itty bitty love

elise was here!

2013-05-16T12:34:00.000-06:00

breakfast:

playtime:

Happy early weekend! My dad is traveling from Missoula this afternoon to visit us for a couple days. Then, we'll be busy on Saturday and Sunday with a birthday party, a bike festival, gardening, and lots of outdoor play. Fun, fun! Hope you have some swell weekend adventures planned, too!

opening and closing activities for the beginner

2013-05-15T09:05:00.000-06:00

Recently, Elise has shown a lot of interest in opening containers. Taking the lid off a box is a fun challenge for her, but putting it back on is tricky. To help her develop this skill, I put together a very simple opening and closing basket.

a double photo frame

and

Hubs' old wallet

the frame
in action

the wallet
in action

I also made this treasure box for Elise out of a shoe box.

She loves opening it up to see what's inside!

Oh, and last, but not least

the original beginning opening and closing activity:

the kitchen cabinets!

a basket of hats

2013-05-06T10:58:00.001-06:00

I got the idea for this hat treasure basket from Our Montessori Home. Jessica describes this as a social activity for your baby, and she's absolutely right. While Elise has enjoyed exploring the hats on her own, she's had a TON of fun trying them on with her friends and family! It's also been a great way for everyone who's visited us recently to play with Elise.

This was a super easy treasure basket to put together. In addition to adult hats, I stuck in a few of Elise's hats, too. Elise is not a huge fan of hats, so I'm hoping this playful experience will make wearing a sunhat down to the park a little more bearable for her. ;) Even Rosie has gotten in on the action, and she really doesn't like wearing a hat!

I found this simple little board book at the library to go along with our basket. It's definitely early 90's style, but Elise has been intrigued with the candid photos of kids trying on hats!

one more!

2013-05-03T16:08:00.001-06:00

Ok, it's official, we are on an object permanence game kick! Today, we tried this peek-a-boo box idea from The Stay-at-Home-Mom Survival Guide. When I put it together last night, I had a feeling Elise was going to like it - it combines two of her favorite things: opening and closing boxes and pulling off photos stuck on with velcro! Elise has been fighting off her first cold, so we've been snuggling and playing this game a lot. Her reaction is so sweet when she opens the lid and sees herself inside. :)

Happy weekend, friends!

six object permanence games

2013-04-30T22:10:00.000-06:00

If something can't be seen, heard, or touched, does it still exist? Jean Piaget emphasized the importance of object permanence in his theory of cognitive development. (Read more on Wikipedia.) Here are a handful of fun games to play with your baby that will strengthen his or her understanding of object permanence!

1. Ball under a cup

2. Caterpillar in an apple

3. Ring in a box

4. Stuffed animal under a blanket

5. The ball drop

6. Peek-a-boo!!!

a little tour: e's montessori nursery

2013-04-24T08:33:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Elise's bedroom! Before she was born, Hubs and I spent a lot of time in this room. We sat on the floor imagining what our baby was going to be like, and how we could create a space that would meet his or her needs. Since we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, we wanted to keep it neutral. We also knew we wanted it to have a Montessori influence. We decided on child-sized furniture, natural materials, low-hanging pictures, a floor bed, etc - things that would be inviting to a small child and encourage movement. Anyway, here are the results! It is so much fun for us to see Elise thriving in this space!

Elise has been sleeping on her floor bed at night and for naps since she was twelve weeks old. Before that, she sleep in a bassinet, or with me on the couch. :) Having a floor bed has really worked out well for our family, and I plan on posting more about our experience soon!

mattress: sultan florvag (ikea)
rug: wool tufted rug (world market)
mirror: old - hubs attached it to the wall with trim.
wall decor: left to right happy garden embroidery pattern (little dear), fox decal (wee gallery), art cards (wee gallery), bird print (christine sutton)
mobile: mobile hanger (michael olaf), dream catcher (gift)
shelf: unfinished wooden crate (joann fabric and craft store)
knitted hedgehogs: smith pattern (ysolda teague)

