V is for Valentine's Trays and Weekly Wrap Up

This week, my little girls learned about just one thing:  Valentines.  I used some of my old trays and made some new ones.  We also had an entire day of Valentine's fun on Thursday.  You can read about it here.

Trays this week

It was pretty much all trays this week, so this section will be long ;).

This printable came from the (free) Valentine's Pack at Gift of Curiosity.   I really liked this one for Explorer, because when we do cards and counters, she only wants to put one counter with each card.  Since these cards have a place for each counter, she put more then one. 

Magnet page from the same pack.

For this one, I had Mini Cooper lay a gem on each h.  This printable is also from Gift of Curiosity.

For this one, Mini Cooper matched the amount of hearts on the left side with buttons on the right (also from Gift of Curiosity).

The idea of this was to put one bead in each heart....no one liked this one.

Parmesan cheese container and heart sticks from the dollar tree. Always a favorite.  

Heart patterning from PreKinders.   The hearts are from Oriental Trading Company.

Count and clip cards.  I downloaded these from Tired Need Sleep a few years ago. Now they are free-but only if you use Scribd.  

This one is a magnet counting page (free) from Crystal and Company.  We also used the heart tree coloring page from her pack (but no photos).

Transferring feathers with tweezers.  This lasted about 5 seconds.  Then, she wanted to throw them around.

Sorting pink and purple-perfect for Explorer right now. She only seems to know these two colors.   Everything is 'hink' and if you tell her it isn't, then it has to be purple.

This was by far the favorite tray.  They both had lots of fun filling the little heart boxes with treasures.

Explorer loved shaking them to hear the gem inside.

Montessori Materials 

We had only one Montessori Material this week.  I introduced the V sandpaper letter and the sound circles from The Helpful Garden.

Books and other stuff

Along with the big kids, we have been learning about the Olympics.  I got these great 3 part cards of figure skating poses from Every Star is Different.

And, it's not Valentines without Olive My Love :).

Those were the main highlights of the week, and of course all of our Valentine's fun on Thursday just topped it off.  We will be focusing on only the Olympics this next week.  Hope you had a great week!!

God Bless,

Lisa

Items we used this week (Amazon affiliate links in this widget)

Toddler Corner Farm Theme

I have been trying to put out more activities for the little girls to do.  They get bored easily and loose focus when they have a bunch of options.  So, I have cleared off the shelves and placed out just a few things.  I try to change them every couple days.  I didn't go out and buy anything, I didn't print anything.  I just pulled from what we already had.  

Here were some of the items I put out during our farm week:

Magnetic animal puzzles (a yard sale find from a couple years ago).

Putting chickens in nests.  I used to have this with the Easter stuff, and realized it could do double duty.

This is an awesome set I got from a friend and have used it many, many times throughout the years.

The page it comes with has places to sort by color and size.  The top of it has a place to sort by animal.  The backside has a race.

Some items were just to help build skills, like the Ikea stacker.

I try to put out a couple of books.  This is a fun one!

Tray of little animals to roll play and say their sounds.

Basic shape puzzle with a blind fold for Mini Cooper (and the big kids who wanted to play, too).

As you can see, though, this can be a really simple thing to set up.  Just go through the items you have and sort them into a few piles and then rotate the items every couple days.  It will keep the activities fresh without having to write out long lesson plans :).

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa

Summer Fun Montessori Trays

This week was our last class for our homeschool co-op pre-k group this year.  Next month we will be having parties and taking field trips and then we will be enjoying our Summer!!  We wrapped it up with a learning centers class.  This week I had some help and it really made it way more fun!  I brought 17 activities, and another mom brought 19 activities.  It was great to have so many options.  I hope that I can have help again next year.  

Before I show you what was on my trays, I want to let you know about an AMAZING resource for new Montessori moms (or old ones),  Justmontessori.com.  Thanks to Our Montessori Story, I learned about Just Montessori a couple of months ago.  She has provided her entire curriculum online for free.  I know I *could* make up my own, but hers seems to be perfect for us.  It has made my life so much easier just to follow her lead.  I still have to gather the materials and put my things together, but I don't have to come up with a plan.  So, um, yeah, most of these ideas came from her :).

Sweeping seashell pieces.

Pouring seashells.

Seashell cards and counters.

Exploring seashells.

Land, Air, Water sorting work.  From Montessori For Everyone.  

Ocean animal matching from iChild.co.uk.

Melissa and Doug sea puzzle.

Catching water animals with a 'net.'

Transferring marbles with tongs.

Basting water (shown without water lol).

Scrubbing rocks.

I found the cutest scrubber and just had to make a tray out of it.  It wasn't until the children used the tray that I realized the scrubber was too big for them.  Oh well, I found myself a cute new scrubber.

Open and closing tray.

With new things to open and close.

Living/non-living sort.

From The Helpful Garden.

Plant/animal sort also from The Helpful Garden.

Stamping 1-5 from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Color yourself basket.

I found the people at Hobby Lobby.

Natural Moutrishka (sp??) Dolls (Hobby Lobby).

Last, but not least, construction paper, magazines, scissors and glue.  A few of the kids (especially Mustang) really got into this one.  

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have found some ideas that you can use with your little ones.  God Bless!

We're linked up!