Author Archives: Stephanie

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns – Penguins & Polar Bears

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

Last year I made a set of felt holiday ornaments with the theme of Christmas Cottage. I really enjoyed the process of designing and sewing them, so I knew I’d do it again this year. I made some loose sketches and chose a color palette so I could order supplies, then began designing the patterns once November started. (Eek, it’s November!!)

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

This year’s theme is Polar Families, inspired by some of the animals Jax and I have been studying in homeschool with our world continent project. There will be four designs: a penguin daddy and chick, a narwhal family, a pair of penguin mates and a polar bear mama and cub. The latter two are featured in this post.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

What I Used

I am listing all the supplies I’ll use for the 4 ornaments, noting the ones not needed for these two.

These beautiful sequins are a new offering of American Felt and Craft!

These beautiful sequins are a new offering of American Felt and Craft!

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

Penguin Mates

 After I cut out all my pieces, I tacked them into place on white felt with a thin layer of felt glue. I cut a wavy strip of white felt for the snowy ground and tacked it down across the bottom. Then I trimmed down the background felt so there was just a small edge around the penguins.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

For the penguins, the heart and the top of the snowy ground, I stitched all the edges down with matching floss. (I use 2 strands.) I stitched crystal sequins randomly onto the snowy ground using 2 stitches each.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears  Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

On the white background, I stitched snowflakes: a plus sign shape of four stitches, all stitched towards the center, then four more longer stitches on the diagonal in between.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

I cut a length of red ribbon and a piece of orange whip (coral orange) felt to fit as the ornament’s backing. I stitched all the way around, adding stuffing halfway and catching the ribbon loop in the top. I used a blanket stitch.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

Polar Bear Mama & Cub

After I cut out all my pieces,  I cut a wavy strip of sparrow (light blue) felt for the snowy ground and tacked it down across the bottom dolphin (grayish teal) felt with a thin layer of felt glue. Then I tacked down the remaining pieces, only sticking the base of ear ear down. I trimmed down the background felt so there was just a small edge around the polar bears.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

For the polar bears, the heart, the scarves and the top of the snowy ground, I stitched all the edges down with matching floss. (I use 2 strands.) I stitched crystal sequins randomly onto the snowy ground using 2 stitches each. For the ears, I made three small stitches in the base of each so the rest of the ear could stick up. On the mama’s scarf, I stitched coral sequins. I stitched dragonfly sequins onto the cub’s. At the bottom of each scarf, I made 4 upside-down V stitches as tassels. The polar bear’s noses are satin stitched. Their mouths are straight stitches. For the eyes, I made a curved stitch, then tacked the curve in place with a teenie tiny stitch wrapped around the center, much like you’d do with the lazy daisy stitch.

Polar Family Felt Ornament Patterns - Penguins & Polar Bears

I cut a length of red ribbon and a piece of lemongrass (green-yellow) felt to fit as the ornament’s backing. I stitched all the way around, adding stuffing halfway and catching the ribbon loop in the top. I used a blanket stitch.

Are you an Etsy or craft fair seller? Would you like to sell these ornaments, or any other item sewn from an Imagine Our Life pattern? Visit my Etsy shop and contact me for custom commercial licenses. All authorized sellers get featured on the website.

If you make one of these ornaments, I’d love to see it! Stop by our Facebook page, or mention me @iolstephanie on Instagram or Twitter. (If you are private on Instagram, I’ll have to request to follow you to see it.) Happy holiday crafting!

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

After a bit of a hiatus for other projects, our continent series is back! If you haven’t been introduced to our Montessori wall map and quiet book yet, you can read all about it here. This post is for the continent of Asia.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Every continent (and the oceans) will have landmarks and animals. Some, like Europe, have more landmarks than animals. Asia has a mix of landmarks and animals. Lots of variety, thanks to the large area is spans.

Overview and Map PatternsAfricaAntarctica • Asia • Europe
North AmericaOceansSouth America

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

All of our pieces so far!