Elise's room is upstairs, and when she wakes up from a nap we can hear her through the ceiling, crawling to either her shelf or her closet! She rarely wakes up crying - we end up going upstairs because we want to see her, not because she needs us.

curtain: you can barely see it, but my mom and I made it from redwork renaissance fabric (moda)
wall decor: woodland wall graphics and art cards (wee gallery)
chair: old - friends of my parents made it for me when I was a little babe
closet: we bought and installed closet organizing hardware from lowe's, and adjusted it to child-level
laundry basket: old - something similar (montessori services)
shelf: martha stewart cube organizer (home depot) - hubs attached a piece of white beadboard to the back
mobile: hot air balloons (flensted mobiles), purchased at The Livingston Kite Company

Oh, Elise and I have spent many an hour in that chair! I wasn't sure I wanted to put a such a monster of a chair in her room, but it has really been nice for nursing, snuggling, and reading books. Eventually it will go somewhere else in the house, and then this corner will evolve into a new space.

chair: blain (best home furnishings - storytime series), purchased at Bibs and Binkies
side-table: old - an awesome garage sale freebie
sailboat painting: a christine sutton original

Inspiring Montessori bedrooms:

Finn (mama liberated)
Otis (how we montessori)
Baby J (montessori beginnings)
Henry (feeding the soil)
Tristan (gray likes baby)
Roo (louiseallana)
Miloh (smonk you)
Montessori ici

kitchen treasures

2013-04-22T11:03:00.000-06:00

Another favorite treasure basket...

While I wash dishes or prepare a meal, Elise can often be found exploring the objects in her kitchen treasure basket. I love that we're able to both work in the kitchen at the same time (AND I can get something done - like the dishes! Woo hoo!).

Elise loves being able to check out all the cooking tools she's seen Hubs and I use in the kitchen. (Of course, that cute little felt doughnut isn't really a tool, but it is fun to chew on!) I can't wait until Elise is able to do practical life activities like scrubbing carrots and stirring batter, but a kitchen treasure basket seems like a good place to start!

the velcro board

2013-04-17T10:55:00.001-06:00

I saw this over on Chasing Cheerios, and knew we had to give it a try. Remember how much we love velcro? Anyway, our velcro board has been a big hit with Elise for the past month. I can't decide which she enjoys more, pulling the objects off the board, or sticking them in her mouth afterwards! Either way, Elise is strengthening her control and coordination of movement AND stimulating her senses.

To make this activity, I attached strips of sticky back velcro to a board (It's actually a wooden plaque). Then, I stuck smaller pieces of sticky back velcro to the bottoms of some wooden objects. I found all my supplies at Michaels, and spent about $10. I always stay with Elise while she's using the velcro board because some of the objects are small. Also, Elise really likes to chew on the little pieces of velcro, so I check them frequently to make sure they're still firmly stuck in place.

Oh gosh, I was just looking at this last photo, and there's Rosie! Do you see her? What a creeper... I think she bombs 90% of the photos I take of Elise. This baby sure is lucky to get herded by a cow dog all day! :)

on the shelves - 9 months

2013-04-15T15:46:00.003-06:00

the circle treasure basket

A variety of lids to look at, chew on, and hit together. Lids scavenged from around the house.

the ball drop

This is our version of the object permanence box. The ball is dropped into one of the three holes on the top, and then rolls out the hole on the side. Box and ball purchased here, and then slightly modified. :)

egg and cup

This activity is great for exploring the concept that things fit together. Plus, the egg is perfect for chewing on! Egg and cup from Pinkhouse Handworks.

the photo album

Elise always enjoys looking at photos of herself and other people she knows. I switch the photos out occasionally to keep it fresh. I like the concept of a baby photo album, but I don't like the way the plastic sleeves stick to the photos in this one. Still curious? Check it out here.

