Back on track with Montessori

Well, I had completely gotten off track with introducing Montessori activities the last couple of months.  And the few things I had on the shelf were completely ignored by the girls.  So today I revamped a couple of activities and reintroduced them, letting the girls know they can get them off the shelf if they would like to work with them. I still think they are not understanding they can get them off the shelf on their own.  Of course, with Amelia, she prefers to get into the stuff and play with it, losing it or making a huge mess.  So right now we have the spooning on the shelf with elbow macaroni in it.  And Amelia still prefers using her hands, but she persevered longer than usual using the spoon.

I changed from pony beads to the foam beads in the bead threading onto a pipe cleaner activity.  At first I thought Amelia would have a difficult time with it because the holes are smaller, but she did great.

Our pattern bead activity started out as a threading onto a string activity as well.  Unfortunately, the plastic needle that came with it has been lost (wouldn't surprise me if it was down the heater vent that is right next to the stand) so it has just become a pattern matching activity.  Tabitha did a great job with the pattern cards, but soon decided it would be more fun to stack them and make them into a "hamburger."

I'm looking forward to being more on track from now on, but with the baby, who knows.  

Head on over to One Hook Wonder to see what others are doing with Montessori.

 

Montessori Time

Well the girls used the Montessori materials sporadically this week. The one that held their attention the longest was the heart picks:

Sorry the pictures are a bit dark.

Here they are using the spooning with cotton balls. The cotton balls were what we used at the Montessori I worked at, with the toddlers.

Yes, she tended to use her hands to put the cotton balls on the spoon.

Tabitha seemed to enjoy working with tonging with the hearts. Unfortunately, the tongs came up missing and Amelia tore some of the mini cupcake liners off. Without being able to find the tongs I didn't worry about replacing the papers. Here are a couple of pictures from when it did get used.

She also seemed to enjoy the matching heart shapes activity I found at Carissa's site.

Tabitha also decided to try some tracing, all on her own. I looked over and she had taken one of the foam hearts and was tracing it.

For more Montessori activities head over to One Hook Wonder

Montessori: Valentines

I decided to share my new Montessori activities early on in the week, as I have seen others have done. We have started the letter Qq and our nursery rhyme this week is "The Queen of Hearts." I thought this fit nicely with Valentines day, so I changed out our old activities with new ones with hearts.

I thought this heart tray would look cute with the mini cupcake papers because it reminded me of tarts. Those are just conversation hearts the girls need to tong (using my little bamboo tongs I forgot I had) one by one into the papers.

I had seen others mention the following activity, but it was so many and I really don't remember who. I had actually given up finding the heart picks in our rural area. We have a Family Dollar and a Dollar General and neither had them. Finally found them at a Dollar Tree an hour away.

I found these foam beads while we were shopping the other day and Tabitha couldn't wait to use them. She has used them, thinks it is fun to stack them on the needle that comes with the beads. (The needle has a rounded end to make it safe)

In order to make a nice activity out of it, I decided to

make some pattern cards.

And, though we are focusing on Qq and hearts this week, I changed up the spooning a little differently:

(Figured they look like snowballs, which will be, according to the weather forecast, appropriate this week.

This small shelf is all I have right now to put the materials on, so I do have to change up quite a bit.

I realize it is now Tuesday (I fell asleep on the couch last night before being able to post) but here is the link for One Hook Wonder and the Montessori Monday so you can take a look at what others are doing.

  And I am also linking up to Patricia's Boxes Ideas over at Welcome! My Tot Learning Time.