A quick note: Imagine Our Life is now selling commercial licenses for our patterns! If you are an Etsy or Craft fair seller, visit my Etsy shop to purchase a license and start selling items made from IOL designs. You will be featured on our Authorized Sellers page and promoted on Facebook once you start listing products. If you don’t see a pattern listed that you’d like to get a license for, just email me your request. All of our free patterns will remain free for personal use.

Those of you who follow along on Facebook or Instagram have been seeing what I’ve been creating for Asia. I included 3 great landmarks and 8 animals. It’s a lot, but Asia is big! I made: the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Big Buddha of Lan Tau, a tiger, a panda, a walrus, a brown bear, a tapir, a snow leopard, a peafowl and an arctic fox.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

This project is totally free for you to use (though commercial use requires a license.) If you’d like to support my designs, one way is to make a purchase off of Jax’s Amazon wishlist. I use his list to bookmark school and craft items until I am able to get them. For more ways to contribute to this site, visit my support page.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Materials I Used

The Pattern (see the first post for the main patterns)

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Felt from American Felt & Craftrubber duckie [yellow] cilantro [olive green], pastry [golden taupe], pool party [blue], gold nugget [gold], chocolate [deep brown], fresh linen [off white], chai [taupe], orange juice [orange], doe [brown], jade [green], sparrow [light blue], stone [heather taupe], graywhite and black.

Hook & Loop – I used white snag-free Velcro on the backs of all these pieces and yellow hook & loop (loop only) on the front of the Asia puzzle piece. My yellow hook & loop was a mix of this and some other I had in my stash.

Felt glue to tack down the pieces before sewing, printer fabric for the continent label, embroidery floss in colors to match the felt and micro tip scissors.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

For the Asia quiet book page, I sewed a running stitch (dashed) outline around the Asia pattern piece and sewed down snag-free Velcro to line up with the Velcro on the back of the Asia piece.

Asia: (Felt used: rubber duckie yellow) For the Asia continent puzzle piece, I sewed down pieces of yellow loop Velcro. On the back, I sewed strips of white snag-free Velcro to correspond with the Velcro in the quietbook and the wall map. I finished it by sewing the two sides together around the edge with a blanket stitch.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Label: (Felt used: rubber duckie yellow) For the continent label, I folded under the edges (just a tiny bit to hide the rough edges) and creased it with my nails. The printer fabric held the folds nicely without ironing. Then I stitched the label to some yellow felt and trimmed it down to be a border. I cut a matching felt rectangle for the back, sewed snag-free Velcro to it and then sewed both sides together.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

For all of the animals, I started by gluing the pieces down to a scrap of background felt with a very light amount of felt glue. I glue multiple animals at a time to give them time to dry. I sewed them down, trimmed the background and cut a matching backing piece. I sewed snag-free Velcro to the back and sewed both sides together with a blanket stitch.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with PrintablesArctic Fox: (Felt used: fresh linen off-white for the fox, white for the background) I started out by gluing the body down with the back legs and ear layered behind in place. I glued the front ear on last. On the ears, I made small stitches in the bottom center of each in an ecru floss. I emphasized his pointed ears by stitching around the outer edges of each ear with a lazy daisy stitch that is open at the bottom. I stitched the legs down normally, then stitched the body with longer, closer stitches than normal in a gray floss. I made many dashed ecru stitches on his side to show the fox’s fluffy coat. On the tail, I made many long stitches around the edges and in the center with a mix ecru and gray. His nose and mouth are black stitches. His eye is a black French knot with a little stitch off of one side.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Tiger: (Felt used: orange juice orange and white for the body and cilantro olive green for the background) The tiger has intricate stitching, just like the zebra for Africa. After I sewed all around her body and stitched down the white patches, I made a French knot eye with a black stitch coming our of it down towards the nose, a black stitch for a mouth and a stitch at the base of the ear.. Then, using black floss, I stitched on the stripes, using photos as inspiration. The stripes were stitched almost in a kind of satin stitch (where you fill in an area with stitched that all go in one direction). I just kept added stitches to widen the lines, often at angles to make them slightly triangular. The tail had thicker satin stitched stripes.

