Other Montessori Moments...

Thankfully I have had this blog ready to go since Friday and am linking-up to my usual sites a bit early this week.Our oldest cat, Goku, who has been part of our family since just before my husband and I married over eleven years ago, looks like he may be ready to pass away. He has been quite sick, with good days and bad days for many months. He almost passed away in June, the same time we unexpectedly lost our kitty, Juliette. We don't want him to go, and Tyler is going to be heartbroken, but if he is suffering we also wish him peace. If Goku does pass, I'll likely take a break from blogging for a bit as we all work through our mourning.

While I'm going to mainly stay with one activity per post now, I think I may also create one post for the leftovers from the week...things that I don't think really merit an entire blog but would likely be useful for those looking for ideas!

Montessori-Inspired

Instead of needing me to play the color search game with him, Ty can now match items to the paint chips anytime he wants! I found one object for each color and tried to choose really random things that he wouldn't be too distracted by. For example, if I had put a blue ball in the box he would run off and play with it...if I put a black car in the work he would just want to roll it around. He is really happy about this work and always gets the best, proud look on his face when he completes it!

I was rotating toys and creating works during nap time this week when little Ty woke earlier than expected. I had toys and materials scattered around the living room! I do find that helpful at times though, because he lets me know what he wants and doesn't! He found our bugs and color patterns and wanted to work with them, so I put them on a tray for him to work on again.

Here he also found and wanted to put beans into a small mouthed jar. Not easy!

I mentioned recently that Ty wanted to play with his entire box of Memory cards recently. While that isn't an issue (face up), it's a bit too much to do on his own. Here I put ten cards with their matches in a box for him to do on his own. I need to separate the matches and show him how to lay one set down and then match the others to them. Right now I am laying the first set out for him, probably because I'm a bit of a control freak. I have to see what he does on his own!

Sorting buttons big to small, big buttons in the big bowl and small in the small bowl. I am likely going to have to add medium soon as it seems too easy. He sometimes starts then just starts dumping them all from bowl to bowl.

This is a big proud Mama (and Tyler!) moment! Ty spilled beans and was able to sweep them 100% independently and dump them in the garbage!

Oops! Some messes are too big to start fixing with a hand broom. Ty was putting the rice back in one handful at a time so I then showed him how to use him hands together to pick-up more rice at once for efficiency. This is still my favorite way to buy some time when I'm cooking dinner and I keep a bin on top of the fridge. His dumping between two containers gets out of hand at time!

Exploring Outdoors

On a visit to one of our favorite parks/playgrounds, we noticed a little trail we had never seen before. Ty decided to run the length of it, reminding me of all the years I ran Cross Country. A little heartwarming moment for Mama! 

This log became an instant balance beam.

When I asked him if he could find the tallest tree, he looked up like he never had before...and couldn't stop looking. He seemed amazed with how high up the trees went!

Ty has spent a lot of time looking out windows lately. There has been a lot of bird and squirrel activity and he's very interested. Not so interested when it's dark out. Then he gets scared and wants us to close the blinds.

Gross Motor

     Some large muscle highlights this week were working on pedaling a trike, roller skating, working on his overhand throwing aim and wheelbarrow walking        

  

   

                                                 

For more wonderful ideas, check-out posts from 1+1+1=1 Tot School, Living Montessori Now and The Wonder Years.