Our theme this week is “l” is for leaf! I thought that it was not only seasonally appropriate, but it also extended out theme from last week! So that means we don’t really have any new trays! However, that doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything new! 😉 Today was still warm so I herded the kids outside all day! We started off with our circle time and I told the girls a story about Lottie the Leaf fairy. Lottie’s Job was to talk to all the leaves and help them change from spring to summer to fall! She very busy at this time of year and was working one day when she spotted two little girls. Normally she hides when she see people, but today she was so busy that she didnt. The two girls of course saw her right away and asked her what she was doing. Well Lottie told the girls all about chlorphyll and how it is what makes food for trees and also what gives them their green color! She told them that the chorophyll also needs the sun, water, and nutrients to make food for the tree! She also told them that right now she was really busy telling the leaves that it is time to stop making food for the tree. When they do that, said Lottie, the leaves turn colors! When I was telling this story I used paper leaves to show how the colors change! This idea came from Homschool Escapade. If I am honest I didnt know why the leaves changed colors this morning! I’m really glad that I found this post! I think that the girls really got it! I made a few new boxes for our outside learning environment and after circle time, I set the girls loose! Here is what we did today!
Here are our books this week!
Leaf Rubbings
Acorn work
I put this work in baskets to go outside! Tadpole played it for a bit, but her mostly just carried the pieces around! He is defiantly in the “small things” sensitive period.
Leaf Drawing
I saw this idea on pintrest. You cut the leaf in half then glue on half on a paper. Then you draw the missing half. It looked like a great way to work on observation and art! 🙂
Here they trying out the leaf art….
It turned into a leaf collage! 🙂
Too Cool!
This is acorn caps with addition and subtraction problems for Bunny!
She rocked them! It took a few minutes to see the difference between the signs,
but she got it and did all of them!
We also sounded out words and she wrote them on the sidewalk!
I also got the pumpkins I bought and gave the girls the scrub brushes…..
I have two of the cleanest pumpkins ever!!!!!
Tadpole thought it was awesome!
Bunny also raked leaves for the other kids and they danced and tossed leaves!
Happy Fall Time!!!!!

After all this work we headed out for a walk to hunt for leaves! It was so much fun to see the changes a lack of chlorophyll has on the fall leaves! The girls collect a handful of beautiful leaves and I had a project for them to do with all the leaves! We got home and I pulled out the contact paper and let them make sun catchers with their treasures! Even Tadpole was able to make this project! 🙂
Here is Pup decorating her sun catcher
We even added glitter!
The girls were very proud of their work!
Aren’t they pretty?
Well that was our day! If you want to see more amazing Montessori work head over to the Montessori Monday link up at Living Montessori Now! Tomorrow is Taking Time Tuesday here, so stop back to see what we are up to! Happy Schooling!
This week’s theme is Fall!!!! Here in Ohio the weather is getting very cool and so I thought that this would an appropriate theme! I was thinking that I am changing trays too often, so I think I need to leave them out for at least two weeks so that the kids can work on them better! I also am thinking about doing some Five in a Row with the kids, but more on that as I figure it all out! 🙂 On another note, things seem to be settling down into a pretty good rhythm here! Yeah! The kids have been doing really good work! So here is our work that we have out this week and the some pictures of the kids at work! 🙂 Our Alphabet Forest story today was about Felicity who has a foal! 🙂
Once again thatnks to my sister for her art work!
Deep in the alphabet forest lives Felicity and her little foal! Felicity’s foal was born in the early spring when the buds on the trees were still very tiny and the weather was cool and sunny! When felicity saw the small foal she knew they would be the best of friends! All summer they played together and danced through the forest! Before they knew it the leaves on the tress turned from a dark cool green to warm yellow! The breeze started to turn cool and chilly, and the fruit grew ripe on the trees! The foal began to shiver and Felicity decided to make a small fire to keep them warm! They snuggles up together and told stories in the cool fall evening while they ate some fruit. They knew that they would always be friends! Again I wish I would think ahead better so the story was better, but the kids thought it was cool! 🙂 I also made a few trays that are fall themed and the kids wanted to get right to work! I want to make a couple more, but I haven’t had any new ideas yet! I guess that means I will have a surprise for them next week! Here is what I have this week:
Here is our sensory bin. Its been a pretty big hit for Tadpole!
