Animal theme activities - week 1

This is actually a post about what we started doing three weeks ago. Since our return from holidays in Australia, I just haven't found the time to post any new blogs. There has been crappy internet service, an intermittent access to Blogger and the hassle of trying to get Little Bean settled in at home again.  Then I sprained an ankle and got the sore throat from Hell; a totally miserable combination. Add to that, all the Vietnamese New Year holiday preparations, work functions, visitors and the required visits to family. Honestly, I am SO, SO over it. I can't wait for normality to be restored and for life to go back to our regular, slightly boring, but reassuringly familiar routine.

We're having a month-long theme of animals and the sounds they make. We're focusing mainly on the farm and household animals that he see sees regularly, as well as the most common African and jungle animals he sees on TV and in books.

Our journey began with lots of singing and dancing. Little Bean is a huge fan of The Wiggles and we have several of their DVDs. We've watched, sang to and danced along with lots of their songs about animals such as The Monkey Dance, Ponies, Uncle Noah's Ark and Captain Feathersword Fell Asleep on His Pirate Ship.  I have to tell you, I've been getting a pretty good workout dancing along with the DVDs. Who needs aerobics when you have a toddler who loves The Wiggles? We've also been watching New MacDonald's Farm and Play School DVDs.

We've been singing animal songs like Old MacDonald Had a Farm and Five Little Ducks using our plastic animals and bath tub duckies. Here is a copy of our free printable lyrics for Five Little Ducks. 

I bought some Kinetic Sand from Online Toys Australia at Christmas time and we finally got it out to make an animal sensory tub. It is really weird stuff. It's almost like it crawls along. I think it's kind of creepy. I put some small plastic African animals, spoons and small bowls in the tub along with 2kg of sand. Little Bean loves to go out to the balcony to play with it at least once or twice a day. I've been burying animals for him to find and helping him mould the sand with the bowls. But mostly, he loves scooping and pouring the sand.

I bought this Build-A-Garden set online from Modern Teaching Aids. This is one of my favourite online stores for Montessori and homeschool materials. The dowels are designed to fit into a base and the beads can be threaded on to make a garden with flowers and bugs. We're only using the dowels and bug beads at the moment for a smaller scale threading activity.

 We bought this push-along duck toy in Australia from our local pharmacy. Little Bean broke the duck's beak off five minutes after we got home. He loves the noise it makes.

Little Bean was given these cute ladybird and monster Pillow Pets by his aunties. He loves snuggling up on his new floor bed with them. I plan to put them in his old toddler bed and turn it into a reading nook. More on that project in my next post.

 I got these gorgeous Melissa & Doug jumbo knob puzzles from Modern Teaching Aids.
We've also been using the pieces for vocabulary practice, singing Old McDonald Had a Farm and imaginative play.

 Little Bean loves to throws things at the moment, so I'm trying to channel it by putting out this basket of soft balls. The four smaller balls are actually really dense pompoms I got from Kmart  in a pack for a few dollars.

 Little Bean's Daddy gave him this super snuggly teddy bear a few months ago and he's really taken to it. This month, Big Bear got his own bed, clothes, nappy and sippy cup. Little Bean has been resistant to sitting on the potty so I'm hoping that Big Bear can help us by swapping his nappy for training pants and going on the potty too.

How to make your own sorting toys

These sorting toys are really quick and easy to make.

You'll need:
Baby milk cans with plastic resealable lids
Eucalyptus oil
Stanley trimmer (box cutter) or similar blade
Pencil or marker pen
Items for sorting (I used wooden blocks, plastic lids and plastic chew toys.)
Wrapping paper, adhesive contact or coloured packing tape (optional)

Make sure that your baby milk cans are the kind with no sharp edges. Clean any sticky label residue off with eucalyptus oil. Wash and dry the cans thoroughly.

Trace the shape of the toy on to the plastic can lid. Put the lid on the can and cut out the shape with your Stanley knife.

If you want your sorting cans to be more decorative, cover the outside with wrapping paper, adhesive contact or coloured packing tap.

 

What we're doing this week

This week, Little Bean was delighted when his new wooden trolley that I ordered from Win Win Toys arrived. It's shaped like a dog and has ears that swing as he pushes it along. He spent lots of time just swinging the ears round and round. It came at the perfect time as it helped to distract him from his new favourite pastime of pushing the furniture around his room.


He filled the trolley with his new wooden cars and plastic balls. I quickly learnt that he had very particular ideas about what could and could not go in the trolley. I tried to put his little bear in there and it was unceremoniously tossed across the room.

