August Sensory Tub - Back to School!

One last sensory tub for the road. I sure will miss creating these over the next few months!

Since James will still have school with my husband, I decided to go with a 'back to school' theme for this tub. I've been wanting to make this for a while, but opted for a fall/apple theme last year instead.

Here's what's inside:
:: Shredded notebook paper (James, under my supervision, used a shredder machine to make this)
:: Personalized pencil case (I won this in a giveaway. James can pack the supplies in the pouch and I know he'll love using the zipper!)
:: Crayons
:: Pencils
:: Erasers (which can be added to the pencil tops for a fine motor activity)
:: Pencil sharpener (to be used with the pencils, of course)
:: Scissors (James can further cut the shredded paper)
:: Paper clips (these can be used to make chains - see our recent activity involving this)
:: Wooden alphabet tiles with little holes at the top (to be used with the lacing string in the pencil pouch)
:: Number beads, 0-10 (can also be laced)
:: Foldable ruler - no clue where this came from; I've had it for years.
:: Tiny yarn apples knitted by me last year
:: Colorful shapes (they link together)
:: Mini homemade notebook (James can use the pencils he's sharpened or the crayons to draw inside of the notebook)
:: Small alphabet book
:: School bus calendar cards
:: Back to school novelty buttons (found at Joanne's years ago)

James had since grown tired of the transportation tub and the pond tub so this new one was welcomed with opened arms! His favorite thing so far is the foldable ruler. :)

Click the button below to see a full list of my sensory tubs or click here to view my slideshow on the Counting Coconuts Facebook page.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Autumn Calendar Cards

A while back, on my CC Facebook Page, I took a poll about which style of calendar cards I should make next. Quite a few of you gave your input (thank you!) and it was a tight race, but I ultimately chose an Autumn/Harvest theme. I hope you find them useful in the coming months!

Click here to download

Keep in mind that I format these myself, so they're not perfect, but they'll certainly get the job done. : ) Also, as with all of my printables, these are for your personal use only - please do not sell or offer them in a giveaway. Thank you and enjoy!

~Thank you for your comments!~

On Our Shelves - November

Here are our activities for November - some are fall/Thanksgiving theme related, some aren't. These activities are for the entire month of November. I should note that I don't put them all out at once, but rather I rotate them around.

Practical Life

Button Turkey. This is the same one I made last year, the idea came from here.

Pouring Corn Kernels. Always arrange transferring work so it begins left and moves right (it simulates the direction of reading). I've made an exception to that with pouring and I arrange it with James' dominant hand in mind.

Snap Dressing Frame. I got this from Kid Advance and I can't say I'd recommend their dressing frames. They're a bit tight and hard to work with. I had to cut and alter them in order to make them usable.

Sorting Beans

Tonging Pom-poms

Transferring Marbles. The little suction cups hold the marbles perfectly, but it does require some careful handling. Excellent fine motor activity.

Transferring Fruit. These fruits are actually little erasers, which I found locally. James will use a strawberry huller to transfer these from one bowl to the other.

Lacing Wooden Spools

Sensorial

Harvest Sensory Tub

Turkey Playdough

Color Tablets... with a twist. These were starting to collect dust, so I put some flashcards out along with the box. It worked! James worked with these a few different times last week.

Language

In our book corner:
In November by Cynthia Rylant
Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant
Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White
This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story by Laura Krauss Melmed
A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman
Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes

Poem & Poetry Basket. This fun idea comes from My Montessori Journey and the poem, which I found in one of my poetry books, was written by John Updike.

Thanksgiving Vocabulary Cards. I found these on abcteach.

Reading Cards. Now that James is sounding out words, he's anxious to practice his new skill. These cards are great because on one side there's the word and corresponding photo, and on the opposite side there is just the word. James and I went through these once using the photo side and then again using just the word side - he read them all quite easily.

James is definitely in a sensitive period for language. He's reading a lot and this week he's taken to spelling out tons of random words. It's pretty cute because he'll be talking and he'll say, "Mom..." and then he'll pause to spell out the word m-o-m and he'll continue on with his sentence stopping to spell this or that word as he goes along. :)

Math

Fabric Numbers

Cards & Counters. I used some cornucopia calendar inserts for the cards and leaf sequins as the counters.

Pumpkin Pie Game. This is just like the one we did last year, only this time I used larger numbers and small plastic pumpkins (which I found at Hobby Lobby while I was in the states - I highly recommend them). This work was a huge hit with James and we ended up doing much more with it than I originally planned. We worked on the concepts of less/more, bigger/smaller, some/all/none and also addition/subtraction.

I also printed out a couple dot-to-dot activities from abcteach.

Culture/Science

Leaf Rubbing

Anatomy of a Bird Puzzle

USA Puzzle

Discovery Tray. Lots of fun things on this month's tray: a seed pod, some acorns, a geode (which we'll crack open next week) and those sweet little husk dolls were a precious gift from Beth of From the Hive. Thank you again, Beth!