Tapir: (Felt used: black and white for the body and cilantro olive green for the background) I first glued down all her parts in the proper order, adding the ear last. I stitched all the way around the edges and made a stitch at the base of her ear. Using white, I made a French knot eye and stitched mouth.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Snow Leopard: (Felt used: gray for the body and white for the background) I glued the gray body of the jaguar with his far legs layered underneath. I glued one side of his ear down, then added a stitch to hold it once it was dry. I gave him a French knot eye with little black stitches on either side to make a cat-eye shape. I used black to make a mouth and a small nose. For the spots, I made the larger ones using a similar technique to the lazy daisy stitch (a loop of thread that is pinned down by a small stitch at the peak) but used arch shapes instead of closed loops. The smaller stitches are just tiny stitches – some with a few close together to make medium spots. There is thicker satin stitch at the tip of his tail.

Panda: (Felt used: black and white for the body and cilantro olive green for the background) I first glued down all her parts in the proper order, adding the ear last. I stitched all the way around the edges and made a stitch at the base of her ear. Using white, I made a French knot eye and stitched mouth.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Peafowl: (Felt used: cilantro olive green for the tail, pastry golden taupe for the beak, pool party blue for the body, gold nugget gold for the feather “eyes” and jade green for the background) I started by gluing the brown under tail, the olive green tail, the blue body and the beak – in that order. I stitched around all the edges (I actually stitched around the tail last.) I cut lots of tiny gold ovals and tacked them down in arched rows on the tail. Using matching gold floss, I stitched an open lazy daisy stitch to highlight the oval shapes. I then made a few short blue stitched at the base of each oval. I made a blue French knot eye and three little stitches atop his head with French Knots capping them for his head feathers. I stitched simple stick legs/feet using gray floss.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Walrus: (Felt used: fresh linen off-white for the tusk, doe brown for the body and white for the background) I started by gluing the body down with the tusk layered underneath. I stitched around the edges, then made some longer stitches to show his wrinkled skin and flipper/tail webbing. His eye is a black French knot.

Brown Bear: (Felt used: chocolate deep brown for the body and stone heather taupe for the background) The bear is very simple. The pieces were tacked down in place with felt glue, then I sewed all around the edges. I made a stitch at the base of the ear to hold it down, a black French knot eye, stitched mouth and a little satin stitched nose.

IMG_3204Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Sewing the Landmarks

For all the landmarks, I started by sewing the front piece. Then I cut out a backing felt to match the final shape and added some snag-free Velcro to it. I finished sewed around the whole edge, switching colors where needed. For all of the detail work, see the photos for a sample of where to stitch.

Taj Mahal: (Felt used: fresh linen off-white for the building and foreground and sparrow blue for the background) I glued down the building and the four towers, then glued a strip of the same color overlapping the bottom.  I stitched around all the edges (only along the top of the foreground strip) then did decorative stitching in white and taupe. I mainly used long stitches, but all the arches are lazy daisy stitches with open bottoms. Once I was done stitching  the design, I trimmed the whole thing close (including through the foreground strip) and finished it off like all the other pieces.

Great Wall of China: (Felt used: chai taupe for the wall and sparrow blue for the background) I glued down the wall, then used a contrasting brown floss to stitch down alternating sides of the wall stretches. (See the photo above.) This makes the little notches in the top of the wall. I also used the brown thread to stitch tiny doors, windows and the roof edges. Using a floss that matched the felt, I stitched down the remaining edges and back stitched a line along the wall for the nearest two segments.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

SafariLTD provided me with these beautiful World Landmarks and Around the World TOOBs. I am working with them to make this project as amazing as possible. All opinions of these products are honest and my own. We are planning an exciting giveaway for you at the end of this project!

