Wednesday, March 21, 2012

What's on the Tray Wednesday

Here are this week's tray activities:

Fine Motor - Tweezing Pompoms and Spooning Buttons

Our first fine motor tray this week is Tweezing Pompoms. This is a great challenge for Nicholas - he hasn't done a lot of tweezing as he has struggled with holding the tweezers tight enough for more than a second or two (and he has broken the two sets of easy tongs I bought for him...) but I thought he might be ready to try again. I was right - when I presented this tray to him, he struggled for about ten seconds before getting the hang of it and flying through all the pompoms in minutes!

colour matching with pompoms
 
He can also practice matching colours as there are two of each pompom which can be nicely paired up in the ice cube tray.


Our second fine motor tray - Spooning Buttons. Nikki is fairly expert at spooning, so I added the challenge of a clip-lock box that he has to open first. He also has to try to spoon only one button at a time...

The small measuring spoon fits the buttons perfectly!


Maths

I finally caved and bought the Melissa and Doug pattern board set. It is expensive, but worth it! We are using this to practice shapes, puzzles and colours all at the same time!



Language

Daddy bought Nicholas this lovely set of alphabet cards which we can write on. We are using them to practice reading and writing Russian letters. Also in the box is a set of English letter cards which, although smaller, serve exactly the same purpose.

Dry-wipe flashcards for Russian fun!

We also have our Kumon pre-writing exercises, which are almost being used the way the book intends now - rather than the background to multiple circles!

Music

This week we have a new activity! Nicholas was given this lovely set of sound balls by his father - there are four pairs of sound (I am guessing salt, rice, beans and a nut) and you have to listen carefully to find the pairs. Nikki doesn't quite get it yet, but has great fun shaking the balls and following my lead! 

Sound shaker balls - each big one pairs with a small one.



 

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful activities ... and I LOVE the sound balls! Thanks so much for linking up with Montessori Monday. I featured your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow

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