Montessori Monday

First off, a little bit of business! I've been hard at work not only with Ty, but with this blog as well (thank goodness for long naps!). I now have a "button" and html code for you to grab and put on your page if you so desire (right hand side bar)...

AND Peaceful Parenting is now on Facebook! You can check out the box here in my blog or use this link to get there.

Okay, now to this weeks activities! We focused a lot on our "Classic Game Week" the past seven days, but we also tried (and loved!) some new works as well. Enjoy!

Montessori-inspired

This work consisted of sorting photos of cats, dogs and birds into the proper paper lunch bag. I cut these from magazines, mostly from old copies of "Best Friends", a huge and amazing animal sanctuary which we donate to. If you have an animal lover on your gift list this holiday season, a donation or sponsoring an animal in their name is a lovely gift, plus they get the magazine subscription too (excuse the side note)! 

I've wanted to do a sorting activity like this for a while, and chose these animals as they are some of his favorites. Though sorting isn't something he chooses on his own very often, because it involved something he loves, he showed tons of excitement for the work and completed it four times in a row!

I showed him how I had written the word above each picture and sounded them out slowly the way he enjoys. He then traced his finger under the words as he does with his books lately, saying each one.

Another big favorite for Ty this week was playing a color game. I ask him. for example, "Where's something blue?" and he runs off to find something a toy of that color. I have paint chips that I laminated for a matching game long ago that I put on his rug. When he returns with the object he places it on the correct paint chip.

Th is was the first time that we officially played the game and I was surprised that he was able to find some of the colors so easily. He literally only has one thing that's pink..

To help satisfy his big interest in colors lately, I took out his M&D fish colors puzzle. Big hit!

Ty started practicing a new grip this week, using the handle on this measuring cup to pour birdseed. 

Large Motor

We combined bowling and baseball this week! Big hit, literally!

A diaper box diaper box lying on one end was the perfect height, and to make it more visually pleasing, I wrapped it. I then had to deal with Ty thinking it was a present and trying to unwrap it for a while. Lesson learned! I now know that we won't be able to put presents under the tree early this year!

Ty continues to love balloons! We had to buy another bag this week and ended up with translucent balloons which was neat as we can fill them and see what's inside! Here I cut scrap paper into confetti and used a funnel to get it inside (sticking a dowel through when they inevitably became stuck). We had some unexpected fun when I blew the balloon up...the confetti swirled all around in circles! Ty has enjoyed his confetti balloon so much that he does a little dance when he plays with it!

Ty has started to lie down on his scooter board and use his hand and feet to pull and push himself along this week. I love how many ways we've been able to play with this scooter!

Our little daredevil decided to tackle the spiral climber at one of the newer parks we discovered. Though I'm not really a big city person, I do enjoy having so many different playground around for Tyler. Each seems to offer something different for him to explore and gain skills and strength with. He climbed this spiral so many times that we had to stop him; his arms were like jello!

ART

Using some of the many Halloween stickers that I have leftover from my child care days, Ty created a Halloween scene for our autumn display. Other than the usual markers and chalk, we did very little to do with art this week. I've promised Tyler that I will find some fun way from him to create tomorrow!

Pretend Play

As I've mentioned a few times, Ty loves to be read "The Fire Cat" by Esther Averil, and gets especially excited when he wears his fire hat at the same time, so...I decided to help him act out one of his favorite scenes (this would of course also be a literary extension).

In the book, a fire fighter saves a somewhat naughty but potentially good cat named Pickles (main character) from a tree after he chased a smaller cat up it and couldn't get down. Pickles then goes on to become the fire station's fire cat, but the chief says he has to learn to be good to other cats, which he eventually learns. One day they get a call that a little cat is stuck up the same tree and is out of reach of the fire fighters. Pickles redeems himself and climbs the ladder and into the tree to save the cat 

We never use our attic, but I knew there was a ladder, so we read the book, gave Ty his fire hat (which he didn't want to wear while climbing) and showed him that there was a small cat stuck near the top and asked if he wanted to be like Pickles and save the cat. Oh boy was he excited! We repeated the scene several times and Tyler was so happy to be acting-out one of his favorite books!

Tyler received some late birthday money for toys which I used to buy more jumbo animals from Learning Resources. He can't get enough of our local pet and food store, so I bought him the "Household Pets" which contains all of the animals he sees at the store. We used his three little pigs houses for cages/homes, an old cat food dish with some dry pasta in it for the animals to eat, and a thick shot glass to give the animals "water". He is really enjoying this play!

 Tyler spent a good amount of time this morning making traffic jams on his ramp with his animals, cars, trains, houses...everything on his pretend play shelf! It was pretend play in a way but also served as a science experiment when heavy cars would push the line down or large items would need good balancing to stay on. 

If you missed our "Classic Game Week" post, you can find it here. Hope to see you all on Facebook!

Linking-up with Tot School, One Hook Wonder, Play Academy and Living Montessori Now!