Halloween/Fall themed trays

I don't do themed trays often, but Halloween and Christmas are too good to pass up. So here are some of our Halloween/Fall themed trays.  I prepared them Sunday evening and both the kids loved it!

Threading Halloween Spiders

Pumpkin Tonging

Sifting Bugs

Spooning Ghosts

Googly Eyes Pouring

Fall Leaves Sweeping

Halloween Stamping

Cutting Orange and Black Strips

Making Halloween Candy with pattern blocks

Toddler Montessori

M is 2 years and 5 months old and is slowly moving into the primary stage of Montessori. She can already start and work successfully with some of the starter materials like the Pink Tower, Color Box 1 and 2, Power of 2 cube, etc.  I love that she understands that the work trays have to be put away and the mat rolled and put away after every work cycle, most days! I am still working with my 5 year old on that!  My 5 year old needs constant reminders, could be because we started Montessori at home with her only after she turned 5, while M has it since birth.  I just love working with my kids at home and glad that we found and are using Montessori principles for that!

I don't post often about the work that M does.  She in fact works with us everyday, usually by herself.  Some days she will just go in and out of the school room doing her own thing.  She has mostly learned to leave D alone with her work and mind her business!  Here are some pictures of her work on a day from last week.

We love to build the pink tower vertically.

Horizontally, not so much!

We love the power of two cube!

Spooning lentils

Pouring Pasta

Tonging Stones!

Matching Rainforest animals to pictures in the book,  an all time favorite work!

Matching some wild animals using cards I purchased from Montessori Services

Old fashioned hammering.

Pink Tower Perfection!

Look who can build the pink tower to perfection at 2 years and 5 months!

Please ignore the mess in the background, I was re-organizing!

My 2 year old in the Class Room

Though all my recent posts have been about D(5), M(2)'s Montessori style learning has not been neglected! What has been is taking pictures and posting about those!  Since I have to be fully present while she is at work, it is very difficult for me to photograph while she works! Another thing is that my camera distracts her and she wants to be the one behind the lens!  So here are some rare pictures that I managed to take while she was in action.  

The bottom shelves are for M

Here she is matching the Jungle Animals to the pictures in her favorite book

Here she is spooning pom-poms

Here are the close-up pictures of her trays.

knobbed puzzle

Jungle Animals

matching farm animals

Color Box1

Clothespins

Ikea toolbox

Vegetable Cutting

Spooning Pom-Poms & One-one correspondence

Snap Button Frame

Pouring tiny wooden spools

Winter Toddler Trays

Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season.  My husband was on vacation for the last two weeks and we had an awesome, relaxing time and a lot of family bonding! We were sad to send him off to work today.  Since somebody has got to make money, we've got to live with this!

Here are some quick trays that I put together yesterday for my toddler.  I added tweezers, tongs and chopsticks where needed so that D can have an additional challenge if she chooses these trays.

Dropping Winter Themed Erasers through the  slot

Pouring/Tweezing Snowflake Confetti

Pegs on Strofoam

Dropping Ping-pong balls through Slot using Spoon/Tongs

Credit Cards Insertion into Wallet

New Ring Stacker Toy from IKEA

This post is linked to Montessori Monday.

Toddler Holiday Trays

Here is a look at some new holiday themed trays are on M's (18 months) shelves.

Sparkly fuzzy sticks into a cheese shaker

Spooning beads (think berries!) onto paint palette

Popsicle sticks into Moon Jar

Pouring star and bow buttons

Transferring bows (M tried the tweezer, but it was meant for D)

And here are some action shots!

This post is linked to Montessori Monday.

New Toddler Montessori Trays

I jazzed up M's shelves with a few new trays and changed things up a bit with some of her favorite ones. Here are some pictures:

Her favorite, dropping large buttons into the tin through the slot.

Dropping popsicle sticks into the moon jar.

Cylinder Block 1.

Open and Close activity.  I added a few new containers and removed a couple.

I put together this tray with some styrofoam balls and a paint palette from the dollar store.  I added in a measuring spoon for an added challenge to D.

Clothespins on the edge of the container.

Inserting these pumpkin picks (dollar store find!) into a cheese shaker.

As expected M (almost 18 months) loved the new trays and was engaged for a long time!  D was interested too and chose some of these for herself!