St. Patrick's Day

Brace yourself for Rainbows! And GREEN!  And fun! This poor post has been in draft for two weeks, while my family has been visiting.  I figured I'd better post it before March ends!

Kumon coloring page.  ROY.G.BIV, baby! And I have to say that explaining the difference between indigo and violet kind of tried Kenna's patience today. Especially since both are purple. :)

:Transferring:
Kenna is 37 mos.

Use tongs to move pom poms to the small sectioned tray.

:Toddler Transferring:

Little Man is 18 mos.

I set up larger pom poms and a mini-muffin pan (which he walked away with the moment I picked up the camera!) so that he can do the same work as Kenna. She is so excited that he is doing trays now, she can't stand it!

:Matching:

Felt Clover Puzzle.  (not my idea, sadly. It's so cute! **Need link**) I cut hearts out of felt to mimic the leaves of clovers.  I made 6 flashcards by taking pictures of different color combinations. Kenna has to build the clovers to match. She is seriously into anything puzzle right now, so I know she is going to love this.  I didn't get pics of the whole stack of cards, but here is one card example. She looks at the picture and recreates it with her felt pieces. I glued down the stem on the felt "paper" so she has a starting point.

:Science- Plants:

 Hunting for four leaf clovers! We took our magnifying glass and headed to the front yard, where there are patches of clover everywhere! We brought some inside to study. The laminated clover is an actual four leaf clover I found in 1997 on the lawn of my college Freshman dorm. 

 It has been pressed in a dictionary for years, and I got it out this week and laminated it, so that Kenna can study it and check it out without destroying it.

On the hunt!

 :Small Spaces:

Put the Leprechaun gold in the pot! I saw this great idea **needs link** to take a mason jar and replace the metal inset lid with cardboard. I drew a cute pot and cut a slit in the cardboard to fit the coins. I deliberately made the coin slot as small as possible- I wanted Kenna to have to really work at this one.

 :Fingerprint Clovers:

Use your fingers or the Q tips to make clovers. Use the green marker to add stems.  If Kenna allows, we may circle sets of two, since we are working on counting by two's.  (She's a little touchy about her artwork at the moment. If she draws even one line on a paper, I am not allowed anywhere near it.)

More fun to come! Gotta get some pictures off my camera!!

Fall Nature Walk

Fall is here, and outdoors, things are getting exciting! Kenna is marveling at the leaves changing colors, and she loves watching the busy squirrels dashing around.  We've been taking a walk every afternoon to burn off energy and get some fresh air.  My little collector picks up interesting things along the way, and we have a little bucket hanging from the stroller to hold everything. When we get home, I ask her to pick a few of her favorite items (usually three) and then we put them on this very special and fancy tray. (Party City...) I have a magnifying glass and a couple of clear containers next to the nature table, and Kenna is free to explore these items whenever she would like.

Here are the awesome finds we brought home today- pinecone, giant leaf and small leaf, some acorns, a cluster of acorn tops, and a rock.
Anything that gets damaged/destroyed by her explorations are discarded because Little Man is in the 'Vacuum cleaner' stage and will consume any bits and pieces lying around.
I highly recommend taking a nature walk- listen to the sounds of nature, watch for colors and shapes, and enjoy fantastic discoveries!

Acorn Painting

 See these purple painted beauties? This is Kenna's idea of a great day! :)

What I planned- Kenna would roll acorns through paint to create some nature paintings. Great idea.

 First Daddy and Kenna went for a walk and came back with a pocketful of acorns.  Perfect.

Kenna wanted purple, and with some coaxing, I got her to mix the blue and red to practice color mixing. She wasn't pleased, because she wanted to see the actual bottle of purple paint. Ah well. We were still on track.

My awesome plan to roll acorns in paint dissolved into full-hand painting and lots of paint splattering in less time than it took to read this sentence.
 

Don't get me wrong- the acorns WERE covered in paint...

but with less rolling, and more brushing!

Oozing paint between her fingers, stamping with her hand, and smearing paint all over the place. It was becoming a lot messier than I had planned...

But soo much learning and exploring was going on, I let her keep at it. Once your toddler is covered in purple paint, there is no turning back.

At the end of the session, we did have a few acorn tracks across our paper, along with lots of purple handprints! Masterful! :)

Collecting Acorns

I've been learning about the Waldorf method for a few months, and investigating the type of toys and materials they recommend using. I'm really trying to get a handle on the philosophy and put some of the ideas into practice with Kenna.

Now, I live in NC, and apparently acorns simply litter the ground for a few months if you know where to look!! Kenna and I were out dogwalking yesterday and stumbled across a thick layer of acorns all over the ground! I was so excited. Kenna and I started grabbing them- all sizes, all colors, and gathered them into a bag. When we got home, I decided to hot glue the acorn caps to the acorns, since many were loose or had come off. We have all sizes, shapes and textures. The plan is to set them out and use them for sorting, counting and studying with a magnifying glass. If we collect more, I may consider painting some, or possibly trying to "felt" a few like these cool guys!

What else can we do with acorns?