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Interview with Elmo’s Mom

Sweet Pea is 35 months old.

From: Back around New Year’s, Amy posted about her yearly family interview on Teach Mama and then I recently saw something similar from Nicole at Tired Need Sleep.

Material:

Pen or pencil. List of interview questions. (Amy has a down-loadable one here or you […]


Audio Books

Sweet Pea is 35 months old.

From: A friend recommended the young-adult book The Lovely Bones. I figured that the young-adult categorization meant it was practically a children’s story so I began listening to the audio-book version of it. In the car. With Sweet Pea strapped into the back seat. 67 seconds later […]


My First Book of Cutting from Kumon

Sweet Pea is 34 months old.

From: We have had great luck with Kumon’s “My First” series of books, so I decided to order Kumon’s My First Book of Cutting from Amazon.

Prerequisite: If your tot hasn’t worked with scissors before, I suggest you try the Introduction to Scissors – Cutting Play-doh activity […]


Sugar Chalk

Sweet Pea is 34 months old.

From: I found this activity in MaryAnn Kohl‘s great book, Preschool Art.

Material:

1/3 cup sugar. 1 cup water. Whisk or spoon. Chalk (We had a great time with regular white chalk, but colored sidewalk chalk might be even more exciting). Bowl. Dark colored paper (black or […]


Crayola Stampers

Sweet Pea is 34 months old.

From: I saw these Crayola Stampers on sale at Target and thought they would be a lot of fun for Sweet Pea.

Crayola Stampers. Paper.

Observations: These are supposed to be like markers, but with a fun shape on the tip, so you can stamp a […]


Scrap Paper Collage

Sweet Pea is 34 months old.

From: A lot of our activities are really spontaneous like this one. I had my hand poised above a trash can, about to toss away some scrap paper from one of my own craft projects when Sweet Pea asked if she could look at them. She was […]


Sticker Shapes

Sweet Pea is 34 months old. (Oh, I groan every time I have to increment this. How bittersweet.)

From: I found this idea on the very useful Confessions of a Homeschooler blog. We originally used the shape tracing template (.pdf file requires Foxit or Adobe Acrobat) from Coloring Castle.

Material:

My shape outline […]


Color Tablets, Box #2

Sweet Pea is 33 months old.

From: Color Tablets are another traditional Montessori activity. I found a simple version of this activity in the book Teach Me To Do It Myself by Maja Pitamic and another good description in Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives by David Gettman.

Material:

12 color tablets, which can […]


Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold

Sweet Pea is 32 months old.

From: Our good friends gave Sweet Pea this Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold Clay Set for Christmas.

Observations: The set comes with 4 different colors of dough and several wooden tools for rolling, cutting and stamping it. Sweet Pea really loves everything about this kit […]


Spooning Hearts

Sweet Pea is 32 months old.

From: In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought we’d do something with hearts. 🙂 This is a traditional Montessori activity that involves spooning objects from one location to another. I have read about something similar on many, many other blogs, so when I spotted these cute heart […]