On Our Shelves - Back to School

We're shifting into pumpkin/Halloween mode over here this week, but I wanted to share with you some of the "Back to School' work we had on our shelves last week. You saw most of these works in the photos of our classroom tour.

Practical Life

Mirror Polishing. The set up for this comes right out of my training manual. James really enjoyed this work and repeated it a few times throughout the week.

Spooning Acorns. Ok, I have to be honest with myself and just admit that James no longer enjoys spooning work. Pity too because I really enjoy putting it together! He did this work once, quickly, and then gave it the cold shoulder the rest of the week.

Nuts & Bolts - a favorite!

Lacing Pasta

Open & Close Basket. This is, in my opinion, one of the best works you can put out for a child - there are a lot of skills being practiced (snapping, buttoning, zippering, etc.) depending on what kinds of items you include and it's also great for one to one correspondence. I like that it's self correcting, too. There's only one small object for each container (see the pebble inside the glass jar?), so if there's a leftover object or an empty container, James knows he put too many or none at all in a container. He loved this and worked with it every day this week.

Tonging (mama-made) Knitted Apples

Zipper Dressing Frame

Sensorial

Texture Basket - I did not make these (I purchased them at a local shop), but you could EASILY make your own. Our one and only fabric store does not offer enough variety for me to replicate this. We talked about the differences and similarities between the materials.

Pasta Sensory Tub

Color Tablets (Box 2) - the matching aspect is too easy for James, so we've been using these in "Please bring me..." games with much success and fun! We'll be moving on to the 3rd box of color tablets as soon as I finish making them!

Knobbless Cylinders

Language

This whole area has had me over-analyzing and stressing out far more than I should be. Long story short, I've come to realize James has been learning language in a manner that does not coincide with the traditional Montessori route (or the handful of variations within it). Mind you, I'm no longer stressed about it since I realized it's not the end of the world. James learned the names of letters before learning their sounds. A big no-no in the Montessori world. He is also learning to read before being fully immersed in 'pre-reading' (aka aural preparation). Another no-no. Am I worried? Nope. It'll all work out, I'm sure of it. Nonetheless, I've put out several 'pre-reading' activities on our shelves simply because I know James will enjoy them. And that's really what it's all about, right? This is where I give Montessori a *huge* hug, say thanks, and then walk off the beaten path to what's working right for us at the moment. I love having the freedom to make changes as we see fit.

Alphabet Puzzle

ABC Animal Cards

James makes me laugh every day and this photo is an example of one of those time - after he finished laying out all the ABC animal cards, he suddenly stood up, took a deep bow and said, "Thank you!" :D

Category Cards

Sequencing Cards

Sandpaper Letters & Sand Tray

Sandpaper Letters & Objects. Although James knows all of the basic letter sounds (a-z), I am reviewing through them (4 at a time) and including our sound objects for fun. I think we'll get through the rest of the alphabet next week at which point we'll continue on with phonograms.

American Sign Language (ASL) cards. James can sign the entire ASL alphabet, which was a big surprise to me considering I never taught him this! He picked it up during a viewing of this DVD which we rented from the video store. I decided to print and laminate some ASL cards for him since he was really eager about signing. I found these on abcteach.com. He was very excited about these! His new favorite thing to do is to spell aloud and sign the letters at the same time.

Math

This is another area, like language, where we did not follow the traditional route of Montessori as far as introducing concrete before abstract (i.e James knew the names of the number symbols before learning what they meant). That happened because we simply didn't know about Montessori when James began showing an interest in letters and numbers during his first year. As I mentioned above, I'm not at all bothered or concerned about it especially since he's grasping each area with ease. That said, we're moving forward in a modified manner whereby I'll be introducing concrete materials alongside the abstract works he's already familiar with. I'll do this for just letter/sounds & numbers/quantities, but for everything else beyond these basics I'll mirror my teaching with the traditional route because I do believe it has great merit, particularly with more complicated math concepts. Again, this is what we've decided works for us.

