More March Montessori-Inspired Fun

It's March again here at Seedlings and it's time to share a few more fun activities we have lined up for the month.

Here is a look at the invitations that were offered to the children last year.

I've brought back a few of last year's activities, with a few small changes and additions:

Our book selections include a few Dr. Seuss favorites as well as some theme-related choices.

The shamrock and penny counting activity is back - this was a huge hit last year!

Our Peter Rabbit floor puzzle is also back, along with a fun rainbow puzzle donated by a parent earlier this year.

Our Montessori-Inspired Sound Bottles are also making a comeback.  Monkey was thrilled to see these returned to the classroom and he immediately taught Bear how to use them!

Bear is finally old enough to understand when I ask him not to put everything in his mouth (though he still tries), so I've added a fun St. Patrick's Day transfer activity to the classroom.  I found a few shamrock necklaces at the Dollar Tree and cut them apart so the tiny shamrocks could be transferred from bowl to bowl with either the tiny spoon or the tweezers.  The mirror trays in the room help to add some variety and, if we're lucky, some reflections that may even lead us into discussions and activities on light and rainbows!

Last, but not least, I've added these little color-mixing gnome families to our block area.  I'm interested to see how these are used over the next few weeks.

March happens to be my favorite month for lesson-planning.  Something about shamrocks and rainbows and fairies and St. Patrick's Day fun brings out the kid in me.  Incidentally, March will also be my last month teaching before my new little Seedling arrives and I take a few weeks off to recover and get to know the little one.

More spring and summer activities coming soon!

Wet on Wet Watercolor: Winging it with Style

Every month or so, we do wet on wet watercolor painting, a technique used in Waldorf schools from preschool up through the oldest students.  We usually start the year off using one color at a time, moving through the primaries and then begin trying the primaries as couples, creating secondaries.

Although in traditional Waldorf schools, using all three primaries at once is usually something reserved for kindergarten-aged children, at the end of the year, I like to give all of my students a chance to try it out. 

The usual method of wet on wet watercolor painting we use in the classroom is similar to what is described here.  This method is also very time consuming, and only allows for one to two children to paint at one time so they can share the jars of paint.  This time, we tried something a little bit different.

I gave each child their own place mat, watercolor paper, and pipette.  I also set out bowls of red, yellow and blue liquid watercolor.  Before the children began, I spritzed their papers with a spray bottle, so we'd be keeping with our wet on wet technique (though usually we soak it, which probably would have been a good idea here).

Of course, there was a huge oversight on my part - the kids aren't going to pause to watch the paint seep into their papers, mixing and blending into a rainbow of colors.  I'd forgotten the fundamental principle of process art - all the kids care about is the process!  And what do kids love?  Pipettes and puddles!  And this project just happened to combine both!

I heard a lot of 'this is awesome' and 'this project is fun' and lots of colors being named and children generally having a blast, but.....

Eventually, all of their papers began to look like this.

Quick, Miss Lindsey, come up with something and pretend it was part of the original plan all along!!

"Dear friends, let me know when you are finished drip dropping your paint, we have one more thing to do at the end!"

 "Mama, I'm finished!"  

"I wonder what would happen if we put this paper towel over the top of your picture."

"WOW!  That is so coooooool!  Let's take it off."  

Oh, ok, that sounds like a great idea.

Crisis averted, painting saved and even some secondaries to show for it all!

Phew!

Color Bath Fun!

Monkey has been asking me for weeks for shaving cream paint in the bathtub.  I've made paint for him on a number of occasions in the past, but since the arrival of little brother, I've been hesitant to give him shaving cream since they usually bathe together - we love saving water around here!

Anyway, he'd been asking for so long, I thought, why not take it a step further and break out the theme baths we used to do pretty much every night when he went through a 'no bath' phase.

Since he is much older now, he got to pick the color ahead of time and then go on a 'treasure hunt' to find things of that color.  I'd assist by weeding out things that weren't bath-worthy and by making the desired color of shaving cream paint (which is just shaving cream and liquid watercolor or food coloring).

