My Montessori Journey

More card pouches and a Mystery Bag

Last night I finished sewing the card pouches that were on my to-do list.  I had purchased several card sets from Lori at Montessori for Everyone that I wanted to make pouches for.

The pouch on the top left is for the Living/Nonliving Matching card set.  I used a batik fabric from Hancock Fabrics.  This one is just a simple pouch for all the cards to go into in a group.  The other photos show the card set.  If you haven't already done so, you should check out Lori's products.  They are so nicely done with really beautiful graphics and photography.

This pouch is for the Landform Cards.  You can see that I made three pockets for each of the 3 parts.  My measurements were a little off, however, so the cards fit pretty tightly in the pouch.  I will see how the children do with this one.  It may have to be remade.  I have found that it's kind of hard to do these pouches just right without a pattern.  Every pouch is different because of the dimensions of the cards and how many pockets you make.  I do, however, love the colors of this batik fabric, especially with the land and water photos.

This pouch is for the Geometric Solid Matching Cards.  I LOVE this card set.  Her photos are so great for making the abstract concept of the geometric solids more concrete.  This pouch, however, was a PAIN to make and I had to completely start over from scratch.  You can see from the photo at the top right that I decided to make 2 pockets on top of each other on the inside.  I did this because I wanted the control cards separate from the picture cards.  The stack of picture cards is much thicker than the control cards, so I had to make the pouches deep enough to accommodate this.  This was no easy task.  But I really, really like how the pouch turned out.

The final sewing project of last night is below.  You may or may not remember that a while back I had planned to use the yellow geometric fabric (same as for the geometric solids pouch above) to make a Mystery Bag to use for the geometric solids in the classroom.  And I actually did make a Mystery Bag with that fabric and basket back in June.  I used this tutorial.  I did not, however, ever show the result on the blog BECAUSE it didn't turn out right and I was mad.  It took a VERY long time to sew the fabric to the top of the basket.  And when I was done with that step, I realized that I had not made the fabric tube long enough.  When the top was cinched, it would barely fit over the top of the basket.  I knew I would have to redo it, but I needed to take some time out before I was ready to rip off all that sewing and start over.  Last night I was finally ready to start over.  This time I probably erred on the side of making the fabric tube too long.  However, there is no doubt now that the children can play a Mystery Game using all the Geometric Solids in the basket at once AND have plenty of room to reach inside and feel around.  Even if they have long arms :0)

I am really happy now with this project.  It will sit on the Sensorial shelf next to the Geometric Solids and the new little card pouch.  To play the Mystery Bag game, the Geometric Solids are placed into the basket.  You can either tell the child a solid to find, and they reach in and try to find it by touch.  OR the child can lay out the Geometric Solid cards and try to find one of the solids by touch.  OR they can reach in and grab one and try to name it before pulling it out to check.  This game could be played with a friend or independently. 

Card Pouches

Last night I sewed some of the card pouches that have been looming on my to-do list for the classroom.  I even managed to sneak a little freezer paper stencilling onto some of them.

I wanted to make pouches for the equation cards I purchased from Lori at Montessori for Everyone.  I wanted the cards to be separate for addition and subtraction.  Additionally, I wanted three pockets in each pouch to keep the 2-digit, 3-digit and 4-digit equations separated.  I searched high and low, online and in brick and mortar stores, for number fabric I liked.  I found this print at Hancock Fabrics.  It is actually flannel.  I had wanted a woven cotton, but had no luck.  After pre-washing, the flannel was not very nappy, which is good.  Therefore, I was able to paint a "plus" and "minus" sign with no problem.  For more information about freezer paper stencilling, read this tutorial.

Here is the pouch opened up to show the three pockets and sets of cards.  You can see I added a little loop of elastic to close the pouch.  I also left a wide space at the top so the top can be folded over the cards to keep them from sliding out.  I modelled my pouches after the crayon rolls I am making for the art shelf.

Here is the subtraction pouch all folded up with the cards inside and fastened shut with the button.  In hindsight, I would make a longer loop of elastic and sew the button further towards the center of the pouch.  But, not too bad for a first attempt. 