Little Bean decided that it would also be fun to sit in his trolley. It was a tight squeeze so he soon found a more comfortable place to sit. My washing basket. He didn't even let me finish taking the washing out first. It still had some spare cloth nappies in it, so I decided they could stay put as it would give him some cushioning. He has spent many hours just sitting in it and playing with the handles, putting things in and out of it, and trying to get it to move along. He loves it when I push him around the room in it.

Little Beans's new wooden cars are also from Win Win Toys. These inspired this week's discovery basket theme of Push & Roll. Visit here to see the discovery basket. He's really got the hang of pushing them along now and can make them zoom across the room at crazy speeds. Every now and then, he gets a little too enthusiastic and they just fly through the air before smashing into a wall. I guess he's still working out the levels of his strength.


We have also been playing with his new plastic balls. They each have a small bell filled ball in the centre. I have discovered that this makes them really good for spinning. The little ball inside seems to make them spin for longer and if you spin them a little off centre, they spin for ages whilst travelling across the room.

This week's discovery basket

This discovery basket is actually from last week. I just realised that I forgot to post it. The theme was  Push & Roll. It was inspired by his new wooden cars and plastic balls.

The balls included in this basket were a set of small wooden balls, plastic balls with bells inside, a velvet ball and a red rubber sensory ball.  There were also some wooden cars, a plastic truck, a plastic rattle and some plastic cylinders with bells inside.

What we're doing this week

This post is a little late going up. We got Little Bean some beautiful new wooden toys last week. They are made by Win Win Toys, a Vietnamese company. I want to buy 90% of their toy catalogue.

This pull-along crocodile wriggles along with a caterpillar-like movement and makes a clacking noise. However, it doesn't work on the wooden floor in Little Bean's bedroom. The wheels can't get enough traction. It works on his playmat and on the carpet in my room though. He likes to just carry it around and chew on the string and bead.



Little Bean loves music so it was a no-brainer to start his musical instrument collection with this rainbow coloured xylophone. It was a fast favourite and he quickly learnt that it sounds cool when you run the stick across the keys instead of just hitting them.

I loved this ball-run toy and couldn't wait for him to want to play with it. After only showing him twice how to put the balls on the top ramp, he has it sussed and played happily for ages. He has since found alternative uses for the balls.

He has lost some interest in stacking his bowls and cups this week. Instead, he has been using them with the balls from his ball-run toy. He puts the balls in them, tips them from one bowl to another and covers the balls with them.

He's still loving his sensory balls. He's really gotten the hang of kicking the big red ball around now. I was also going to pack his inflatable roller toy away as he hasn't shown much interest in it for a week or so, when he suddenly started playing with it again. It has bell filled balls inside and he loves the sound. He's lays on top of it and rolls over it to the floor on the other side. He's also been kicking it around. Kicking really seems to be a big thing for him at the moment.









He's been wanting to carry his basket of wooden blocks around one-handed. It didn't work with the shallow basket and they kept spilling out. I got him a new deep basket with handles and he's been carrying them everywhere.

His discovery basket contents haven't changed. I realised that in the photo of it, there's a small round wire sieve I didn't mention last week. This was part of an old discovery basket that he found laying around and put in there himself. He loves the feel of the wire mesh.


I didn't change as many things this week as I originally planned. Instead, his natural curiosity found new ways to use old things. Next week, his sound sensory bottles will be taken out as he's currently showing minimal interest in them. I think I'll replace them with visual sensory bottles.

Little Bean's Montessori inspired bedroom

Little Bean has been living in a half finished bedroom for the past year. We had just been too short on time and/or funds to complete it. I'm happy to say that we've finally finished it. Hooray! Here are some pictures of his new Montessori inspired room. It's not completely Montessori as we're short on space and I've had to incorporate his non-Montessori toys into the area as well. But, overall, I think I've followed as many of the Montessori principles as I was able to at this point in time.

The owl decals were put on the walls soon after he was born, before I researched Montessori,  and unfortunately, can't be removed without damaging the wall paint. I know that Montessori recommends that only a few high quality pieces of art be hung on the walls, so we commissioned this beautiful felt owl picture from FancyNancy ART. You can see her creations here. I can't hang it at his eye level yet as he just wants to pull it to bits.

FancyNancy is uber talented and will do a customised piece for you. I think she's been doing a lot of "Frozen" Ice Princess pictures lately.

I would have loved to have more natural wooden furniture in his room but practicality didn't allow for it. We found this lovely wooden cot for a great price and put in wood flooring, wooden steps and a wooden safety gate. We bought plastic drawers for storage as plastic items are super cheap here and it is much easier to keep plastic mould free in the super humid environment of a Vietnamese wet season. I've found that it can quickly build up on the backs of closets and large furniture that is against the walls, even if you leave a gap behind them. Definitely not a problem that I wanted to worry about in a baby's bedroom.

