A few months ago, we finished reading our first chapter book ever!!! It was Charlotte’s web by E.B. White and Illustrated by Garth Williams.

Her past Montessori class was reading the book, so she got back home very excited wanting to get it at the book store. I didn’t know about this book before (shame on me….or shame on my old Puerto Rican traditional school system). It was great to read the book together every night and finally watch the movies. We found two movies: one an animation, and another with persons. This helped us to compared the movies and the book. This seems an activity for older kids but I got amazed by all the details a young kid can remember.

Then we added a few hands-on-activities or Montessori-inspired lessons to go with our beloved book.

Characters spelling activity

Charlotte’s web small world

(She played with these for ages….sometimes reciting parts from the book or movie and others just using her imagination. Great way to bring a book to life!)

Characters:

Pigs: Wilbur and Uncle

Spiders: Charlotte and daughters (Joy, Aranea and Nelly)

Rat: Templeton

Girl with eggs basket: Fern Arable

Boy with fish: Avery Arable

Woman and man next to boy: Mr. and Mrs. Arable

Man with calf: Lurvy

Geese and Gander

Sheep (not pictured) and lamb

Horse and colt

Cow and flies

Man driving the tractor: Mr. Zuckerman

Woman next to tractor: Mrs. Zuckerman

 

Origami farm

(From Michael’s but I recently saw it at the Dollar Tree Store)

 

Books to complement

(These books are from our own home library)

Books about The farm.

 

Books about farm animals.

 

Books about spiders.

 

Books about pigs.

 

We did a few more activities that will share later on!

Have a great weekend!!

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This has been such a hard task! We moved 2 months ago and I just found the almost best way to organize Pinky’s bedroom. Oh well, she has way too many stuffs!

I love the point behind the Montessori method: beauty, to follow the child’s interests, child friendly environment, simplicity, etc. However, it is hard to find a Montessori bedroom example for older kids!

If you follow Pinterest, (if you don’t…you are missing wonderful ideas and more stress into your life!) you can find plenty of Montessori bedrooms or Montessori-inspired bedrooms for infants and toddlers. But, what about preschoolers, and bigger kids that are very brain washed with princesses, fairies, My little pony (OMG! we are in this stage right now), Dora, Hello Kitty, etc? I bet, you got the idea that I have a girl at home!

Well, now you understand why it is so hard for me to organize Pinky’s things. Did I day she has too many stuffs? My fault!

Since, I couldn’t find any example to follow (If you have any, let me know PLEASE!!!)….here is my attempt again!….(here is our first post about the same issue when Pinky was a preschooler) to incorporate the Montessori ideas into our brain washed space:

This is Pinky’s bedroom seen from the door. It is her bedroom and playroom since we live in a 2 bedroom apartment, yet.

I tried my very best fitting all her things as organized and available for a kid as I could!

As you can see, bookshelves are a great way to displace toys. We don’t rotate them because of the lack of storage available, so all her toys are always on sight. Actually (as a 5 years old), she is in love with all miniature houses, toys, ponies, princesses, ponies, animals, cars, ponies, etc. Everything tiny and small!!! 

 

Behind the door, we have her bed. It is a wood twin bed, not a floor bed like the one you always see related to a Montessori room. The reasons are:

1. I didn’t get to know about the Montessori method until Pinky was around 18 months old.
2. We bought a regular crib (well, it was a gift!) that we could change into a toddler bed.
3. Pinky really never liked her crib/toddler bed, so we were co-sleeping until almost her first 2 years of life.
4. Finally she got to use her “big girl” bedroom and toddler bed until her 3 birthday when she was outgrowing her bed.
5. Mommy found a great deal $20 for this kind of vintage wood twin bed. Mattress was bought new with the money the store gave me for my I-didn’t-know-my-baby-crib-had-a-recall!

There you have our bed story…..let me tell you that Pinky loves it and the bed height is suitable.

The decals on the wall are from her 3 birthday Tinker bell and fairies obsession love.

She doesn’t want to get rid of them and I just, well, followed my child’s desire! At the end of the day, it’s her bedroom, yes?

Besides the bed there’s a night table holding books (in need of some TLC!), and a bookshelf holding her houses. (Did I say she loves all mini toys?)

 

Frames. Pictures from her 2 past schools, a dance writing, and a drawing made by her best friend with their photo.

Her Princesses/Barbie’s house.

Toy box holding pretty much every thing that doesn’t have a place like her market/kitchen stuffs, musical instruments, balls, etc.

The basket contains level books she can read by herself.

The night table holds mini dollies in the first drawer and all the toy houses parts in the second drawer.

The two green baskets are theme/seasonal books. Right now we have books about community helpers inside one and books about going back to school in the other.

Next to the night table, there is another bookshelf with baskets for toys by themes like: cars, pets, ocean, pond, farm, mixed-up toys.

The 2 big purple baskets contains fruits, vegetables and food for her toy kitchen.

The chest contains Pinky’s clothes. I still need to print-out a few labels I made for her in order to know what’s in each drawer.

As you can see, she also has princesses decals.

Got to love little girly girls!!!

Then, there’s a small table/desk which I had to put another house (it was a gift from a family friend and Pinky uses to complete her pretend “Ponyville”.)

Next, is her toy kitchen which sincerely I don’t know why I keep it. She doesn’t use it anymore that much. We will keep it for a bit longer and see if she gets another pretend cooking sensorial period or something like that!

On the wall you can see our bows frame holder. I made it with a piece of wood, a recycled receiving baby blanket and ribbons using my glue gun. It’s amazing!

