This week's discovery basket

Little Bean and I went exploring in the garden. It was great to see the wonder on his little face as he discovered so many new things. I actually watched his world become bigger. We gathered up all kinds of interesting leaves and nuts. I made sure to get a wide range of textures, colours and sizes. I got lots of different leaves from brand new, soft, smooth leaves through to old, dry, crunchy leaves. Later that night, we sat down to have some quiet time before bed. I showed him how to run his fingers over the leaves to feel their texture. I also taught him how to smell a sprig of rosemary, which had him making funny noises as he sniffed in and snorted out. So cute and very entertaining. Then he went on to sniff everything else in the box too.

This week's discovery basket

This week's basket is all about interesting textures. I chose items that were smooth and shiny, smooth and dull, and varying degrees of roughness.

The basket contains two smooth shells, an engraved shell, a slightly rough wooden pestle, a wire sieve, a plastic juicer, a rainbow shower pouf, a plastic scrubbing brush, a bamboo placemat and a drink coaster made from carpet.

This week's discovery basket

This week's discovery basket was created by Little Bean. I bought some plastic tubs to store our growing collection of Montessori materials and craft supplies in. While I was tutoring my ESL (English as a Second Language) student, I let Little Bean play with the tubs. He climbed in them, made them scoot across the floor and generally had a great time. Then he wandered off to find stuff to put in them. Before long, he'd raided our recycling bin, the bookshelf, the laundry and the living room for objects of interest. He found toys, clothes pegs, coat hangers, bottles, boxes, comic books and heaps more. Whenever we're downstairs now, he heads straight for the tubs and pulls stuff out, puts in back in and finds more to add to it. I tied the tubs together so he can push and pull them around the floor like a train, which he loves to do.

I'll keep the opening and closing discovery basket in his bedroom for another week also. He is still showing interest in it and is getting the hang of getting the lids on and off his milk can sorting toys.

This week's discovery basket

We've all been sick with a cold these past couple of weeks, so I've been a bit slack about new activities and discovery baskets. Little Bean was too sick to really care anyway. This is the basket we've been using for the past few days.  Little Beans is currently obsessed with taking the the lid of his baby milk bottle and putting it back on again, so I was inspired to create the theme "opening and closing". I gathered up some practical life items with a range of methods for opening and closing.

 

This basket contains a white plastic container with a press on lid, two small blue containers with snap on lids, a baby bottle with a tight fitting snap on lid (Little Bean's current favourite), a textured vinyl purse with a zipper, a pencil case with a zipper and a blue container with a screw on lid. I also added a fabric bag that has a velcro fastening but didn't get a picture of it.

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.

This week's discovery basket

 At the moment, Little Bean is into wearing hats and mimicking what I do, so this week's discovery basket is all about hats. I got all of his hats out and a few of my own too. I didn't realise just how many hats he had until now. He's got over a dozen. We've been playing a game where I put my hat on or take it off, and he copies me. He loves putting hats on my head too. The brim on my big white hat is so wide that we can play peekaboo under it.