The Kavanaugh Report

This month with Nora can be summed up in one word -- change! Nora is growing and changing so fast these days. She went from not really moving to getting around, from being fairly quiet to chatting up a storm, and from exploring solid food to eating like crazy.

Nora, is our serious little girl. She is constantly observing and makes you work for smiles -- unless "you" are Morgan or Henry then she will happily smile and chat with you. I don't have official growth stats for this month, but she is still wearing a size 3 diaper, 6-9 month tops and 3-6 month pants. She is slowly moving up to the next size though and has the occasional larger outfit. She still has bright blue eyes, peach fuzz blonde hair, and new this month -- a bottom tooth (that was followed by another pretty quickly).

I can't blame her smaller size on not eating! This girl loves to eat. She's still nursing a ton (pretty much every two hours all day and night) and eating two meals -- lunch and dinner …

We are in the middle of a space unit right now and loving every second of it. The other day on Instagram, I shared a picture of a set of watercolor planets that Morgan was nice enough (and creative enough) to paint for Henry to use. I decided to scan them and make a printable for everyone to use.
FIND THE PRINTABLE HERE
We are using the cards to show the size difference between the planets and their different appearances. Henry loves the over-sized cards and their natural beauty. 

To make the most out of them, we've laminated the cards and display on a large tray. The printable includes all eight planets and Pluto {for old times sake!}
I hope you enjoy them as much as we have!

Nora is at the perfect age for Montessori treasure baskets. These baskets allow for exploration of particular topic or sensory experience. To start to explore the concept of geography with her, I decided to make a discovery basket using familiar places from our home. 

To make these cards, I took pictures of a few of the rooms in our house. Instead of using my perspective, I got on the floor and took them from Nora's view. I labeled each picture with the names we commonly call each area. I only included areas that Nora frequently hangs out in -- our living room, dining room, Henry's room, Nora's room, our tot school classroom, and our play area. 

I presented these cards in a small basket. As Nora picked up a picture, I said the name of the room aloud. Then, I just let her explore the laminated paper. I was surprised to see her really concentrating on the pictures, as well as exploring the paper. They also provided some good exercise for her as they scattered around the room…

I feel like it's time for another co-op update! I haven't blogged too much about what we have been up to lately, but Montessori co-op has still been meeting once a week. I think the biggest change lately, is that we really aren't a "tot school" any more. Most of the children are solidly preschoolers. They have preschool attention spans, preschool interests and skills. But, this doesn't mean we have completely abandoned our toddler roots and we still have toddler work in our homeschool classroom.

We still have a couple toddlers in our classroom. They are siblings of the older children. So, the challenge is integrating the toddlers in a homeschool classroom that otherwise holds older child work. This is especially challenging with toddlers that are not easily distracted from the preschoolers work.

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What works for me has been NOT creating a toddler area. Instead, I've chosen to mix toddle…

Now that Nora is getting older, I've started to create work for the shelves in her work space. While she still has other Montessori friendly toys, these are things that are more traditionally Montessori. 
At 6-months-old I kept the items fairly limited in number and scope. I didn't want to overwhelm her with choices. I also keep these things in a dedicated work space, while she has other toys throughout our home, these were kept in the shelf near her floor mat in her bedroom. This is the same space where her mobiles are and is 100 percent accessible to her. Other areas of the house are shared with Henry, but this space is just meant for infants. 

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This month (really about the last 6-7 weeks) Nora had 3 small baskets of work on her shelves. The first was a larger basket filled with 3 fabric squares. One was a soft white terry cloth, one a cotton gingham, and a sheer piece with a rougher texture. 

This was by far Nora's f…