"Mushy Stuff" and Montessori

So I recently found this floating around Pinterest:

MJ had been asking me for this stuff ever since we attended our parish's Halloween party. One of the little prizes was a tiny little tub of this stuff...I don't know what it is officially called. Anyway, he's been asking for "mushy stuff" since then. It was very easy to make. I found the recipe here from the Pinterest picture.

Here is the process: mix borax and water

Then mix glue, water and food coloring in another bowl and combine the two bowls.

You drain out the excess water and then knead until it resembles something that came out of your nose during the flu season. Good thing we didn't color this stuff green.

Tes was amused for about 3 seconds and then moved on to water play. She is putting a bubble beard on her face.

 Then we headed upstairs for some school work. I haven't gotten into the hang of blogging yet so I kept forgetting to take pictures of things. But I did capture a few things before they put their work away.

MJ is working on his Object Box for reading. In the initial presentation of this material, I showed him 8 objects and then proceeded to write down one of them on a strip of paper. He had to sound out the word and choose the object from the box. I did this with all 8 objects and then put the box on the shelf where it is now available to him anytime he wants to practice reading. We have over 80 objects that I did this with and we rotate them in the box every few days. He is getting faster and he is getting more confident!

Here Cat is matching her colors and naming them to me using Color Box 2. This is actually work for a 2.5year old but I hadn't done it with Cat in a while and wasn't sure if she knew the color grey. Plus she gets pink and purple confused sometimes, so I wanted to get it straight before moving on to Color Box 3 where she has to grade the shades of each color. We also did grading with Color Box 3 but of course I forgot to take a picture...lol. 

We also played some sound games so Cat can start recognizing the ending sounds of words. She has beginning sounds down pretty good now. Once she can recognize ending sounds, we'll move onto the middle syllables of words. I also presented 3 more Sand Paper Letters to her today. She learned "d", "o" and "w". 

 I wanted to do some sensorial and practical life work with Tes but I'm so behind with MJ and Cat that I have been giving lots of presentations instead of letting them chose their work. Once they are caught up, they will be able to work with more materials on their own and I can concentrate on Tes. She at least already knows her colors and how to stack the Pink Tower and the Broad Stair. Hopefully I'll get pics of her tomorrow.

We have lots of party stuff coming up so Momo is coming over tomorrow for much needed help and then Gma C is coming on Friday to help decorate, or at least entertain the kids so I can decorate...lol. Have a good day!

Jenn