A New Valentines Tradition........

I have been planning this for a long time now and finally got the give them to the girls on Valentines day this year. I have always loved charm bracelets and charms, the old vintage silver ones that open.... it is my favoured gift to give for Christenings of baby girls, but I never got them for my girls and wanted to. It came to me one day that I could start a new tradition and I spent a few happy hours over a few months sourcing tiny little charms - a wishing well that opens to reveal a pixie for Faith, and an oyster shell that opens to reveal a pearl for Eve. At the same time I decided to treat myself and I found both a beautiful bracelet and a country farmhouse opening to show a bed with a couple inside!

The girls charms I have hung temporarily on small silver plated bracelets that they had for their baptisms, as proper solid silver charm bracelets are too large for their wrists at the present time and I want them to enjoy wearing them for special occasion meals now and again - pancakes for breakfast maybe, or a Mother's day lunch, that kind of thing. I will have them mounted properly with soldered jump rings onto a solid silver bracelet when they are older!

I wrapped them in little organza bags and tucked them into heart shaped boxes, and the girls were gratifyingly enchanted with the idea, although even the children's bracelet has to be made smaller for Faith's little wrist!!

A Valentines Cake Shop

We whipped up a batch of pink play dough and made cakes and biscuits embellished with sequin hearts in little tiny cake cases. After that we sold them to each other in a cake shop. I put out the play panels and together we stuck up the valentine cake shop signs from Primary Treasure Chest. I have discovered this site recently and I'm really impressed! The role play resources are thoughtfully put together, with a small number of different variables that don't overwhelm the children. Some simple 'open' and 'closed' signs plump it out, and literacy and numeracy are neatly catered for with 'order book' signs, a choice of price labels and a clock with movable hands.

There was some great role-play including counting and adding real money, making up cake names, sharing, using 'shop talk' and much more. It lasted a long time all things considered, but the play panels are huge and I've packed them away again for next time!

Valentines Tissue Holders

Eve in particular loves to sew and I put this together one evening knowing that she would enjoy it. I love to leave her to create her own projects as I'm not a huge fan of 'carbon-copy' crafts on a production line. On the flip side of that I also realise that skills and ideas of how to put things together and what is possible have to come from somewhere. With both those arguments in mind I try to balance the two!

I cut out two hearts for each girl, one from red fleece and one from organza. I used the paperclips to put them together as pins seem to cause trauma at the moment - both physical and mental! Faith went round the edge of her hearts using a simple whip stitch and pink embroidery floss (we use that a lot!). It is nice and thick so covers a multitude of sins and is easy to see! You need a large-eyed needle to use it and I have some sharp ones harvested from my Nana's needle book.

I showed Eve how to do blanket stitch around the edge of hers. She loved being shown this. I am no expert at needlework and this is dredged from my primary school days doing a sampler that my Mum had under the telephone for years!

This is the (ever so slightly over exposed!) picture of the back of the tissue holders, with a slot cut to pull them out. they hang by an organza ribbon and the ribbon is big enough so that the holders hang perfectly over the post at the head of their beds! There are tissues in at present as these are one of those 'holy grail' things for the girls that are really special to them (I know, I know!). When the tissues are gone they will be hanky holders instead!

Valentines Montessori Activities

I had a sudden explosion of creativity this evening after realising that the little one that I child mind (who has just returned to me after nine months off on maternity leave) needs a boost in fine motor skills. I had great fun putting all these together, some of them with things I have previously collected for the purpose and some cobbled together from crafting and the recycling box!

This is a simple activity sliding paper clips onto the numbered paper hearts. The paper clips are colour co-ordinated with the numbers on the hearts, as you can see in the picture below. I'm not going to mention that to start with to observe two things. Firstly if she can recognise the numbers and secondly if she observes the connection!

This pegging activity is made from an Ikea lamp box with a ribbon strung across it, and pieces of organza ribbon to peg along it.

This activity involves threading wooden beads onto a pipe cleaner in any pattern the child chooses.

I think this is my favourite activity that I put together! I wrapped a ball of play dough in tin foil and pressed it into a coffee jar lid, then gently pushed red golf tees into the dough to make a heart shape. I picked a mixture of fun marbles to be gently placed on top of each golf tee!

This is a slight twist on the standard 'spooning' activity: there are four measuring spoons in the pink rice and four glass candle holders to decant each spoonful into to allow a comparison of the amount.

Ordering by size (we've already used them for play dough and will probably be pinching them back for biscuit making too!!)

This is a fun one - inside the pipette bottle there is water coloured red with food colouring. The idea is to control the pipette to put one or two drops of colour into each of the suckers on the upside down anti-slip shower mat. When finished the child needs to get a piece of tissue and soak up the drops ready for the next child (almost as much fun as the dropping in the first place!

Pouring with sequins - there are three chunky shot glasses to pour the sequins into - again some control is needed as if the child just tips the jug, there are too many sequins for just one glass and they will spill over.

Tweezing - little paper flowers to tuck into each section of the ice cube tray.



This is an opening and closing activity with four different types of opening mechanism - each has a little confetti heart inside (see below!).

A wooden noughts and crosses game that belonged to my parents.

Opening and closing with locks and keys - each key will only fit one padlock. I threaded a bead onto each key as they are tiny and a little magpie that I know will fall in love with them and want to spirit them away!

This jewellery box housed the beautiful cross that my husband gave me three years ago and that I always wear around my neck. I put tiny gems under the necklace plate, the box hinges closed then is tied into another box which is tied into a bag. I put this out for the girls to practise tying bows which is a popular new skill!

As a final activity for building fine motor strength I put out these wooden nuts and bolts.

Just a note to say that Montessori activities of daily living cover more areas than this but this is what I could pull together in one evening! It should also ideally be made up of beautiful objects and be clearly spaced and set out in an ordered fashion to be found in the same place every time the child wants to use it. I do not pretend to have a Montessori class room however and the activities will be packed away for much of the day. I'll try and come back to say how it goes having them out for periods at a time and see if i can troubleshoot it and make it work well. I'd love to flex my Montessori muscles more, expecially as I qualified with MCI this summer as a 3-6 teacher!