The Big Buddha: (Felt used: doe brown for the statue, chai taupe for the stairs,jade green for the mountain and sparrow blue for the background) I started by cutting a domed hill shape out of green and gluing that down. Then I glued the rest in this order: the stairs, the main statue piece, the long arm/hand, the legs, the small hand and the face. I stitched around the edges of the stairs and added a long stitch up the center. I didn’t stitch around the edges of the statue, so be sure you glue it well enough. The lotus flower base is done in lazy daisy stitch. The rest of the details are simple straight stitches. See the photos for placement.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Montessori Asian Animals 3-Part Cards

The series of 3-Part cards I am making for this project is something that Jax will be using for many years in homeschool. I have been focusing on the animals here, but at the end of the project I will make a set featuring all the landmarks we sewed. eventually, we will expand our collection of cards even more to include cultures, more landmarks, and so much more. Three part cards are extremely flexible learning tools.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Click here to download my free pdf file to make your own animals of Asia cards. To make mine, I cut them out, glued them to yellow construction paper (to match Asia’s Montessori color) then laminated them. I heart laminator! It makes everything so shiny and strong! My photos come out slightly blah from the printer (I use normal paper) but turn gorgeous after lamination.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Our main way of using the cards for now is to pull out our SafariLTD’s TOOB figurines and  match them to the pictures. We like to watch short videos about an animal, then study some pictures and draw our own. The TOOBs we used for these animal cards are: Rainforest (tapir), Wild Toob (tiger, brown bear), Arctic Toob (arctic fox, walrus) and Pandas Toob (panda). Unfortunately, there are no TOOB animals available (yet!) for the peacock/peafowl and snow leopard. I also used an orangutan from the Monkeys and Apes Toob for the cards.

SafariLTD kindly provided the World Landmark TOOB, Around the World TOOB, peacock replica and snow leopard replica for this continent. We are working with them to make this project the best is can be!

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Exploring Asia’s Animals

We are once again making use of my The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide book! It is very easy for us to flip through to find our animals. While it doesn’t have every animal in the world, it has a LOT of them. The illustrations are very pretty, and there are a lot of facts and little maps with the animals’ territories.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables  Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Jax and I will be using it to match up with our 3-part cards or our SafariLTD figurines and read more about the animals. We also use my iPad with YouTube to watch short video clips.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

I actually didn’t know until starting this project that peacocks are really peafowls. The males are peacocks and the females are peahens. I’m learning so much homeschooling Jax! I love how this page shows both the peafowl and peahen so we can explore the differences.

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

I know many of you are sewing along (or about to!) If you are, stop by my Instagram @iolstephanie and leave a comment on one of my photos (I can’t see your photo if it you are private, but I can request to follow you temporarily if you leave a comment on mine about it) or share photos on Facebook. You can also email me. I love seeing others’ take on my patterns!

Animals of Asia for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Please be sure to visit the other ideas featured on Montessori Monday. There are many great links!

Montessori Monday

 

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

I love making homeschool materials for Jax with bright, colorful photos. I normally make Montessori-style 3-part cards: One card with a photo and a label, one card with just a photo and one with just the label.

Lately Jax hasn’t been quite as drawn to them, so I decided to change things up. I’m starting a mini fruits and vegetables unit, so I put together these beautiful photo and word puzzles.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

Fruit & Veggie Word Puzzles

To create the puzzles, I printed them on normal paper. You could use card stock for added strength. I cut out each puzzle, but left the pieces together before running them through the laminator. (I have this one, and I love it!)

Here’s a quick tip for when you have a lot of little pieces to laminate: a little dot of glue stick on the back of each item will keep everything straight as you run them through the machine. This has saved me a lot of reprints! It’s just the worst when things slide around and overlap.

Once laminated, I cut each puzzle into individual pieces. I normally cut things prior to laminating in order to have a clear edge around all sides. But I wanted the puzzles to fit together without gaps.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

I am presenting three puzzles at a time, starting with them separated. Later on I can change them out or even mix a couple puzzles together for him to sort.

I’ve included some control versions of each puzzle without the cut lines and extra letter spacing.

