on!

Walking On The Line

I have been researching Montessori and Montessori activities for awhile now and this is one of the first things I found. Walking On the Line, is basically just what it sounds like. First I used duct tape to form an "ellipse" as best as I could! I am sure I didn't do the shape exactly right. He really liked this activity much more than I thought he would. I showed him how to walk slowly and balance while walking on the line. Then I showed him Heel Toe walking. Then we carried a full cup of water while walking and trying now to spill it. And he wanted to carry a box of oranges! Now that was kinda difficult!

More info on Walking On The Line can be found here and here.

Topic: Teeth

This project came from Our Montessori Journey!

What an awesome way to demonstrate why we need to brush our teeth. And why we need to limit our intake of drinks like soda! Our Montessori Journey said they left their egg soaking in soda all night. We only had the patience to let it soak for about an hour and it was already stained brown. Yuck.

So, we then took fluoride toothpaste and a toothbrush and he scrubbed down the egg. It turned white again!

Since we are on the subject here is the chart we use to track his teeth brushing!
I download it from here.

What's that sound?

Last night I made the Sound "Cylinders" I have been wanting to make for a long time. I just didn't have enough of the same type of containers that weren't clear to use. Then I saw this post over at Teaching Tiny Tots. Sound eggs! You can find more information about Montessori Sound Cylinders here.

This project was so easy! I took plastic eggs and found things to fill them with different things that would sound different when shook. Fill two eggs with the same items.
I used:
Glass rocks
Pennies
Beads
Rice
Sugar
Flour
Cotton Balls
Cheerios
Then I taped them shut!

I did not use the same color for the same sound. I thought it would be too easy for him. He worked this out pretty fast without using the same colors!

The Rainbow Connection

I originally read about this activity at My Montessori Journey. Then I began seeing it everywhere! Like at Ten Kids and a Dog and Adventures of a Flake!

I had a problem with the first Styrofoam/foam stuff I used. It was the crumbly soft kind and when I tried to tape it down so it would not stay put! Luckily we had a small Styrofoam ball left over from The Bluebird of Happiness project that I cut in half and taped down. (I wish I would have thought to use play dough like Joann at Ten kids and a Dog!) Eventually I added some cotton balls to make it look like clouds.

So, after getting that worked out I had Indy stick one end of a pipe cleaner in one side then thread on at least 6 beads the same color of the pipe cleaner then stick it in the other side. After he was done I transfered the whole thing to blue paper so we could keep it and admire it forever. ;)

This was another Rainbow project we did last week. It's called "Catch a Rainbow". You can get the details here.



Science Rules.

Randomness

An all time favorite activity: helping (pre) wash the dishes.
Dividing objects into living and nonliving. He did well after telling him it was not "real or pretend".

Pink Fruit Dip from...Pretend Soup! He loved it almost as much as he loved the blender we used.

Valentine Work

Here is a "Montessori" based activity we did last week.


Tweezing felt hearts and sparkly pom poms in the correct pattern.