I sewed this pouch to hold some color sorting cards I downloaded from somewhere.  I've just been looking to see if I could find a link, but I can't.  If you know where to download these, email me or leave a comment and I will add the link to this post.

Here is the opened pouch.  The control cards (color word cards) are in a smaller pocket on the left with the sorting cards on the right.  I had intended to have the top fold down when the pouch is closed.  However, the right side is so thick, it doesn't work very well.  So hopefully the cards won't all fall out when taken from the shelf. 

Top Banana??

Last night I made the banana from the pattern I purchased at UmeCrafts.  I used the wool blend felt from Colonial Crafts.  Overall I am pretty pleased with it.  I like that you can take the banana out of the peel.

I used two shades of yellow.  The outer skin is a nice deep yellow, although it looks much lighter in the photo.  The inner skin and banana are kind of a cream color.  I can see in the photos that I need to clip a thread and that is bothering me!  I liked working with the wool blend felt.  It felt much more substantial and heavier than the craft felt.  After working with both types, however, I really think that you can make nice felt food with either type of felt.  I know some would disagree, but that is just my opinion.  I do, however, want to try 100% wool felt sometime just to have a true comparison. 

I am planning to make a felt apple next using the UmeCraft pattern.  And I am seriously thinking about buying her vegetables pattern.  It is fun and relaxing (for me, at least) to go downstairs and make a new felt food after the boys go to bed.  I kick back on the couch with the TV on and a beverage at my side, maybe some popcorn, and stitch away. 

I still have a long sewing list for the Montessori classroom, however.  Later today, I am hoping to sew up some pouches for card work.  So expect to see some photos of that sometime soon.  Until then.......enjoy this last photo of my "top banana".

I *felt* very excited.........

..............on Saturday to receive 2 things in the mail.  I had been anticipating both of these packages, so it was cool to receive both on the same day.  Unfortunately, I was very busy that day and evening packing for our trip, so I am not getting around to posting about it until now.  We arrived home at around 6:30 p.m. tonight.  And we had a good trip.  I am going to share more about the trip a little later in this post.

First...........the packages.  One was from Colonial Crafts..........my order of the wool blend felt.  Doesn't it look inviting?  And now do you understand the terrible pun in the title of the blog?  I'm sorry, I couldn't resist!

You can bet that I am going to dig into this tonight when the boys are in bed.  Expect a post tomorrow showing what I make tonight with a comparison of sewing with the wool blend versus the acrylic felt.  By the way, I am seriously thinking of organizing a felt food swap.  Let me know if you would be interested (I am taking a casual poll) and if there is enough interest, I will try to get that organized in the next week or so.

The other package was from Jo.  It was a bunch of Japanese goodies that I won a while back in a little contest on her blog.  I will thoroughly photograph it soon to share.

I wanted to end this blog by sharing a few things I did to organize my road trip with the boys.  Our trip to visit my friend, Beth, was about 5 hours (including 1 potty stop and 1 lunch stop) on the way over and only 4 hours (just one potty stop) on the way back.  We do not have a DVD player in our van, so I was determined to have a successful road trip with my 6 and 3 year old boys without using electronics.  Let me say, however, that if we did have a DVD player in the van, we would have used it for sure!!  :0)

The day before the trip (Saturday) I went shopping and bought some things that I wrapped up so the boys could open some surprises on the trip.  I also prepared snacks to take along.  When I was out shopping on Saturday, I found some great little lap desks for $6.99 at Hobby Lobby and bought one for each boy (crossing my fingers that they would fit over the car seat and booster seat---they did!).  I also printed out some Road Trip Bingo sheets from Mom's Minivan.   This is a great site with lots of free printables and ideas for travel with children.

We started the trip with both boys getting a lap desk (pictured at right) with a clipboard that held the Road Trip Bingo board from Mom's Minivan.  My 6 year old also had a sheet clipped behind with a list of the 50 states so he could check off all the license plates we saw.  I printed that sheet from Mom's Minivan too.  I had to tell him which license plates I saw, because we were going too fast (oops!) for him to see and read them.  He enjoyed doing this and by the time we got to Beth's we had seen plates from 25 states and Mexico!  Both boys liked the Road Trip Bingo (I just had my big boy tell the little one which ones to color when he saw them).  My big boy used a pencil and made a small X at the bottom when he saw one of the pictures.  That way he could keep track if he saw more than one bridge, for example.  My little boy just colored on top of the pictures with his purple crayon.  I was really surprised how long this little activity entertained them.  And I wished I had printed more of these, because I think she has more than one version on the site.

