Montessori Activity: Introduction to Musical Note

Age: From 3 years old

Objective(s):

1. To teach distinction between musical note and different pitches.

Materials:

1 set of musical bells.

Directions:

1. Shake it from number one to eight and say the corresponding note e.g. "do", "re", "mi"... etc.

2. Shake number 1 and say this is the lowest note.

3. Shake number 8 and say this is the highest note.

4. Invite your child to experiment and ask him which of the note is higher or lower.

Additional Information:

Each of these bells plays a distinct note - do re mi fa so la ti do... (the only cons is that the last two notes are not so distinguishable). These bells come with a sheet with 3 different songs. It helps the child to be sensitive to different sound - the high note and the low note. The child learns that the different pitch that each bell makes could be coordinated to make a beautiful tune. It is a good tool to introduce a child to musical note. I bought it from Amazon:

http://amzn.to/1rnia0E

Montessori Activity: Spreading Jam

Age: From 3 years old

Objective(s):

1. To train fine motor skills
2. To train self-sufficiency in spreading butter or jam

Materials:

1. 1 bread or pancake
2. 1 kid's size table knife
3. 1 small jar of jam or butter

Directions:

1. Demonstrate how to open the jam jar and spread the jam on the bread/pancake.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:

J (3Y1M9D) tried this activity with jam for the first time today 14 April 2012. He could have tried to spread butter at the daycare, but it was the first time he tried it at home.

I use kid's jam jar. Don't throw away the jar after finishing the jam. It can be used for Montessori taste and smell activity.

Montessori Activity: Teaching Rhyme Recognition with Rhyming Stories (4B)

Lesson Plan from the book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" by Marilyn Jager Adams et al

Age: From 3 years old

Objective(s):
1. To teach your child to use meaning and meter to notice and predict rhyming words.
2. To stimulate the development of phonemic awareness in your child.

Materials:
1. Rhyming books such as nursery rhymes. This book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" has a fantastic appendix, Appendix F, that provides list of suggested books and stories.

I use the Rhyme Bible, which is really terrific and Joshua loves it:

Directions:
1. Read the story aloud, exaggerate the meter and rhyme to encourage active listening and anticipation by your child.

2. In the course of the reading, take an opportunity to anchor your child's understanding of the words rhyme and rhyming. Rhyme is a poem composed of lines with similar ending sounds. Remind your child to listen for words that rhyme.

Tips:
1. When reading a book that is already familiar with your child, stop after rhyming words and ask them what words tehy heard that ryhme.

2. Alternatively, stope before reading the second word of a rhyming pair, and ask your child to guess the word before you continue.

Additional Information:
I have already been reading the Rhyme bible to Joshua, but not in such a purposeful way as suggested by this book. I would be trying out this method with Joshua to create his awarenes of rhyming words.

I highly recommend this book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" by Marilyn Jager Adams et al and The Rhyme Bible from Amazon:

Montessori Activity: Teaching Rhyme Recognition with Rhyming Poems (4A)

Lesson Plan from the book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" by Marilyn Jager Adams et al

Age: From 2.5 years old

Objective(s):
1. To teach your child to use meaning and meter to notice and predict rhyming words.
2. To stimulate the development of phonemic awareness in your child.

Materials:
1. Rhyming books, poems, songs or jiggles. This book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" has a fantastic appendix, Appendix G, that provides a number of recommended poems, fingerplay and jingles.

Directions:
1. Read or recite the poem for your child, emphasizing its rhythm and exaggerating its rhymes.

2. Re-read line by line slowly and deliberately and invite your child to repeat each line with you in unison.

3. Introduce your child only to 1 or 2 rhymes that he can learn well.

4. Add more rhymes in time.

Tips:
1. Recite the poem in whispers, but say the rhyming words aloud.
2. Recite the poem in very loud voices, but whisper the rhyming words.
3. Recite the poem in crescendoing voices, getting louder and louder as you go.
4. Recite the poem in decrescendoing voices, getting softer and softer as you go.
5. Seat the children in a cirlce and ask them to recite successive lines of the poem, one at a time, in turn.
6. Seat the children in a cirlce and ask them to recite successive words of the poem, one at a time, in turn.

