I have a lovely collection of washi tape and Atlas has been allowed to use washi tape before. We usually use to it ‘fix’ up broken cars.

I selected some bright and geometric designs for this activity and project. Afterwards A made a tower with the tape. He ‘counted’ them as he stacked them, he also talked about whether this one was bigger then that one.

With his help I laid down some strips of tape. The activity was originally for him to pull them up, but I think he liked the look of it so refused to do that.

Earlier I had prepared an empty soft drink bottle by cutting off the bottom and giving it a clean and dry. I covered the end with some green masking tape. We then wrapped washi tape around it. A pointed and I put it on, he helped smooth the strips.

it was meant to be a telescope but A used it as a musical instrument. 🤷🏼‍♀️. Not that it matters because he can’t wink yet.

Both of these activities technically failed, but A still enjoyed them and that’s the main thing.

I got the ideas from Hands on as We Grow, and bought their Early Years Bundle of Activity Plans from here.

There are some great ideas, some of which I am sure I could have made up myself or gotten from a search in Pinterest but I would rather start a folder of ideas that I can just go to without much though.

I finally got around to doing a Pinterest favourite. Jam some crap in a zip lock bag with some sort of gel. Seal it up and let them play for hours.

Except Atlas found these buttons first in his craft drawers so when I tried to take them off him for said project... well
Let’s just say this activity didn’t last for very long.

In fact the clean up went for longer and he enjoyed it more.

He then took them back to his craft table and sorted them into a Christmas silicon tray we bought today and after that he slotted the buttons into a decorated bottle with the end chopped off.

So although this was technically a fail, he still had fun with it though 😅

2 Year’s 4 months

A’s babysitter bought him a set of second hand dominoes from our local Christmas fete.

He also bought A a few toys from the lucky dip as well. A is pretty spoilt 😆

I was trying to teach A how to get out the dominoes other then just overturning the box and dumping them out. Impossible task right now because he’s all about the dumping out at the moment.

We tried lining up the dominoes by matching the animals, but this was as far as A got before he lost interest in that game. So I let him free play.

He built ‘towers’ and a ‘snake’.

But at least we talked about animals, which is one of his favourite topics at the moment.

2 years 4 months

Okay - so A LOVES this so much. I’m keeping it up high so it feels special when we play it but man he wants to play it!

we have been playing the first level of the I Spy game, Montessori style. You can read about the levels from The Learning Arc - click here.

First I showed him the drawer we were concentrating on. I set out each object and named them, and Atlas repeated after me.

I then put the object back into the drawer and pulled out one object. I held it in my hand and said, ‘I spy with my little eye something starting with t.’

Because I was only holding one thing, A could easily identify the object. We would then say the object’s name. In this case it was strawberry because we had already gone through the T drawer because A was super keen.

This is a photo of A ‘finding’ the object that started with S.

We tried the next level but he’s not ready though, so I’ll try again after we’ve played at this level some more.

2 years 4 months

Here is A folding up face washers

Here is a folded washer.

And here is A running away with all the folded towels so that he can lie on them 😅

2 years 4 months

A lives animals and loves learning their names. His favourite animals are the red panda and the giant panda.

Living here Australia means we have a lot of animals that don’t live anywhere else. I feel it’s important for A to learn these - maybe not every single one but the major ones. I’ve taught students that didn’t know what a Tasmanian devil was, and they were in high school.

We’ve already started learning the names using figurines and the Montessori three period lesson. For more instructions about the three period lesson please read this Montessori Primary Guide site.

For a mat we’ve been using a tea towel that has an Aborinal print on it. It needs a good iron 😊

The other thing I like to do is show him a video of the animal. Please ignore the dinosaur that decided to join us for this lesson 😆

we have a few books that have Australian animals in them as well. This one is from Steve Parish.

I bought my figurines from a variety of places, even at a market! But my favourite place is Mini Zoo. These are the large replicas Science and Nature, and are available here.

2 years 4 months

I saw this idea from Planting Peas, via Pinterest and thought A would like this one. Although he loves coloured hair bands, he’s not so keen on brushing his hair. He gets out his hair and container and likes playing with them.

I keep all our cardboard rolls, for craft and for planting seeds, so this was really easy.

Sorry not sorry for my crappy photos. I’m usually busy with the actual activity and just snapping a quick shot on my phone. You’ get real action shots from me 😅

I have been wanting to create a Montessori alphabet/language object collection for some time. Like, since I first about heard about Montessori years ago. I love dolls and miniatures so this was going to be right up my street.
.

For my birthday a friend gave me this very cute set of cardboard drawers and A decided that he liked them a lot. So for now that is what we are using. I stuck some stickers on the front of the drawers to label them. We are focusing on the letters SATPIN.

A’s name is made up using some of those letters plus L. So I’ll be doing L as well.

But what got my wriggle on is that A can already tell me the letters of his first name. Today he named those letters using the magnets on his fridge which spelt out his name. And he told me that he had another A in his name and pointed it out 😱 so I’m going to have to pick my game up.

I also really want to use the SSP Monster Mapping which our school uses in the Early Years which is fun and exciting and works.

The rest of the drawers are empty - so I’m going to have to get hunting! I’ve got things I can use, like my Re-ment miniatures, but I’ll keep them put away until he is just a little bit older.

Doesn’t this photo give you the impression that A loved this work? Putting pom poms into an ice cube tray - looks like a great idea. A didn’t think so.

This was as far as he got before he got bored and just dumped a few more in anywhere and left the rest.

I thought maybe he already knows how to do this or maybe it’s because he doesn’t like the feel of these pom poms - as we all know toddlers do have very strong preferences that change like pretty much instantly.

So later in the day I put some bells into the bowl, and left tongs out. He loves tongs, I fact last night he wanted to go to bed with the BBQ tongs. He came back to the work but not for much longer then the first time.

Anyway, this provided A with approximately 20 seconds of entertainment but I thought I would share an activity fail with you. We can’t all be perfect, all of the time.

In the meantime our cat has been eyeing off the pom poms. He loves to kick them around the house and crash into things in the wee hours of the morning.