Number Rods

Counting Cookies - I made these last year and they were a huge hit with James. Alone they are too easy for him, but we use them for adding/subtracting games now.

Counting w/ Pasta

Culture/Science

Basic Anatomy Puzzle

Continent Puzzle Map & Globe. We worked with both all week and James knows 5 out of the 7 continents now. Does anyone know of a good "Continents Song" to sing?

Discovery Tray - this will take the place of our seasonal nature display (we just don't have room enough for both). However, I'll change this often to suit whatever theme we're working on or to match the current season (e.g. shells in the summer, flowers in the spring, etc.). James absolutely LOVES this tray and writes in his 'journal' to document his findings (ala Sid the Science Kid). :)

Tree Matching/Name Recognition - this was something I made during our Letter T week last year and I made a handful more this year to make it a bit more challenging.

Sorting/Matching Cats & Dogs. This ended up being WAY too easy for James, so he created his own extensions - he sorted them by which animals were sitting/standing, he counted how many cats and how many dogs there were, and then sorted them by color shade. Ahem. I guess that showed me. :)

Building a Farm. This was an impromtu activity that I created mid-way through the week. James said to me, out of the blue, one day, "Mama, cows live on farms and give milk and we milk them like this (here he gestured his hands to simulate milking)." Then we talked about sheep and wool and that's when I decided to create this activity. He spent a long time going through and talking about each animal.

Sorting Fruits & Vegetables. The cute little baskets shown in the last two works were a very thoughtful gift from Eva of Handmade Beginnings - thank you, Eva!

Art & Music

Instrument Nomenclature Cards. I created these myself - this is just a small selection of them (I only put out a handful at a time), but there are more than 30 in the set I made.

Cutting Straws. The cut bits go inside the brown box.

Art Memory Game. These cards come from this awesome game my sweet sister in law bought for James.

Glue Practice. James worked very hard on this and completed both sides of that paper.

I put together some new works - mainly pumpkin/Halloween themed - and I'll be sharing those later this week.

Linking up to Montessori Monday & The Preschool Corner.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Classroom Tour

Ok, here it is - our new classroom! It's quite a bit different than our old classroom now that we have an entire room to devote just to school. This, of course, means we do not have a guest bedroom/office and any future children we may be blessed with will have to share a room with one another. We're more than fine with all of that. Since we decided to homeschool, we realized it only makes sense to devote an area to that purpose.

Anyway, on with the tour...

The next 4 photos will give you a 360 overview of the room starting from the vantage point of the door. You'll notice the room is broken down into several areas all of which I'll go through in a minute.I was sure to keep in mind that this is James' classroom, therefore wherever possible everything is displayed at his height.

There are three large windows that let in lots of natural light and we haven't needed to use the overhead light as a result. One teeny tiny thing that irks me a little is that the curtain rods were hung too high by the previous tenant so the curtains are a bit short for the windows. :)

I was lucky to find 5 very similar bookcases here on the island. Not an easy thing to do when supplies and variety are so limited. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the rug is very soft and colorful - I think I found it at Target.

That's the entrance to the right. There's LOTS of storage space behind those closet doors.

Now for more details. One thing I made a point of doing was incorporating many special, personal affects into our classroom.

When you enter the room, directly ahead are the language shelves and our classroom calendar. I wrote about our calendar here and about the works you see on the shelves here. The little basket on the very top shelf holds print-outs of seasonal songs we sing during circle time. The very fragrant clove box is from Indonesia, a gift from a friend.

To the left of the language shelves is the reading nook. I think this is my favorite spot in the whole room. In front of a sunny window (with an ocean view!) is a little rocking chair (found locally) and a basket of seasonal books. We made the Waldorf window stars and beeswax ornaments last spring.

This is where James sits during our circle times. I always pictured him sitting on the rug, but he saw the rocking chair and fell in love with it. :) He loves to hold the pumpkin whenever he sits there.

