What's on the shelf?

     This month we are going to be doing an ocean theme since its still Summer out.  My plan is to switch parts of the Practical Life and other ocean theme activities either once a week or switch about half way through the month.  That being said, here is what is on our shelves this week.

Bead stringing.  I got this cute little necklace at Michael's for $1.

Fish and Shell pattern.  I got the fish and shell pieces from Target and the paint holder from Michael's for $1.

Whale or Fish sort.

Ocean animal pouring.  I got the ocean animals from Michael's.

Open and close containers with ocean animals inside. 

Find the pirate buttons!  The pirate buttons I got at Michael's for $1.99.

Practice cutting.

     The only thing missing is the Sensory tub.  I haven't put it together yet.  I have all the parts but just forgot to get it ready but will add once I get it together.

Additional Ocean activities:

     I also found some great little cute ocean activities to do with Sugar Bear.  I found them at 1+1+1=1.

  

Memory game using ocean animals and color.

Matching sea animals.

What lives in the ocean coloring book.

Cute little story about in the ocean along with a pattern work.

Language Shelf:

     I also set out some new work on Sugar Bear's language shelf.  Here are some pictures of what is on her language shelf. 

If you turn your head you will see that the puzzle pieces have to do with what goes together.  I have several different puzzles so I will be switching them out for new ones later.

Opposites.  Again, I have several more that I will be switching out later.

     Our first letter tray!!  We are going to work on the letter Aa.  I will be teaching her the sound and name.  On the tray you see (from left to right, top to bottom): sandpaper letter a,  picture cards with pictures that begin with the short a sound, capital and lower case puzzle and picture card, under the sandpaper letter are objects that begin with the short a sound, and the letter Aa book which contains pictures of  things that begin with the short a sound.  I plan to teach this sound by itself and then add a letter.  I will start to combine the trays with sets of letters.  The sets of letters will go (a, m, s, t, b), set 2 (o, c, r, g, h), set 3 (i, d, k, l, f), set 4 (e, w, n, j, p) and finally set 5 (u, x, v, y, q, z).

Finally, on the bottom shelf is part 1 of my alphabet roll.  Basically, Sugar Bear will be matching the letters to the letters printed on the canvas.  My husband and I made the letters out of wood.  He cut them out for me and we sanded the edges down and I painted them.  Each section is like 4 feet long.  You don't have to make the alphabet that big, I just liked the wooden letters!!

Tot School/ Toy Tuesday- Nesting Sort and Stack Cubes

     Look what we got today in the mail!!!  How lucky because today is Toy Tuesday!!!  I plan to put this nice Nesting Sort and Stack Cubes on Little Man's shelf this week.  The nice UPS man delivered this little package about 30 minutes before we headed out to dance class.  So I don't have any action shots yet but both of them had a great time exploring them.  Here are some cool things you can do with them.

Stack inside by color.

Stack on top of each other by color.

Combine the different colors.

Here you can see that the cubes are different in height.

     I'm super excited to see Little Man work with it by himself.  Sugar Bear kept taking his pieces from him.  This toy will really help with his hand eye coordination.  The cubes won't go in if you don't line them up right.  I also saw this same toy but using cylinders.  That is next months buy:)  If you are wondering I got them from Amazon.com.  So far I love this toy.



When we feel blue

     A couple of weeks ago everyone in the house started to feel a little under the weather.  We all had a runny nose and a nasty cough.  To help us get through this I went to my local Whole Foods store and stocked up on some goodies.  I must say I am really surprised in how well they worked for us.  I never felt sleepy or drugged up taking this medicine.  I actually felt normal taking this medicine.   

Whenever we start to feel under the weather I double our Vitamin D intake.

     From left to right:  Children's Echinacea liquid (they have this as a gummy too), antinomium tartaricum (small white dissolveable balls), euphrasia officinalis, pulsatilla, and children's expec.  At Whole Foods they have a little section that contains several different blue bottles.  They label what they are used for and come in 6c or 30c.  The difference is the 6c works faster and the 30c is slow releasing.  I also have the blue bottle medicine used for teething.

     This stuff works great but tastes nasty.  Little Man would have get a really bad cough at night and I would give him some of this cough medicine and he would stop coughing.  This medicine can be given like every 4 hours but I only gave it to him before bed and in the middle of the night when his cough woke him up.  I also had a humidifier going (I run it every night).

