The Mom I Want to Be

 

1. Clothesline play (rope clothesline, mini wooden clothespins, cloth diapers, and doll clothes).

 

2. Lacing cards (rainbow laces purchased separately from Montessori Services, and handmade foam shapes for lacing — I couldn’t find any lacing cards to buy for less than $15, so I was forced to get creative and thrifty).

 

3. Bear counters (three colors and three sizes of plastic bears for counting/sorting).

 

4. Square tiles for counting/sorting.

 

5. Open & close (various items to open and close — boxes, hair barrettes, empty makeup compacts, mini plastic bottles).

 

6. Alphabet & number magnets (to use with small cookie sheet).

 

7. Pom-pom sorting (1″ multicolored pom-poms with various tweezers and grabbers).

 

8. Viewmaster with slides.

 

9. Geoboard with rubber bands (for geometric introduction, dexterity, AND open-ended creative designs).

 

10. Buttons! (tons of buttons I found for $2 at a closeout education store; for sorting, counting, etc.).

 

 

11. Various pasta shapes (for sorting).

 

12. Nuts, bolts, and washers.

 

13. Rubber insects (for sorting/counting/pattern completion).

 

14. Paper plate alphabet caterpillar (a leftover from our Unplugged Week).

 

15. Transportation memory game (any memory game will work).

 

16. “Magnetic Personalities” (Photos of family AND cartoon characters with tops and bottoms separated, glued onto magnetic paper — just for open-ended mixing and matching fun).

 

I lined them all up in a wicker laundry basket, left in an accessible spot in the study/school room so the kids can pull them out at leisure.