At the moment, Little Bean is still using a cot and mosquito net, both of which are heading out the door soon. We've just done a heap of "baby-proofing" in preparation for his big boy floor bed. We've moved all of the powerpoints to high on the walls, put in a safety gate and put safety latches on all the drawers. Since I can't keep him out of the nappy bin, I put a safety latch on that too, even though he can't reach it. In theory anyway. I'm sure he will find a way soon enough. I hope he gets over his fascination with bins soon. It's a bit gross at times. Like when he hands you something stinky out of someone else's bin and is all happy because he just gave you a present. 

 I love this bamboo rainbow mobile. It spins in the breeze from his fan. You can twist it or flatten it at will, so I'm going back to buy more of them to use in craft activities. I think they would look great wrapped around some baby formula tins that I could into drums and sorting toys.

We put this cute safety mirror in his cot. I found this gorgeous Taggies toy at Baby Bunting. It has a squeeker inside and has kept him amused on many a long car trip. Baby Bunting is shopping heaven for new Mums with the itch to buy cute things. That's me!

We put in a shelf under his window to store his Montessori activities and toys. We'll change these out regularly so he doesn't get bored. I couldn't seem to get a good shot of it. In the daytime, the sunlight was making the photo glarey, and at night, the photos were coming out too dark. I'm really going to have to study up on my camera if I'm to put lots of good photos in my blog posts.

Down on the floor, we've put a basket of wooden blocks and a discovery basket on a cute playmat. I'll be talking more about discovery baskets in the coming weeks. We're trying to teach him to keep messy toys like wooden blocks on the playmat. I'm looking for a good mat that we can use as a Montessori activity mat. As his room must accommodate both Montessori and play elements, I would like to separate the two by getting him used to using an activity mat as soon as possible. Two different mats, two different purposes.

He loves his nappy change mat. We mostly do nappy changes whilst standing now so it has become more of a play item. He loves dragging it around by the strap and flipping it over and over. He also like laying down on it for a little rest or to have a bottle.

I love this cute child-sized table and chair. I found them at a local baby store. They're made by Win Win Toys, a Vietnamese company. They make great wooden toys, many of which I'll be showing you in the coming weeks. Their toys are excellent quality at cheap prices. I LOVE THEM!!! In comparison to prices for wooden toys at Australian Montessori online stores, they're around half the cost, often less.

We plan to make a few additions in the near future. As I said earlier, we're getting Little Bean a floor bed. We'll be adding a self-care area with a mirror and a place to hang a couple of outfits. I thought about including a place for washing his hands and face here, but I'm worried about water on the wood vaneer floor. I think I might put that in the bathroom for now. Once he's mastered it, it may make it's way to his self-care area. We'll also hang some family photos on the wall. I'll keep you posted.

What we're doing this week

Now that we've nearly finished Little Bean's bedroom, I've set up some Montessori inspired activities for him along the window ledge shelf. He's free to play with any of the activities at any time. He also has some toys on his play mat. You can see his Montessori inspired bedroom here.

He's going through a phase where he's obsessed with stacking things and putting things in and out of containers. With this in mind, I went shopping and bought some plastic bowls of various sizes that he can stack inside each other. I also got some baby food storage jars that stack on top on each other. He's loving them. He's also really got the hang of his Fisher Price stacking rings toy this week.

I put a mix of natural and coloured wooden blocks in a basket for him. He spends a lot of time just putting them in and out of the basket. He quickly got the hang of stacking the blocks, knocking them down and eagerly doing it all over again.

As a sensory activity, I made up six plastic bottles with contents that make a wide range of sounds when shaken. I used cut up drinking straws, rice, split mung beans, kidney beans, chickpeas and Little Bean's favourite, some small bells. He's been shaking up a storm. I'll make some visual sensory bottles next.

He also has some fabric books which include a range of fabrics, crinkly pages and squeekers. He loves his Noisy Little Blue Train book. He can press a button that makes train sound effects. We got his soft toy lion out of storage too. He lost interest in it so we packed it away for a while. The time away has made it interesting again. Like his fabric books, it features a range of different fabrics, crinkly plastic and squeekers, as well as some chew toys, which a teething Little Bean love right now.

On his play mat, we have a discovery basket that will usually be themed. This week it has some sensory toys: his lion, a rattle, a rubber sensory ball and a small soft velvet ball. He's teething at the moment so there's a teething toy. He loves playing peek-a-boo games using blankets, towels and clothing, so there is a muslin wrap in there too. He loves me flinging it up in the air and letting it land on him and cover him up. 

The plan is to change several, or perhaps all, of the toys and activities weekly, depending on his interest level and ability. I have some great sensory activities planned which I will share with you as they happen. I'm excited about starting some art projects with him soon.