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.

Open and Close Treasure Box

I collected a few items that open and close in unique ways and put them into a box for my daughter (2.5 yrs).

A simple bottle with a screw top.

A pocket watch with a push-top.

She worked on this one with such determination when it was first introduced; and it seemed to be her favorite item in the box. Perhaps because it was such a challenge for her - she needed to figure out how to put her fingers just right on the sides in order to open it.  

A locket held together by magnets:

This one is tough for her - it helps to have a finger nail to open this one, so she really needs to use her finger and thumb strength. She's so focused when working on this one, and always so proud when it's open! 

A binder clip:

Strengthening those muscles in preparation for writing. She likes to squeeze this one as hard as she can to see how far she can open it - you know the kind of squeeze that makes your whole body shake - that's what she does here!

My son (4 yrs) also enjoys the binder clip in this box so he can show off his strength:

... I like how it's strengthening his pencil grip!

A frame that has a clasp similar to a coin purse closure.

She puts this up to her eyes upon opening and claims it's a pair of glasses. 

This locket has a little fold over clasp that hooks onto a little ball ... 

She needs to pick the locket with her little finger to pop it open.  

A small lock and key:

She likes the challenge of taking the key out and figuring out how to place it back in before opening.

Closing the lock is another challenge as it takes lining the hook up with the small hole, and takes some finger and thumb strength to lock it back into place.

Hope you enjoyed taking a look into my daughter's treasure box!

Currency: Sorting, Matching, Counting and More

Money Work at 2 Years:

 

Penny Transfer:

My daughter enjoys counting them as she transfers

 

Sorting Pennies and Dimes:

This is an absolute favorite of hers!

 

Object to Picture Matching

Penny and Dime Fronts and Backs:

Imagine Our Life's wonderful currency printables were found here.

 

 

 Money Work at 4 years:

 

Value Matching:

 

Bead Counting: 

 

Addition using Beads:

 

Hundred's Board:

10 dimes = $1.00

 

My son estimated 100 pennies and then filled his Hundred's Board: 

 

100 Pennies = $1.00

 

Currency with Teens Board:

My proud son mastered his Teens Board about 5 months ago. Once it was mastered, we moved to currency and began using it with money instead of beads.

 

 

Extensions to Dissecting Sunflowers and Polishing Acorns

A few extensions to our Dissecting Sunflowers and Polishing Acorns post.

 

My son decided he would like to take the seeds he and his sister pulled out of their sunflower and give them to the birds/squirrels.  

So we found a pine cone and he got to work spreading peanut butter on it.

Sprinkling it with sunflower seeds

My camera died, so this is the best I could do up close with my phone.   

He picked this spot because the birds like to sit on the top of the fence by our star. He didn't want me to hang it, so he put it up as high as he could reach.

 

Here are our nature jars with bags for some multi-sensory work:

I filled jars and bags.

The children feel the bags and match them to the nature jars by touch and sight.

Some prickly looking plants from our nature walk, corn we picked off the cob last year and our most recent acorns (cleaned, polished and baked by the kids). 

Can't wait to get out and see what the kids find outdoors this weekend!

Dissecting Sunflowers and Polishing Acorns

 

 

Ready to dissect our sunflower.

We started by plucking the petals, which are called the rays of the sunflower. 

They used tweezers and fingers for this part.

Then the disc florets...

They enjoyed using their fingers here.

Taking a look at the seeds. 

Daddy and the kids planted quite a few sunflower plants this year, so the kids were able to see these grow from seed. We enjoyed talking about the seeds, which are the fruit of the flower, the birds, the squirrels and how we enjoy eating a different type of sunflower seed.

Picking seeds. 

My son decided he would like to continue collecting seeds this week and set some out for the birds.

We will also save some in a nature jar. 

Another highlight from the day was the kids collecting acorns.

We set this up later in the day.

My daughter works with deep concentration on practical life work.  

Here she's polishing them with a little water and a cloth.

Getting the edges with a Q-Tip. 

Transferring acorns. 

When they were done with their acorns, we put them into the oven for 2 hours at 200 degrees to be sure there were no bugs. We will be adding these to our nature containers soon.

See our extension work and nature jars here.

 

Here is our acorn tree we played with last year:

We simply collected sticks, acorns and leaves (from Dollar Tree) and hot glued magnets to the back. The kids really enjoyed playing with this.

 

Do you have any activity ideas using acorns/sunflower seeds?