Lacing Beads and Sea Creatures

On Sunday, Bean and I did some painting - a lot of painting. A few months back I purchased these packs of wooden beads, spools, pegs and pots from Hobby Lobby. I had intended to paint the spools and put them in Bean's Easter basket but that danged bunny didn't leave me any room. He took it all with his silly candy. Oh well.

(I will share the peg and pots and the larger beads and how we use them in a later post.)

I wanted to make Bean some new Montessori-ish activities to do this month and remembered I had these that needed to be painted. I spread out some newspaper, grabbed all of our paints and supplies and we got to work. Bean started painting a little box she found in my craft stash. I asked her what color she wanted to use and she said "PINK!". That's my kid.

You can tell two things from these pictures.  One, she is tired of having her picture taken, and two, she has developed the same habit I have of sucking in my bottom lip when I'm concentrating on something.  Aww...

This painting process took a lot longer than I had planned. Like all day longer. Bean gave up way before I did. We took breaks throughout the day but it did take all day to paint everything.

Here's the finished product of the spools and how I presented them to her as a Montessori activity. Right away she knew what to do and started lacing the beads. She got frustrated a few times with the cord I gave her to use. It was a drawstring that came out of a hoodie I wear so it does have a little more "play" in it than should be but it did the job.

 

After she finished the lacing beads, I brought out some printables I found on 1+1+1=1. These are from her In The Girly Sea Preschool Pack. These are the 3-part cards showing various sea creatures.

There is one control card for each image and then Bean is supposed to match up each creature name and the corresponding picture. I was really amazed at how well she did. She got them all correct the first time she tried. She matched the words up first. I know she can't read but she matched the letters up by shape. Then she went back and added in the pictures. My kid's a genius!!! Okay, okay, I know that's a little overboard but really, my kid's a genius people! She takes after her mama. Duh!