It saves time in the morning!!!

Next to the toy kitchen and behind the closet door, we have the puppet theater and puppet’s basket.

Just like the kitchen, I am holding into this one for a few more months and see if she gets her attention into it again.

We also, double use it as our market counter.

Behind the closet door we have a shoe holder which it has been holding our princesses and Barbie for quiet a time now and it is the most amazing idea ever! Not mine!

Inside the walking closet we have a reading nook with her old crib mattress on the floor with stuffed animals and a bookshelf full of awesome books waiting to be read.

We A.D.O.R.E books at this house and they are always read many many times with the same excitement as the first time!

Small stuffed animals are organized into wired baskets from Target (I think!)

Here dresses, skirts and dressed-up customs at a child friendly level.

This girl LOVES dresses!!!

In the middle of the room there’s her favorite rug (from Ikea) which she uses every-single-day to play “Ponyville”.

Before that she used to play with her cars.

That’s It! My hard attempt into a functional, organized, child friendly and brain washed modern kindergartner bedroom.

I know it is not a TRUE Montessori room but it is the most approximated one we could get at our home using the amazing idea behind the method!

Plus this is what my little princess told me as soon as she got from school and saw her room:

Thank you, thank you thank you mommy!!! You really did a good job in my bedroom. I love it!!!!

Aaaahhh! It melts my heart!

Until the next moving experience!!!

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I wanted to share with you an easy but cute gift for that very special graduate in your life!

This week our beloved Daddy is graduating, so Pinky wanted to do something special for him. Here is her masterpiece:

Isn’t it too cute!!!. I helped her to draw their tiny feet! lol

Just print your favorite photo, cut and paste. Then, have fun decorating with stickers!

Busy at work!

 

Another one of her art pieces! Her friend at school and she holding an ALOHA sign.

We have LOTS of these cute scenes!!!!

 

I love to see how her imagination flies away making scenes using stickers and markers!

It is also a great quite activity for “big” kids while waiting at the doctors office, church, etc.

Here is another post with more sticker fun art making!

I am so excited but anxious at the same time because I don’t like airport’s check points (besides, part of my 2 femurs are of metal ;() so wish us luck my friends!

This is the first time that I am traveling alone with Pinky and now she can really move around…oops! Therefore, I prepared a compilation of all the amazing Princesses, Ballerinas, and Girly printable around. I know for sure that Pinky will be trilled, not boring at all and learning while we wait boarding.

Here’s what we have:

All girly package inside a Dora’s lunchbox. It is lighter, so Pinky can carry it like a grown up traveling PRINCESS! (and on hand in case of mommy need it :D)

 

Ballerinas puzzles. (I found this at Target almost a year ago. They come with a wood box but I taken them (as all the other activities) inside Ziploc bags.

DIY Princesses Bracelets. Ok, the objective is to make her own beautiful bracelets but what she doesn’t know is that she will practice her fine motor abilities- lacing. (Shhh don’t tell her!)

Magnifying Princesses picture cards. I did this one myself with some Google images. (I know this one will be her fav one! The cards with the small princesses have a medium size princess on back as a self control in case she will need some help.) 

DIY matching pattern cards. I did them with some recycle folders I have (from hubby’s conferences) plus some foam stickers I just bought a few days ago at Target. Easy and an endless activity! She can match them, count them, continue the patterns, practice her colors in English, French, Spanish. All for FREE!!!

Stamping with inkpad. Yes, these are the same foam stickers over foam shapes block bought at Target. Plus I added an small paper pack. Lovely stamped letters for her family to meet soon.

Which one is different with a Montessori twist. This one is from Princess Preschool pack at 1+1+1=1

Counting cards with a Montessori twist (I am just taking the clips and hope they don’t stop me at the check point….oopsss…they already are going to!. I found it at: Princess Preschool pack at 1+1+1=1

Writing. Practicing our letters and numbers. I found it at:ABC Princess Trace Cards from Little piles everywhere.

DIY Princess Coloring book. Some printable are from Carissa’s Princess Preschool pack at 1+1+1=1 and others from Google images.

Color puzzles. Found this at: Little Piles everywhere.

Counting. The cards are from ABC Princess Trace Cards from Little piles everywhere and our counters are gems (from Target, too!)

As you can see, all our activities are short, easy for small spaces, engaging (I hope so!) and they fix well in snack Ziploc bags, plus we take Montessori with us!

In addition, we are taking some Princesses books with us. I don’t post about them but all our units are FULL of books.

For this one we are taking an amazing book we won a few months ago on a giveaway hosted by Home Grown Families. It’s a book written by Victoria Osteen: Gifts from the Heart.

It’s a story about 2 siblings playing Knights and Princesses which go to a kingdom where everybody is busy because it’s the King’s birthday party. They find a little girl sad. She can’t celebrate the King’s birthday because she doesn’t have the money required to buy a great gift for the king. The 2 siblings help the kids to make their own celebration for the King with activities involving their talents God puts inside everyone: face painting, juggling, singing, art. The king heard them singing, goes to their celebration and feels happy because they gave him the best gift ever…caring and giving from your heart. Pinky LOVES this story. At the beginning she couldn’t understand why the sister gave her princess crown to the “sad” girl if it was hers. A good point for teaching her about giving, even that she can’t understand it 100%. Also, the book talks about how amazing God made us, each one unique with talents ready to share with others.

Thanks to Home Grown Families and Victoria Osteen for this amazing book for our bookshelf. It is going with us on vacation!

My own Sleepy Beauty!

Blessings!

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