Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I want to let all my readers know that I am taking a holiday break from posting until the New Year. I hope everyone has a wonderful, magical holiday season and will have the opportunity to form many happy memories with your little ones. Merry Christmas, thank you for reading, and see you next year!

Friday Notables - Santa Mouse

This particular book is a treasure in my family being passed down from my mother, to my sister, and then to me. It is a wonderful story for little children with beautiful illustrations and a Christmas time message of giving especially when your very small. All I can say is visit the library or purchase a copy for yourself. Enjoy!

Midweek Creations - Stringing Cheerios

I love the look of homemade garland, but stringing popcorn or trying to get that paper to hold a ring long enough to string another one through it can be difficult for small toddlers. Stringing cheerios, though can be a lot of fun and will also provide a little snack for your toddler during craft time as well more than likely. The activity is pretty self explanatory, but you will probably want to make the beginning of the string stiffer so wrap a little tape around one end or attach it to a small pipe cleaner. If cheerios seem too challenging (they are still pretty small), try rolling some mini bagels in some peanut butter and then birdseed and have your toddler help string them on a piece of rope for the birds. This makes a very beautiful garland for outdoor evergreens and if you or your toddler is allergic to peanut butter you can use sunflower seed butter, honey, or even cream cheese. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Montessori Mondays - Water Pouring Everywhere

Practical life activities are an important part of the Montessori method and many of these activities, such as pouring water from one cup to another, may appear to be simple works. In truth, they are intrinsically complex and benefit the developing child immensely. Practical life activities are designed to progress in difficulty and complexity slowly building skills and providing new challenges to help a child stay interested and focused. An activity such as pouring water follows pouring dry ingredients and can progress from transferring water with a sponge, to a cup, and then a pitcher with a handle. The benefits from a simple activity such as pouring water include building coordination, a feeling of independence by being able to pour their own drinks, concentration necessary for more complex works, and small muscle control later needed for writing.

Thanks for reading!

Friday Notables - Kaboose.com

Short and sweet today - Kaboose is one of my favorite sites to find great crafts for kids of all ages. Most of them do work better for slightly older children, but you can modify a lot of the crafts to suite your toddler's attention span and abilities. Although I haven't browsed the other sections much, Kaboose also offers articles on parenting as well as recipes, games, and health related things. If you have browsed those sections, feel free to comment on what you think of them. I definitely think the craft section alone makes this website worth checking out. Thanks for reading!

www.Kaboose.com

Midweek Creations - Reindeer Card

It is that time of year to start sending out holiday cards to friends and loved ones and while many parents include a family picture or portrait of their child you may also want to send along a card that your child helped create. One of my favorite cards is the reindeer card and it is sure to bring a smile to everyone's face. The most common variation of this card has the foot as the face and two hand prints for antlers, but I have found some toddlers only have patience for doing a painted hand print once. This version allows you to get that one precious hand print and also let them paint to their hearts desire. Enjoy!

Reindeer Card - What You'll Need
brown paint and another color paint
construction paper, 1 1/2 sheets for one card
paintbrush
markers or glue, small black or red pom pom, googly eyes, gold ribbon

Take your 1/2 piece of construction paper and paint your child's hand with just enough brown paint to make a light coating. Gently press your child's hand on the paper and then help them wipe the paint off their hand. Set the print aside to dry and immediately give your child the second sheet of paper, another color of paint and a paintbrush allowing them to paint whatever they want and explore the medium (you can simply let them use their hands as well if you would like). Once your child is finished, set aside that paper to dry as well. After the print has dried, you can get as creative as you want either drawing a nose or gluing a pom, pom on the bottom of the hand for a nose and drawing in eyes or gluing googly eyes in the middle of the hand. If you would like you can also draw in a little neck below your child's print and glue a gold ribbon on the reindeer for the collar. Next fold your dry full sheet in half to make a card and center and glue the half sheet of the reindeer print to it. Add a message if you like and your card is finished.

Montessori Mondays - Where is Montessori Today?

So where does Montessori exist today? The answer: in a lot more places than you think, but in fewer places that claim to be. As I talked about in the last Monday Montessori post, traditional methods have absorbed some of Montessori's ideas such as the child sized furniture so a little bit of Montessori has really been absorbed into our standard education, so in truth Montessori is everywhere. Typically, however, Montessori is found in private schools in addition to some public programs. The Montessori philosophy, probably in thanks to Dr. Montessori's efforts later in life, has a prevalent place in education internationally. Unfortunately, there are many schools, both private and public, that tag on the name Montessori only halfway applying to the method or almost disregarding it entirely. There are organizations in place, AMS and AMI, to help maintain a standard among Montessori schools and most true Montessori schools belong to one (sometimes both, but it is not as common) of the organizations.

Below, are the websites for three of the organizations that try to maintain standards of Montessori education. These are good resources for learning more about the philosophy and getting an idea of the schools that exist in your area. Thanks for reading.

AMI (Association Montessori International): http://www.amiusa.org/index

AMS (American Montessori Society): www.amshq.org/schools.htm

NAMTA (North American Montessori Teachers Association ) School Directory list, with certification and class levels listed - USA and International. www.montessori-namta.org/NAMTA/NAMServs/dirgateway.html

Friday Notables - Wee Sing Christmas

Today's Friday Notable is perfect for this holiday season. Wee Sing for Christmas by Pamela Conn Beall and Susan Hagen Nipp is a compilation of 58 Christmas songs and finger plays. I had this particular book and tape cassette growing up and have many happy memories of singing these great Christmas songs with my family. The book now comes with a CD or you can purchase it in audiobook format from services like Itunes. There are a fair number of songs sung by children on the audio, but several are sung by adults which some parents have found not to be as popular with their children. The audio also has only a select few verses of each song. The best value really comes from the book itself as it lists every verse of the songs. All the songs also have musical notation with them - a great way to introduce young children to reading music as they will be familiar with most of the songs. I don't listen to the tape anymore, but I still get the book out at Christmas and its a great resource for my classroom as well. Definitely worth a look. Thanks for reading!

Midweek Creations - Smoothie for a Toddler

Even though the weather is getting colder, it doesn't mean smoothies are completely out. They are a great breakfast, addition to lunch for the picky toddler, or as an afternoon snack. Even though this smoothie includes some avocado, I would pair it with a little bit protein such as peanut butter toast. You can even let your toddler help measure out the ingredients. Enjoy!

Smoothies

1/4 cup black berries

1/2 cup blueberries

1/4 cup raspberries

1/2 cup frozen cherries

2 tbsp. cooked beet pieces

1/4 avocado

3/4 cup orange juice

1tbsp. honey