Plant or Animal Cards. These are from Montessori For Everyone. These were super easy for James and he kind of looked at me like, "why are we doing this?" Ha! But while he knew for sure what was or was not an animal, he seemed a bit surprised by what was a plant. Like the grapes or flowers or trees - we've never really referred to them as a plant before.

Art & Music

Stamping. I had this out for October and James LOVED it.

Build A Scarecrow. For this activity I simply cut out little bits of clothing which James can put together to make a scarecrow.

Cutting Stickers. I spaced out these little fall stickers along a strip of paper so James can cut in between them.

We're singing some of these songs this month.

Instrument Nomenclature Cards. I made these myself. I'm sorry, I tried and tried, but I wasn't able to format these properly in order to share them as a PDF. You can find the images on Google, save them to your hard drive, then collectively print them.

Nearer to Thanksgiving we'll be doing a "thankful turkey" activity. James will think about and tell me what he's thankful for and we'll then write it down on little feather shaped pieces of paper and add them to a cut-out of a turkey. I've remember doing this when I was in grade school and I'm excited to do it with James now.

I also printed out some color pages from abcteach.

~Thank you for your comments!~

November Sensory Tub - Harvest

What's inside:
::Straw - Last spring I purchased these little bales from Micheal's Crafts for $2.99 each.
::Stuffed scarecrow
::Plastic gourds
::Fall colored puffs
::Beeswax pumpkin scented tea lights - they make the tub smell wonderful!
::Orange leaves
::Wooden bowl
::Wooden beads
::Fall themed buttons

We're still playing with our Halloween tub quite a bit, so this one will have to wait to come out for another few days. I'll be posting about November playdough soon.

~Thank you for your comments!~

On Our Shelves - Halloween

Yes, I know this is the second set of "On Our Shelves" I've posted this week, but the ones earlier this week were really from last week and these are for the next two. :)

Most of these activities are Halloween themed as we're gearing up for the upcoming holiday. I know Halloween isn't for everyone, and truthfully I'm not a fan of all the gory scary stuff and I really do monitor what kind of Halloween stuff James is exposed to, but I see no harm in dressing up and going trick or treating or incorporating some pumpkins and such into our classroom. :)

Practical Life
Spider Sifting. I first saw this activity on Itty Bitty Love. James had a blast with this and pretended he was saving the spiders from the pit of orange rice. :)

Halloween Pencil Sharpening. Great fine motor activity.

Pumpkin Washing. Very similar to our mirror polishing work.

Open & Close Basket. These containers have cute little pumpkins in them. As I mentioned here, this is a fantastic activity for kids.

Pouring Beads. I hesitated about this because the beads are actually little skulls (too scary?)... they were a part of a bracelet we got in a Halloween goody bag last year.

Tweezing Spiders. I saw this on My Montessori Journey and knew we had to try it. James really liked this one. The added challenge to this is that the spiders are deep in that little bucket. It requires a steady little hand to pull them out on the tweezers. :)

Tonging Erasers. Another MMJ idea. I have a few sets of these erasers in different shapes, so I'll switch out just the erasers next week. I think James will like that.

Velcro Dressing Frame

Sensorial

Halloween Sensory Tub

Spooky Playdough

Spider Shape Matching. I found this on KidsSoup.

Language
Sequencing. I put together some clip art I found on abcteach.com to make these sequencing cards. James copies the sequence below the strips.

Halloween Books. We're enjoying these titles: Pumpkin Eye by Denise Fleming, Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White, and Halloween by Jerry Seinfeld (I know this one is not for everyone, but I'm a huge fan of Seinfeld!).

Poem & Poetry Basket. I've been reading poetry to James since he was itty bitty, but outside of reading poems from books, I've been wanting to find a way to incorporate it into our schooltime. Thank you to - who else - My Montessori Journey for this brilliant idea. The poem you see pictured is my own - be kind, I am NOT a poet and I'm sure I broke all sorts of rules in creating it. :)

Sandpaper Letters & Object Boxes. James completed some very big and very important work on this day - he perfectly matched dozens of objects to their correct sound!


Math

Spider Counting

Jack O' Lantern Game. This is a fun little math game whereby James rolls one of the die and then puts that number of teeth along the top of the Jack O' Lantern's mouth and then he rolls the second die and adds that number of teeth along the bottom of the JOL's mouth. Finally he counts how many teeth there are total.

Counting w/ Yarn Pumpkins. I made these last year and we've been having a lot of fun playing addition and subtraction games with them!

Culture/Science
Life Cycle of a Pumpkin. I took a tip from Deb at Living Montessori Now and printed out these lovely 3 part cards from Montessori For Everyone.

Art
Stamping. This is a little self-inking stamper with a Halloween image on it. Easy and fun.

Paper Plate Pumpkin

Halloween Sticker Scene. These foam stickers are easy to peel. James loved making his own story.

Linking up to The Preschool Corner and Montessori Monday.

~Thank you for your comments!~