To the left of the reading nook are the practical life shelves. My grandmother painted that still life portrait. The small wooden statue of the girl holding flowers was made in Minnesota (my home state).

The bouquet of flowers was a thoughtful gift from my sweet husband. :)

Next to the practical life shelves are the art and music shelves. On the top shelf is a portrait of Beethoven (we focus on a different composer each month and I change this photo accordingly) and an 'antique' :) MP3 player with speakers which are sitting atop a beautiful woven mat that I purchased while in Belize. We are a music loving family and we especially love classical music. I keep it playing - on a very low volume - throughout our school time. It makes for such a peaceful environment. I forgot to turn on the music the other day and James noticed and asked for it to be turned on. Then, when Fur Elise came on he said, "Oh! Beethoven is playing the piano!". The crocheted doily under the little straw basket was made by my other talented grandma. :)

This middle area under the windows is really just open floor space for bulky work and our sensory tub. I just have to share that outside this window is our driveway and just behind that is a nature reserve full of beautiful trees and wildflowers and with walking trails throughout. Since it's nestled within an estate, it's very private and we have yet to see another person in that area. It's where we spend our recess time, pretending we're explorers. :) The God's Eyes you see hanging in the window are the very ones I made at Camp Ojiketa some 20 years ago! (Yes, I save everything - I'm a pack rat sentimental like that!) The little wooden frame in the middle of the window sill is from Nova Naturals as are the beautiful seasonal and interchangeable postcards within it.

To the left of the windows are the science shelves. This bookcase, like the art & music bookcase, is a tad shorter than the others. I did this so James could reach the top shelves a bit more easily. As you can see we have a classroom fish which James has named "Mr. Pocodeo". It is James' responsibility to feed Mr. P each morning before we begin circle time. He loves doing this, although he does tend to overfeed Mr. P a bit. :) To the left of the tank is a little fish fossil set in stone. I found it many years ago during my travels. James says it's a picture of Mr. P.

Next to the science shelves are the culture & history shelves. You can see our US flag (in a vase w/ stones) which we proudly pledge allegiance to each day, our continents globe, and an oil painting of Paris that I purchased from a Parisian artist during one of my visits there.

To the left of those shelves are the math shelves. I must point out that I set out most of our Montessori materials for photographic purposes only - not ALL of these math items are out right now. Also for the purposes of the photo, I opened the boxes to show what's inside. The painting on top of the bookcase is a fun one - it's an alphabetic tour of some major cities throughout the world. I believe I found it in the Land of Nod catalog (a few years ago).

The last set of shelves nearest to the door are the sensorial shelves. I know the shelves are, in general, a bit out of traditional order, but this is the way that worked best for our room.

I have two live plants in our room, both of which James is responsible for watering once a week. I cannot tell you how much he enjoys taking care of these plants! I have a small watering can and cloth set out for him to use. There's a bathroom adjacent to our classroom so it's easy for James to use his step stool to fill the watering can with water in the sink. He uses the cloth to cover the spout while he's walking from plant to plant, to avoid any spillage. That adorable black and white photo above the plant is of my father-in-law (God rest his soul) when he was a little boy, circa 1925-ish.

And finally there's a small table and chairs and baskets with wipes and tissues on the side.

So there you go! What do you think? We LOVE it. The room is bright, airy and very relaxing. I find myself going in there just to sit and be. It's definitely my 'happy place' and I hope James feels the same way. :)

~Thank you for your comments!~

Storytelling Fun Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Michelle from A Mommy's Adventures - you've won the Storytelling Fun giveaway! Please send your mailing details to countingcoconuts1(at)gmail(dot)com.

Thanks to all who entered and for sharing some very funny stories with me - they really made me smile! As I've said before I wish you all could win, but remember, I have another giveaway coming up in a couple of weeks so be sure to come back for another chance to win. :)

Our Classroom Calendar & Circle Time

I've been excited to share our classroom calendar with all of you! I created this about a month ago during my break and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I cross referenced several company made calendars and a couple I've seen on blogs (see here and here) and I included a few of my own ideas to come up with our own version that works for us...