Additional Information:
I am doing this with the Tang dynasty poems in Chinese, when Joshua was younger, and then I discovered this book. It is reassuring to see that what I am doing by instinct is actually recommended by the experts. This book also helps me to puts into words, what I am doing in Chinese with Joshua with Tang dynasty poems. I have since then slackened, and diverted my attention to Montessori Practical Life activities, because Joshua did not show much interest in nursery rhymes. That curriculum was completed after one year, and now Joshua has recently turned 3 years old, and has developed a love for rhyme stories. Everything has its timing! I will now make more conscious effort to get back to nusery rhymes and rhyme bible, in line with Joshua's interests.

I highly recommend this book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" by Marilyn Jager Adams et al and The Rhyme Bible from Amazon:

Montessori Activity: Training Ability to Listen to Series of Sounds (3B)

Idea from the book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" by Marilyn Jager Adams et al

Age: From 3 years old
Objective(s):
1. To develop the memory and attentional abilities for thinking about series of sounds and the language for discussing them.

2. To stimulate the development of phonemic awareness in children.

Materials:
1. Actions with Objects that make interesting and distinctive sounds such as
- banging on wall/table/lap
- blowing
- blowing a whistle
- blowing nose
- clapping
- clicking with tongue
- closing purse
- colouring hard on paper
- coughing
- crumpling paper
- cutting with scissors
- dropping (various things)
- drumming with fingers
- eating an apple
- folding paper
- flipping newspaper
- hammering
- hopping
- noisy chewing
- opening window or drawer
- pouring water
- ringing a bell
- rubbing hands together
- scratching
- sharpening a pencil
- slamming a brook
- smashing crackers
- snapping fingers
- stamping
- stirring with teaspoon
- tearing paper
- tiptoeing
- turning on computer
- typing on keyboard
- walking
- whistling
- writing on blackboard
- writing with a pencil

Directions:
1. Ask your child to cover his eyes and listen very carefully without peeking, while you make a familiar sound such as closing the door, sneezing, playing a key on the piano, etc. Make only one sound and ask your child to identify just one sound.

2. Once your child has caught on the game, make two noises, one after another. Ask your child to guess the two sounds in sequence saying, "There were two sounds. First, I heard a ____, then I heard a ____." as advised by the book.

3. After your child has become quite good with pairs of noises, produce a series of more than two for him to identify and report in sequence. Complete sentences should be encouraged.

Tips:
1. With your child's eyes closed, make a series of sounds. Then repeat the order, but omit one of the sounds. Ask your child to identify the sound that has been omitted.

2. Invite your child to make sounds for you to guess.

3. This game is good to review your child's use of ordinal words such as first, second, third, middle and last.

Additional Information:
I will be doing this activity from Marilyn Jager's book "Phonemic Awareness in Young Children" with Joshua. I highly recommend this book:

Montessori Activity: Teaching Letter Recognition

Age: From 3 years old

Objectives:
1. To provide a fun way of teaching letters recognition

Materials:
1. 1 page of large-print advertisement from used magazine. (You can also use used printed powerpoint presentation).
2. 1 pencil
3. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Pick a letter, for example, the letter "e" and circle out the first letter "e" you see on the page.

2. Encourage your child to try to look for all the letter "e" on the page and circle them out.

Tips:
1. Read out the word to your child, as he succeeded in finding and circling the letter.

Additional Information:
This is another way of variation of teaching letters, that is free, and enable you to recycle the magazines in a useful way. Joshua tried this today, but he wasn't so interested. I will try it another day.

DIY Floor or Table-Top Children's Puppet Theatre with Cardboard

14 April 2012 - Completed with curtains sewn by my sweet mother-in-law. We used golden as the colour for the frame and
red for the curtains to mirror real-life theatre above

9 April 2012 - Work in progress still missing painting and the curtains... but Joshua started playing with it happily...

Age: From 2 years old

Puppet Theatre

I have been wanting to make a puppet theatre for a long time, but did not find the time for it. It was not an option to buy it, because those from Amazon are small, chunky and unfunctional, and horrendously expensive. Then I forgot all about it. This Easter holidays, I wanted to tell the story of Good Friday and Easter and Joshua wanted to use the puppets. But I hadn't the appropriate puppets, nor the puppet theatre at hand! Neverthesless, God did his sovereign work and just over 3 year old Joshua accepted Christ into his life. Yes, truely it was with God's amazing grace. You can read the post here. For the rest of the Easter holidays, I was working on making the puppet theatre. I made two  - one for Joshua and the other for the church nursery, as I think puppet theatre is a wonderful way to tell Bible stories during Sunday School and Church nursery.

