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Halloween Charades

Sweet Pea is 8 years old.

From: I was looking for some activities for Sweet Pea’s classroom Halloween party and got the idea for a game of Halloween themed charades from EasyPartyIdeasAndGames.com. Since we were going to be playing with beginning readers (1st, 2nd and 3rd graders), I wanted to make Halloween word cards […]


Salted Water Color Paintings

Sweet Pea is 6 years old.

From: I saw this beautiful technique in an issue of Family Fun magazine.

Material:

Watercolor paper or other sturdy paper. Watercolor paints or liquid watercolors (Click here to see how we made our own liquid watercolors from dried-out markers.) Paintbrushes. (These Crayola ones are my favorite paint brushes […]


DIY Watercolors from Upcycled Markers

Sweet Pea is 6 years old.

From: I found instructions for this fun and frugal activity from Julie Finn at Crafting a Green World.

Material:

Several old dried-out markers in a variety of colors. Pliers. A few small glass or plastic jars with lids. (Julie suggests using old spice jars, but I had […]


Cloud Dough

Sweet Pea was 5 years old.

 

From: Many people have blogged about Cloud Dough, but I first read about it at Tinkerlab. Cloud Dough is a mixture of flour and oil that creates a really interesting substance. It is somewhat powdery, but easily clumps together when pressed. It is like wet sand, […]


Washi Tape Pencils

Sweet Pea is 6 years old.

From: I got a pack of washi tape on Black Friday last year as a door-buster at a craft store. I didn’t have any idea what to do with it until I saw this cute idea for washi covered pencils at Punk Projects. I modified her method so […]


Child Friendly Kool-Aid Dyed Play Silks

Sweet Pea is 6 years old.

From: Play Silks are a type of beautiful toy commonly used in Waldorf education. You can buy them pre-dyed, but at almost $15 each, it is very expensive to get more than a few colors. There are a zillion blog posts about how to dye play silks, […]


Cooking with Kids: Easy-Peasy Popsicles

Sweet Pea is 6 years old.

From: I often freeze those tubes of yogurt for Sweet Pea. One day, when she asked me to make them, we were out of tubes, but had some yogurt cups, so I offered to try to make popsicles out of those instead and they turned out great!

Material:

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Building Words with the Movable Alphabet

Sweet Pea was about 4 years old when she was introduced to this work.

From: The Movable Alphabet is a set of letters that allow children to build words before they have started either writing or reading. It is a very classic and well-known piece of Montessori work.

Prerequisite: You and your child should […]


Bubble Dough

Sweet Pea is 6 years old.

 

From: I saw this very cool and super easy Bubble Dough recipe from Creative Playhouse and couldn’t wait to try it!

Material:

Mixing bowl. 1 cup Cornstarch. 1/4-1/2 cup Liquid dish or hand soap. (We used Dawn.) Dry cloth and a damp sponge for clean […]


“I Spy” – Montessori Style

Sweet Pea was about 3 years old.

 

From: “I Spy” is a well known children’s game, but in this version, the clues are sounds instead of colors. This is a classic Montessori activity that helps children begin to recognize phonetic sounds. I first read about it in David Gettman’s book Basic Montessori Learning […]