Mystery Number
{Bunny counts the acorns and write down the number. I am hoping this will help her work on her teens}
Clipping leaves
Polishing mirror
Pouring Beans
{got new pitchers, so now its a fun work}
Water Transfer
Fall Flower Arranging
“F” sound Basket
~ Four
~Fruit Matching
~ Fairy
~ Fox
~Fork
Fall Books
Here are our pictures of the work we did today!
Pouring work
{Pup has been super social with Bug and they are doing everything together! I have been able to get one into a work and the other follows! For now it works!!!! They are learning how to give and take}
Water Transfer
Tadpole has been trying so hard to get into water! So I have finally let him just play in the sink! He has been so happy! At least in the bathroom everything can get wet!
Here is Tadpole putting felted stones and pompoms in container! He really focused on it!
See, working together again! 🙂
Here is Bunny’s picture of Felicity the Fairy!
I also showed Pup how to do a cylinder block without looking. Everyone wanted to do it! Yeah!!!
She did it!
Pup did pink tower after Tadpole knocked it down!
She is pretty happy that she can do it all by herself!
Tadpole tried this puzzle, but ended up just dumping it! I guess I will show him how to do it when he is over next.
There has also been a TON of hopscotch! 🙂
Bunny did mystery number and then we worked with the sandpaper numbers to try to get her handwriting worked on a bit! She did well and had fun!
Puzzles
Metal Insets
Fruit matching
Stamp (button) game! It is challenging her and I think that it is something she will do it alot!
Leaf Transferring!
So we had lots of good work today! I hope that we will continue through the week! I will be linking up with One Hook Wonder and their Montessori Monday Post! Happy Schooling!
All right….Post number 2 for the day! This really should be two posts, but hey, life happens! 🙂 So I will put it all in one post. So take a seat and get ready! This week is “t” week and we are using the theme tools! I have a ton of great trays (at least I think they are great) and we have a new storyboard! My sister again came to the rescue and drew a really cute picture for me! Today I showed it to the girls during circle time and told them the story of Tim the Tool Fairy. Here is a version of the story I told:

“Out in Alphabet Forest there lives Tim the Tool Fairy. Tim has a special job in the forest. He is the person that helps the other fairies fix things that need to be fixed. One day, while Tim was out for a walk, he decided to wander out into the meadow. As he headed out into the beautiful green grass, he noticed Mr. Turtle. “Hello Mr. Turtle,” said Tim, “How are you?” “Oh I am ok, someone stepped on my house and now it needs a new roof. I am off to find someone to help me fix it!” “But Mr. Turtle,” said Tim, “I thought you had your house on your back!” “I do, but sometimes I like to have a place that I can stretch out and have friends over in,” said Mr Turtle.  “Well,” said Tim “if you would like some help I will go and get my tool box.” ” Oh Tim that would be so helpful!” So Tim flew off to him little house in the big oak tree and grabbed his toolbox!” Tim the Tool Fairy got right to work and before Mr. Turtle knew it Tim had put a bright red roof on his house! “Oh thank you so much Tim. This a wonderful roof! I think it is perfect!” Once again I know that I need to work on my story telling skills! But the kids liked it and It even inspired Bunny to draw a picture of Tim! The girls did so much work today I think that it was a pretty good day! So now on to a million pictures! Here are my trays for the week, followed by the pictures of the girls working hard!
Nuts and Bolts
Tweezing Nuts and Bolts
(one of each in each cup)
Sifting nuts and bolts
Transferring
(for Tadpole)
Wrenches Biggest to Smallest
(this was inspired by Montessori At Home! In the book Mr. Bowman uses sockets instead of knobless cylinders)
Tracing Tools
Book Basket
Sound Basket:
~ Train
~ Turtle
~ Tiger
~ Tool
~ Tape
~ poT (ending sound)
Tadpole Working
(he is still really into putting object into containers)
Bunny Making her picture of Tim the Tool Fairy
Bug doing nuts and bolts
Pup tried this work. I may need to represent it, but she did try.
