Colour Sorting

For special occasions I try to add to the mix one thing for each kid that I have personally made.  This Easter I made the girls a wooden colour sorter that I had first seen on a blog from another montessori mom.  It honestly was super easy and has been a hit with all of the kids.  (I even see the big boys over there setting it up sometimes while they are watching TV haha).  It's basically just a solid board with pin holders glue to it.  I decided to not paint the entire wooden clothespin to make it a little more tricky for the girls.  This would be great for identifying colours, sorting colours and you could actually create different hues of the same colour if you preferred.

Even with things being pretty busy on Easter morning and lot's of other new toys, chocolates and books, they were still really interested and played with it.  We then left it in our living room and they still choose to play with it often.

The Giant Bear

Yes we were at Costco last summer and they had giant bears for sale.  The kids loved it so we bought one.  Costco sells a bigger bear then him but this bear is big enough that he takes up more room then most people hahaha.  We bought it on a whim and thought ahhh the kids will play for it a big and then we will get rid of it.  To our surprise that thing is lied on, climbed on and played with daily.  We have found every single one of the kids climbing on him at some point.  He has held many jobs from protector of their pretend cave walls to giant who carried them from adventure to adventure but I think I have to say that I think he has recently been in my favorite job.  A few months ago he got moved to beside the bookshelf when the toy room was getting tidied up and since then he has held the job of big comfy place to rest and read a book.  So when I guess this giant bear proved me wrong.  I had saw him several times before and wondered what the heck anyone would even do with something like that and laughed about how much room he would take up.

Streamer Obstacle Course

I wrote this post a few months ago but just got around to finishing it now.


The kids were off school one day and I finally got to doing an activity I had planned for awhile.  We had left over streamers from the kids birthday party and the kids use tape ALL THE TIME for crafts so we always have it on hand.  Literally you just use a hallway and set up a 'laser type' looking obstacle course with the streamers and the kids take turns going through avoiding the streamers.  I had made some easier paths for the younger ones and for the older ones we did different things like having to alternate under/over each streamer.  Tons of fun, lot's of laughs and our 10 year old dog even gave it a try.  Something we will definitely be doing again soon!

The kids enjoyed it so much that the boys both requested to try it again next week if we have a rainy day :)  

Music in the Park

Last week I met up with a friend and we took the kidlets to our local 'Music in the Park'. It's a free event that happens weekly.  A local musician plays all different types of kids/regular music and you can just hang out, sing, dance, listen or whatever you want.  We had a little picnic and drank milkshakes and spent just over an hour there.  The weather was beautiful, kids had fun and company was great.  The kids and I walked around a little bit downtown and explored the area.

Of course all the kids loved some baby time

There are so many free events that are available in towns and cities?  What are some of your favorites?

Sense of Smell

This week we read a book about the sense of smell.  We talked about how different things have different smells and we spent a lot of time smelling flowers.  A few weeks ago I was scouring online for some activities to do that involved the sense of smell and came across something called smell jars.  I loved that the activity isolated all the other aspects of each item except for it's smell but disliked the hefty price tags that I was finding of $100+.  I then started to look up do-it-yourself similar projects.  Again came to a road block because we had gotten rid of our old spice rack before moving here and didn't have identical glass jars all the same size.  Then a friend that is also moving this summer told me that she had a spice rack that they hadn't used for a long time and she was looking to get rid of it. Score!!  As they say - one man's trash is another man's treasure.

I took all the old spices out, washed the containers and took off all stickers so basically just had identical jars.

 I then took strips of construction paper and cut them so they filled the inside of the glass so the kids couldn't use any visual clues to tell the different items.  One set was blue and one set is red.

 I added cotton balls into the jar to hold the spices up closer to the top and this allows you to put certain liquids like lemon juice, vanilla extract etc in without it running all over the place.  You put a set of smells into each colour ie. garlic in a red jar and in a blue jar.

 I put stickers on the bottoms of the jars for each of the matching smells for me to be able to do quick checks if they are matched correctly.

 I put the shaker covers on so that nobody could use visual clues to tip them off.  The kids had fun working together sorting through all the different smells.

Super simple and now that I have it all set up I can just change up the smells in the containers quite easy.  It would be fun to change them to all spices, then all flowers etc when working on different subjects.