The basic puppet theatre is completed, and Joshua started playing with it. Here he is performing a magic show of disappearing cakes with his teddy bears. But I intend to sew a red curtain for it using some old pieces of red silk cloth from my Cheonsam. I will post a picture, when the curtain is completed. It can also be decorated.

Updates 15.4.2012

My mother-in-law was very kind to help me to sew the curtains, and Florian helped me to paint it. We chose gold as the colour for the frame and red for the curtains to mirror real life theatre. Maybe we might draw some decorative roman colummns on it, but for now it is completed :-)

Dimensions of frame:

Inner dimension: 90 x 60cm

Outer dimenion: 120 x 100cm

How?

1. This cardboard puppet thatre is very simple. It consists of 4 pieces of cardboard folded as follows:

2. After folding, just tape it down the top and bottom fold behind to make it stay in place:

3. The fold serve as the support to make it stand nicely without topping over.

4. Attach curtains with strings behind (optional) and you are ready to go :-)

You can also make a cloth one here. The advantage is that it is easy to store them. The disadvantage is that you need a door to hold it together.

Time:

The actual time is 1 hour, but the actual thinking process took me longer, total 2 hours. However, the trip to source for unwanted cardboard from IKEA packaging took time.

Puppets:

If you have the time, you can make your own puppets. Since I do not have the time, I have found some Biblical character glove puppets from Amazon for children 3 - 7 years old, and will be checking them out:

Bible Story Figurines

If you could not afford to buy real puppets above, don't be too disappointed. I have found a good website showing a cheap and great way to make Bible story figurines. You can simply print them and stick them to ice-cream sticks. Check it out here:

http://www.biblestoryprintables.com/TutorialBibleFigures.html
http://www.biblestoryprintables.com/BibleStoryFigures2.html

Activity:

For ideas on how to carry out an activity with puppet theatre, see my previous post here.

I found some fantastic puppet scripts here:

http://www.squidoo.com/Puppet-Scripts
http://www.missionaryresources.com/free_scripts.html

References:

http://www.puppets-puppets.com/Bible_Puppets_s/63.htm

http://www.thepuppetstore.com/Biblical_s/62.htm

http://www.child-bible-lessons.com/puppet-ministry.html

http://deniseoliveri.suite101.com/how-to-start-a-puppet-ministry-a18648
http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca%7CsearchResults~~p%7C2534374302222474~~.jsp

If you prefer to buy a puppet theatre instead of making your own, there is a similar one from Melissa and Doug from Amazon:

References:

http://sugartotdesigns.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/console-tv-makeover.html

Montessori Activity: Measuring Playdough with Ruler

Idea from Tot School

Age: From 4 years old

Objectives:
1. To familiarize your child to the function and use of a ruler.
2. To teach measuring with ruler.
3. To practise cutting and fine motor skills.

Materials:
1. 1 ruler
2. 1 Table knife
3. 1 playdough
4. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Explain to your child the length of the ruler, that it is 30 cm long.
2. Ask your child to roll out the playdough into a long piece to match the length of the ruler (periodically encourage your child to compare her playdough to the ruler to see if it is as long as the ruler.)
3. When the playdough reach the corret length, line it in-line with the ruler.
4. Demonstrate by cutting the playdough into 2-cm pieces by slowing moving your knife to the 2-cm mark and lower to cut the playdough.
5. Put aside the 2-cm piece and bring the playdough in-line to the left side of the ruler again.
6. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:
It is the Easter holidays, and I find my activities running out at a much faster rate. It is at night. Joshua is asleep, and I am now indulging in my hobby to setting up activities for Joshua. Nothing makes me more alive and happy than doing all these! I found this fantastic activity from another Blog mom called Tot School, who found this activity from a book called Montessori at Home by John Bowman. This activity is probably too advanced for Joshua, but my objective is not that he knows what 2 cm is, but that he gets familiarize with the function of a ruler, and have fun exploring it with playdough. I am excited to let Joshua try it tomorrow.

Here is another good book by John Bowman on fun and educational activities:

References:
- http://totschool.shannons.org/?p=4158
- Montessori at Home by John Bowman

Montessori Activity: Blowing Candles

Idea from Singapore Wesley Methodist Church's Children's Ministry Little Lambs

Age: From 2.5 years old

Objectives:

1. To teach the concept of fire.
2. To teach how to handle fire safely.
3. To practise blowing candles during birthday

Materials:

1. 1 toy birthday cakes with holes for candles
2. 2 - 4 candles depending on the age of your child
3. 1 lighter
4. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Explain to your child the concept of blowing candles on birthday cake, that it is done after singing the Happy Birthday song

2. Insert 1 candle and invite your child to insert the rest.

3. Explain to your child that fire is dangerous and this activity should only be done in the presence of mommy. Then light the candles.