     Pulsatilla works really good too.  These are tiny white balls that dissolve in your mouth.  Sugar Bear's nose was running pretty bad but after taking Pulsatilla it dried up for over 6 hours.

The kids had so much mucus it was coming out their eyes too.  This did a good job clearing it up.

I gave this to Little Man because his cough sounded bad but he wasn't getting anything up.  Again, it worked great for him.

     I keep Echinacea in my cabinet always.  Its a great immune booster to have on hand.  At the slightest hint of something coming on I give this to my kids and to myself.  Echinacea just helps your immune system work better.  To let you know how well it worked, both my husband and I were sick with the same symptoms and mine lasted about 48 hours his lasted over 72 hours.  I took echinacea 3 times a day and he took Nyquill.  By the end of the 3rd day my husband stop taking Nyquill and started taking Echinacea and he was better in less then 24 hours.



Look what I got!!

      I was so excited to find this lot of puzzles up for sale for......wait for it.....$30!!!  Its the little things that make me happy:)  Most of the puzzles are from Melissa and Doug and are in pretty good shape (except that transportation puzzle).

Homeschooling Room

     I think I finally have Sugar Bear's classroom ready.  I plan on getting started next month.  She's been doing some work a couple days a week but it's just been an introduction to the materials.  The only thing missing is our calendar work but that is not ready yet.  Once I get the weather bear made and put up then I think the calendar board will be ready to be put up.  Here are some pictures of Sugar Bear's classroom.   

The gate is to keep Little Man out.  There are some really small pieces that he could get into.

From left to right:

     Practical Life shelf.  I got the shelf at Target, the trays came from Montessori N Such, the glassware/ spoons/ tweezers came from Montessori Services/ Thrift store/ Dollar section at Target, and the materials on the tray came from the Dollar Tree/ Target/ Michael's.  To see what is on the shelves check out my previous post here.  Located next to the PL shelf are the Dressing Frames.

     Sensorial Shelf:  On Top are my books we read before bed.  Then I have a Pink Tower and color matching puzzle.  Then the first sets of Knob and Knobless cylinders.  Followed by the last sets of Knob and Knobless cylinders.  Finally on the bottom shelf are the Brown Stair and another color/texture matching puzzle.  Located to the left of the Sensorial shelf are the Red Rods.

     Language Shelf (located in the closet cannot see it).  This is were we will really start working next month.  Right now she has some puzzles and the Alphabet Roll (section 1).

     Math Shelf:  On top: ocean magnet puzzle, Target $1 toy puzzle, and a Melissa and Doug ocean habitat.  In the middle row:  connecting people, nuts and screws, alphabet puzzle, and a number puzzle.  The bottom row has the number roll, 1-5 puzzle, number puzzle, table top red and blue number rods, and sandpaper numbers.

     Little Man's area:  I moved the art easel out so he can use it too.  I keep the chalk in Sugar Bear's area (I've learned not to let little kids lose in the house with chalk...my poor walls). 

     Little Man's shelf:  different locks puzzle, corks in a bottle work, Melissa and Doug rainbow work and an ocean knob puzzle.



Tot School- Little Pink Box

     Little Man (16 months old) loves to take the tissue out of the Kleenex box so I thought this would be a fun activity for him.  Well, lets be honesty I was tired of him wasting my tissues and finding them all over the house.  The Pink Box was pretty simple to make.  I took a small box and taped it completely shut.  I then drew a circle on one side and cut little teeth from the center of the circle.  I covered the box with construction paper and there you go.  In the inside of the box there is a 15 foot long fabric train (you can use ribbon) that my mom quilted together with left over fabric she had.  Both kids loved pulling the fabric train out. 

There was a fight over pulling out the fabric train.

Finally, had it all to himself.

     Not only does he like to take the fabric train out but he likes to put it back in.  He not only puts the fabric train in but other items such as: Sugar Bear's underwear (they were clean), mail, tissue, and little toys.  All in all the kids really liked working with the Pink Box. 

Toy Tuesday- Crochet Dolls

This week we have been staying at my parents house while my carpets dry from their cleaning so the Toy Tuesday will feature a toy from my parents house.  My mother crocheted a doll and a little blue monster for the kids.  Since she just finished them I'm not sure how the kids feel about it.