Montessori Flower Arranging Playdough Craft

My son just turned 4 and he got a lot of playdough for his birthday so I was looking at different activities related to playdough and I found a post by Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now about montessori inspired spring playdough activities. So that inspired me to come up with this activity that I did today with my kids and they loved it!

Materials:

- Hole punch

- Stickers (any)

- Pipe cleaners

- Some star tags I found at the Dollar store

- Pen 

- Child sized scissors

- Small bucket or basket to collect flowers

- 4oz plastic cup

-Glue

So first the child decorates the cup.

Here Umi glued the star tag to the cup.

Working hard!

With the hole punch you make 2 holes on each of it sides. and use the 

pipe cleaner to make a handle (see below)

Then the child fills the cup with playdough

Then they collect flowers!

They use the scissors to cut the flowers.

Bucket full of flowers.

Done!!!

Little Princess liked the basket like that and didn't

want to add the flowers.

Umi was proud of his work and took like 10 pictures of it!

Once they were done with it we decorated the table with it. Now, when they wake up tomorrow the flowers are going to look a bit different than when they put them in. So we will discus the importance of water, food and sun.

I hope you find this post inspiring as much as I did Deb's!

UPDATE: The flowers didn't wilt as fast as I thought...It seems like the water in the playdough kept them well longer! 

Monkey Hanging on the Line Fine Motor Skills Game

I just got this Barrel of Monkeys on a garage sale for 25 cents! So I thought of putting this tray together for Umi ( Ex Big Boy). He loves monkeys and I think he will love it! He's turning 3 on March.

I recommend that you put the tray there and let your child discover it on his own and let him do whatever he wants before turning into a counting game, etc.

You can use this monkeys in many different ways here are a few suggestions:

- Math: Use it with number cards. Let the child to draw a number card and he has to hang the same amount of monkeys in the line. You can also use a dice instead of number cards.

- Sensorial: Make a monkey chain first one, then two, etc. Then you can talk about which one is shorter and which one is longer.

Enjoy!

PS: Umi  just discover the monkeys!!!! I out them in the tray and came to blog about it, then he found them and knew exactly what to do. When he was done he put it all away the same way he found it! I am so proud of him!

Heart Ice Cube Tray for Practical Life Activity

I just used one glass beads for each heart. The child uses his hand to grab each bead and place it onto the wooden tray then he puts the bead back on the heart tray one for in each heart.

For a variation of this you can use tweezers, spoon, thongs, or chopsticks. Also you can replaces the glass beads with smaller beads, or red colored rice and use a small container to hold the beads or rice. You can use water and a table spoon for spooning. Make sure you have a cloth towel so the child can clean afterwards.

Baby Food Finger "Painting"

I simply placed her food on the tray. She fed herself and ...

Painted herself and the tray green! (1/27/12 8 months)

I made the "Paint" with broccoli, peas, quinoa/rice cereal and banana. You can see the first picture how it started. 

You can talk about color. temperature, how it feels and how much is spreading on the tray and on herself. Also, how it  smells!  My little princess loved this very sensorial activity!

Ghost Hanging Activity

The "drying line" is a folding rack I got in the 

Dollar Tree store. 

I made the ghost with felt I had at home. I made a big one

and a smaller one so I could also use it for a felt

story or matching or a size sorting activity.

 Big Boy is a bit over 2 and 1/2 and he did it easily.

Do I really need the dressing frames?

Today the question I had for a while was answered. Do I really need to buy the dressing frames?

I was tending to my daughter when I hear a scream " I did it!!!" It was my son that figured out how to close the snaps of the pants he was wearing. So he went on to pull them all open and he closed them again. He was happy and proud of himself. The happiness of see him so overjoyed it was enormous.

This made me realize that I don't need to purchase more frames. I had 2 that I bought from Adena Montessori and the quality is bad...The eye hook frame is far the worst. Every time you go to hook one the other one becomes unhooked. So if this is frustrating for me imagine what a toddler would feel!

You can replace the frames with clothing you may already have at home! You can use  your husband's button up shirt, your pants that have a zipper. A bra that you don't use anymore, just cut the part that you don't need and use the attachment parts and put them on a small basket...The options are endless.