4. Light the candles and invite your child to blow the candles at the count of three. Repeat again.

5. Make sure that you put away the lighter away from the reach of your child after that.

IMPORTANT: This activity has to be supervised. The good thing about such an activity is that you take the novelty out of playing with fire in a safe way. Your child would not be as curious and tempted to play with fire, if he has been briefed and trained on how to handle them. Forbidden fruit always taste sweeter.

Additional Information:

I got this idea from the Singapore Wesley Methodist Church, when we visited it two years ago with J. This is how they celebrate the birthday of the children whose birthday once a month. They made their own birthday cake out of styrofoam and the children get to go to the front. They would sing the birthday song, and the birthday kids get to blow the candles after that. It is a hit with the children, as children find it thrilling to blow candles. It is also a very healthy way of celebrating birthday, since there are more than 50 children in the nursery, it would not be logistically feasible to be eating cakes so often.

I bought this wooden cake as maybe it could be used in our Church's nursery to celebrate the children's birthday. It came with fake wooden candles, but it can be easily substituted with real candles, which is the whole philosophy of Montessori - to use the real thing. J wasn't so good at blowing candles for the past 3 birthdays. Since I don't bake cakes and it is not healthy to eat so much cake in order to practise blowing candles, I decided to put it to good use and let him practise this as a Montessori activity on a toy cake.

J hadn't been very good at blowing candles during his one year old, two year old and his three year old birthday in March this year. I think this exercise would help him to practise how to blow candles. I got inspired by Wesley Methodist Church's Children Ministry. They celebrate the children's birthday each month, where all the birthday girls and boys get to blow the candles from the toy cakes and they get a small present. Something very simple (they are not even real cake), yet the children really enjoyed it.

J (3Y1M28D) tried this for the first time today, and it was a hit. Unlike the time during his birthdays, he was able to blow the candles very well. There were lots of fun and laughter.

You can buy something similar wooden toy birthday cakes that allow you to insert real candles in Amazon (but just don't buy the fake plastic ones such as Leapfrog with fake candles):

Montessori Activity: Teaching Basic Counting with Stones

Age: From 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 10 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To teach counting.
2. To train number recognition

Materials:
1. 5 bowls with number cards from 1-5 in each of the bowls.
2. 1 container with 15 small stones in a container
3. 1 tray (optional)

Directions:
1. Demonstrate to your child by putting out the number magnets or cards in order from 1 to 5 in the bowls, reciting the name of the number as you go along.

2. Allocate 1 stone, count 1 and place it in the bowl containing the number card 1. Then allocate 2 stones, count it a loud and place it in the bowl containing the number card 2. Do the same for the rest of the number.

3. Put back the materials into the respective containers and encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:
Joshua (3Y1M2D) tried this today. He needed some clues and prompting to get the right number of stones into the bowls. This showed that he has still not mastered the recognition of numbers, although he could count very well now.

This is a variation of the game here. I find that using bowls to contain the stones make the teaching more concrete for young minds. You can also use other items such as marbles, instead of stones.

If you are fortunate to be a stay-at-home mom, you can make your own number cards. For working moms who are short of time like me, I took the short-cut by buying it from Singapore.

You can buy it from amazon:

J Summary (3Y1M1D) - J Accepted Christ On Good Friday Today

I wasn't prepared for Good Friday today. I had no plans and did not prepare any lesson plan. I felt a little lousy. J asked to read books today. Suddenly I thought of an idea. I decided to pick a story from our Little FECS' favorite Rhyme Bible to commemorate Good Friday, which was Jesus' death. I read the English Children's Bible and the Chinese Children's Bible.

We read the story of Jesus' death and Jesus' resurrection this morning during blanket time. Our Little FECS requested to read the same story again in the afternoon. He wanted also to play with play theater and asked how we can play with it. I said it is best played with a story. Then an idea came to my mind again - I will use the Rhyme Bible to act out the story. We didn't have the right puppet, but our Little FECS picked a puppet most appropriate to be Jesus. I told him that Jesus is a man, but mommy was going to use the puppets that we have. We had 2 female puppets, a clown and an angel. Among the 4 of them, he chose the female puppet in blue as the better choice compared to the clown. It was also my choice. The play was very badly acted out, as I thought to myself. I felt a little deflated again. I was unprepared, no script, no rehearsal. I wondered if he has understood the play, or if I just confused him. I also wondered if the level of English was too difficult for him. But it seemed that he enjoyed it.

Although we did not have the appropriate props, nevertheless we acted out the play of Jesus' death, using our window as the cross. Later in the day, my Daddy FECS asked what we have done today. Our Little FECS tried to explain what we have done, the story and the play, and he got stuck. Then he went downstairs to pick something. I thought he went downstairs to pick the puppet to explain to my Daddy FECS, but to my surprise, he brought the Bible up. He wanted me to read the story again with Daddy around. This time, for each sentence and page I read in English, he explained in Danish to his Dad. To my surprise, he explained everything correctly - That Jesus was taken by the wicked soldiers and men, that Jesus died on the cross. He specifically turned to the page with Jesus on the cross, and showed it to Daddy. He pointed out all the bad guys. When we asked him who Jesus was, he pointed to Jesus as "den søde mand", meaning the sweet man.  At that moment, I knew in my heart that my question was answered by God, that yes, our Little FECS had understood. He heard everything in English and explained everything correctly to Daddy into Danish. Yes, the play though so roughly done, did convey to him the story of Good Friday.

During bedtime, our Little FECS asked to be read the same story again. So I read to him. In the middle of the story, something prompted me, and I shared the gospel with him. I asked him if he wanted to accept Christ. He said yes. I looked into his eyes and he said yes very determinedly. I asked him to repeat after me in English the Sinner's Prayer. He repeated after me every single word.

We read the story again from two different English Children's Bible. God gave me another idea - to sing songs and praises to Him. So we sang some songs about Jesus, and our Little FECS enjoyed it. Coughing as I was, I sang with all my heart. J participated fully. After that, out of his own initiative, our Little FECS said to me, "Jesus is in his stomach". I said, "Oh, you meant Jesus is in your heart?" He laughed at himself for saying stomach and said yes, he meant Jesus is in his heart.

I felt that our Little FECS had understood the whole story, because he translated the whole story to Daddy FECS in Danish. I felt too that he somehow understood the meaning. God has put in each of us a unique understanding of Him, and it is perhaps the most true and pure during childhood. I thank God for this priceless and special day, for leading our Little FECS to Christ. It is much more valuable and priceless than anything else, and the greatest gift ever. It is a very memorable and special day for us. I held close in my heart and wanted to remember it forever.

I thank God for His grace today as I truly could not claim any credit. I came unprepared, but God still used me. I was not eloquent, did not have the right props that I normally use to make sure to capture our Little FECS 's attention, yet God still worked in the little child's heart, and used me his mom as an instrument. My heart is full of gratitude.

Yes, truly it was with God's amazing grace, as I was so unprepared. I am still awed by God and filled with joy. It is the best gift that a mom can ask for. The whole heaven rejoices, when a soul is saved.

This is the Children's Bible that I used to witness to our Little FECS:

Nevertheless, I will be looking out to purchase Biblical puppets.

A picture of J touched by God on another occasion, I held this momentclose to my heart.

Montessori Activity: Teaching Concept of Heavy & Light

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To teach the concept of heavy and light in a fun way
2. To teach the law of gravity in a concrete way

Materials:
1. 1 see-saw balance scale
2. 1 bowl filled with items such as a few fanta colour pegs, 1 small teddy bear, 1 handful of cotton wool, 1 lego brick, 1 container of play dough, 1 soft ball, 1 pom pom, 1 stone, 1 mobile phone, 1 bath toy, 1 sponge, 1 ping pong ball, 1 marble, 2 lego men, 1 bottle cap, 1 shell, 1 wooden block, 1 styrofoam , 1 hazelnut, 1 pasta, 1 pebble, 1 chalk, etc.

Directions:
1. Pick 2 items to compare.

2. Ask your child to guess which item is heavier, and which is lighter. Let him hold them each in his hands.

3. Then drop the item onto each side of the scale simultaneously and see if your child is correct. You will have a lot of fun and laughter when the answer is reviewed.

Additional Information:
Joshua (3Y1M1D) tried this activity this evening and at this age, he had a lot of fun with it, compared to a few months ago. He guessed the most of weight of the items correctly. He tried to be cheeky, and wanted to drop the items straight away on the scale, without guessing and we had to take the scale away first, until he had made his guess.