After our potty stop on the way over, the boys each opened a magnet playset.  We will save these just for road trips so they won't get old.  They played with these for a while, not as long as the Road Trip Bingo, however.

At left is our big tub of trail mix.  My friend, Beth, (who we were visiting) made a big batch of this for her kids when they came to visit us last summer.  It is a great thing to have in the car.  We will definitely do this for all long road trips in the future.  I took along paper cups so we could just dip a cup and munch.  On the right you can see that the cups fit perfectly into the little holes in the lap desks.  I kept the tub open on the driver's seat so I could reach over and refill cups as needed since I was travelling without the hubby.  We had lots of this to share with Beth's children on our visit as well as plenty for the trip back with lots of leftovers!!  I also took along bottled water, rice cakes, and granola snacks.  The trail mix was the biggest hit.

Even though I had packed several "surprises", we made it all the way to our destination using only the Road Trip Bingo and magnetic playsets (and one Hot Wheels car).  On the way back (today), my oldest son opened the Crayola drawing set pictured on the left below.  I had one for my little boy too, but he was napping at the time.

My little boy opened one new Hot Wheels car on the way over, and this kept him busy for the last 30 minutes.  On the way home today, he was much fussier and crabby.  He opened two more Hot Wheels cars on the trip home.  I also had 2 View masters in my "surprise" bag, and had bought 2 new sets of reels on sale at Target.  They unwrapped and looked at these on the way home today.

I have a few things we didn't use on this trip.  I plan to save them for our next little trip in August.  At the Dollar Spot in Target, I found little 4-packs of chubby highlighter markers and some fun notebooks.  I bought 2 notebooks and 2 marker packs and wrapped them for each boy.  Additionally, I have a wrapped set of wooden lacing cards we didn't open.  I had also made an activity we didn't use, although I'm not sure it would have worked like I planned.  I will try to describe it here.  I had read somewhere (maybe on a blog) that if you get a piece of sandpaper, the child can use little pieces of yarn on it to make shapes, form letters, etc.  So I found some sandpaper at Hobby Lobby and taped it to some cardboard I had to make it sturdy. Then I cut little pieces of yarn and put them into baggies; one board and one baggie for each boy.  We didn't get these out.  I realized when trying it out before the trip that my sandpaper probably wasn't "rough" enough for the yarn to really stick.  But we may try this on the next trip.

OK..............that's all for this post.  Did you miss me???  I missed doing the blog and reading your comments.  So it's fun to be back. 

A donut a day............

..............keeps the sandman away.  Translation:  I have been staying up late the last two nights sewing felt donuts.

I made these using a pattern from Skip to My Lou.  Here is the link to the post with the downloadable template for the donut.  She also has lots of other cool projects which I am going to go back and look at more.  Anyway, the donuts are really addictive to make (and better for you than the real kind!).  As I mentioned before, I want to stitch up a BUNCH of felt food for the boys for Christmas, so as I have time in the wee hours, I will be making more of these.  Wouldn't it be cute to put 6 of these in a Krispy Kreme bag? 

As I'm typing this, my little boy is sitting on my lap pointing to the photo and saying, "I want to eat these, Mommy.  I want to buy some at the store."  He doesn't know they actually exist downstairs in our home right now!  So, I think it will be a good surprise once December rolls around.

Tomorrow the boys and I are going on a road trip for a few days to visit friends.  So I may not post for a few days.  It kind of bugs me since I've managed to write a post every day since I started the blog in May.  But.........we'll see.  I think I'll write a few ahead of time and see if I can post them from my friend's house.  If not, plan to see me back here by next Wednesday at the latest!