Bug was inspired by Pup!
Chalk board work
Tadpole likes to try these. He just does one cylinder at a time
Pup attempted to trace tools. I helped a little. She got most of the way around it! It was really hard for her!
Bunny colored the strawberry fairy from last week.
Color matching
Pup wanted to build a tower with the red cylinders
Bug joined her and they worked together for a long time! They had a really hard time trying to put that last skinny cylinder on the top!
Bunny saw them working and pulled out a set of her own! I love that social part of Montessori work!
I then showed Bunny how the sandpaper letters we have been working on could make words. I laid them out in a word and she READ it!!!! We were both really proud! She is so close! I can feel it! She even wanted to get the rest of the sounds out and make other words. I think that she doesn’t see moveable alphabet as fun, so I tried this instead! This idea was also from John Bowman’s book Montessori At Home!
She even made her own word!
“jrum”
(“drum”)
This is a work that never made it on the shelves. I had her screw the screws I started. She loved this and did all 6 of them! Then she wanted to make it into something for her daddy. She took our dyed yarn and wrapped it around the screws!
When she finished the screws, Bunny wanted to try nailing!
So that was the work of our day! There was of course a ton of playing that happened too! It turned out to be a good day! I hope you had a happy Monday too! If you want to see more Montessori fun, check out Montessori Monday!!!!
Well today we started a new week and I am hoping that we are going to have a better one! My dear friend offered to come over with her kids to help watch Tadpole while I worked with the older ones! We tried it out and it sort of worked! 🙂 Tadpole is such a huge explorer and its hard to keep track of him sometimes. We did get some pretty good work done though, and my friends kids did too! It was great to have a chance to see some other kids working! Her little boy (age 3) did the best pink tower I have ever seen done! He was so very deliberate and very focused on lining every cube up just right! He did great! Bunny was able to do a little bead work that she normally cant do while Bug and Tadpole are here. So it was pretty good. Again, we are all trying to work out the best way to work together here. 🙂 I hope we get into a good rhythm soon! Now on to my plan this week! I have changed what we do a bit. We have a circle time when the kids get here. I was doing a story, but that was proving to be really hard with Tadpole since he was climbing on everyone! 🙂 So I decided to make up my own fairies! So this week out first fairy is Sam the Safely Fairy! Instead of reading, I have a small chalk board that my sister drew a picture of Sam on, and I told a short story that I made up! 🙂 It again wasn’t the best, but the kid listened! The story this week went something like this:

“Along the edge of the Alphabet Forest in the Strawberry Patch, live a fairy named Sam. Sam has a special job here in the forest. He knows all about safety and he gathers the little fairies and teaches them about it. He read stories all about the many ways we can stay safe, like how to dial 911, how to stop drop and roll, how to look both ways before crossing the street, how to stay away from strange fairies, how to be careful about jumping, and how rules can keep us safe! He does such a wonderful job that all the fairies love to learn from him! He always end his lessons with a song. Would you like to hear the song he sings? Well here is how it goes:
Safety Song
Sung to: All Around the Mulberry Bush
This how we learn to be safe, learn to be safe, learn to be safe.
This is how we learn to be safe all day long!
So that is how our story time went. The kids all stayed put, so if I can improve my story telling skills then it might be a fun time for all of us each week!
I also made some trays for this week, but they aren’t really themed trays. The kids seem to like them though. Anyway, enough talk, here are our pictures!
Pipe cleaner in cheese shaker!
Tadpole’s Shelf
Pouring
Sifting with slotted spoon.
Shell Scrubbing
Stamping
Story Stones
“S” basket
Stamping work
Cylinder Block
Trinomial Cube
Binomial Cube
Drawing and Cutting
Sensory Bin
Bug wanted to do the colored bead stair really badly. So I let her try to build it.
Red Rods. He did these SO well. He is very precises in what he did and he even put them back!!!!
He also did a beautiful Pink Tower!
So much concentration!
Moveable Alphabet even got pulled out! Yeah!
This was the only work that Bug really sat and worked on! She Loved it!