Do you want to make your own? You can get the fruit and veggie word puzzle printable here.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

Farmer’s Market Matching

This farmer’s market matching activity is a quiet book page I made for Jax about a year ago. I love pulling quiet book pages out of the school closet when they match our current theme.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

This page features a big basket of veggies (and fruit, if you want to get technical!) that need to be sorted into their proper bins and barrels in the farmer’s market. There are hand painted tags that Jax looks at to figure out which goes where. I made sure to include word puzzles in our printable that match the veggies in this activity, so they tie together.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

If you’d like the free pattern to make your own farmer’s market quiet book page, you can find everything you need here.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

Fruit & Veggie Chopping

I’ve started letting Jax help chop his apples and cucumbers at lunchtime. This is a big part of Montessori for 3-year-olds. They really focus on Practical Life activities. Activities like chopping help with fine motor skills needed to grip a pencil and write. In addition to chopping real food at meal times, Jax has some fruit and veggie chopping toy sets.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

We have the Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden Cutting Fruit Crate and the Hape Playfully Delicious Garden Vegetables Play Set. I really love the look of the Hape set. Can you believe I found that at the grocery store for $3.50?! I also used food from some of our other play sets to match our puzzles. Out broccoli came from this Deluxe Cookware Set. The peas are from the Melissa & Doug Stir Fry Slicing Set. That one is another chopping set.

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

Other Activities

We’ll be bringing out our fruit patterns and sorting pie. That pie is always a huge hit!

I really love a lot of the activities from this Farm unit by Stay At Home Educator, including the fruit sorting math and seed collage. Fantastic Fun and Learning has a lot of vegetable unit links. And check out the ideas and beautiful photos at Katherine Marie’s.

We have this really cute book that we read in preparation for a trip to an apple orchard. We’ve been making (and planning!) a lot of apple recipes, including apple pie and this apple cake.

Here is a Pinterest-ready photo for you!

Fruit and Vegetable Word Puzzles

It’s Montessori Monday! Be sure to check out all the other great homeschool ideas linked up throughout the week!

Montessori Monday

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Jax loves music. He LOVES it. If any song comes on, whether he’s heard it before or not, he is singing along. I’ve been collecting musical instruments for him, mainly from the thrift store. He loves to ask me to put music on for him while he “plays” along on his guitar or drums.

Arts are important in our family. I grew up in music and art. I have a Bachelors in Art Studio. My husband played in bands growing up and deejay-ed for years. We definitely want Jax to have strong roots in the arts from an early age.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Since Jax is only 3.5 years old, I needed to think of both his manual dexterity and his emotional maturity right now when planning our music homeschool unit. I needed something that he could use easily so that the frustration of not being able to make a note correctly was not a concern. I chose handbells. They are available in color-coded educational sets aimed to help children learn which bell plays which note. Music + Rainbows? Jax’s idea of heaven!

There are other choices that still let you start with color-coded notes (just make sure you are happy with the colors the instrument uses!) like a xylophone or Boomwhackers.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Thanks to my aunt, who values how dear music is to our family, Jax got his started handbell set. I chose the Kids Play Rhythm Band 8 Note Handbell Set because add-on sets were available should we need them in the future. They also use fairly standard colors.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Introducing Handbells

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and PrintablesWe started our music unit with some 3-part cards introducing musical instruments. Jax already recognized most of them, so it was mainly a review.

When our bells arrived, I started by presenting two bells on a tray with a mat and matching cards showing where each bell’s note is on the music staff. I showed him how the bells’ colors and letters match the cards, then we practiced sounding the bells and switching between the two notes. We moved on to playing the note on the card I held up. He had no problems, so I let him have a third bell. With all three matching note cards, we made patterns to play.

We continued on this way, earning a new bell about once a week. It took us about 2 months to work up to the full set of 8 bells. (He actually earned the last one the day we took photos.) I always include a rolled up felt mat on the handbell tray. Jax knows we have to unroll it and place it on the table for the bells. When playing the handbells, setting them on the mat dampens (cuts off) the ring. We started with two sheets of felt, but now use a long strip the width of our table.