Of course, what color does he choose on the first day?? PINK!!  Ack!  How in the world is he going to find enough pink stuff to fill a bathtub??

I'm one of those Moms who believes colors are for everyone and while I'm not opposed to pink toys, most of our toys are wooden and the few non-wooden toys we do have are generally primary colors or green, which, for some reason is always lumped in with the primaries in the world of toys.

So, I sent him off with his little collection bag and he had a blast wandering around looking for pink stuff.  We had to raid the spring sensory bin stuff, which hadn't been put away yet, but he managed to cobble together quite an impressive collection.

And because I'm still a bit paranoid about Bear and the fact that he puts everything into his mouth, he got his own mini pink bath.

 "Mom, can I put the flower in the paint?"  Sure!!

"Look! I'm cracking eggs, see the yolk in there?"  The best part about this exploration is that the following day, he requested waffles for lunch and then asked, "Do we need eggs to make waffles?"  Yup!  "Can I crack them?"  Yup!  He's always refused to help with the eggs when we cook.  Maybe it's the addition of our chickens or maybe it's added confidence from a bath time practice session.

Monkey's second color choice this week was ORANGE!  Yet another color we don't have much of in our house, however, we were headed out to the Dollar Tree that day and I kept a lookout for things we could use.

I found a bunch of foam shapes and foam sheets that I cut into strips to make letters or pictures and some neat glow necklaces so he could take a bath in the dark.  We added all of that to the foam numbers and letters we already had and some more shaving cream paint and he was off!

Ok, I know you're wondering about that lobster, aren't you?  That, my friends, is an interesting tale.  A long while back, when we first started shopping at Trader Joe's, that lobster lived on a tree in the center of the peanut butter aisle.  Monkey was always asking me about what it was and why it lived on that tree - ummmmm, no idea???

One week, we went to TJ's and the lobster was gone - Monkey was distraught, he wanted to know where the lobster had gone.  I told him that if he wanted to know, he was going to have to ask someone who worked there.  At this point, he had yet to develop his compulsion to talk to every single person he sees and was a bit nervous to ask, so it took a few weeks to build up the courage.

Finally, after nearly a month of wondering where the lobster had gone, he asked the girl checking us out.  As the checkout girl was trying to explain that the lobster wasn't feeling well and had fallen down and that maybe someday he might be back on the tree, one of the managers overheard the discussion and said, "Hold on, I'll show you."  Before I knew what was happening, she came back with that lobster (which looks much smaller when it's hanging on a tree), handed it to Monkey and said, "He can go home with you, you can take baths together."

Well, Mr. Literal took that lobster home and has taken baths with him ever since.  I keep asking when we might return Lobster to his home at TJ's, but Monkey tends to ignore that line of questioning, so I guess he's here to stay.

Bear didn't get a lobster in his baby orange glow bath, but he does have his little Sophie the Giraffe in there, so we included the wildlife all around!

Monkey's last choice this week was red - of course, because I'd already used most of the red food coloring for the pink and orange baths!  So our red bath was more pink that the pink bath was, but everyone had a grand old time anyway!

The best part about red is that we could add all of Monkey's red Legos, which are always a hit in the tub!  I wasn't able to get too many pictures, but he was in his red bath until it was cold because he built a machine with those Legos and had an elaborate scene going on for quite sometime.

He also managed to find time for some cooking since we added our strainer and a plastic spice jar from our outdoor classroom.

And of course, no color bath would be complete without the shaving cream paint!




I'm really hoping for some green, blue and yellow this week, but we'll see!

A Week of Weather - Day 3: Rain

 

This week, we've done some great activities with wind and explored clouds.  For our last weather explorations, we focused on rain!!  Yes, I'll say it again, it's the desert, we don't get rain, but the children enjoyed songs or books about rain anyway and they LOVED making their own rain.


Our first experiment was a Rain Jar.  I've been doing this experiment for years, always topping the jar of hot water with plastic wrap, which always left melting ice and a big mess, until I saw it done using a bowl on top of the jar - duh, Miss Lindsey!