Pouring! Isn’t his concentration awesome! 🙂
Here are the girls doing some exploring of the bead stair beads and small addition. They did a great job!
We also did the Red Maze again! This time I had musical instruments that they had to try and walk without making noise!
Sandpaper letters!
Bunny was doing subtraction, so I gave a quick presentation to her friend on the golden beads.
Here is Bunny working !
So that was how Monday went! It took me a couple of tries to get this post done so I am sorry if it seems a little chopped up! 🙂 I hope your week is going well! I am hoping tomorrow goes well! We are trying the rhythm again! 🙂 I am linking this post up to: Montessori Monday!!!!! As Always there is a ton of great ideas there!
Today Bug came to the house wanting to do Fairy School. 🙂 So I ran with it. I had some peg people and some butterfly cut outs that I was going to have them paint. So I decided that I would tell a story about the Monarch Fairies while we painted. I gave them orange, black, and white paint and the wooden objects. Then, with a hope and a prayer, I made up a little story! Here I will re tell it more or less the way I did for them! 🙂 “Every year the Monarch butterflies fly up from their warm winter home in Mexico. They fly miles and miles over mountains and water to come up here to our area so that they can lay little eggs that become new caterpillars. These butterflies fly about looking for just the right milkweed plant to lay their eggs on. Who do you think helps the butterflies find the perfect place? {Bunny at this point said “Jesus” so I had to think a little quickly! 🙂 I love my spiritual little girl! } That’s right Jesus does tell them, but he uses some little helpers! The Monarch Fairies are there to guild each little butterfly to a perfect plant! Then the butterfly can lay the eggs safely. Then they fly off. The Monarch fairies then take care of the baby caterpillars and stay with them until they turn into new butterflies!!! These fairies are black and orange just like the butterflies and so such beautiful little things but they are very hard to see. The like to stay hidden!  Sometimes when you see small little orange butterflies, look very close, they maybe fairies!” This is more or less the same story I told the girls! It may not win any prizes. but the girls lived it! They painted their Butterfly and their fairy. Then when they dried, I hot glued some orange wool roving wings on the fairies. I also cut a green felt leaf for them to play with. It was good project! 🙂
Here they are painting after I finished the story.
Bug was very proud of her butterfly and fairy!
Here is Bug’s
Here is Bunny’s
Here is mine! 😉
{I couldn’t resist}
Here is Pup’s!
It was a pretty fun project for the girls. It capped off our “M” week well! It was a hard week due to my lack of schedule. So I hope to work on that this weekend! Hopefully it will us improve next week. See you then!
Well today really just didn’t go as planned! 🙂 Oh well! It turns out that having such a busy day at the fair, the girls were rather tired and not interested in quite work! Neither were Bug and Tadpole! So Instead of forcing work time, I gathered up the kids and some lunch and we headed out to the park! Now being that this is Tuesday and since we didn’t have much work time, I was starting to feel that familiar pressure to get them doing what I thought they should. I mean, I made all new plans and new trays. But then I thought that we will have time for that later! For now we needed to get out, and I am so glad that we did! My plan was to work on learning about Money and Maps. This is not really possible out on a walk, but looking for Monarchs was! So “m” is for money, changed into “m” is for Monarch!!! We were lucky that we were able to spot a few flying and to see the compete life cycle in the gazebo that is reserved for their Monarch conservation!!! Bug, Bunny and Pup loved to see them! As we headed into the butterfly garden, a monarch butterfly flew right into us! I was able to catch it and the girls got a chance to see a butterfly up close! It was one of those special learning moments that really made an impression on the girls! I can see why Montessori always started with real things! They are so much more meaningful! After that the girls were so excited to look for more! It really was a great trip and it made us all feel better! After that it was nap time, and Bunny and I had some time to work in the kitchen. Earlier in the morning I had done the Teen Board with her and I was so proud of her for mastering it! We picked a number, put it on the board and she picked out the proper beads! She did it all perfectly! So later I wrote out different numbers between 10-20 and she made to make then out of marshmallows! She did they all perfectly! She even remembered the names of the numbers! She of course was rewarded with being able to eat some of those marshmallows! 😉 She loves math she can eat! So anyway, here are the pictures of our day! Beware there are alot of them! 🙂 I will start with this weeks trays and move on to the work and the walk!
