I don’t know about you guys, but my Christmas decorations are not surviving a house with two toddlers. Last week, L and N completely dismantled my last remaining Christmas centerpiece on the coffee table, so I threw in the towel and remade it into a Montessori-inspired work. While they were busy playing with all of the pieces, I chose 5 pine cones of differing heights and put them in a basket.
Once L was finished destroying my decoration, I showed her this Pine Cone Size Ordering Work. I took all of the pine cones out and placed them at random on the table. [The presentation of this work is similar to that of the Pink Tower in language].
First we found the biggest pine cone and placed it all the way to the left. Then we found the next biggest, and the next biggest…
…all the way until we placed the smallest pine cone at the very end of our line up. This work is great for discriminating objects by size, and the left to right motion is actually a pre-reading activity!
My Christmas decorations may all be destroyed, but at least I found something productive for L to do with the remaining pieces.
Awesome! Li’l D wants a Christmas tree right now, but we’re delaying for reasons you’ll understand. Littler J’s a tiny human wrecking ball!
Very creative. Kids and Christmas decorations just don’t go together – and it gets worse as they get older. Two years ago mine knocked down the tree on Christmas Eve – and the mess of shattered ornaments, spilt water and one-frazzled mom was just as disastrous as you would imagine. Consequently we don’t put up our tree until days before the 25th.
I always remember playing with pine cones as a kid. Like making them into glittered ornaments or spreading them with peanut butter and seeds to make bird feeders. But my husband…every time K grabs a pinecone he freaks out and shakes it for scorpions. We are in FL and not in the desert. I have never heard of this issue and find it hilarious. (of course probably one day one will pop out and I’ll never live down being totally wrong) But I saw your post and all I could think was- hope they didn’t find any scorpions LOL
Haha, no scorpions here! These are scented pinecones from a store, not ones we found on the ground, so I’m hoping they are completely bug-free!
Sounds like a safe bet 🙂
Wonderful post, within a childlike mind,
you’ve created
something
for
those whom,
have secrets
locked
in their tiny little heads!
i also see that you dropped by for a read!
methanks…
chris
i can totally relate 😉 i have been homeschooling my son and i know that when things like this happen..you make it fun for the kids…or else you will be stressed