Of course there's the basics - the days of the week, months of the year, the seasons and the calendar itself. The number cards for the calendar will be changed monthly to represent a different theme (e.g. October's cards have a pumpkin, November's have a turkey). As to the number cards, I plan on making most of them (because I guess I like to create more work for myself!) using clip art (found on Google or abcteach.com) and a Word template I created. There are, however, some good and free number cards online - see here and here.

One little annoying thing about this calendar is that it's preset with only five rows of weeks, which means if the beginning of the month falls at the end of one of the rows and if it happens to be a long month, as is the case with October, that last day won't actually make it onto the calendar - notice how the 31st is missing? As the month moves along I'll shift the calendar up and remove the first week. Wish I didn't have to do that though.

In order to make note of the current date, I'm using a little key ring that will dangle on the corresponding day's tack. James moves the ring each day. It has a little star and moon on it, perfect for my astronomy loving boy. :)

I'm teaching James about the passage of time and so I created little pockets for each day of the week with 3 place markers, one for 'today', 'tomorrow', and 'yesterday'. We move them each day and review the days and terminology.

We had no need for a "Color (or letter/number/shape) of the Day" type situation since James already knows all of that, but I did create a "Question of the Day" and "Prayer of the Day" pocket. I'm excited about the questions because they've really encouraged James to vocalize his own opinions on things. The questions are things like: 'If you could be any animal, what would you be?' and 'What's your favorite...' As for the prayers, they came from this beautiful little board book given to James by his Godparents.

James is really into the moon and so I created a little section where we can track the phases of the moon. I purchased the cards from Montessori For Everyone. Of course we had to have a weather section. James LOVES going to the window to look outside and determine which weather card(s) match the day. I downloaded the cards from abcteach.com.

Circle Time
This calendar is just one aspect of our circle time. As I mentioned here, we actually have two circle times - one at the beginning of school and one at the end. Our first circle time starts with a greeting and a good morning song, the Pledge of Allegiance (there's a little US flag on top of one of our bookcases) and then we look to the calendar where we discuss the days of the week, the current day, the passage of time, the season and the months of the year and then we'll do a little fingerplay song (to warm up our hands for work). :) I ask him to think of which work he wants to do first and then I dismiss him to roll out his mat and have fun!
During the 2nd circle time we'll sing another song, talk about the phase of the moon, I ask our question of the day (which we both answer), read a story, sing another song and then end with our prayer of the day.
I know it all sounds like a lot, but it takes no more than 10-15 minutes per circle time and it moves along nicely. Most importantly, James enjoys every minute of it!

Songs
A reader asked me which songs we sing during our circle time. We sing a lot of the basic ones you all know (such as, Itsy Bitsy Spider, If You're Happy, Wheels on the Bus, etc.), and I have a tendency to make up songs quite often. :) I also create a set of songs based on whatever theme we're working on. I take the time to search and find these all over the internet (i.e. I have no specific sites to recommend) and I occasionally make them available to you when/if I have the time to create a PDF document.

Here are a few key circle time songs we sing that you might not know...
::Good Morning - I sing this song, but I changed the last verse to say, "Good morning, good morning, it's nice to see you."
::Days of the Week - this version is really nice and has a easy flow to it (I just couldn't get into the Addams Family version!). I did change the end to say, "...and Saturday, then we start again". The original wording makes it sound like there are two Sundays.
::Months of the Year - this version is sung by the same artist as the Days of the Week song.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Fabric Numbers

I made these soft numbers out of fabric for James to use during school time. Note, they're bigger than they look in the photo - they're about 6-7 inches long. They're meant to be quilted, but since I don't own a sewing machine I wasn't able to do that. They have soft batting inside of them and the frayed edges give them that 'rag' look. I love them! I was inspired to make these when The Activity Mom blogged about them here. I'd LOVE to have a fabric alphabet set, too, but the thought of hand stitching 26 letters makes me cringe!

