Showing posts with label Simple Living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simple Living. Show all posts

8/4/11

Teaching the Toddler: Sensory Activities

One of my favorite things about Montessori is that although you can purchase some beautiful, useful products, you can also do so much for free or at least very close to free!

Little E is very interested in using his senses to discover the world. Here are some of the fun, free sensory activities we did today:

Beans: I poured some dried kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and peas into a bowl. I cut off the lid of an egg carton. Wow, easy and Ethan loved it. He tried using a spoon, but preferred his hands. Mommy needs to remember to give Little E something to define his work area (a tray or placemat) because our beans went everywhere!



We went to the park and played in the "river." He kept telling me, "Mom, the river is nice."


At the park we collected sticks, leaves, pinecones, and bark. For the rest of the day Little E kept asking to play with his leaves.

We compared texture, sizes and shapes together and pretended we were trees waving in the wind.

Then I let him play however he wanted. He told us all about the "great big" leaves that were the mommy and daddy and the tiny leaf that was the baby. He made the parent leaves take turns holding the baby, driving it in the "car," feeding it green beans (Little E's favorite food right now), giving it a bath, and putting it to sleep.

3/26/10

Green Your Life: Reduce



To Reduce: to diminish in size, amount, extent, or number

I am beginning my series on Greening Your life today, in honor of what I think is a profoundly dumb idea: Earth Hour. According to the official website, today "hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour."

Now, I'll leave it up to you to debate the merits of climate change and sitting in the dark for an hour. I want to share 3 things you can reduce that will have a positive impact on your life and help you be a better steward of your time, talents, and our precious resources.

These are things I am actually trying to do in my life. Hopefully you can find one or two ideas that you can use!


Reduce Paper Clutter
4 ideas from housekeeping.about.com
(for more ideas, click on the link)

  1. Automate - Set up online bill pay or automatic payments. Turn off your paper statements.
  2. Contain the Memories - Give each family member a container for storing artwork, birthday cards, etc. When the container is full, they have to decide which stuff to keep and which stuff to give away.
  3. Evaluate Your Subscriptions - In addition to cutting down on unnecessary catalogs and magazines, you can have your name removed from junk mailing lists. For more information, visit newdream.org.
  4. Get Rid of Receipt Mania - You don't need a receipt for everything. If you have the option and the purchase doesn't need to be documented for tax purposes, opt for no receipt.

Reduce Unnecessary Debt
There are many blogs dedicated exclusively to this topic and considering that I still have much progress to make in this area, I'll keep my comments brief.
I know from personal experience the freedom that comes from being debt free. If you have a desire to change your financial future, a great place to start would be with Dave Ramsey. I listen to his free podcasts. His book, The Total Money Makeover, is also excellent.


Reduce Stress
Tips from helpguide.org
  • Learn to say "no"
  • Take control of your environment
  • Limit your to do list
  • Express your feelings instead of bottling them up
  • Be willing to compromise
  • Be more assertive about things that are important to you
  • Manage your time better
  • Look at the big picture
  • Focus on the positive
  • Learn to forgive
Happy Reducing!