Last Week was Nuts!

This nut cracking activity was inspired by trips to The Barber Shop with my son. His favorite part is cracking and eating peanuts.

 

Learning names of nuts with three part lessons:

1. This is a brazil; this is a chestnut; this is a pecan.

2. Where is the chestnut? Put the brazil on top of your head. Shake the pecan.

3. What is the name of this nut? 

More learning with almonds, pistachios, and walnuts:

Spooning/sorting:

My son opening and eating his peanuts:

He really likes the wooden nut cracker.

"This hazelnut is hard to crack open."

"I'll try it!"

LOL :)

 

Opening and eating pistachios (her favorite):

Trying the metal nutcracker:

The kids have been revisiting this activity for two weeks.

What a great fall activity!

 

Montessori-Inspired Baby Gym (An IKEA Hack)

On a budget, I purchased the LEKA Baby Gym from IKEA.

 It looked like this:

Here's what mine looks like now:

I removed all plastic pieces from the wood frame, donated the toys, and painted the red parts white.

I used a similar approach to IKEA for hanging my DIY'd toys. I found round wood slices at a craft store, drilled a hole in the middle and threaded my ribbon through.

 

My inspiration for toys came from a "Montessori Baby" search on Etsy. You can see the rest of our infant play space and DIY Montessori-inspired toys here.