Montessori Materials

I've been working a little bit on Montessori materials lately. Finn has been really very interested in letters and so I thought one of the things I would start with is sandpaper letters. My wonderful husband cut down a sheet of luan this weekend and sanded 26, 3" x 5" rectangles for me. He actually cut enough for me to make the upper case alphabet and the numbers 0-9 but he hasn't gotten to sanding them yet, and anyway lower case letters is all I need for now.

Ready to make some sandpaper letters.

The luan looks really nice.

Glue is drying.

Dollar Tree baskets are the best.

I'm really glad I chose to use luan. The cards look nice and I don't have to worry about Finn bending or breaking them. (He immediately bent the color cards I made.) I did the vowels in blue and consonants in red. I just used regular old Elmer's, actually brand X white glue.The sand stuck very nicely and is staying on well enough. I considered coating them with Mod Podge but it didn't turn out to be necessary.

Finn and I did a little lesson with "a" and "s". I would have used "m" too but the glue wasn't quite dry yet. He had a lot of fun and was very proud of himself when he correctly named the sounds the letters make. He even took them back out later on and worked with them by himself. He was a little put out when I put all but the two we were using up on a high shelf, but (A) some of them were still a little soft and (B) I'd rather have them introduced a few at a time properly than have him play with the whole set at once not knowing what they're for.

The other thing I did a little of was beading. I have to say I really love making these. I'm sure by the time I'm done will all the golden bead materials I'll be singing a different tune, but for now I find the work oddly soothing.

Too lazy to measure? String then cut!

Yay beads!

Four down and a million more to go (seems that way).

 I bought my beads at Consumer Crafts. Their prices were really very good. I bought 18 gauge wire, which turned out to be perfect for this. Pliable enough to not be a hastle but stiff enough to hold its shape well and the 6 mm beads I bought fit on it just fine. If I remember I'll take a picture of the whole huge bag of beads I have. It's almost 12lbs of beads!

Also, in case anyone was curious, a bead with a 10 mm hole will fit very nicely on a bootlace. I bought the 25 mm maple beads with a 10 mm hole just hoping that it would work with a $1 pair of bootlaces I picked up at the Dollar Tree (did I mention I love that store?) and it did. They're a little rough on the inside, so they don't slide nicely on the bootlace, but I can always fix that easily enough with a little sandpaper.

I've been working on making a torchon fan edging as my current lace project and I'm putting the edging on that crochet blanket. So, I should have pictures and posts for those things soon.

I've been focusing more on Finn lately, which is what I should be doing anyway. With the busy spring, summer, and fall on a farm I need to give him all the time I can while I have it. I started my onion seed today along with some herbs destined for pots and Tim and I went over our first order from the hatchery. Spring is just around the corner!

I'll also be trying to work in making a batch of lotion and placing my order for more soap making supplies. Then I'll put up my soap-making adventures too!