the blue bag

A blue bag full of blue objects to explore. Can you guess which one Elise likes the best?

busy hands: baby edition

2013-04-12T14:50:00.000-06:00

pulling mama-made magnets

off the fridge

exploring the tails

in Fishy Tails

a family walk

along the Yellowstone River

investigating

a selection of spheres

admiring the details

on a souvenir gift from Mexico

(Our friend who gave up this little dish apologized because there was a piece of velcro on the back. I laughed and showed her all the photos hanging with velcro on our walls. We hung the dish up right away, and Elise loved pulling it off. I haven't kept it up, though, because I'm a little worried about E chewing off the beads... Instead, I'm saving it for special times when we can look at it together!)

picking up and dropping the agate

from the nature treasure basket

pulling up to a stand

against a chair

Happy Friday, friends!

treasures from nature

2013-04-10T09:07:00.000-06:00

OK, so we are huge fans of treasure baskets around here. Commercial baby toys are fun for a quick minute or two, but a basket full of real things? Things the big people use? Now, that's worth some serious baby investigation.

This week, Elise has been exploring a treasure basket with objects from nature. Our outside world has been under snow for the majority of Elise's life (crazy, right?), so it's been exciting for her to discover that under all that fluffy white stuff, some seriously interesting things were hiding. A few of our natural finds have come home with us to become Elise's newest treasure basket.

Clockwise from the top left: agate, driftwood, fossil, coral (not from Montana, but a gift from a friend's recent trip to Mexico), pine branch cutting, and pine cone.

A thoughtfully put together treasure basket can stimulate all of Elise's senses and hold her interest for up to a half an hour, or more! Elise has been enjoying treasure baskets since she was between 4 and 5 months old (she's 9 months now), and I really appreciate the way they've given her an opportunity to experience the fascinating objects of her environment in a safe way. OH, and did I mention? Putting together a basket full of curiosities from your house and yard is FREE! Now that's a treasure, right?

Some treasure basket inspiration:

How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin
Counting Coconuts
How We Montessori
Montessori ici
Sew Liberated

a book, a craft, a task

2013-04-08T15:36:00.002-06:00

A handful of happy activities to fill that precious free time I sometimes find here and there...

Book I've been trying to read a little every day. Right now I'm on an Ivan Doig kick - Prairie Nocturne is the fifth one of his books that I've read since February! That's commitment.

Craft I started knitting a baby hedgehog last month from the pattern Smith by Ysolda Teague. I've already knit the mama and the papa, so Elise's little hedgie family is nearly complete!

Task I was going to work in the garden today because the weather has been so nice and springy, but we woke up to SNOW this morning! Until tomorrow, dandelions?

What projects are you working on during your precious moments of free time?

bookworm

2013-04-05T20:48:00.001-06:00

I came across this sweet little scene today, and my heart pretty much melted on the spot. Elise had taken Busy Piggies off her bookshelf, and was sitting, flipping through the pages all by herself. Oh, how I adore this little person! I hope her love for books and reading lasts a lifetime!

ripping things off the walls

2013-04-04T12:15:00.001-06:00

"Oooaaaaaghhh!" Thump thump thump thump, riiiiiiiiip!

That's the sound of Elise crawling around the house, tearing pictures off the wall. Ever since Elise was a newborn, I've been hanging pictures at her level along the walls. She's enjoyed looking at cool calendar pages, postcards from faraway lands, and photos of herself, family, and friends.

This was all fine and dandy until Elise became mobile. Then, the pictures started coming off the walls. Within seconds, they were crumpled, torn, and soaking wet. While I cheered Elise's dexterity, I also mourned all the cool pictures we were going through, and worried about the ink and paper that was being ingested.

That is, until I busted out the laminator. I had forgotten about that thing! When I was teaching, I used it all the time.

Anyway, I laminated a selection of photos - I tried to choose ones that were fairly close up, and showed Elise working in her environment or interacting with friends and family. I rounded off all the sharp corners when I cut them out of the laminating plastic.

