Animal theme activities - week 3

We've started Gymboree art classes and also have lots of art and craft activities planned for at home. One of our art activities this week was stamping. We used some kangaroo and koala stamps. See this post on art activity trays.

I have rearranged the kitchen and made it possible for Little Bean to safely access the kitchen bench. I'm not able to buy a Learning Tower (Santa?) or to make one at the moment so I had to improvise. We still have LB's old cot sitting in the dining room area. We used to use it as a bed - play pen when he was a baby. I was going to get rid of it but realised I had a new purpose for it. A make-shift helper platform. I pushed it up against the kitchen bench and LB can stand in it. Problem solved. The existing height settings are either too high or too low, so I'll have to drill some more holes to give us some better options. More on that project another day.

 This was his first time helping me cook and he loved it. He was in charge of the mixing bowl and stirring. He also helped sift flour, pour in the liquids and added the eggs after I cracked them into a cup for him. On the first day, we made banana cake for morning tea. We also made the almond milk to use in the cake. Another day, we made bacon and vegetable egg slice. He wanted to taste everything, which was fine for cake batter, but a bit weird for raw egg slice. He also cut capsicum and carrot sticks using this awesome crinkle cutter we bought from the How We Montessori shop. It was only AU$3.95

 

Animal recognition is happening. After our art activity was packed away the other day, Little Bean went and got a rubber ducky, pointed to the picture of ducks on his table and put them together. Happy dance.

We added some new animal figurines. He is now learning African animal names and sounds too.

I made Little Bean this activity board. For more details, read the full post here.

Instead of putting the dolly pegs in the pocket of the activity board as I had planned, LB often threaded them onto the front piece of fabric. This gave me the idea for this next activity. Putting dolly pegs on a tin can.

This week I added a spooning activity for the first time. He is using an Asian soup spoon with animal counters.

LB is using tongs for the first time too. These are a small pair that I found at the supermarket for a couple of dollars. He picked it up within a few minutes and really surprised me. I didn't think that he'd be able to do it and just wanted to see how far off he was. Instead, I am now planning more tong activities for next week. I gave him animal counters to see how he went with hard objects. I think I will try something soft like pom poms next.

I have been meaning to try this next activity for a couple of weeks but never found the time. Well, this week, our shell washing activity will happen. We will do it at LB's hand washing station. This red tray is actually for drying dishes on and includes a draining rack. I got the two wooden brushes from the fruit and vegetable section of IGA supermarket in Australia. They're for scrubbing potatoes. I bought both so that I could see which shape would suit little hands best.

We haven't had a discovery basket for a while so I thought I'd make one up with the new containers I've been collecting for another opening and closing activity. It has a small gift box, pill box, lunchbox, cardboard box, plastic container and a drawstring bag.

Animal theme activities - week 2

It's the second week (or so) of our animal theme. As far as this series of posts go, I'm sure you've noticed that my week isn't always a week long. I usually change the activities every seven to ten days. It usually depends on Little Bean's level of interest. Plus, sometimes I get busy and don't have time to come up with a new set of activities every week or get to post straight away. This is a post for activities we did a couple of weeks ago. Hubby works FIFO so I'm basically a single Mum most of the time and am finding it difficult to balance everything at the moment. Since our return to Vietnam after two months away, Little Bean's sleeping pattern has changed, he is back at Gymboree classes twice a week and he decided that he wants to start toilet learning. Plus I've joined a mothers group and am returning to work a couple of nights a week. It's been a lot to get used to in a short space of time. We've finally started to find our rhythm and hopefully this will mean that I can blog with more regularity.

This week was mostly about animals, plus I introduced some new toys and musical instruments. Little Bean loves to sing and dance, so it was no surprise that he loved playing music too. I gave him a new tambourine, clapping sticks, shaker and a pair of maracas. I also reintroduced his xylophone piano. He hasn't played it in a while because I hid it. He was smashing the keys one day and the noise was driving me nuts. I hid it and hoped he'd forget about it. He did, and so did I. I remembered it again this week when I got the other instruments out. He is playing it gently now and my poor addled brain can take it this time around.

I love these farm animal counters. There are six types of animals in five colours. I also bought the matching bowls to use for colour sorting later on. I put a handful of the counters into two plastic jugs with lids. Little Bean removes the lids, pours the counters from jug to jug, then replaces the lids. Over and over and over again. I introduced this activity in the morning and Little Bean spent nearly three hours playing with it, minus a quick toilet and snack break. He couldn't wait to get back to it. I have never seen him so focused before. He only stopped because he was hungry for lunch and then had a nap.