Food---Real and pretend

I finished the tomatoes and mushrooms for the felt pizza last night.  The tomatoes were quite labor-intensive, but they are SOOO cute.  I think they are my favorite topping, with the green peppers a close second.

On the real food end, we tried the Muffin Tin lunch that so many people have been blogging about.  I had wanted to do it, but I didn't have a special plan to do it today.  However, the boys and I just came inside to have lunch after playing outside for quite a while.  And I decided to pull out the muffin tins and try it out.  They LOVED it!  It's all about the presentation.  They really stayed at the table and ate for quite a while, longer than usual.  My oldest ate MOST of his tin, and my little one did pretty well too.  We will definitely do this again.  And it was a really fun lunch for me to prepare too.  I gave them some things the same, but also tailored their tins to individual preferences.

They both got apple slices, strawberries, tukey pepperoni, sliced turkey (rolled up) and colby/jack cheese pieces.  On the left is my oldest son's.  He got carrot sticks and ranch dressing and ate ALL the carrots.  My little guy's is on the right.  He got sliced grape tomatoes and cottage cheese.  He LOVES cottage cheese and ate it all.  He only ate about half of the grape tomatoes.  I was eating a leftover baked potato with steamed veggies on top.  I have to say that I could eat steamed veggies EVERY DAY.  I love them.  They make me feel very healthy, eating something so close to how it came out of the earth.  I put a little teriyaki sauce and some roasted sunflower seeds on top, and shredded cheese if I have it.  Today, the boys saw the sunflower seeds and both wanted some in one of their empty "holes".  So that was fun too!

If you haven't tried a muffin tin meal yet, give it a try!  It's fun, easy, and healthy!  What could be better than that?

649..................

...........is the number you get when you add 443 to 206.  If you have been keeping up with reading the blog, you know this has to mean just one thing.  Yes, there are 206 more books to be added to the reorganization project.  My friend, Julie, who I co-taught with until this May called me the other day to let me know that I had left 2 boxes of children's books at school.  The boys and I picked them up today, and sure enough, there are 206 more books to organize.  Looking at the bright side, this is less than half of what I had when I started with the 443.  So, I guess I'll be breaking out the sticker dots and Contact paper soon.  UGH!

On a happier note, the felt fetish continues.  Making felt food is a fun little activity (in my opinion).  I am already planning to make a TON of it for the boys as part of their Christmas this year.  I am still using the cheapo craft stuff that is 20 cents a sheet because my order of the better kind hasn't come in yet.  Here is the little felt pizza I'm working on.

As soon as I post this, I am heading downstairs to finish the tomatoes and mushrooms.  This is made using another pattern from Jeanette at UmeCrafts.  This is the thin crust version of her pattern.  I added the outside crust on the edges because I thought it looked better.  I think it's turning out pretty well.  And the photo is pretty good too.  If I take the photos in daylight with lots of sun coming in the window they turn out okay (unlike the ice cream cone photographed under a lamp close to midnight!).  I took a few more shots of the cone today in better light. 

Instead of doing M&Ms all over the top like the pattern suggested, I just did one, kind of like a cherry on top.  Then I used embroidery floss to add sprinkles.  My oldest son actually asked me if the little stitches were supposed to be sprinkles, so I guess it looks pretty accurate. 

A new obsession...........

I have been wanting to make felt food for a while now.  Last night (late) while surfing, I found some great patterns for felt food on Etsy.  Jeanette at UmeCrafts has some great patterns available if you want to check them out.  I wrote to her, asking what type of felt she recommends, and she said she uses mostly wool felt.  After searching (surfing) a bit, I realized that wool felt is very pricey.  However, one of the forums I found had a gal who suggested using 20% wool/80% rayon felt.  She buys hers from Colonial Crafts.  So, I checked it out and ordered several colors.  It comes in 12 X 18 inch sheets, which is pretty big. And it's $1.50 per sheet, which is way cheaper than the 100% wool.  I'm sure the 100% is great, but I also have to look at the economical side too.