Sizes

Gosh we have been really enjoying this super easy activity amid our regular activities.  For valentines day we had purchased a set of hearts in different sizes from Walmart.  The kids used them for hunts and I spy etc.  When I spotted a set of egg cookie cutters I thought 'hey why not we enjoyed it last time'.  This time we have been using them to work on organizing things by sizes, identifying biggest and smallest etc...  We have also used them for Play Doh as well as tracing.  Another super easy thing that we have used in many ways.

Egg Colour Sorting

Building on yesterday's post about quick activities, I thought I would also show another colour activity that is Easter related that the kids have been working on.  I took an empty egg carton and put halves of the Easter eggs in it.  I chose to use three of each colour ensuring that there would be a good mix .  I then took a coloured hair scrunchy for each egg and placed them in the tray in front of the egg carton.  The kids then used the tongs they have from their pie activity to match the colours.  This also helps with their muscle development in their hands that will later help with other motor skills such as writing.  The girls were able to squeeze the tongs 4 or 5 times and then you could see their hands started to get tired so they used their other hand to help get the scrunchies on.  This activity was a little too easy for Joshua so when he does it he only uses one hand so that it is all about just practicing hand eye coordination.  We just kept all the activity in a wooden tray on our fireplace for easy access and to keep all the pieces together.

So simple and they have done it quite a few times.

Egg Towers

We have been doing this activity for at least two weeks now but life got busy and I didn't have a chance to write about it until now. Blame it on the nice weather and evening walks lol.  Another low cost but fun activity, I keep finding the kids building on their own all over the house.  Basically you just take the quite a few plastic Easter eggs and separate the tops from the bottoms.  Then the kids work on their building skills by seeing how high they can stack them into towers.  They have changed the activity up a bit on their own and have raced each other, tried to build with one hand, attempted to stack them blindfolded etc...  It's neat to see them try different strategies and I am surprised how much taller they can get their towers compared to mine.

I can't help but smile when I see the look on Emma's face.....come on dad add one more!

Insects

Last week we started a little more in-depth study of bugs and insects and with the weather warming up, we are able to find more bugs to examine during our outdoor adventures.  I also pulled out more of our story books with insects as the main character.  We used our felt very hungry caterpillar set that I had made before.

http://welcometogauthierland.blogspot.com/search?q=book+club

We changed one of the sides of the sensory table into an insect theme as well.  I took a picture of all the bugs from the Toob then printed them off and laminated them.  We put it on one side of the sensory table for their 'bug hunt'.
 

Zachary had got a microscope for Christmas that came with pre-made slides of insects but the coolest thing is the microscope tells you facts about the bug as you look at it.

A squirrel was eating out of our bird feeder this week so Josh moved his little table up to the patio door to watch.  All of a sudden he let out a yell of delight that he could see a bug on the window.  He asked me what kind of bug it was and I said I wasn't sure so he ran over and got his laminated sheet.  He examined it through the door for a little while longer then said...."hmm looks like a house fly but it has different wings.  I think we are going to have to get a book and look this one up Mama".  He then continued; "I bet Mathew has a book for just this".  When Mathew got home from school that was the first thing he asked and Mathew was more then happy to find his book for him and look up the different bugs.

Ice Sculptures

Over spring break the big boys hockey team participated in the Alaska State Hockey Championships in Fairbanks Alaska.  We all went as a family and loved watching all the hockey games but we were also able to take in many other things while there.  Fairbanks hosts the world's largest ice sculpting competition.  The weather was cold but the sun was shinning so the sculptures were amazing to see.  People come from all over the world to participate in this competition.  There are tons of different categories that include making sculptures from even one single block of ice.  There was so many things for the kids (and adults) to climb on and enjoy.  The sculptures were honestly breathtaking and I was flabbergasted by the amount of detail and beauty.

 The Mad Hatter's Tea Party!  The detail was phenomenal!  I stood there is awe for quite some time just taking it in.

I love how the light is gleaming on this one and making it look almost magical.

The kids had an amazing time on the ice slides.  I love when you get home and you find a picture on your camera that just captures the excitement of the day.

Just some Alaskan kids enjoying the weather on some Alaskan furniture.

I love that we got to explore something truly this creative as a family.  Thank you Alaska for another great adventure we won't ever forget!

as a side note, who could ever forget seeing a hat like this. I was a little scared at first!