Howdeee! Well, it's been almost 3 weeks since we had our last work cycle - the school holidays proved very busy & fun but today was Hug's first day back so Lovely & I decided to start back also :)
We're still in the week for 'Parts of the Body' in the NCM guides. Today is feet! We sang a variation on 'Open, Shut Them' (using our legs & clapping our feet) and did a Flamingo Yoga Pose - standing on one foot. Then I showed Lovely how we could use body-lotion to massage our feet. 
He *really* enjoyed using the pump on the lotion & rubbed an amazing amount all over his feet but didn't exactly get the idea of massage - but that will be fun to work on in the future!
After our songs and games (and foot rubbing - we put our socks back on & washed our hands) we officially start the work cycle with the ringing of these Tibetan Hand Chimes. In our variation on The Silence Game Lovely closes his eyes when I sound the chimes & keeps them closed until the reverberating sound has completely finished. That's when he goes & opens the doors to our Montessori cupboard.
The first thing he spied was the hand cards pouch! Yippee! He was very excited & I was happy that putting that extra effort into presenting them well really sparked his enthusiasm in the work.
Matching the words. I was unsure how this would go with cursive but he was really observant & with some effort got them all matched up correctly. That's pretty amazing when you try to consider doing the same type of activity in a language that you can't actually read yet.
I had made him a new blindfold over the holidays (which I'll post about later) & here he's trying it out with the Mystery Bag.
While the blindfold was out I took these cylinder blocks off the shelf, mixed the pieces up in a pile & showed him how I could sort them by size back into the wooden tray (with the blindfold on). He thought I was so silly for not being able to match them by colour too! So I asked him if he wanted a turn, which he did. This was his end result & he was shocked when he took the blindfold off! I think this will be a great challenge & lots of fun for him :)
The blindfold was quickly discarded so he could put it back together correctly!
Hammering has become using-our-finger-to-push-the-tacks-in but I think that's probably great for his fingers too. Here is a boat with a sail.
I presented him with the the 'r' and 'a' Sandpaper Letters (following My Montessori Journey's sequence of letter introduction) & the salt box. He was interested in the letters...
But he was in *love* with the salt box! It was lucky that I'd asked him to get a tray to put it on because there was quite a bit spilt ;)
Using the mini dustpan & brush to clean up the salt.
This one needs extra love! Watch out doggy-B ;)
The enthusiasm for spraying took him out into the yard so I presumed our work cycle was over.
But he did come back in for one last look at an activity I'd left out: Parts of a Paintbrush (NCM). Check out that paintbrush! I know we have some nice ones in the shed but when I put this together last night I had to settle for what I could find it the house! Lovely was a bit startled by the brush & kept saying it should go away because it would get paint on things! It was completely dry, of course. To make this work I just traced the paintbrush & printed some labels. Easy-peasy :)
