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!

For our next activity about the Space, we explored the galaxies. Very fun and artistic moment!

Part II. Galaxies

First, Galaxies are the basic unit of cosmology. They contain stars, gas, dust and dark matter. They are the only `signposts' from here to the edge of the Universe. Galaxies appeared and as they collided, stars of great energy were born.

Our own galaxy is the Milky Way and has a hundred billion stars. The sun is only one of them.

Our galaxy is not a typical galaxy - only spiral galaxies are rich in the metals our kind of life needs.

When we look up in the sky we see millions of stars, but every star we can see is in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Even the stars of our own galaxy are so far apart that it takes the light of some stars millions of years to reach us. The stars stretch out to fill the whole space of our universe.

Language:

• Galaxy: A group of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity.
  • Galaxy classification according to their apparent shape: (see chart and Venn-diagram from the links below)
• Types of galaxies cards from here. Read more about galaxies here. And for more great information about galaxies, their formation and stars go here. 
• Elliptical
• Spiral
• Irregular

Books: We read different books from the library and others we had at home

Art activities:

• Galaxies mobile: Idea from here.

• Galactic swirls
  • Materials: paints and brushes, glue, glitter glue, black construction paper, sequins, wire, gold paint, silver poster board, white pencil crayon.
  • Procedures: on the black construction paper draw several spheres with a white pencil. On another piece of paper draw spirals. Paint and decorate with glitter glue, sequins and wire. Mount on silver poster board.

    Our final product!

• Paper plates types of galaxies: we got this idea from here and then, after the paint dried, I cut them into the types of galaxies shape: elliptical, spiral (2 types) and irregular. I think we could these as freebies to play.

Science:

• Spirals
  • Purpose: to demonstrate the movement of a spiral galaxy
  • Materials: white paper, paper hole punch, a jar with water, pencil
  • Procedure: Fill the jar ¾ of water, cut around 20 circles from the paper with the hole punch, sprinkle the paper in the water, stir with a circular motion with the pencil, view the water from the top and sides.
  • Results: the paper circles swirl around forming a spiral shape in the center.
  • Explanation: the spinning paper only simulates the spiral movement and concentration of material of a star-studded spiral galaxy like the Milky Way.

• Big bang theory- expanding

• Purpose: To demonstrate how galaxies may be moving
• Materials: Pink balloon, black sharpie, mirror.
• Procedure: Inflate the balloon so that it is about as large as an apple. Make about 20 dots with the sharpie. Inflate the balloon in front of a mirror (or stand in front of your mommy if she is the one inflating the balloon) to see the dots.
• Results: the dots move away from each other.
• Explanation: Astronomers believe the galaxies are moving away from each other. Since no two galaxies seem to be getting closer as they move, scientists believe the universe is expanding. Big Bang Theory, currently accepted explanation of the beginning of the universe. The big bang theory proposes that the universe was once extremely compact, dense, and hot. Some original event, a cosmic explosion called the big bang, occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and the universe has since been expanding and cooling.

 

Drawing the dots! A sharpie would be better than a regular market! But I couldn’t find mine!

She tried really HARD!!!

Checking out the dots (galaxies)!

 

We will be trying to continue our Space study and will post our third part of the unit as soon as I get the chance to put it together! After moving out-of-state, trying to adapt to the new place and getting to meet new friends, my time is kind of tight. However, I will try to post before the end of the year……lol

Have a great summer…..keep reading, learning and having fun in the process!!!

• Other links of interest:
  • Check our first post about The Universe Unit study  for a more complete list of resources.
  • Mama of many blessings Montessori inspired Galaxies unit here.
  • Check our Pinterest board: planets, Space for plenty of more activities.

 

Linking to: