Sorry!

If I've been an absent blogger, it's for good reason!  I've decided to start my own home preschool next fall so I've been working madly on lesson plans, scheduling, and reorganizing my home.  I've got a few projects up my sleeve for the kiddos this summer, but it will all be very casual.  I'll try to post as often as I can, but I will definitely start up full force in the Fall once my little school starts!

Easter Montessori Trays

This was our inaugural attempt at Montessori Trays, and I think they turned out really well.  I'm using a shelf we've had for ages, and some trays that I found at the dollar store.

Egg Transfer
Materials: Plastic eggs, egg tray, bunny tongs (used for egg dyeing), bucket to hold eggs.
How to: Have your child transfer eggs from the bucket to the tray using the tongs.

Egg Eraser Counting
Materials: egg erasers, magnet numbers
How to: Have your child pick a number and count out the amount of erasers that corresponds to each number.

Easter Sticker Cutting
Materials: paper w/ stickers, scissors
How to: Have your child cut in between each sticker

Egg Color Match Puzzles
Materials: egg template w/ each half colored, plastic eggs
How to: Have your child build an egg that matches the puzzle that they have chosen.

Sound Eggs
Materials: 12 plastic easter eggs (6 of each color), various fillings (I used rice, lentils, coins, 2 empty, pasta, and pony beads).
How to: Have your child choose an egg, shake it close to their ear, and try to match it to another egg by only listening.

JellyBean Spoon Transferring
Materials: jellybeans, ice cube tray w/ small holes, spoon
How to: Have your child transfer the jellybeans into the holes of the ice cube tray using the spoon.

Easter Egg Memory Game
Materials: Easter Eggs, various items that fit inside the eggs (2 of each)
How to: Have your child open one egg and try to find it's match.  This is just like a card memory game, but uses eggs instead.

Easter Sensory Bin

I hit the jackpot on the day after Easter and bought lots of goodies half-off for our sensory bin.  (Yet another benefite to celebrating Easter for 50 days!)

Easter Sensory Bin

Theme: Sensory/Messy Play

Materials: Easter grass (I bought paper since I'm a bit afraid R would choke on plastic), plastic easter eggs, spring cookie cutters

How to: Play!

Easter Calender

I know I've said this before, but I LOVE being Catholic!  We get to celebrate 50 awesome days of Easter!  I made this simple Easter calender using ribbon and ovals cut from my Cricut on spring colored scrapbook paper.  I numbered them, wrote a fun activity on the back of each egg, and every day starting on Easter, we do the activity for that day.  When we are done, we turn the egg around so that the number is no longer showing.  Cute, huh?  If you do a countdown leading UP to Easter, this would be fun for you next year too!

P.S.  That cross on the bottom is a neat calender from Catholic Icing; check it out!

Holy Week In a Glance

Holy week was a very low key.  We tried to keep the TV off as much as possible, and we read many versions of the Passion so that M could be familiarized with what the week was all about - Jesus' last week on Earth, His death and resurrection.  We were hoping to take the kids to Holy Thursday and Good Friday services but R was teething and M's mood was a bit off, so it didn't happen either days.

Resurrection Eggs

We did quite a few of the activities using 2 Teaching Mommies' resurrection egg printables.  We adjusted the amount of eggs a little bit to fit M's age (it is difficult to have 5 eggs that all deal with torture and death for a 3 year old).  All reading were using The Beginner's Bible.  Here's how mine were set up:

Egg 1 - Palm Sunday
Object: A palm leaf cut out of a piece of paper
Bible Reading: pg 427-431
Activity: Jesus & the Donkey Activity and Coloring Page

Egg 2 - Judas Betrays Jesus
Object: 3 dimes
Bible Reading: pg 432, 440-441, 446
Activity: Coloring Page

Egg 3 - The First Eucharist*
Object: a small barbie cup and a cracker
Bible Reading: pg 442-445
Activity: Cleansed by the Blood Activity and Coloring Page
*I just need to stress that in the discussion prompts from 2 Teaching Mommies they talked about it being LIKE the body and blood of Christ, wheras as Catholics, we truly believe that it IS the body and blood of Christ.

Egg 4 - Washing the Feet
Object: a piece of paper towel
Bible Reading: pg 437-439
Activity: None

Egg 5 - Praying in the Garden of Gethsemane
Object: a picture of hands praying
Bible Reading: pg. 447
Activity: Bubbles to Heaven Activity & Coloring Page

Egg 6 - Good Friday
Object: a picture of the crucifixtion
Bible Reading: pg 448-452
Activity: Coloring Page

Egg 7 - The Stone in front of the Tomb
Object: a small rock
Bible Reading: pg 453-455
Activity: The Stone and the Tomb Activity

Egg 8 - The Resurecction
Object: an empty egg
Bible Reading: pg. 456-458
Activity: None

We also watched the animated Worthy is the Lamb - found on youtube.  M was not all that interested in it after a while.  It is sort of slow, and again, death is a really hard concept for a child her age to grasp.

We are doing 2 weeks of Easter Activities, so stay tuned for that!