Book Basket
Whole hand transferring (mostly for Tadpole)
Money sorting
Magnetic/ Non magnetic
Penny Polishing
Our “M” basket
~ Math (Bunny’s giraffe card)
~ Mary, Jesus’ Mom
~ Man
~ Maraca
~ Marker
~ Mushroom
~ Muffin
 (this was taken out due to the fact that Bunny and Bug both said that this was a cupcake and that doesn’t start with “M”. Cant sneak anything past them! )
Penny designs on the Hundreds Board.
Tracing around coins
Pup and Bunny were working again this morning before we got dressed! I’m starting to be embarrassed by the amount of pics I have with the girls in their PJs! 🙂 But I cant kill their enthusiasm!
Bunny put all the pennies on the board! She thought it was fun!
Here is Tadpole (after we got dressed).
The whole hand transfer turned into whole hand throwing! Oh well we will try it again another day!
I did pull out the Honey Bear with cotton swabs. He really LOVED this! He really seems into putting thing into containers. The coin box was a hit and now this. I need more ideas of activities like this. Hmmmm….
Bug did a puzzle map! This is pretty hard for her and It took a little persuading to get her to finish!
She also tried coin sorting.
Here is Bunny coloring her Mallow Fairy coloring page. She really works hard to make it look like the picture!
Here is Tadpole working with a work I threw together real quick. All it is is little wooden sticks that he needed to stick into the bottle! He really liked doing this for a while!
Bug made some new flower arrangements for our tables!
Here is Bunny working on the Teen Board.
After she did the board, I took the tiles from the Hundreds board, put them face down, and let her “draw” one and make the number! She did great with this too!
Here we are at the park. Bug is looking at the conservation gazebo!
Here is a newly emerged butterfly drying its wings!
Here they are looking at the life cycle poster.
Here is the Butterfly that we were able to catch!!!!
 Bunny was able to get a picture for me (those are my hands)
Bung found a flower that was her favorite color!
Here are the maps that are along the trail! So we were able to talk about maps and how they get us to places!!!! Yeah for spur of the moment learning! 😉
Another Monarch we saw!
Here is a caterpillar that we almost squished! It was really pretty!
Another great chance to talk about the butterfly life cycle!
Here is a seed pod thing that Bunny found. She really thought it looked like the flower bud the Mallow Fairy was holding. It maybe from a Swap Mallow. I have to look it up!
Here is marshmallows math! 😉
She really did well and loved it!
And it was yummy too! 😉
So that was our day! I hope yours was good too! I am linking this post up to Montessori Monday over at
Today, Bunny took a break from cleaning today and went outside to play. Each time I looked out the window (I was scrubbing the kitchen cabinets) I saw Bunny under the crab apple trees. She was really intenet on what she was doing and I was curious! Then a few minutes later she ran into the house yelling “Mommy come and see my fairy house!” She was so excited and of course I went as soon as I grabbed my camera. She was very excited, but thought it needed something. So I took her in the house and let her raid my craft cupboard. 🙂 I offered her all sorts of things, but she said everything had to be natural for the fairies. So she headed out with her basket of things and I let her work! She was so happy working on the little house she was making under the trees (I was told that it needed to be shaded because the fairies liked shade). The results were really good! She did an amazing job! She loves to decorate and this was a fun thing for her to do. She didn’t want to play with it, but she was very proud of her little house! Here are the pictures of her fairy house:
Here is one Fairy with a hat in the doorway.
 You can see the pot of water in the back along with the yarn for their wool work! 🙂
Here is the other Fairy, she was looking at the flowers.
My favorite part was the clothes line she made.
I love that Bunny put so much effort into the this. I really surprised me that she wanted to make a fairy garden. She really has never shown much interest in fairies, and I am so happy that she is finding a little magic in out backyard! 🙂 I am entering Bunny’s fairy garden in the Fairy Garden Competitions over at The Magic Onions. There are some amazing fairy gardens there, so stop over and visit!