Linking up to Creative Friday.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Our School Week

Because of our move we started school a bit late this year and yesterday was our first day!

I'm thrilled to say it went extremely well, too! Surprisingly, I found myself to be a little nervous in the morning as we got dressed and ate our breakfast. I actually had butterflies in my stomach! I've been doing learning related activities with James for over a year now, so in theory this day shouldn't have been that much different to me.

But it was. Because this day marked the true beginning of our homeschooling journey and I logged in my first hours as a homeschooling parent. Yes, I realize it's "only preschool", but since we've decided to homeschool indefinitely I have the larger picture in my mind and heart.

It was an exciting day and I'd say we're off to a great start. While I'm sure we'll make changes to how our days run as we see the need (reason 1,001 why it's SO nice to homeschool), I wanted to share an overview of how our school week runs.

We have school Monday-Friday, 8:30am-12:00pm. (Note: the following times are approximations - flexibility is key.)
Before 8:30am: We're early birds so we're up and at 'em by 7am. I'll have tidied the house, we'll have made our beds, eaten our breakfast, gotten dressed and brushed our teeth before school starts at 8:30am.
8:30-8:50am: 1st Circle Time. We cover topics on our school calendar, sing songs, etc. I'll write more on this in a couple of days.
8:50am-10:00am: 1st Work Time. This is when James works on whatever he chooses from our shelves. I'm in the room the entire time to guide him as needed and to work with him on new concepts.
10:00am-10:15am: Snack Time. We go to the kitchen where James chooses a snack and prepares it himself (he LOVES doing this). He has a shelf in the fridge and a drawer in the pantry where his food/bowls/utensils are stored.
10:15am-11:00am: 2nd Work Time.
11:00am-11:20am: 2nd Circle Time. We come together for a story, another song or two, a prayer and a few minutes of mindful rest.
11:20-12:00pm: Recess Outdoors. We might play movement games, explore the yard, go for a walk, play with our animals and if it's warm enough we'll swim in our pool.

After recess is lunch and then 1 hour of quiet time where James plays quietly in his room (or naps on very rare occasions).

Each week day afternoon is planned as follows:
Mondays: Baking Day
Tuesdays: Grocery Shopping Day
Wednesday: Playgroup Day (I run this group and it's a great place for James to hang out with some friends).
Thursday: Kindermusik & Errands Day
Friday: Field Trip Day - we'll do any number of things on this day, such as take a bus or ferry trip to another part of the island, visit the aquarium or plan a get together with friends.
And our weekends are all about family time (and laundry!). :)

Our week has a really nice flow to it and I'm thrilled about having our rhythm back. During the 3-4 weeks when we were moving, I was amazed at how differently James behaved. He wasn't naughty or anything, but he was definitely "off". He seemed aimless and wasn't listening as well as he usually does and was totally forgetting all the wonderful habits he had (such as cleaning up his toys without asking). Like all children, he craved structure and routine. I'm glad to be able to provide that for him once again.

Linking up to The Preschool Corner & Montessori Monday.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Pasta Sensory Tub & Activties

Did you know October is 'National Pasta Month'?! (It's also National Pizza, Cookie, and Apple Month - who comes up with these things?) In August, my wonderfully creative niece came up with the idea of making a spaghetti sensory tub and I thought it would be perfect for the first part of this month.

In the end, I decided to add more than just spaghetti to it. This was so fun and easy to put together!

Here's what's inside:
:: Various kinds of pasta - Spaghetti, Bowtie, tri-colored Rotini, - a distinct variety that's perfect for sorting.
:: Bits of red felt (to simulate sauce)
:: Glass shaker with holes in the top (James loves putting the spaghetti into them)
:: Wooden bowl
:: Sealed container of Parmesan cheese, which makes a satisfying sound when shaken.
:: Metal strainer spoon
:: Brown pom-poms (to simulate meatballs) - these are the same pom-poms from my ice cream sensory tub.
:: Italian seasoning - yep, REAL dried herbs! I just sprinkled them all over to add some olfactory fun to the mix! The tub smells delicious!

I'm not sure how long this tub will last considering it's filled with actual food products, and I'm not sure I want to find out (besides, I think the ants would determine the end date sooner than later anyway). No matter, Halloween is just around the corner and I'll be creating that tub soon.

I also put together a couple of pasta themed activities for our shelves...

Lacing

Counting

And just so we really get into the theme, guess what's for dinner tonight... :)

~Thank you for your comments!~

Storytelling Fun Giveaway

I am very pleased to introduce you all to this wonderful online store called Storytelling Fun! The lovely owner of this store, Angela, has created a place where we can purchase felt boards and story sets to accompany many of our favorite books, songs and nursery rhymes. Here are just a few examples of the MANY story sets she has to offer...

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

Five Little Speckled Frogs

You'll also find some really great educational and religious sets at Storytelling Fun. Not only are the products cute and well made they are very reasonably priced with most sets under $10!

We LOVE our story sets and felt board. James carries it with him around the house and can be heard telling stories to our cats and his favorite teddy bear. :)

Angela and I are joining forces to gift one of you a story set of your choice (of a $10 value) AND an awesome mini travel felt board! Here's what you need to do for a chance to win...

Mandatory: Visit Storytelling Fun and come back to this post and tell me your favorite thing in the store.
For extra entries...
::"Like" Counting Coconuts on Facebook
::"Like" Storytelling Fun on Facebook
::Become a follower of Counting Coconuts
::Tell me something funny! :)

This giveaway will end on Friday, October 15th at 9pm (AST) and is open to residents of the US and Canada only. Please be sure your email address is included in your comment(s) or in your profile.

Good luck, everyone!

~Thank you for your comments!~

Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

Hi everyone, I'm back from my bloggy break! As I mentioned earlier this week my break was anything but restful, but for all the hard work I'm happy to report we're (99%) unpacked, my sweetie is on the mend and we are more than ready for our lives to return to a calm normalcy.

Oh, but guess what?!
October 1st marked the one year birthday for this blog!

I can't believe it's been that long already. I started this blog as a means of journaling our learning fun so our family and friends could stay in the loop while we're living out here in the ocean. I never would have believed it was going to be such a blessing in disguise. Through the process of blogging I've discovered my passion for homeschooling and Montessori, both of which have changed our lives for the better. I've also been blessed by all of you! Your ideas, your advice, your support, your overall amazing-ness has helped me to become a better mother, wife and friend to myself. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that.

In honor of my bloggy birthday and because I want to say thank you (again!), I'm excited to have not one, but TWO giveaways this month with another one in November. Hooray for good (and free!) things! :) Be sure to check back tomorrow for the first giveaway!

~Thank you for your comments!~

A Sneak Peek

Hi there! No, I'm not officially back from my bloggy break, I'm just popping in for a quick post to share this little sneak peek with you...

~giggle-squeal! oh how I LOVE organizing!!~

I just unpacked all of these lovely jars last night and was beside myself with excitement over how pretty they looked all lined up waiting for me! :) This is how I store all of my loose items (manipulatives, counters, things for sorting and sensory tubs). I've been using glass jars and plastic containers to organize my materials for quite some time now and I've found them to be the BEST way to keep those little things contained. I will, of course, be writing a more in-depth post later about how I organize all of our school supplies.

I can't believe I've been away from this space for over a month! I've been soooo busy... unpacking and settling into our new home, creating our classroom and planning our first couple of weeks of school (we start next week! Yay!!), preparing themes for the weekly playgroup I volunteered to run, and taking care of my sweet husband who was injured and had to have surgery last week. All that on top of my usual housekeeper/cook/chauffeur/mommy role. Things are still a bit chaotic so it'll be a bit longer before I begin posting regularly again.

Hope you're all doing well! :)

~Thank you for your comments!~

Logging Off

Well, friends, I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while. Don't worry, I'm not saying goodbye for good - I'll be back in a month or so.

