Summer Fun & a Song

It has been a full three weeks since I last posted! That's the longest break since I started this blog just over a year ago. The lack of blog posts is mostly because we've been doing a lot of this...

Welcome to Summer

DJ did some practical life work in the yard with his dad recently. It was hot, hard, dry work... but...

Art Folders (well sort of)

The Montessori language album that I use has a section titled "Art Folders". The purpose is to expose the child to various forms of art and to stimulate conversation about art. I love this idea and it's something I'd really like to do.

So very much activity

Happy Valentine's Day! Although I don't do much with themes, DJ did participate in a Make & Mail Valentine exchange in his toddler playgroup this year. I was so incredibly impressed with the way he chose to paint the hearts. It made me a little sad to not be able to keep them!

DJ's First Selfie

For his 3rd birthday, DJ received a camera, and not just any camera... a Nikon Coolpix S32.  The key features of this camera when purchased for a 3 year old?  Waterproof to 33ft, Shockproof to 5ft and only a few, large, easy-to-use buttons.  And he loves it!  In the three months since he has had this camera, he hasn't taken any masterpiece photography, but he has captured some interesting shots.  Well, some may only be interesting to him, but here is a brief view into the world through a child's eyes:

DJ's very first selfie!

Let's do skool!

Earlier this week, DJ surprised me by saying, "Let's do school!" Before this he hadn't really shown an awareness that the fun things we do for school were different than playing with toys. I had hesitated initially to even call it school, but so many of his friends are in preschool now, and school is mentioned in books and TV shows and even his hairdresser asked if he's in school.

Happy Birthday!

DJ's birthday was this week and he's now officially 3 years old. When it came time to light the candles, DJ began singing Happy Birthday to himself! It was adorable.

Homeschool Art Co-op!

DJ had his first art class with our homeschool co-op for kids 3-6 years old. He was supposed to start last week, but he was sick so we had to miss it. I was SO sad. But today, he was able to go and he "HAD A LOT OF FUN"! (His words as we left to get lunch).

Map work and more

I finally got the courage to bring out the World Map puzzle. DJ loves it! I showed him how to match the puzzle pieces to the control sheet. This will become more important when we get to maps like the US or Asia where there are a lot of little tiny pieces.

New Lacing Cards and a lot of activity

DJ received these new-to-us Lacing Cards this week. I bought them secondhand for $10 and they're great. They are 9x12 heavy cardboard with adorable pictures of various tools. Perfect for a little guy.

Out and About

This was a really light week in terms of Montessori activities. DJ has been making a lot of progress with potty training and I'm wondering if that has him preoccupied. We're so excited though to see success in that area.  Still a long way left to go though, but we'll take all the forward momentum we can get.
Maybe there wasn't a lot of "school work" this week, but DJ did his share of gross motor activity. We went to a park on Thursday and DJ had a blast. It had a water feature which is why he's wearing his swimsuit. But it was this rope version of monkey bars that caught his interest. He really wanted to climb to the top like the bigger kids. Some day, little man. Just keep trying.

Last week of June

DJ worked with the Number Rods this week. He lined them all up like train tracks. Although that's not the goal, he is getting a sensory experience of long and short rods. Later in the week, I saw him walking the shortest rod up the "stairs," noticing the 2+1 was the same length as the 3 and the 3+1 the same as 4, etc.  When he is able to align these rods from the shortest (one) to the longest (ten), he'll move on to the beginning of the math sequence with this tool, learning to count from 1 to 10 and then matching the numeric symbols to the proper length rod.

Practical Life & the Binomial Cube

This week started off with Daddy's birthday. DJ helped me make dinner for daddy and he set the table, starting with cleaning it.  Please note that this is NOT how I told him to do this! But he was very thorough with the process and even cleaned each of the chairs several times.

DIY Wall Mounted Art Easel

One of my favorite parts of DJ's play area is the wall mounted art easel.  My husband made this for DJ for his 2nd birthday/Christmas and I can't be happier with how it turned out.  And it has inspired a lot of free form art from DJ as he's able to access writing tools (crayons, colored pencils, markers and paint pens) and paper whenever he wants.  He can also see art supplies like paint, glue and scissors at all times to inspire him to ask for them whenever the mood strikes.

Week in action

We didn't do as much this week but Friday in particular was a day for working on his Montessori activities. DJ has had a flower arranging activity on his shelves for awhile but doesn't usually select it. That tray had artificial flowers, already cut to length to fit in the vase. Our neighbor gave us a bouquet of peonies. It was the perfect opportunity to teach DJ how to cut flower stems with scissors and he loved it! Without Montessori philosophy, I would never have thought to give scissors to a 2 year old, let alone have him arrange flowers. But he is truly thriving with the challenge.