Pinky is getting really good with her Spanish since my super duper idea of just letting her to play all day long with her “we just speak Spanish” little cousins. We spent two weeks last summer in Puerto Rico where she just: played!

5 cute cousins sitting on a couch….there’s comes….

 

No lessons, no frustrations, no mommy interventions……just free time to play with other Spanish speaking kids.

Now that we are back home, she is speaking in English again!!! Arrrggg! Therefore, I am trying to start short lessons with her to keep practicing Spanish while we get to visit our family again.

We are sharing today our first lesson as a follow up of this post about the Spanish Vowels.

Montessori-inspired Spanish alphabet boxes

 

Since Pinky is reading pretty good in English, we are not using her Alphabet boxes anymore. Therefore, I decided to change them into Spanish Alphabet boxes just by changing the objects from their initial sound box in English into the initial sound name in Spanish. Easy!

 

First, we looked around the house and inside our English alphabet boxes for objects that started with each vowels sound. Then we made a pile. 

 

Later we matched the objects with their vowel initial sound.

If you will like to try this activity with your kids, here is a better look of each one of the vowels and their objects.

I bet you can find most of them right now at home!!

 

Letter a is for:

• ambulancia= ambulance
• almohada= pillow
• ave= bird
• abeja= bee
• arbol- tree
• avion- airplane
• aceituna= olive
• arana= spider
• azul= color blue
• auto= car
• alfombra= rug
• anillo= ring
• anaranjado= color orange
• abanico= fan
• arcoiris= rainbow
• amarillo= color yellow
• agua= water
• ardilla= squirrel
• angel= angel
• alce= elk

Letter e is for:

• Elmo= Elmo
• elefante= elephant
• espejo= mirror
• escalera= stairs (vowels)
• elastico= elastic band
• emparedado= sandwich
• estrella= star
• espada= sword
• escoba= broom
• escritorio= desk

 

Letter I is for:

• iman= magnet
• iguana= iguana
• insecto= insect
• indio= indian
• iglu= igloo

 

Letter o is for:

• Olivia= Olivia
• oso= bear
• oveja= sheep
• orca= killer whale
• octagono= octagon
• ojos= eyes
• olla= pot
• ovalo= oval
• ocho= number eight
• orangutan= orangutan
• oreja= ear
• oruga= caterpillar

 

Letter u is for:

• unicornio= unicorn
• uvas= grapes
• uno= number one
• uniciclo= unicycle
• Urraca= magpie (not pictured)

 

Do you have any hands-on-activity to learn a new language?

Linking to:

Thanks to Pinterest, I got excited about making some wonderful and beautiful Bento lunches for Pinky. Well, that didn’t go well! One day she came back from school….I asked her why she didn’t eat her lunch….and then she said it! Mommy I don’t like when you do faces and stuff with my food.

Oh no!!!! I thought she would love it!!!….  

Well, the thing is that I wanted to do small things for her to remember how much I love her and think about her….

Then, I decided to make a few drawing on afternoon snack paper bag…..just a few!

The thing is that afternoon she came back home with such a huge smile……She definitely L.O.V.E   I.T!!!

Ever since then, I am getting crazy having fun making sweet designs on her paper bag.

The result: no more boring brown paper bags for snack and a huge smile on Pinky’s face when she comes back home!

BTW, the teachers love it, too!

 

Some of the paper bags in the pictures are wrinkle because she brought them home because she loved them. THE biggest photo are the bags for this week!

Here are a few other ideas over the internet which I am going to try for sure! Sorry, no more Bento at this house!

1. Printed paper bags- here from Perfectly Imperfect. Cute!
2. I am thinking about doing something fun like this for Halloween using construction paper cut out or Stickers from the Dollar store. Here.
3. For Christmas time; drawing Christmas lights….so cute. from Red ted art.
4. For Thanksgiving…I can do this turkey! 

 

What else can I do for making lunch/snack time fun? Ideas,please!

 

Linking to:

Well, I am kind of late with this post, as always! lol

Here are our Favorite Five Practical life activities. Since Pinky is an only child and she expends most of her time with me, we don’t do trays for practical life.

