Thursday, February 21, 2013

Valentine's Day for Preschoolers - Part 3

And here are the last activities the Valentine's Day Week brought us. Thankfully, there were no complaints that it was too pink or girly that week. :)

Valentine's Day Love Potion
Love Potion - Filling with an eye dropper

"Oh why not?", I thought. Kids love potions, right? Adrian colored the water red himself by squeezing a few drops of food coloring and then proceeded to squeeze the eye dropper until all the water from the bowl had been transferred to the potion bottle. I initially had fancied a test tube but as usual, could not find the desired object in time for the activity (ugh!) No biggie as I had no stand for my tubes anyway. After the red water transfer, Adrian was invited to sprinkle some glitter and a drop of perfume from a tiny sample tube I was given at a store. 

Eye dropping Love Potion
Adrian preparing the love potion...with love!

Roses in the holes
Arranging a bouquet of roses - inserting roses into punched holes

This one is more of a toddler activity I guess but I thought it may still be a tad bit challenging for Adrian considering these silk roses have thorns (making insertion more difficult). On top of that, the stems are so long that Adrian had to take care where he was putting the roses as the short vase (a cottage cheese container) might topple over. So basically, the vase had to be held tightly as Adrian chose carefully where the next flower would go so as to not upset the arrangement. In the end, it was a success!


Make a Valentine - tissue paper
Making a Valentine

Now it may not look like much but making this Valentine took quite a bit of fine motor effort. Adrian had to crumple all the pink strips of tissue paper I had prepared and then he had to dip them in the liquid glue and press them inside the pre-drawn heart I had crayoned on the card. I guess we lost of bit of the shape as we went along but it's probably because I didn't make my heart "deep" enough.

Pink Tower Extension 0
Pink Tower and extensions

One of the first materials I purchased after deciding to homeschool my then 3 year old Adrian was the Pink Tower. It seemed like it was a symbol of the Montessori education; a must-have in our home. Fast-forward a year and a half later and the Pink Tower has not been touched much. Let's just say so far, I haven't gotten my money out of it! :) Being that it's Valentine's Day and that Valentine's Day is usually associated with red AND pink, I figured I would  dust it off and try to make it worth my investment... I'll be honest, Adrian tried hard but had very limited success in making these pink tower extensions. We'll try it again but with less blocks next time and when he is not sick. I proceeded to show him the pattern to reproduce with my own pink tower (pink construction paper cut the same size as the blocks of the pink tower) and asked him to make his next to mine but in the end, he had to do it on top of mine...


Pink Tower Extension 3
The "crane" extension

Pink Tower Extension 2
The "diamond" extension

Pink Tower Extension 1
The "diamonds and squares" extension


Pink Tower Extension 4
The "shelf" extension

Many more extensions of the Pink Tower are possible. These are just a few we tried. Eventually, I'd love to get the brown stairs and make even more designs. Adrian is just not into "blocks" so I'm not sure it's worth buying but we'll see...

2 comments:

  1. The love potion is so neat! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Lisa! It was a terrific week for my preschooler. Love potions are not really in line with a Montessorian's book but water transfer is so I thought I could slide it by! :)

      Delete