References:
http://nurturingthetenderyears.blogspot.com/2011/05/homemade-balance-for-learning-about.html

Chinese Minced Pork Congee/猪肉碎粥

Serves 4

Preparation & Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
1. 2 cup sushi rice
2. 1 - 1.5 litre of water or stock (depending on whether you prefer your congee thick or thin)
3. 200g minced pork
4. 2 eggs
5. A handful of frozen shrimps to give it more sweetness (optional, if you don't use stock for the base)
6. 5 leaves of lettuce in bite size (optional)
7. 1 tsp oyster sauce (optional)
8. 1 stalk spring onions chopped as garnish
9. 1 - 2 tsp of garlic oil
10. 1 red chilli chopped as garnish (optional)

Directions:
1. Boil rice with water until cooked and soft on high heat.
2. Turn down heat and add minced pork and stir until cooked.
3. Turn down heat further and add egg yolk and stir until egg yolk blended in with the congee and cooked.
4. Add oyster sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Add lettuce and stir.
6. Dish into a bowl, sprinkle spring onions, a little garlic oil, soya sauce and chopped chilli.

Additional Information:
Joshua requested for rice porridge or congee today. So I made this. For Joshua's portion, I added his carrot cubes and oatmeal cubes as well to make it even more nutritious. I also added a handful of green peas. this dish is very versatile. Basically, you can also add any ingredients into the congee as you prefer. If you add fish, it would be fish congee. If you add chicken, it would be chicken congee. This is a one-pot dish and rather convenience.

You can use brown rice to make congee, but the consistency is hard to achieve and it takes a much longer time to cook, although it is more nutritious. However, you can increase the nutrition value of the traditional congee with the type of ingredients you add, such as adding more vegetables and using fish, for example.

The southern Chinese eat this with fried fritters as garnish. I also am unable to get fried fritters in Copenhagen, but it is not great loss, as it is not so healthy and I don't crave for it.

French Hollandaise Sauce/Hollandaisesovs

Recipe adapted from www.retnemt.dk

Ingredients:
1. 2 shallots
2. 250ml milk
3. 2 egg yolks
4. 4 tsp flour
5. 4 tsp lemon juice
6. 20g butter (optional)
7. Salt & pepper to taste
8. 1 tsp cooking oil

Directions:
1. In a sauce pan, heat oil and fry shallots until fragrant.
2. Mix milk and flour and add them into the pot and stir and cook for 3 minutes.
3. Add egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, peber and butter.
4. Turn down heat and stir for another 2-3 minutes.

Additional Information:
This is a simplier version of Hollandaise sauce. I made it for the first time today, and Florian liked it. According to wikipedia, hollandaise is one of the five sauces in the French haute cuisine mother sauce repertoire. It is so named because it was believed to have mimicked a Dutch sauce for the state visit to France of the King of the Netherlands. Hollandaise sauce is well known as a key ingredient of eggs Benedict, and is often paired with vegetables such as steamed asparagus and as sauce for fish dish.

While waiting for Florian and Joshua to come down for dinner, the sauce thickened a little too much. I should have adjusted it with a little more milk.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollandaise_sauce

Montessori Activity: Sharpening Pencil

Age: From 3 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):

1. To train fine motor skills.
2. To train life skills.

Materials:
1. 1 pencil
2. 1 pencil sharpener
3. 1 dustbin or plastic bag
4. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Demonstrate by sharpening the pencil over the dustbin
2. Encourage your child to try.

Tips:

1. Once your child has become better and better at it, give him a whole box of color pencils to practice.

Additional Information:

J (3Y0M28D) tried this today 3 April 2012 and he could do it reasonably well with supervision. This is an activity that Joshua requested himself.

_

Hide-&-Seek Under Comforter's Cave

Age: From 2.5 years old

Materials:
1. Coffee table or dining table
2. 1 big comforter, blanket or bed sheet

Additional Information:
Joshua loves to hide under blankets and comforters. This is not exactly a real hide-&-seek game, as it is very obvious with the prominent cave, but nevertheless, it thrills Joshua a whole deal. It is something that Joshua does with Florian, while Mommy concentrates her energy on more serious Montessori stuff (so good to have Florian here to do silly things with Joshua). The most fun part is when you count to 3, and lift up the comforter! Lots of laughter! Remember to take some pictures to capture the memory for years down the road, when your child is grown up, and you look back with fondness those times...

This is so simple and a game played by all parents, but once in a while, it is good to be reminded that often the simple free games are good enough, and often one of the best ways to spend time with our children. I am posting it down to serve as fond memories and to remind myself never to forget such simple fun in our lives.