Exploring with Handbells

There are a lot of ways your child can explore music and sound with handbells. Some of the things we’ve done are:

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

• I showed him that he could play two bells at once. We noted that it doesn’t sound good to play two bells that are next to each other at the same time. The discordance was obvious to him, but he hasn’t quite connected yet that skipping a bell when playing two at once sounds better. This is something I encourage him to explore.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

• We play find the bell – I ask him for a certain color/number/letter note and he plays it. When I ask for the lower C bell, I call it “middle C” (named for its position on a piano. The higher C is our newest bell, and I will be calling it “treble C”. You can also hold up the musical note cards and have them play the right bell.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

• Composing music can be done by preschoolers! Taking a cue from Montessori’s moveable alphabet, you can have the notes ready for your child to place on the music staff. Using control cards to help them place them on the correct line, they can arrange some notes and play their composition. My music notes are made of felt and involved no sewing for once!

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and PrintablesNew-Sew Felt Music Staff

Materials:

Start by cutting out your ovals. You need 8 red and 4 each of orange, yellow, green, aqua, indigo and violet. Using the narrow part of your paintbrush, sketch your letter onto the oval with fabric paint. By starting thin, you can adjust the size of your final letter: if you drew it too small, paint the final thick lines towards the outside of your sketch. If you drew it too big, paint the final lines towards the inside. I used the full width of my size 8 flat brush to make the final painted letters. This kept the lines a consistent width.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Take 4 of your red C’s and cut strips of black ribbon an inch wider than the oval. Coat the entire top of the ribbons trip with felt glue (including the raw edges to keep them from fraying.) Center the oval on top, press it down and allow it to dry. This adds ledger lines to the middle C’s that go below the staff.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Cut out as many rests as you’d like. I have two quarter rests for now. I’ve included the rectangle needed to make half and whole rests.

To make the staff, cut a 12″ strip out of your 36″ wide felt. You can adjust the width to suit your needs. 36″ is the width of our school table. You could even use the full 36″ x 36″ felt piece and make 3 rows of staff lines if you have room to lay or hang something that large. Using the spacing guide, glue 5 strips of ribbon down to the felt and allow it to dry before use. make sure you allow enough room at the bottom for middle C’s ledger line to be properly spaced.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

For now I am presenting the notes in a bowl with matching control cards and the rolled up staff chart. I think we will do some games in the future with matching and sorting the notes to each other and to the control cards.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Preschool Handbells Music Unit Printables

I have a lot of printables for this unit – many I haven’t even started using yet. Before I use them, each printable will get laminated. I also like to mount my 3-part cards to colored paper or card stock prior to laminating.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Colored Music Note Control Cards

These cards show the position of each of the notes used in the 8 note handbell set. They are color coded to match the bells. Later I will make a new set that do not have color. Grab the free printable here. (This file was updated on 01/16/14 to fix the wrongly-positioned B. You can also get a page with just the fixed B cards here.)

Music Symbol 3-Part Cards

This is a set of Montessori-style 3-part cards that cover basic music symbols. So far I’ve only given him a few of the cards to start getting used to seeing. You can download the free printable here.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Twinkle, Twinkle & Ode to Joy

I wrote up the music to two fairly easy songs that can be played with the first 6 notes in the handbell set. For now, I play them for him and we use them as reference to set up his felt staff so Jax can play small excerpts. You can grab the song sheets here.

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

We are having so much fun with our music unit! Have you done any music homeschool lessons with your preschooler? I’m excited to see where Jax goes with music as he grows older.

Here is a Pinterest ready picture for you!

Preschool Handbells: New-Sew Felt Musical Notes and Printables

Visit Montessori Monday on Living Montessori Now for more great homeschool ideas!

Montessori Monday

Make the World’s Best Robot Costume!

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

While I’m sure there are more spectacular versions out there, seeing Jax in his homemade LED robot costume rocks my world! I mean, seriously? The cutest! Jax can’t wait for Halloween, and neither can I!

