The weather has been Fabulous and Pinky’s new interest is all things POND. Since we have been doing lots of activities, I will have to divide them into several post. Let’s start with:

 

Our shelf set up

I try to set up everything into one shelf since we just do “school” after she comes home from Preschool. (BTW, she is the one that tells mommy what she wants to learn about! I just follow her desires.) As soon as she is done with one activity, I use the space for a new one or rotate them as soon as she lost interest.

Sensory Bin

We just have lots of plastic pond animals and beads.

 

Art

Handprint lily pads with fingerprint frogs. Aren’t they cute?

Footprint frog ready to eat a fly and a spider!

Pom-pom frogs…too cute!!! Found this idea here (you’ll need to scroll all the way until the end. There are more frog-related crafts.)

Completing the missing half. I found this beautiful frog life cycle picture and, when tried to print it out, I just got half of the picture. Therefore, why not to try to complete it? This was a mommy and daughter project! It was fun but next time I would have to draw it with pencil before giving it to Pinky, since she got a lil frustrated at the beginning  but then she did great.

 

Here are some great links for you, they got me inspired:

1- Living Montessori Now (as always!): Montessori-Inspired Pond Unit

2- Montessori Print Shop (awesome place): Frog Match up and Memory game, Frog Nomenclature cards, Frog Nomenclature Book (ALL FREE!!!)

3- Montessori Mom: Frog life cycle sequence cards

4- Squidoo: Awesome frog unit study. Here’s where I found the Frog life cycle picture.

5- Pinterest: I have a Pond board with PLENTY of great ideas.

Linking to:

Don’t you love when you can get lots of learning and fun from one simple activity? I really do….it makes my life so easy! (lol, just kidding).

This is an idea I wanted to try with Pinky for a long time now but I didn’t want to pay for the cards and I was so lazy to make them, so searching around I found ones for free. Thanks to Walking by the way for sharing them!

Pinky liked and tried many of the cards before she decided to make a mess have more fun with the sand.

First, she tried with a stick (we need lots of practice with the correct pencil grasp), but then she got tired and decided to use her finger, much easier and the right excuse to start the sand mess fun sensorial time later one. Mommy is ok with that now ,since she can implement some practical life practice sweeping the sand from the table and then cleaning it with a wet towel. Thumbs up for practical life experience!!!

Have a great week!!!!

Pinky really, really LOVES to play with shaving cream….I never go wrong with it!!!

 

I just added food coloring and paint, and a paper to create a master piece….(in MY mommy dreams). If you ask about Pinky’s dreams, they would be: shaving cream all over the place. However, I was really lucky this time when she just covered her arms. After the fun, there’s always a great bath time.

Beginning! (Mommy’s perfect dream)

Look at my hands!!! (Between dreams)

Going wild! (Pinky’s dream)

Did I say she LOVES shaving cream???

Here’s just an easy and fast lesson: Hot or Cold!

Pinky knows this for a long time now but practice makes perfect and with these great cards and the pointer it was fun pretending she was my teacher.

The first set is from Filefolderfun.com.

The second set is from Montessori Print Shop. Sorry, it was a Freebie when I got it but the price is reasonable. We love their products because they use real pictures (this one has a control sheet) and you can find almost every theme that you can imagine to complete your unit. Furthermore, every now and then they have amazing FREEBIES and kindly host great GIVEAWAYS (we won one already, yupi!!! but I am so lazy didn’t have the time to post about it, yet). So, check their blog and sign up their mailing list…therefore, you won’t miss any opportunity.

In the last picture, I was using the light color stick to check with Pinky her work while she was checking with the brown one (I know this isn’t a great thing to do but following MY child, she loves it!)

We did some easy activities like talk about what things she thinks are cold and which are hot. I use for reference our refrigerator and freezer for cold (she was happy to keep the door open and had liberty to search inside it) and the microwave, stove and oven for the hot things (don’t worry, she didn’t got to search inside them, lol…..she uses to help me sometimes when I am cooking, so she knows already that they are hot).

After that, we used her play kitchen to check which food might be cold and which one might be hot. (Beware, later you can find some plastic food inside your refrigerator!!!!)

Here are other great sites with activities about Hot and Cold:

• At Glitterful Felt Stories- How to do your own cards using index cards and hot/cold items from magazine's or newspapers. Also, how to play an Hot and Cold preschool opposite game with a video.
• Ice cream toddler and Preschool unit from Spell Outloud. There’s an easy Hot and Cold sorting activity for a Toddler plus other great printables about ice cream (cold).
• At Preschool Printables you can find some ideas for a Science Center Fun with hands on activities, questions about Hot and Cold things, opposites, etc.
• If you have a toddler that you want to start teaching about Hot vs. Cold, at Fun & Engaging activities for toddlers are some amazing ways to teach about cold.  

Be warm my friends!!!!

Linking to:

 

Well, we do!!!

These are Pinky’s two favorite ones, so… why not to put them together?

We just needed some bubble liquid, bubbles wands and food coloring or paint….Our bubble solution needed some help because I added too much paint…I just added more baby Johnsons shampoo and some Karo light corn syrup to the mix until I could make bubbles again..(I didn’t have any measures at the moment)  ;D

 

She really LOVES to go outside….paint is a plus!!! For this activity we just used our bubbles wands as painting brushes….and whenever we wanted to play with bubbles we blow…..two activities on one!!!

Plus, she always find something interesting….like an ant walking over her masterpiece!!!!!

Plus she learned how to walk with sandals and feel dirt on your feet…(this is new for Pinky and she was not happy about it….or maybe she was confuse about the new sensation????…Love her face and how she is avoiding to touch the floor….lol…!!!!

Here are some interesting links and the history behind BUBBLES!

Check out how others are playing: