Introducing the Letter B

First Finished Embridered piece- by my 6 year old janu :)

Last week, actually the week before Eid M got home work for practical life skills for the first time. She had to sew a button on the piece of fabric using cross stitch. M wanted to draw a flower around the button and the fabric was supposed to be hemmed as well.... so I thanked God for the summer break and the intro of stitching that we managed somehow ( please check this out for our first ever lesson in stitching )
For the hemming part I asked M to use her pr- learned running stitch as I think its too much to ask a poor 6year old to properly hem of all the things I dont want her to hate sewing :)

Hemming Tutorial &above Images: Miss sews-it-all

 So we started off by me folding and ironing the sides and M doing the edges with yup running stitch

 then I drew the flower with a pre cut news paper stencil-just to be sure about the size and placement.I know its not necessary  but  didnt want to take a chance on the piece of fabric she worked all morning. After a few trials on extra pieces of fabric with the pink fabric paint ( by the way its her first fabric paint activity as well) M colored the flower.

 Then with the yellow embroidery yarn she embroidered the outer edges ( again with running stitch)..This really gave our piece a neat look.

 Then came a stem and a leaf in same old running stitch and Finally "The Amazing Green Button" that her teacher gave in class with the cross stitch!!

 Here is what you get after all this hard work!!

Meanwhile in the life of the little one......

More on the Arts-ee side

Well though its been 8 days since July is officially over there are a few over due posts/ updates. so I'll try to wrap them all in one :)

Make Ata{wheat flour dough} Birds

First of all in the month of Ramadan all our routine is off. Kids stay up all night till sehri time {I know it will freak some of my discipline inclined friends} Here is a sneak peek on what do they do around 3 Am.

with the inspiration coming from drawing books

 Then we do Painnnnnnnnntsss { well never this late} , recently M tried her hands on blow painting for the first time...and it was ...well frustrating--- until we got the wobbly eyes on!!

While Shefu the destroyer dribbled the fabric and acrylic paints all over the sheets

Sand Paper Numbers

M can recognise quite a few numbers and can count up to ten and sometimes more on fingers and when I am in washroom (mixing up seven with seventeen most of the times though) so I thought of introducing the sand paper numbers to her. I made the sand paper numbers using instructions from "Montessori at home ". it was very easy. I used a fine nice sand paper from Irfan's tool drawer traced the numbers on wrong side (reverse the numbers ) cut and paste on 6x6 inches mount board DONE

We counted a lot of things with them from beads to animals (Alas don't have a nice pic right now)
This is our second number recognition game by the way, made the first one for valentines with hearts and chocolate beans and missed introducing ZERO. Now I realize it is as important as any other number :)

Matching Sounds Bottles

Yesterday unexpectedly I found "the empty bottles" they are just the right size (that I was searching and searching for ages to make the Matching Fragrances Game) There were thousands of them bundled in this shop near the one we go every day for grocery and Yup never new they were there...... got them for 3Rs. each. But once they were nicely sitting on my kitchen counter that I realized, I don't have enough essences! So Instead I made a Matching Sound Activity.Traditionally these are called matching cylinders here you can check out how to introduce them. I made mine my way :)

To make these I used 8 bottles to make 4 pairs, simply wrapped the bottles, I used a wrapping sheet that had a striped pattern, to wrap up the bottles and screw top lids. For half of the bottles I used 3 toned patches and for the other half plain blue to complement them, then I used the regular punch to punch some matching circles to be glued on top to further dress them up. Finally poured 4 different types of grains ( make sure that they all vary in size and quantity) to make one pair of each. Now for every 3 toned we have a matching sound in the plain one. You can put in different things , like rice, small bells, wooden beads etc to make more distinct sounds!

Although I have seen a few similar activities with colored markings on bottom as a control of error I didn't put them under mine as the sound bottles have a fantastic built-in control of error

I love this super di duper game and so Does M, as she listened to them so enthusiastically, shaking them alternatively, making music. She is not interested in making matches yet.To me that is perfectly fine she is never interested in it (never puts things in pairs right or wrong) and I hope that will come eventually.
the best thing is that she is still working with them and making lots of music :)

Stringing Beads

Finally i found a solution to create a Lacing /Stringing beads. I couldn't find them here in local toy stores and cant order from amazon. I saw this cool salt dough bead necklace at slugs on the refrigerator through crafty crow today and instantly I was like OK that's my solution . they are big, chunky,fun and easy to make. M definitely helped me made these big beads though hers were just flat chapatis :) the recipe is here.I painted them individually with acrylic paints.Now that the beads are done my next problem was to find a lacing needle and the solution!!! yes my simple hair pin with a spool and one bead tied at one end!
It was fun and I was amazed how quickly M got the hang of it...only a few tries and NO MOMMY in the room did the trick ;)

Transferring Lentils 10-17-08

It is a saved draft from last month that i am putting up now

Introduced this work to M today and i was quiet sure that she'll like it as she likes to transfer her food form one dish to other and to her glass during lunch times.

she did prety good job for 10-15 min. but after that the lentils were all over the place as was expected :)
though she is pretty well at coordination we'll sure do it again its a lot of fun for her and she still needs to practice her learned skills

Fancy Pens

well this is not perticularlly a montessori inspiered activity yet as i believe in what maria montesori believed "seeing becoms reading and touching becomes writing" so i labeled it montessori, in fact its not even a planed activity. yet it is somthing that M loves to do at any given time of the day (or even night) and this cute addition to M's beloved stationery is all around the place now!!!

these cute "burrrds" and "haarts" ballpoint pens were gifted by Asma Mos this weekend and since then M asks for them every 5 minutes or so, and now they are out with her sketchbook or any spare paper all the time..... eating , playing with blocks, laying on floor, relaxing ,sitting, watching Baby TV......any time

what interests me most is the fact that she is not apparently fascinated by the soft fathers or the birds or hearts, though she mentioned "burrrds"once or twice in the beginning but after that she didn't touch it didn't play with it, even doesnt seem to notice them while drawing.... strange!

and with a ban on crayons;.... (ya you heard it right! she is not gonna use crayons for some time now all thanks to her taste buds..... she cant resist the tasty yummy (yukky) crayons) this fascination seems to last a bit longer.

Our Very Own Puzzles

Its been a month that these puzzles are a part of our daily play,( made 05-09-08) yet I had to force my self to take the pictures and made an entry :) , M still doesn't help me much with this kind of craft but soon i will start involving her in it. I think she can help with the glue now ( it could be messy though) and selection of pictures of course
any way for this one I took mount sheet ( from framer) and last years calender (Iqbal books) featuring cats that M is crazy about and retro backgrounds
then I glued the one that were simple and it had "flowers" M's Favorite and "Khat" in the posture that was simplest. As I wanted to make it super simple I made a super obvious mistake :) M was not interested after attempting it once or twice.

then i realized my mistake !!! I cut it diagonally into four pieces..... it had no keys to give clue and the triangles can fit in so many ways :( ... and she couldn't get her "khat" so for the second one I kept the cat faces intact and divided it into just two piece with two keys

this one is a hit !

she even tried putting it in reverse and side ways and she is as happy with it(her self applause is a clear indication that she is happy with what she is doing)

I never really realized that completing a task (the way they perceive it) is that important for a toddler. (though we read about it all the time)