Our busy bag for Disney World

We are sooo excited to be leaving this saturday!!! i've been working on our busy bags.. my intention was to do this quiet book for leah but had no time!! hopefully will do it for our trip to mexico in dec.

match numbers and cards- matching the number of objects in the cards with the numbers

Playdough couldn't be left out!! :) some playdough from the dollar store with the cookie cutters

matching game; I made these out of felt (was inspired by another blog but can't remember the link) . i tried to put eyelets on it so they could be held with binder rings but no luck... i think i got the wrong eyelets

memory game made of felt (he has to match the letter with the beginning of the sound of the object.. eg. h&heart)

beginning of sounds cards (v & violin) i laminated them so d could circle the right letter

Disney lottery i made in here just downloaded disney wall papers

Disney lacing cards (printed some black and white disney silluetes, laminated them and punch holed them)

I made this memory game with wooden pieces i got a micheals.. just printed them glued them and painted the back with chalkboard paint (that way the kids can also use the back of the pieces to draw)

letters and objects match... david has to match the letters of the beginning of the sound with the capital and lower case letters

crayons and dollar store book

and locks to lock and unlock

crayon roll

So we are going to disney world in about 2 weeks and i'm making d a little bag to keep him entretained. As part of the bag i did a 'crayon roll' so we can keep his crayons contained ... it took me about 30 min to make and almost nothing of fabic... i got the directions from here its easy to follow and turned out lovely.. here is our result..

baby activities this week

Baby puzzles; i printed some family pics for L and cut them in half, and glued them to the cereal box carboard

Picture shapes: i was inspired by Elise's hearts.. i made them in shapes (circle, square, triangle and heart) picked 4 dif. colors and some dif. textures... some have a bell inside others have a bell outside (hanging) the kids loveeed them!!! david has been playing with them as much as leah...

some of the ways we will use the shapes

- naming all the people for leah to locate the particular person

- arrange family members from olderst to youngest

- organize them in females, males, kids

- sort by color

- sort by shape

language and space crafts

D beginning Sounds cards; we made this little booklets with pics of objects starting with the letter... i found it a bit easier than starting straight to CVC

moon painting with cotton balls - so we painted the moon with cotton balls.. and d held the cotton with tongs!! :) great for dextrecity

Rocket out of toilet paper roll... we took a toilet paper roll covered it in aluminium... cut wings and half a circle to make the top... ;) d loveed it!! great adition to his sensory tub ;)

Painted Stars we made them from sticks... d painted them blue then we glued them together and put some glitter on them ;)

Astronaut - we printed the template from here. i let d cut them (hence the almost chopped off head) and then he glued it to an empty piece of toilet roll.

Shuttle - we cut painted a space shuttle... glued some cotton balls and added the foil paper decor

Our environment at home!

so after a few weeks of rearranging.. here is our new play/work room

where we keep the trays for david.. both kids can usualy play with little supervision with the toys that are in the lower shelf..

our calendar / circle time... we sing the week days song in the morning say a daily prayer... answer the quesiton of the day, check the weather card and the mood cards on how d is feeling today...

still to come is the chore chart for d

Baby's Activities this week

So i figured i have to start working on my 16 month old activities as well as davids... so here is some activities we have in the shelf

nesting boxes - this is a common montessori activity, and a great use for our matruska doll that dyeda brought us from russia..

Put letters in the box - I got a pack of bath foam letters from the dollar store and show her how to put it inside an empty wipes box.. she looveeesss it... this excersise will improve eye and hand co-ordination.. as well as in a few month maybe we can start working on letter recognition.

i had a pasta strainer and gave her some stringgyies and ask her if she could put them in the holes.. she has a hard time doing that.. but its really good for her coordination too..

phases of the moon with oreo cookies!

David loved this activity as he loveeesss coookies... ;) so we descided to mock the phases of the moon with oreo cookies... and the best part of all we ate them with milk after... we kept repeating the phases of them when making them and eating them ;)

ART AND MUSIC

Music -

composer of the month - Bethoveen; we do our work listening to beethoveen

Space Song - its a puppet song kind of the same tune as 5 elephants

Stamping Stars - i made potato stars and paint with them ... i made two because we will try this activity with my 16 month old.

Coloring Pages -

Artist of the month - Vangogh

books on vangogh

Make your own vanggogh -

place the bedroom furniture in the painting.

Culture and Science (space unit)

3 Part space Cards- this set has the planets and a names on one set of cards, only pics on the other set and there is the labels.. eventualy when d can ready he will be able to match the name and the picture for now we are just matching the pictures..

Constellation viewing - we got this constellation punched cards from lakeshore montessori products, david loved this!! i was planning on printing some constellation punching holes and lighting them in his room with a flash light but found these and saved me the punching work!!

Phases of the Moon Cards - we match the stages of the moon from first to last... and we will be doing the dif. phases of the moon with cookie oreo too..

Life Cycle of a Star - same idea as with the moon..

Astornomy Vocabulary Bingo - i created this from a vocabulary cards from www.montessoriforeverone.com i just cut and pasted big 4x3 cards with dif. pics as d loves to play bingo.. we use 'space stones' to mark the pics we call out...