"Pin"Spirations

Last day of Spring Break for me and we sure did pack a lot of action into it. I am really bummed about going back to work but in less than 2 months, I will be off for 5 months (maternity leave + summer break). My friend and I decided to try out some Pinterest crafts with the kids with our time off. Some were hits...others weren't quite appropriate for their age.

Taped crayons to race cars. Nobody was a fan of this one: adults, two year olds, and a 2nd grader. The crayons didn't really cooperate and overall was not very exciting. Didn't keep the attention-span of anyone either. We will not be doing this one again.

Lauren's Sewing Kit: pipe cleaners, ABC buttons, yarn, plastic needles, mini scissors, tape measure, spools of ribbon, and two things to sew on (plastic basket-weave and cupboard liner in a cross stitch hoop)

I left it in the middle of the living room while she napped and she was SO EXCITED to see it when she woke up!

Her own little "yo-yo" tape measure (what she calls it). Unfortunately, it didn't last long. I guess $1.47 only gets you so far at Wal-Mart.

Her very own sewing kit. She really does love this and stays entertained for awhile.

Putting pipe cleaners into a seasoning jar.

Gave her mini scissors from an adult sewing kit and she LOVES them.

Putting pipe cleaners into a colander. She enjoyed it but it must certainly did not keep her entertained for as long as I thought it would. She did enjoy throwing the pipe cleaners ALL over our living room floor though and covering me up with them. Mommy advice: do not let anyone cover you up in pipe cleaners, they scratch...hard!

Sandpaper T-Shirt: coloring their designs onto sandpaper to iron press onto t-shirts. Lauren was more interested in singing her beautiful made-up melodies about crayons and shirts.

As you can tell, Gabby is the only one that actually did her entire drawing and was super pumped about it being on her shirt! Definitely going to save this one for a few years down the road though, they were very easy and the image pressed perfectly on the shirts. We used a skinny dish rag between the shirt and iron.

Lauren's 1st Garden

We wanted to do something educational and fun for Lauren this year outside and decided on making a garden just for her. We will probably add either some peas, green beans, or a random assortment of herbs but haven't committed quite yet. I can't say enough about how awesome raised bed gardens are: they are much more manageable, easier to set up, easier to monitor soil levels, and nice-looking too! We constructed hers for just around $10 (scalloped edging, top soil, and mushroom compost). You do need to shave off the top layer of grass though before putting the soil down. Lauren enjoyed getting her "Circle Garden" ready, dumping the soil and mushroom compost in, and tilling it all by herself! Plus, it is right next to 2 of my raised beds so she can watch how I tend to them and mirror that...all about experiential learning! Since it will be a bit before the seedlings go in, she is having fun digging and dumping with her mini shovel and rake.

This is hard work Mom!

What a warm winter, my green onions kept growing!

She requested I take a picture of her with her hands in the sand table. My parents scored this for her still in the box at Goodwill!

More Activities

If you would look up bed head in the dictionary...this could very well be what you see. I guess someone had a pleasant nap!

So my pictures are in reverse order here but you get the idea. Create cards with things that you can find outside and then go on a little hunt. Lauren likes to call them her "Bear Hunt Cards". We just cut out pictures from Kyle's Backpacker magazine but you can easily find some good ones online.

Use your paint chip color cards and match them to things around the house. Go for a "Color Hunt". In this activity below, Lauren had some multi-step directions. She first had to find the matches in her Gabba Gabba match game, then determine what color was the border of the matches, and then match it to the paint chip. It was a LONG game but she kept her focus for a good portion of it.

Montessori at Home

Here are a few Montessori activities we have been doing at home lately...when we are actually home!

Transferring money; great for fine motor coordination. We generally do this activity right before learning about names of coins. It is a great way to peak her interest in coins and introduce them to her. I don't expect her to remember the characteristics of them but it is planting a seed in her brain for later.

Lauren's 'cheese face'. Sorting money into jars. Learning about classification, littlest to big, and naming/recognition of money.

Color recognition and naming. Collected paint chips from the hardware store and taped them to notecards. We use these for many different activities!

Sorting colored worms into their respective colored bowls.

Lauren's favorite, she calls it "Brown Bear Match Game". Matching paint chips to the colors of each animal in the book. This is a great one that she can do independently; especially good while I am in the shower!