Fruit Inspection

Granted, this is Georgia and we were not in the middle of that huge blizzard that just cut through most of the midwest and into the northeast, but still, it’s cold here. Thirties and forties with the winds gusting. I’m over it already.

Yesterday I spoke to my friend Amy and we agreed that summer is the best season. And not just because it’s warm. While it is fun to grill out and eat together on the back deck, even better is that it’s light outside past 7 o’clock. By then the day has cooled off just enough to take a walk or play on the swingset. By the time the day has ended, the kids fall into bed exhausted, not to be seen again until morning.

For any of us in the Peach State, those days are still about 3 months off. What am I going to do until then? Next week Savannah is on winter break and I’ll need some creative projects to break up the monotony of spending all day in the house. Over at inthetrenchesofmotherhood, Chris is dedicating the month of February to all sorts of arts and crafts projects to ward off cabin fever.

Yesterday I took her advice and made this “treasure in a bottle”:

I took an empty juice container (or she used a 2 liter soda bottle) and filled it 2/3 full of birdseed. Then I threw in a bunch of “treasures” I found laying around the house. Mine contains a safety pin, a quarter, a pink barbie shoe, a hair band, a golf tee, a bolt, and some skittles. Both kids enjoyed rolling it around and around trying to find different things hidden in there.

Last Friday I dug out the “Project Basket”. This was something I put together for Savannah when she was about Emery’s age. Once he was born, I put it up because there are so many small pieces. When I asked Savannah if she remembered it, her eyes just lit up.

I got the idea from a Montessori book called “Teach Me To Do It Myself”. It’s got 165 pages of nothing but fun activities and games that teach kids basic life skills through constructive play. In the picture below there are bowls, spoons, shoe laces, large buttons, cups, clothespins, and dry beans. In the course of about an hour we learned about threading, counting, adding, subtracting, pouring, scooping, colors, sorting, and matching. And when we were finished, we cleaned everything up and put it all back in the green bucket (sitting on the chair behind Emery). Then I simply put the bucket back up on the shelf until next time.

It is not anything that I can leave the kids alone to play with due to the small pieces, but the upside to spending an hour of real quality time with them is that they will be less whining and demanding of my attention for the remainder of the day. And honestly, it is something I look forward to getting out and playing with them. The activities are fun and the book gives me refreshing ideas on how to develop their senses and coordination, as well as numbers, colors, and language skills.