Father's V-Day Snack

I really love that Ava's school lets the parents/guardians participate on holidays and special occasions. Today happens to be Father's Valentines Snack. Ava loves to dress up and her daddy loves to escort her. Lucy wanted to get in on the fun! hehe Ava and daddy got to eat a snack, sing with Ava's friends and Chris received a magnet made by Ava.

Daddy never shows up empty handed! Balloons and toy roses hehe

Wet Pouring

Wet pouring is one of the early basic Montessori Practical Life Works. A child typically does wet pouring after dry pouring. A child would have mastered the Use of a Sponge work before being introduced to wet pouring. You could create your own wet pouring work or purchase the water pouring work from Montessori Services. You'll need 2 small pitchers. See through pitchers are preferred because a point of interest for the child is seeing the colored water. You'll need a tray and a sponge for spills. 

Ava has had a lot of practice with wet pouring. She was demonstrating for her sister, Lucy.

Make sure to include a sponge to wipe up any spills. 

Lucy trying her hand at wet pouring. Lots of spills but she truly enjoyed herself. 

Dry Pouring With Lucy

Dry pouring is one of the early Practical Life works a child is presented. Pouring allows for improving of hand-eye coordination and muscle control, builds concentration, all the while teaching independence and self-discipline.

Lucy has become very fascinated with pouring. She watches her sister intently every time Ava is preparing herself something to drink. She also loves her bath time cups in which she pours water back and forth. (When I'm not watching she tries to drink from it HA!) With this in mind I decided to make a dry pouring work using containers without handles. I placed some dry kernels in two cups on a tray. (Another great starting material is rice or beans.)

Lucy poured the kernels back and forth several times, of course with spills. She also learned how to place the kernels back into the cup when she spilled them.

P.S. Montessori Services has a lot of pre-made pouring sets that can be purchased and are ready to go. 

"V" Is For Valentine's

Anytime I can do something with Ava in the kitchen I'm all for it! Tomorrow happens to be Valentine's Day and although we consider every day "love day" we decided to bake a cake. And yes, it was from a box and not from scratch. It's all about the time spent together. Of course the frosting had to be PINK because it's Ava's favorite color complete with sprinkles!

The finished product!

Snack Preparation

Ava enjoys helping prepare snack for Lucy and herself. On this particular day we were going to have Strawberries. I asked her if she wanted to prepare the snack and of course she was eager to. 

Ava got the strawberries out of the fridge, washed them using her colander, cut the stems with a knife on her cutting board (from dollar tree) and shared with her sister. 

Sidenote: Before Ava was able to use the knife we had a "safety" talk. Our littles are very capable and it's our job to guide them. When giving a safety talk you don't have to go into too much depth. An example would be,"This is a knife. We use knives to cut food. We need to be careful while using a knife because it is sharp."

So proud of her work and ready to eat!

I think Lucy approves!

Lucy And Her Pegboard

The pegboard is a great transition work for your little one. It takes great concentration and hand-eye coordination to place each individual peg in a hole. The pegboard allows for practice grasping and building fine motor skills. I found this particular pegboard at Lakeshore.

 

You can use the pegboard for sorting, patterning and color recognition as well. 

I love the concentration on Lucy's face.

February Practical Life

My mom, Chris and I have been busy organizing all of my Montessori Bins over the last few months. I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel HA! I'll share in another post how I organized my materials and a look at the girls new room/playroom once I'm finally finished.
I said that to say, I found some of my February/Valentine's practical life works and put them out for the girls. Hopefully, theses pictures will spark some ideas for you!

Use of a baster:

You will need 2 glass heart containers (from Michaels), baster, tray, color water, and a sponge for spills.

Tonging:

You will need a tray, tongs, heart glass beads (from Michaels), container for beads, and a heart candy mold (from Target).

                                      

Scooping:

Tray, 2 heart bowls (from Michaels), glass heart beads (from Michaels), and spoon.

Lucy tried her hand at scooping.

Her infamous "cheese" face. hehe