This wire spoon was the perfect size for scooping these rubber duckies from bowl to bowl. I introduced this in the evening and he spend over an hour on it before bedtime.

 

Little Bean saw me doing some hammering and became fascinated with trying to get my hammer and hit things too. A toddler with a real hammer is a scary thing so I bought this wooden hammer and ball set. It was an instant hit and my breakables were safe once more. Down the track, we'll also use this toy for colour recognition and matching.

I have been impatiently waiting for Little Bean to be ready for this toy. I've been dying to play with it. You put little cars on the top ramp and watch them roll and flip their way to the bottom. My favourite is a two trailer car that does awesome flips over the edge and then swings to the next ramp.

This snail from Fisher-Price was a firm favourite when Little Bean was crawling. It lights up, plays music and has a mirror. All popular with little ones. The green part is a wheel, so he would lay it on its side and spin it around. I got it out of storage and this time Little Bean has worked out how to roll it across the floor.

Little Bean started pulling hats out of his drawers so I chose a few animal hats to play dress-up with. We took turns putting on hats and making animal noises and actions. Lots of laughs.

We did Little Bean's bedroom makeover this week and he wanted to help. When Daddy put up the shelf for his TV, it was his job to hand Daddy screws. He is really eager to help with everything so I try to find a new way to help every day.

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.

What we're doing this week

This week we've been playing with some of the art supplies and toys I bought online to keep Little Bean and his cousins amused on the holidays. LB got to make collages for the first time.

These are the single piece jigsaw puzzles I bought from A2Z Montessori online store in Australia. The previous puzzles I bought were too difficult and frustrated him so I went back to basics. He loves them.

This threading activity uses household items. Go here for more information.

He's worked out how to put the magnetic numbers on the fridge every time now.  He was getting mad because the wouldn't always stick. Once I showed him the magnets on the back and showed him they had to face the fridge, he understood and quickly got better at it.

Some of our art supplies: adhesive foam shapes, stickers and black art paper.

Little Bean's collages.

His 6 year old cousin's collages

 

 

His 12 year old cousin's collage and drawing.

A Montessori Christmas

The Christmas chaos has subsided, the visitors have gone home, we've delivered all the gifts and the last of the leftovers have finally been eaten. Now it’s time to sit back, relax and have fun playing with all our new toys. I had so much fun shopping for Little Bean’s presents this year. I found lots of great Montessori inspired toys online.

My favourite items were these Rainbow Sound Blocks on eBay. They have beads between two layers of coloured plastic in a wooden surround. They come packaged in a beautiful wooden box. They were an instant hit with Little Bean. He loves putting them in and out of the box almost as much as he loves shaking them.

I also bought a plain set of Rainbow Blocks on eBay. The plain blocks have one piece of coloured plastic in a wooden surround. I can't wait to play with these on a light table.

With his current desire to be Mummy’s Little Helper, I thought that some toddler-size cleaning equipment was in order. I got him a rake, broom and a dustpan set. He had a blast raking up in the garden with his uncle.

I found this awesome little ride-on toy at Target in Australia. It's great for developing balance. When we finished our shopping, the carpark was almost empty so we let him have a go while we loaded the shopping into the car. He jumped straight on and instantly knew what to do. Clever little cookie.

I've heard lots of kids raving about how good Kinetic Sand is, so I bought 2kg of it. This will be a great addition to our sensory play toolkit.

Santa gave Little Bean this swing, but so far, he's been most reluctant to try it out. I'm not sure why. Maybe he's scared of it, or maybe it reminds him of his highchair and he thinks I'm trying to trap him in a boring toy.  

Little Bean was spoilt by the rest of the family too. He got these great books from Nanna and Pop.

He also got these magnetic numbers in a cool Minion pencil case. I'd previously tried wooden magnetic pieces but he kept chewing them to bits, much like he does with wooden jigsaw puzzles. I asked for these plastic ones for Christmas. Lets hope these ones weather the punishment a little better.

These are Little Beans first set of realistic animal toys. These are a small size. I also bought him some large sized African and farm animals, plus some small sized marine and Australian animal sets.

One of LB's aunties knows we Montessori and she got him this lovely wooden clock and a wooden numbers jigsaw puzzle. Very cool.

I think that this lot will keep us busy for several weeks to come.