So, this year, I set it up properly: start with a mason jar filled about halfway with almost-boiling water (keep little hands away, please!), place a bowl (I used a glass bowl that fit down inside the rim of the jar) on top and fill the bowl with ice.  Observe!

After a few minutes, the evaporating water will condense on the bottom of the bowl of ice, form droplets and then 'rain' back into the jar.  I have to say, I've never seen kids stare so intently at a jar of water than I did when we did this experiment.

The rain doesn't last long, and without a formal explanation of the water cycle, the children may not even know how it happened, but the point of this activity wasn't to learn the science of rain, it was to be awed by rain - which we desert-dwellers tend to be anyway.  It's about watching, waiting, anticipation and finally the excitement of seeing rain INSIDE a jar!!

*********************************************************

Next on the rainy agenda - Shaving Cream Clouds and Rainbow Rain, which I've seen floating about the web for quite a while and done very beautifully here.  

We read Listen to the Rain by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault.  I happen to really enjoy this book, both because the writing style is strangely soothing and also because the art style is unique.  After the book, we moved right into making our own rain.  

I filled mason jars about 2/3 full of water, then added shaving cream to the top.  The kiddos began adding liquid watercolors right away, but i think they were so fascinated with coloring the shaving cream, it took a little while before they realized the rainbow rain they were creating in their jars.

Everyone enjoyed adding colors and watching them swirl down into the water until the water was all black.  Even after that, the shaving cream was still lovely, and reminded me of some sort of tasty dessert, so I just took some pictures of the tops while the children finished coloring their clouds.

I hope you've enjoyed our Week of Weather!

Magic Mud: Rainbows and Nature

Ahhh, Magic Mud, aka goop, gak, slime, and all of those other interchangeable words used to describe a variety of amazing sensory materials for children (and adults!).  At Seedlings, Magic Mud is what we call cornstarch and water.  I've tried this a couple of times with my students and received a very unenthusiastic response each time - it's one of those love it or hate it kind of things.  I've seen this solid-ish, liquid-ish material used in some wonderful ways, but two of my favorites are Clubhouse Goop over at Fit Kids Clubhouse - check out the rainbow swirl action over there!  AND, Multi-sensory Goop at Growing a Jeweled Rose - who doesn't love nature in their sensory play?

When my son came home with a handful of rose petals from our Parent-Child Class at the local Waldorf-Inspired school, I thought - why not combine both ideas and see what happens??

I started him off with a whole box of cornstarch, his nature finds - rose petals and a teeny apple, food coloring and some old spice bottles with food coloring and water.  I also gave him a pitcher with more water since I knew the spice jars wouldn't be enough to get the reaction we were looking for.

He started with the food coloring.  He described his process as he was going along, "First I'm going to do this, Mom, then I'm going to add blue."  Such the little chef!

A sprinkling of rose petals looks lovely!  He really did sprinkle, I was pretty impressed with the technique, I could tell there was a lot of love going into this recipe.

Then he discovered the pitcher of water.  Remember all those drops of food coloring earlier??

There they are!!  Neat!  "Mom, this is cool!"  Score for Mom!

Now for a quick stir.  "Mom, it's hard!!"  I thought at this point, he might get discouraged, as he usually quits stirring once it gets difficult when we're baking.  I was wrong, he just kept adding things, even the little apple.

This next part was the best for me to watch.  Instead of adding things directly to the bowl, he created a variety of mixes in the small bowl and then added them.  I'm pretty sure this comes from watching Daddy cook - he loves being his own sous chef and puts everything into little bowls before starting any recipe.

He was still having trouble mixing, so I suggested he find another way to mix.

And then he made a new discovery.  At the bottom of that greenish-brownish liquid mess, was this amazing stuff, still retaining it's original rainbow colors!!  Hey, it IS called MAGIC Mud! 

He mixed and manipulated until the mixture was homogeneous and not very magic anymore - which is what happens if you add too much water - but it took quite a long time to get there.

My lil guy's verdict: LOVE IT!

Hopefully, you'll love it too!