Once they were laminated and cut out, I stuck small pieces of sticky back velcro on the back's of the photos - I used the rough, hook side.

Then, I stuck larger pieces of sticky back velcro in various places around the house - I used the soft, loop side.

I can easily stick pictures all over the house this way, and Elise LOVES discovering them and pulling them off. She'll spend a good portion of the morning crawling all around the house, looking at pictures. It's so much fun to hear her squeal in delight when she discovers a picture of herself doing something fun. Plus, when the velcro pulls apart, it makes a really satisfying ripping sound.

I keep laminating more photos and rotating them around to keep it interesting for Elise. It would also be fun to laminate other small pictures, like magazine images of people and animals. Eventually, Elise will be able to put them back on the walls herself, but in the meantime, it only takes me a few seconds to do it - and that's important!

well, hello there!

2013-04-02T10:44:00.000-06:00

It sure has been awhile! Have you missed me? ;) I have most definitely missed the blog world, and lately I've been feeling pretty inspired to give it a go again. I'd like to introduce you to my biggest inspiration, my lovely new little friend and daughter, Elise. She was born last July, and I am head over heals for her - sorry Hubs and Rosie, but you've kind of been replaced. Ha, ha! JK! I still love my husband and dog - having a sweet baby is just the icing on the cake. Anyway, I've stopped teaching to stay at home with Elise. I miss all my little pupils back at the Montessori preschool, but I am having lots of fun making materials and creating a Montessori environment for Elise here at home. I've gotten many great ideas online (umm, pinterest is incredible!!!), and I'm ready to start sharing what Elise and I have been up to here on the blog. There! Now you're caught up with me, so what's new with you?

peep, peep!

2011-04-24T09:26:00.001-06:00

Happy Easter,

friends!!!

recycled egg crown tutorial

2011-04-22T13:25:00.013-06:00

We wanted to celebrate Earth Day AND Easter, so we decided to make some festive eggs crowns using materials from our classroom recycling bin. It was sort of a fusion of two projects I'd seen on the Crafty Crow: Sew Together's Easter Egg Crown and El Hada De Papel's Easy Yarn Easter Egg Tutorial. The children LOVED making these eggs. Sometimes I feel like crafty projects require a little too much adult assistance, but this one was just right for the 3 to 4-year-olds in my classroom. Anyway, anyone who's anyone around here wants one of these crowns, so I decided to put together a little tutorial. Here it goes!

What you'll need:

broken down cracker boxes
old catalogs, magazines, paper, etc. {we also used unclaimed child artwork}
sissors
glue
marker

DISCLAIMER: I keep forgetting to take photos at school, so I put this tutorial together at home. At school, we used a glue stick rather than Elmer's and we most definitely DID NOT use a Sharpie marker for tracing!

Draw an egg-shaped oval on the inside of the box. The one above is free-handed; at school, we used a stencil.

Cut up magazines and paper into strips. Our strips were all 1/4 to 1 inch wide. It doesn't really matter how long they are - it's kind of fun if they're different lengths.

Cut out the egg-shape and apply glue to one side.

Stick paper strips to the egg-shape until it's entirely covered.

At this point, the children were pretty curious about why I had covered up the egg-shape...

They were SO excited to see that the egg was on the other side - it was a little like a magic trick! Love them!

Cut around the egg-shape, using the edge of the cardboard as a guide.

Turn it over, and now you have a lovely paper egg! Oooooooo! Aaaaaaahhhh!

AND, if you are so inclined, staple, glue, or tape several of these eggs to a longer strip of paper attached at the ends, and you'll have a fabulous crown!

I picked Hubs up from work wearing the crown and these sunglasses, and he was definitely impressed!

