Wish List

For family far away, or even close by friends or family, I am posting a wish list for the two upcoming birthdays....Lovey turns 1 next month and Flower will be 3.

I like to do Montessori Activities with them, especially Flower. Mostly, I go to the thrift or secondhand store and pick up things and make activities that are similar to the ones I see on different Montessori teacher websites. I have a lot of stuff that I've gotten from there. But still, there are some classic Montessori activities I'd like to have for them that I can't buy at a store around here and can only find online and I can't afford to buy on my own.

For example, I think Flower would love more sensorial activities. She loves to sort and stack things and especially touch them and organize them. I think she would love to have the Pink Tower and/or Brown Stairs. There are a couple of different stores you can get them at online, just click one of these colored links in this post. I know they may seem like just a bunch of blocks, but they are designed to help them with visual discrimination....which Flower has a high sensitivity to already. I think she'll love the "order" without chaos of playing with these two toys.

I also like the Movable Alphabet. I'd like to start her with the D'Nealian letters so that it's not hard for her to make the jump from recognizing and writing manuscript to cursive. Then there's the Number Rods. Again, visual discrimination but this time with a math approach.

For Lovey...I really like the Circle Sorter. It's the easiest puzzle to do because it doesn't matter what direction you turn the circle, it always will fit.

Love the Farm Puzzle for both of them. And this. And the Color Tablets. Flower would love to sort these out. For. Hours.

Both of the websites have the classic Montessori items like the Pink Tower, Brown Stairs, the Number Rods, and the Color Tablets. Those are the real hardships for me to get for them right now and would be my priorities based on what I am seeing as far as readiness to learn right now. Remember, I'm also getting them ready for eventual homeschooling. I'd love to be able to start them out with this stuff.

This is just a "wish list". Being that we have 5 children, we really already have most of your classic 3 and 1 year old boy/girl presents. We have dolls and dress-up stuff, cars and blocks. We have balls and stuffed animals, and toys that make noise (see previous post). We have movies, and books, and toys to ride on. We have so much "stuff", I'd just rather see something that is needed and will be fun for them and useful (even if we have more kids).

Flower does NOT need anymore clothes, no matter how cute they are. She has at least 20 dresses and lots of shirts and pants. I love garage sales. Lovey could get more shorts....but I can garage sale those too 'cause he's just going to get them messy. :)

I realize this is not a normal-type post. But it is important to get this stuff out there, and I know so of you family types are readying this.

We love you and miss you and hope to see you soon.