Colour Tablets

Here are the colour 'tablets' that I made for Z a few months ago when I had just started researching  the Montessori method and is the first Montessori material that I attempted to make. It's very basic and I only had to use 2 materials.

Thick Cardstock and Sticker Pad

The sticker pad is basically a pad containing glossy adhesive sheets of different colours.

I cut the cards to 4 x 2.75  inches and the adhesive sheets to 3 x 2.75 inches, simply peeled off the sheet and stuck it on the cardstock while leaving half an inch on the edges of the long side. I didn't need to laminate it since the cardstock is quite thick and the glue on the sheet is quite strong as well. It has been handled many times as of yet without any damage. The pad didn't have white, purple, brown, and grey sheets, so I guess I will have to use construction paper instead.

When I first made these and laid them out in front of Z 3 months ago, she instantly knew what to do and matched them all up correctly. So far she knows and can name the colours green, orange, red and yellow and can point out blue and pink.

Z grabbed the cards while I was photographing the cards today and started laying them out side by side albeit not in matching pairs.

Makes me want to go and buy colour box 3 so that we can make a colour tablet snake together!

 

Sea Shells (+ Free Printable)

Z is 2 years 7 months old.

Z has recently become interested in the seashells that I got for her ages ago, so I've taken them out and placed them in a basket on her shelf. We've been going through Andrew Cleave's book on seashells. It's a nice coffee table book with beautiful pictures of seashells, I got a brand new copy 5 years ago when it was on sale in Jarir for only 9 Riyals (about $2.5) ; )

Since she was eagerly matching the shells to the corresponding pictures in the book, I thought I would make some cards for her using pictures from Google images, while I was at it, I thought I might as well make them into 3 part cards so that we can use them later for classification.

You can download the whole set of 26 cards here

Transferring activity

Trying to get her interested in counting , though she couldn't care less : (

Get the 3-part seashell cards here !

I am linking to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now. Go there and check out some other great Montessori activities!

Potty Training Jumpstart

Z is 2 years 7 months

After several unsuccessful attempts, Z finally got the hang of holding her pee till we go to the bathroom and I put her on the seat. Of course there were a couple of accidents and of course I had to keep reminding her that she wasn't wearing her 'Pampers' and that she had to tell me when she wanted to go, but she fared well overall. In celebration, she got to wear brand new underwear I had bought a couple of weeks ago. It has small hearts all over it. She loved it and kept going to the full length mirror to pick her skirt up and look at the hearts!

So continuing the theme of hearts, I set out a sorting activity for her.

I found the pretty ice cube tray at a 2 riyal shop last week and knew instantly what I was going to use it for, the tray's from IKEA and the beads come from a necklace that I bought intentionally for getting the beads out, again from a 2 riyal shop.

How it went: Did I mention Z loves hearts? She instantly took to the activity and started sorting the hearts into different colours (while matching them with the hearts on her knicker as well : ) ) I placed the tissue beneath the hearts to prevent them from dancing around the bowl, got this idea from Chasing Cheerios (Sorry I couldn't find the exact link) It was a bit tricky for her at first since the beads are smooth and kept slipping off, but she eventually did figure out to hold the beads by their edges.

Texture/ Discovery Cards

Z is 2 years 7 months old

Lately, I have been seeing a lot of blogposts on texture cards lately like here,here and here so I decided to make a set for Z as well since I had most of the materials in my collection of supplies as well as recycling pile.

Here is the list of items I used:

puffy stickers

diamante flowers from an old t-shirt

thin packing foam

different lengths of yarn

smiley face stickers

feathers

textured contact paper

chopped up bits of scrap felt

crocheted flower and bear

foam shapes

sandpaper

seed beads

googly eyes

corrugated paper

glitter

ribbon and lace

netting

All stacked and ready to be explored by Z

How it went : She was pretty excited and took out each card one at a time, feeling the texture with her fingers and laying it on the floor. She also stroked the feathers on her cheeks, shook the googly eyes card like a rattle and tried to remove the puffy stickers (was sort of expecting that) She took each card and asked me what it was, so I just told her the names like eyes, glitter, feather etc.

The smiley face stickers are looking in 4 different directions and smiling, Z imitated them and kept looking  left and right, below and straight and smiling as well...it was hilarious This lasted for about 15 minutes. I plan on describing the textures like smooth, soft, rough, shiny etc. to her in the future InshaAllah. 

Of course I intend on adding more cards to the pile every now on then. I also plan on making another set of cards with coins, keys, hot glue swirls etc that Z can make crayon rubbings on.