Happy weekend!

chicks {real ones coming soon...}

2011-04-18T19:11:00.002-06:00

We saw lilla a's cute, felt chickies over on The Crafty Crow this morning, and just had to make some. Not only are they fun to put together and sweet to look at, but they double as fab finger puppets, too! Check out lilla a for the photo tutorial.

peep,

peep!

busy hands

2011-03-04T08:10:00.004-07:00

the ridiculously popular

bead work lesson,

in action

building towers

with the knobless cylinders

skip counting by eights

{can YOU do this?}

building and writing a useful word

with the moveable alphabet

{useful words are words that get used frequently,

but you can't quite sound them out - the, is, of, are, was....}

exploring objects from the

"l" drawer of the alphabet box

{explore OUR alphabet box here}

clip-on koalas

2011-02-25T08:01:00.002-07:00

Are you tired of strengthening your fine motor control

with those same old clothespins????

We have been loving these cute little koala clips! When you squeeze their backs, their arms and legs open and you can clip them onto lots of things. We have been clipping ours onto this wooden spice rack. These koala clips are the perfect challenge for the child who is working to strengthen his pincer grip AND build coordination and control of his movement. They are not easy to open - you really have to have strong fingers - but they are so much fun, even the littlest hands in our classroom will manipulate them all morning long.

I remember having lots of clip-on animals like these koalas when I was growing up. The 80's were just rad like that, I guess. I found some koala clips on amazon, but they seem a little on the spendy side to me. Click here if you want to check them out.

Does anyone have any other ideas where you can find animal clips?

We want more!!!

busy hands

2011-02-20T19:15:00.004-07:00

grading color tablets from

darkest to lightest

writing and illustrating

a story

building and writing

short vowel words

counting spindles

{Wrapping each quantity with a colorful rubber band

makes this lesson a hit!}

scrubbing chairs and tables

{This is one of our FAVORITE afternoon activities!}

All you need to get scrubbing

is a bucket of water, soap, and few brushes or sponges.

Hope everyone has a great week!

little smudge art

2011-02-16T18:48:00.005-07:00

We have been loving the book Little Smudge by Lionel Le Neouanic. Have you read it?

Little Smudge asks a group of colorful shapes if he can play, and they reject him.

{WARNING: Their rejection is brutal. Depending on my audience, I change the wording to be less negative.}

When Little Smudge goes home disappointed, his parents show him a few tricks that totally win the other shapes over.

When I read this book, the children are always shocked by the rejection scene.

They get all like,

Are you kidding me?!

Don't those other shapes know that EVERYONE is included?

Duh!

{"Everyone's included" is one of our school rules, and most of the children believe it to be universal. Wouldn't THAT be something if it was?}

This book leads to meaningful conversations, and some pretty fun art, too!

First, we made our own little smudges on heavy paper with finger paint.

After the paint dried {this took an hour or two}, we turned our little smudges into other things...

...people, dogs, insects, transportation systems, smiley faces, etc.

We experimented by drawing with markers AND ball point pens.

The children were very proud of their creations, and they want to make more!

For more fingerprint art, check out 5 Orange Potatoes. I think we're going to try their project next!

L-O-V-E

2011-02-14T13:34:00.002-07:00

according to preschoolers...

Love is kisses.

Love is my family.

Love is giving a hug.

Love is the moon.

Love is living with my parents.

Love is my heart.

Love is petting your dog.

Love is my blankie.

Love is something that you give away.

Happy Valentine's Day!

busy hands

2011-02-12T21:07:00.002-07:00

squeezing pink water from a dropper

into a heart-shaped ice cube tray

{when all the hearts are full,

use the dropper to suck the water back up

OR just stick the tray in the freezer}

constructing with

the pink tower AND the broad stair

using the 100 board to count to 100

on the 100th day of school

{yes, that IS a muffin tin holding the number tiles}

writing and illustrating

a book of planets

painting a wooden bead

with liquid watercolor

two friends wearing their hand-painted

valentine's day necklaces

{we can't wait for v-day around here!}

happy birthday, hubs!

2011-02-11T08:30:00.004-07:00

Let's go skiing!