Last year for Halloween, Jax was a train engineer wearing a cardboard and duct tape train I made with dollar store supplies. And it was fab! In fact, Jax loved it so much that it took me 6 months to convince him it was okay to be something new next year. When he chose to be a robot, I did a happy dance! While cardboard robot costumes are great, I wanted to sew this year. And because I love e-textiles so much, I was ready to go all out!

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Exhibit A: Jaxbot3000. Cute overload imminent!

I’m going to do my best to explain everything I did to create this costume. I will include the supplies I used in each section, but there will also be a master list sorted by purchase location at the bottom of the post. Fabric yardages and product counts are the totals for what I bought. I do have leftovers of everything but the fleece. Please feel free to contact me with questions. I’m easiest to reach via message on our Facebook page.

Prototype & Prime Directive

This costume uses a combination of LEDs sewn with conductive thread, ready-made LED components and glow sticks. There is a plain shirt and pants set with a decorated tunic/jumper for the main body that is worn on top.

The back of the body includes a sound-activated LED faux-equalizer. The head is a soft helmet-style hat with some decorations and LEDs. In addition, I got Jax a souvenir space laser toy on an outing. It matches the retro styling perfectly.

Manipulator Arms & Dynamic Locomotion Limbs

Supplies: silver pleather (~ 1.5 yd.)

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!Also known as the arms and legs! For Jax’s costume, I sewed a very basic long sleeve shirt and pants set using a silver metallic pleather. I requested 1 yard and was given about 0.8 yds more for an additional 50% off because it was the end of the bolt.) As it is a non-stretch fabric, I had to keep that in mind while sewing the top.

The pants are very simple, made in an elastic-waist pajama style. You can find many toddler pajama pant patterns online. I cut my own pattern by tracing Jax’s existing pants and adding extra for seam allowances and wiggle room. Simple pants are actually very easy to sew!

For my shirt, I used a toddler long sleeve t-shirt pattern from here. It just happened to be the right size for Jax. Because my fabric is non-stretch, I made a long slit going down from the back neck. You could add a hook and eye closure, but I haven’t bothered so far. Getting the shirt on takes a little shoulder wiggling, but work just fine for us. You might want to wait to finish the slit’s edge until after trying on the shirt. That way you could make it long enough for ease of dressing. If you go with a stretch fabric, then you don’t need to worry about a slit.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Central External Casing Assembly

Supplies: dm red anti pill fleece (~ 0.5 yd.), batting (~ 1 yd., from stash) silver rope trim (unknown, from stash), clear vinyl (scraps), reflective sew-in piping (2 packs), red velcro (6″)

Otherwise know as the main body! I started designing the body by measuring Jax. I knew I wanted it to be boxy, so I took measurements based on where I wanted it to hang. I sketched out my idea and noted the measurements. I designed it to be narrower at the top and slightly a-line at the bottom, but still keeping a very boxy shape. The shoulder straps are double thickness and Velcro to front to make it easy to step into.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Chest: (This is sewn on my machine.) I cut one layer of fleece and two layers of batting for each of the 4 body pieces. On the top and bottom edges, I cut the batting slightly smaller so I could just fold the fleece in over the batting and hem. I didn’t bother to line the body, as I was saving on fleece and Jax will be wearing the shirt underneath (to spare him from the itchy batting.)

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I folded over the tops and bottoms of each section (towards the inside where the batting was) and hemmed them and top stitched to make a double seam. Then, lining up the bottoms, I sewed the four sides together into a rectangular tube. Along the bottom, I attached some of the reflective piping as a trim by folding over the piping seam allowance and zigzag stitching over it. At the top, I sewed two 3″ strips of Velcro, one on each end of the front panel. These are for the straps.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

At the sides of the front and back panels, I tried added a double seam along the sides to give the body sharper corners. But what worked better was pinching the seams into corners and hand stitching through all the layers to hold the pinch in place. I did this at the tops and bottoms of each corner.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Straps: (This is sewn on my machine.) For each strap, I cut two pieces of fleece and two pieces of batting. To sew a strap, I laid two pieces of fleece with right sides facing, then added two pieces of fleece on one side. I stitched around both long sides and one short side. I turned it right side out, then top stitched around the three sewn edges, pausing at the top of the strap to add Velcro. I repeated for the other strap. Lining the straps up with the Velcro on the body, I pinned and sewed them in place.