Since I was very anxious to try out a pattern, I decided to jump in using some cheapo craft felt I had on hand.  I have to say, it was really easy to work with.  So I'll be interested in comparing it to the other stuff when I get my order.  I bought three sets of patterns from Jeanette:  the fruit, pizza, and ice cream cone.  Tonight, I stitched up the cone.  It went together VERY easily.  And I found the hand-sewing to be very relaxing.  I've added a photo below, but they are not great quality.  As you know, my camera is giving me fits.  And I DID talk to the Kodak guy on the phone today:  outlook not good.  The flash is broken and I will have to send it in.  Before I do that, I'm going to check to see what a local camera repair shop can do.  (Well, kind of local.........about a 45 minute drive away).  Anyway, the repair bill (according to my Kodak friend on the phone) would be $110, so I'm thinking, "Should I just buy a new camera?"  I've had this one less than 18 months, and it's frustrating that it has gone on the blink already.  Sorry.........I digress.  Here is the (kind of lousy) photo.

UGH!  Sorry that photo is so dark.  The cone turned out pretty cute, so I will definitely make some more.  I am excited to try the felt pizza next.  I'll leave you with one more link to a blog I found last night.  This gal made some VERY cute felt food for her niece.

Itty Bitty Capri Sun Fun

In the shower the other day, I came up with a new use for the Capri Sun bags I've been making.  I actually do my best thinking in the shower.  However, I need to give you some background information so you can see why I came up with this particular use for the bags.

For the past four years my very good friend, Julie, and I have been job-sharing an elementary special education teaching position. As you know, this fall I am leaving that position to teach in a Montessori preschool.  The nature of special education necessitates using lots of repetition and practice to assist students in mastering skills.  Julie and I discovered that by adding a "grab bag" to any given activity, the interest level and motivation of the students was dramatically increased.  A "grab bag" is bascially any little bag (we often used brown paper lunch bags and/or small shopping/gift bags with handles) into which you can place cards that reinforce the skill you are trying to teach.  Students then take turns pulling a card out and performing the given skill.  For example, they can pull out sight words and read them, phonetic words and decode them, addition facts and state the answer, etc.  Another way we have used grab bags is with matching activities.  For this, one set of cards is placed on the table with the matching set in the bag.  Children reach into the bag and find the match to the card they pull out.  Some examples include matching pictures to beginning letters, matching upper and lowercase letters, matching sets to corresponding numerals, and matching math facts to answer cards.

Fast forward to the eureka moment in the shower.  As I have posted about recently, I have been busy working on word/picture card sets for my word drawers.  In the shower it occurred to me that the children might want to do the word drawers as a matching activity using grab bags.  As I was brainstorming what type of bag I could provide, I thought of making a tiny Capri Sun bag.  It is perfect because it stands up by itself and can be folded flat (sort of) and placed in a basket when not in use.

Here are the two little bags I whipped up in no time flat.  They are pretty cute, huh?

Here is a staged photo showing the word drawer matching activity.  The picture cards are placed on the rug and word cards in the bag.  The child either by themself, or with a friend, pulls out a word card, reads it, and matches it to the correct picture.  Of course, as noted above, there could be many classroom uses for these little bags.  Once children are introduced to the basic grab bag idea, an assortment of bags could be kept in a designated area, just waiting for children to "grab" them and go. 

Another apron........

I have had a very busy day today; not much time at home.  However, I did start a new apron last night after the boys' bedtime, and I just finished it so I can post a photo.  When I saw this print at Hobby Lobby last week, I had to have it.  I am planning to use the apron for Bubble Making in the Practical Life area.  It will also be used for other water activities.  I love the colors and the retro vibe!

Projects on the horizon include sewing matching placemats for the four aprons I've made.  I HOPE I have enough iron-on vinyl and bias tape left.  Also, I'd like to make a mystery bag/basket using this tutorial from Meg's blog.  Below is a basket I grabbed from school today and the fabric I'm planning to use.  However, after looking at the tutorial again, I am thinking I need a sturdier round basket. 

Here is a close-up of the fabric.  LOVE IT!!!  I chose this pattern because I am planning on using the bag with the geometric solids.  The child (or children, if they are playing with a friend) will place the geometric solids into the bag and reach inside.  Using their sense of touch, they will try to identify the solid and name it.  This game could be played with or without control cards.