Smelling Bottles

I've been wanting to make smelling bottles for the longest time and when I saw some glass spice jars at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I grabbed them and got them almost for free with one of their coupons.

For our smelling bottles, I used cocoa, cinnamon, and cinnamon apple tea, (open the tea bag and dump the contents inside the bottle). Ideally, I would have liked to have a tea that wasn't a blend, but it was kind of neat to have to distinguish cinnamon apple tea from cinnamon. One of these days, I am going to do the smelling bottles with several types of tea. I was also thinking of how in department stores, they use coffee beans so that you nose can be cleared and you can smell other perfume scents better. Maybe I should have coffee bean bottles as a control...And for sure, I want to make different jars for different seasons and themes. For Christmas, ginger, allspice, cloves, and peppermint sound nice.

I also covered up all the contents with a cotton ball, but my Koko still couldn't resist looking at the bottoms. It's kind of funny because all the contents more or less look pretty similar, but still, she could tell the difference. At least, her sense of sight seems to be in working order. I wonder if our previous use of Zicam has affected us olfactorily.

Falling Leaves Stamp Activity

I drew a trunk and branches on Cheeky's easel and used a leaf stamp to demonstrate how to put leaves on the branches and then stamp them "falling" to the ground. This activity was inspired by Montessori Spanish's stamp fall activities.


Then Koko gave it a go. I thought it would be fun to pull out the jumbo multi-colored stamp pad and we talked about what colors we often saw in fall leaves and what colors we normally didn't see. She started with standard fall colors and then went all out. Imagine if we did have blue leaves!


And of course, you can't watch fall leaves without doing some rubbings. Here's Koko's.
Cheeky doesn't get the concept yet. It'll be fun to compare how she does this activity next year.

Another Paper Cutting Activity

Koko has been rummaging through the box of recyclable paper to find coupons to cut. She enjoys cutting up the coupons at the dotted lines. This activity is not exactly Montessori, but still great for hand-eye coordination. Cheeky likes to join the fun and cut away. Not on the lines, but with concentration. For an hour. Thank God for simple activities!

Tracing

My husband was outlining these beautiful ocean-themed pictures drawn by Gyung-nae (thank you!) with a sharpie so that we could make Korean 2-part cards with them. Koko grabbed a bad copy and imitated my husband by tracing the pictures and then did a metal inset-inspired number on the octopus. Susan's post from the Moveable Alphabet on tracing suddenly came to mind.

Our New Balance

My husband was so excited to find this balance at the thrift store. He really detests our balance from I-FIT that barely works. Please do not purchase their balances!

He was very excited that it was made in Italy.

I would have preferred Haba's Play Scale*, but I couldn't argue against $5 versus $40+. Nor could I squash my husband's joy on his thrift find.

He insisted that I post about this. He's that proud of his find. And now that I am pretty much out of commission for this postpartum month, he's the new teacher in town and he is teaching Cheeky about 'heavy' and 'light' using this balance and the ceramic tiles from the hundreds board. I love this man.

* First seen from the Wonder Years. Check out Amy's post on activities using a balance scale.

Joint and Lone Effort

"Mom, could you draw me a tree?" I drew two vertical lines and a circle. Koko embellished the tree with roots and squiggles. Gee, she could have drawn a tree by herself!

This is what happens when you leave a single paper on a easel for days.

I came back from the hospital to see Koko's drawing of Charlotte and her web. I also noticed that Koko is calling Cheeky 'Lurvy' these days.

I would love to see the movie version of Charlotte's Web since we finished the book, but I don't want to ruin it for Cheeky because ideally, it would be nice to have "read" the book before the movie, don't you think? Or do you think it doesn't matter? It would make a nice date...just Koko and me. But how to make this a reality?

Also, Koko has been asking me to make her a cake and my answer has been in a few weeks when I am all better. Then looking at my still-big belly she asked, "When your stomach goes in, then will you make me a cake? When it's 7 0' clock?"

Babe, it's going to be a little later than that!

Toddler Activity: Ordering Rings According to Size

I got this idea from I Can Do It! I Can Do It! by La Britta Gilbert (She's not a Montessorian, but definitely Montessori-inspired) but instead of using metal key rings, I used these thrifted hoops. I know that it would be better with one more hoop :)

Some other sorting ideas that I'm gleaming from her other book, Do Touch are the following:

• sorting measuring spoons according to size
• sorting objects according to the kind of material they're made of
• sorting strips of lace patterns
• sorting hardware of matching sizes
• sorting squares of sandpaper
• (my favorite) sorting between objects with corners/no corners

The sad thing? I actually had these books recommended by Starry Sky Ranch since I was pregnant with Cheeky and had all these lofty notions that I would do them with Koko while Cheeky was asleep and I don't think I did a single activity.