I'll miss blogging and reading about the wonderful things you're doing, but it's important I take this time to focus on all of the things going on here. We're getting ready to move into a new home and any of you who've done this know what a time-consuming process it can be! Also, I need to spend some time setting up our new classroom (SO excited about this!) and preparing for our school year.

Since I'm an all or nothing kind of gal going totally offline is really the only way I'll be able to focus. That said, I'm sorry I won't be answering emails or updating my Facebook page much during my hiatus. If I still owe you an email I'll be sure to respond before I log off.

When I come back I'll have a few giveaways, some new sensory tubs to share, photos of our new classroom, as well as a few posts in which I'll answer your questions about sensory tubs, how I organize my materials and why we've decided to homeschool James. Lots to share!

Wishing you all a lovely start to your school year!

~Thank you for your comments!~

September Sensory Tub & Playdough - Fall

It's hard to believe it's September already! It certainly doesn't feel like fall, at least not here in Bermuda. It's still very warm and humid and will be this way for another month at least. Nonetheless, I'm ready for it to be fall so I created this sensory tub and playdough to get us in the mood. :)

Here's what's inside:
:: Silk leaves - found at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. If you can't find individual leaves, look for a garland you can cut up.
:: Button leaves
:: Cinnamon sticks
:: Wooden acorns - purchased from here
:: REAL acorns - these are a wonderful gift from the lovely Mama Bee. We have no oak trees in Bermuda, a sad thing for this acorn-loving girl!
:: Pinecones
:: Small wooden bowl - purchased from here
:: Wooden apples & bucket - purchased from the same place as the wooden acorns
:: Knitted apples - see here for my post about those
:: Plastic apples
:: Two teeny tiny button apples
UPDATE: I've since added a little rake to the tub, too. After all, when the leaves fall you have to rake them together! This fun idea comes from Kara at Little Learners Lounge - thanks, Kara!

As you can see, there are a lot of apples in there! I focused on apples for this month's theme not just because it's the typical "back to school", but because September has always meant apples to me. Every September while I was growing up we'd visit the Pine Tree Apple Orchard (in Minnesota) to watch the apples roll around on the sorting belts and to eat some fresh apple pie, cinnamon ice cream and hot apple cider. I remember being SO excited about this and it made the return of the school year something I looked forward to.

I had the apple pie in mind when I created this month's playdough...
Using my favorite recipe, I kept the playdough a plain color and added in cinnamon which yielded not only a delicious aroma, but also some lovely brown swirls. I gathered some small pie tins, an apple cookie cutter, little plastic apples (in the apple container), a rolling pin and a knife for James to make his own apple pies!
He had such a blast doing this! He tore up bits and filled the pan to make a "crumb" topping and I sliced strips for him to lay criss-cross.

Yum! Wish it were real!

James is really into reading right now and is constantly trying to sound out the words he sees wherever we are. While we were playing with the dough he said to me, "A is for apple!" and asked me to make a letter 'A'. :) I love that his interest in reading comes 100% from him - I wasn't planning on him entering the world of reading for another year or so!

We read a couple of great books that fit in perfectly with our sensory fun:
The Apple Pie Tree, by Zoe Hall. A very cute story about a pair of sisters who watch their apple tree grow and change in the seasons and use the apples it produces to make a delicious apple pie. There's even a recipe in the back of the book.

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, by Lois Ehlert. This story details the journey of a tree from a sapling at a nursery to a new tree in a child's backyard. There's an informative section in the back about the various parts of trees and even a section on how to plant a tree.