Instead, we do everyday tasks as they come. Here are a few examples:

• Table setting. Here is our post.

• Laundry time. Here is the first time we started to help.

• Cook. Here and Here and the posts.

Around 2 years old making pancakes! That’s her proud face!

Oh…my baby!!!

2.5 years old helping to sauté the vegetables.

At 4 years old using an electric chopper. She is fascinated!

Preparing her own chocolate milk! (4.5 years old)

Here she is preparing lunch for both of us: Peanut butter sandwich!

And that’s our cheap Montessori-inspired stool version; a 2 step metal folding ladder.

I think she learned how to use it around 2 years old.

• Organizing around the house. Grocery shopping. Here is the post.

Saving the grocery shopping!

Look at her tiny fat hands!!!

 

There is a place for her shoes!

 

• Cleaning dishes, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning her bathroom

Here is a post about the dishwasher.

Helping to clean the Kitchen cabinets during our moving.

Disclaimer: Don’t try this with younger kids and always watch big kids while helping with this task.

 

Pinky’s very own bathroom which comes with responsibilities, too!

I will try to share later on!

That’s it! Simply activities that include your child at home and don’t get mommy all stress out preparing practical life trays and then looking for a spot to display them and never get touch again.

My very own experience!

Now is your turn to visit MONTESSRI MOMents for more Friday fives!

 

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!!!

Linking to:

This post is for a new linky party over My Montessori MOMents. I thought about sharing our favorite language material from a Afterschool learning aspect (my daughter goes to school and everything we do is done AFTER school, weekends, holidays or vacations).

1. Alphabet boxes (DIY).

I made these using Pinky’s own toys, things we had at home or cheap mini-objects at crafts stores. We don’t use them as much as before now that Pinky is reading but they were really useful and I think they are making their way into the Spanish alphabet now that she is able to learn to read in Spanish, too.

Check them here and here.

 

2. Sandpaper letters (DIY).

These were a really great tool! They are good for letter recognition, writing, letter sounds, building CVC words and spelling. Well, since we don’t officially homeschool, it’s necessary to use our tools for as much activities as we can. Now, at age 5, we are using these as a different fun way to spell words/sight words and to practice the Spanish alphabet sounds. Here is a post about how I made the sandpaper letters.

3. Hooked on Phonics Reading program.

When Pinky was around 2 years old, someone in Freecycle was giving away (FREE) the complete program for Reading and Math. Since Spanish is my first language, I didn’t have an idea how to help my daughter to learn to read in English. Well, it was good that she started to read while she assisted a Montessori school this past Spring. However, we have been using the program at home to practice and to follow some order. It needs a radio cassette but we are using a cassette recorder I found at a thrift store for $5.00. Great deal!!!

4. Learn how to read box.

This one is a Dollar Bin that I fill mostly with printables like sight words flashcards (pink mini box), family words (_at, _et,_ap, etc.), and the Montessori Pink series word cards (now I remember that I need to make the Blue and Green series or maybe not?). There is also a Brain Quest questions and answers, some worksheets, a sight words Dolch word list (for me to keep track) and the great write/erase pockets from the Dollar spot at Target for homemade games and writing practices. The “CREATE” bin is full of stickers. Pinky loves to use her stickers to create stories. I will encourage her to write about her creation just to add a bit of writing practice. Here is another post about another sight words activity we tried.

5. Lakeshore classroom magnetic letters kit.

This has been our cheap version of the Montessori Movable Alphabet Box. We use them to write words and, in the upcoming weeks, sentences. We also have the magnetics letters from the Dollar store but I like these ones better because the aren’t that colorful.

 

Well, those were our favorite five language materials from an after-school learning home.

Now that Pinky is reading, I am thinking about adventuring into the Grammar Farm and Grammar symbols solids. Of course, the grammar farm is going to be a “I need your farm toys” project! lol Check this post from Living Montessori Now for more info about the Grammar Farm.

 

Thanks to Lori from My Montessori MOMents for hosting this useful link party!