Moon Phase Matching

It seems that young children love nonfiction books, but quality nonfiction books for preschoolers and toddlers are hard to come by.  That is why I was thrilled to find a great nonfiction moon book at the library.  It is so new that Amazon doesn't have a picture.  It is short, informative, and interesting.  The book is Space Watch: The Moon by Chris Oxlode.

In the final section there is moon phase matching to night sky pictures.  Ladybug and Mister love to match the pictures, so I made our own set.  It took a few attempts to find good night sky photos, but I found an informative moon site with good pictures.  On the back of the cards, there are colored dots for the cards that match.

Our Prepared Environment

I have been busy setting up our new prepared environment.  This is our favorite room in the house because it gets such great light and faces our little vegetable garden.  This room was our storage room and then my office. When Ladybug and Mister turned one, we made it into a playroom.  It was fun and perfect.  Unfortunately, as they grew the space became cramped. 

Playroom



After looking into Montessori preschools, which were more of a daycare than a preschool and not wanting to drive 1 hour to get to preschool, we decided to do a little mommy school.  As I have been reading and researching Montessori on my own, I decided we must have a dedicated room for our learning. 

I have tried to make a beautiful and organized space.  Ideally we would have more room, but I am thankful we have a spare room for their learning.  I am awaiting a few items, need to find a larger table, and dress the window, but it is essentially finished.  Let me know if I missed anything. 

Moon Phases

I am a stickler for bed times.  I believe that a well-rested child is a happy child, so when I let the kids stay up to see the supermoon it was a big deal.  Of course, it clouded up right before sunset and stayed that way.  We couldn't even see the moon’s glow through the thick clouds.  I hope those of you who saw it enjoyed it.

Anyway, I put together this moon phases activity.  I started with 4 moon phases to keep it simple and the activity is self-correcting. They choose a moon phase and make the night sky scene with the felt pieces.  On the back of the card is a drawing of the moon.  They activity isn't their favorite, but maybe somebody's child will like it.

Baby Stuff

My Disneyland has to be Target and on particularly rough days, I escape to Target for a little retail therapy.  When I came across these I had to have them.  They are nonslip tub decals for about $5 and I can see us using them for multiple activities. 

I put them in a little fish basket for the baby and as you can see they were a big hit.  Well maybe not a big hit, but they could be if she wasn't crawlin.  She was really midly interest in the texture and colors and listened while I pointed to the fish and starfish, but it only lasted a minute because the door stop was more intruiging. I'll keep them on her shelf and maybe she will come back to them.

St. Patrick's Day Goodies

We had one of those days recently.  You know the one where you just can't get out of your pajamas because it's rainey and ugly out.  It was an unofficial pajama day complete with Ladybug's mismatched pajamas.  Apparently mismatched is the new thing.

I revisited putting coins in a container after more than a year.  It was a difficult task when they were 18 months, but as predicted it was cake.  I was surprised at how much they enjoyed the activity.  In fact, Ladybug does it everyday.  The coins and the green pot are from the St. Patrick's Day goodie bag and the container is from Isla's puffs.

Shamrock Braclet

My mom brought over a bag full of St. Patrick's Day goodies for the kids a few weeks back.  While we were oohing and aahing over the finds, I scooped up the shamrocks, punched a hole in them, found some pipe cleaners, and they used them to make St. Patrick's Day bracelets.  Ladybug was so impressed she took her bracelet to share at preschool.