I'm linking this post up to Montessori Monday, The Preschool Corner and Tot Tuesday.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Tiny Talk Tuesday

• "You guys are GREAT!" ~ James casually mentioned this to my husband and I the other day. :)
• "Oh look at that one, it's gorgeous!" ~ regarding a particularly lovely bubble he created.
• "Tiger, are you feeling sick? Ok, I'll get you some milk to make you feel better." ~ James taking good care of his little stuffed animal.
• "Mommy, I have a question for you... (fill in any kind of cute questions here)." ~ Ever curious and eager to learn, James comes up to me and says this several times a day. His questions range from 'What do ants sound like?' to 'Why do tickles make us laugh?'. Very good questions - I just wish I knew the answers!!
• He's also taken to making up all sorts of songs regarding his favorite things - our cats, the moon, popsicles, and his cousin, Tia. It's SO cute and I just melt whenever I see him tapping his foot and singin' a tune. :)
  

UPDATE: Oops! I made a mistake - we're partaking in Tiny Talk Tuesday over at Not Before 7 (not Monkey See Monkey Do as I originally posted - but go and check out Terra's blog anyway! She's one amazing mommy!!).

~Thank you for your comments!~

Muffin Tin Meal - Yellow

After putting together our yellow sensory tub, I decided to make a yellow themed muffin tin meal for James. He loved it! Muffin tin meals are so much fun to eat out of (and to prepare! - the individual cups really appeal to my OCD tendencies organized nature)! :D

Here's what in it:
::Baby corn
::Kix cereal
::Jell-O
::Pepper sticks
::Scrambled eggs
::Pineapple
:: A cup of lemonade

Here are some more yellow food ideas:
::Bananas
::Lemons
::Corn kernals or cobs
::Macaroni and Cheese
::Grapefruit
::Summer squash
::Yellow wax beans
::Pears
::Cheese
::Crackers
::Mustard
::Lemon flavored yogurt
::Cornbread
::Rice mixed with saffron or turmeric
::Cupcakes

~Thank you for your comments!~

Counting Coconuts is (finally!) on Facebook!

Ok, after some persuading I've taken the plunge. I've created a Facebook page for Counting Coconuts. Thank you for suggesting I do this, it'll be a fun way to share my ideas outside the blog world!

Not sure when or if I'll have time to update it all that often, but I'll do my best. I have a few links and albums posted already, so check my left sidebar and please (pretty pretty please) join me on Facebook. :)

I do want to apologize to those of you who have asked me to create a Twitter account - I just can't on account of the fact that I am avoiding Twitter like the plague.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Sensory Tub - Yellow

Surprise! It's another sensory tub! Actually, it's probably not much of a surprise since I did mention in a previous post that I was going to make two tubs for August. But, if I'm honest, this isn't that 2nd "outdoor" tub - I never got around to making it (note to self: don't blog about doing something until you've done it!). This one is just as fun though - take a look!

I was inspired when Maggie, from Redtedart, very sweetly reached out to me about her upcoming "Get Crafty: Yellow" blog carnival. Be sure to check it out for some crafty ideas!

Tia (my niece) and I had so much fun putting this together. There are LOTS of goodies in this tub, and really too many to list in full, but here's a sample of what's inside:
:: Star shaped pasta (we dyed only some of it yellow to give it that mottled look)
:: Various types of pom poms
:: Buttons
:: A bean bag
:: Google eyes
:: Beads
:: Mini erasers
:: A wooden egg
:: A Rubber ducky
:: Number beads
:: Popsicle sticks
:: 2 cups for scooping or sorting
:: A strawberry huller for picking out objects

I've added a little twist to this tub. I photographed some of the objects and created a "bingo" card. The idea is that James will use the photos on the card to hunt for and find the corresponding object. Sort of an I Spy kind of thing. Instead of a bingo card, another idea I had (but didn't end up implementing) was to create individual cards for each object, laminate them and then put them together on a ring.

James used his magnifying glass (his most favorite thing at the moment) to investigate the tub. :)

My very creative niece, Tia, is here visiting us and she has been brainstorming with me about some new sensory tub ideas. Oh my goodness did we come up with some good ones - I can't wait to share them with all of you!

I'm linking this post up to Montessori Monday, Tot Tuesday and The Preschool Corner.

~Thank you for your comments!~