Arm Hole Trim: (This was hand sewn.) I then added silver metallic rope trim from my sewing stash all the way around the arm hole, including the outer edge of each strap. I just folded the ends of the rope towards the inside of the costume and stitched them down.

How to: Make LEDs Sewable

I chose to go with regular LEDs (as opposed to ones mounted to sewable boards) for two reasons: they are much cheaper and I love the large, domed look of them. But because they aren’t intended to be sewn, you need to do a little “jewelry making” to prepare them.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

An important note about LEDs: the longer wire is the positive wire! The shorter wire is the negative wire. You have to connect the correct sides to you battery’s two sides, or else your circuit will fail. To keep the sides distinct but still create a way to sew them on, it helps to curl the positive wire into a round coil and the negative side into a square coil. I used two jewelry making pliers to do it. You’ll need to do this for every LED you sew, but it is very quick. Sew the photo tutorial above to learn how to prepare your LEDs for sewing.

If you plan to mount the LEDs with the wires hidden, cut holes in your fabric (use Fray Check if needed on the hole’s edge) and sew the wires to the back side with the LED dome sticking through. I felt my wires went well with the robot look. I did mount my battery holders to the back side for both aesthetics and safety.

How to: Create E-Textile Circuits

Sewing circuits for your LEDs is easy, I promise! Let me show you the basics, so you are able to easily understand my circuit plans. Disclaimer: I am not an electrician! My programmer brother helped me to understand the basics over the course of all my e-textile projects. I’ll be explaining in non-technical terms.

Basic circuit examples.

Basic circuit examples.

Both the battery and your LEDs have positive and negative sides. Both sides need to be correctly connected to work. Take a look at the examples above to get an idea of how LED circuits work. You are basically making a chain going away from the battery. You must have separate lines for the + and – connections, and the cannot touch or you will short your circuit.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!When you are making a simple line of LEDs, you can see how easy it is to sew your circuits. It gets a little trickier when you start arranging the LEDs into different shapes. It helps to sketch out your plan so you can be sure you have a clear path for each line that doesn’t touch or cross. Additionally, you need to consider the voltage your LEDs run on. This is something new I had to learn through experimenting this time! My red, orange and yellow LEDs ran on a lower voltage than my green, blue and pinks. (I’m very glad my LEDs came with a chart that helped me piece together the problem!) While my batteries appropriate for either, if I added a lower voltage LED to a chain with higher ones, the voltage was dropped down to the point where the higher ones turned off. With that in mind, I had to separate out my LEDs based on voltage.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!Here is my final plan for the LEDs on Jaxbot’s chest panel. My little man loves rainbows, so I made a rainbow. I had to keep the green/blue/pink separate from the other colors. I kept the color-change LEDs separate, then did all the red/orange/yellows together. Notice how each circuit is a chain, even if I had to stitch around the battery holder to get to my first LED.

I started the chest panel by cutting a rectangle of gray vinyl that fit well on the front of the body.
Mine was [6.5″ x 8″]. I rounded the corners.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Color Change Power Tubes

Supplies: circuit plans, LED – 5mm Cycling RGB (slow) x4, Coin Cell Battery Holder – 20mm SewableConductive Thread Bobbin, Light Pipe – White Core (3.5mm, 1′ long), plastic glow bracelet connectors, reflective tape

Special Tools: round nose pliers, jeweller’s pliers, super glue, sand paper

Color Change LEDs with Ropes: (All LED work is hand sewn with conductive thread.) I prepped the 4 “slow change” RGB LEDs for sewing. These are special LEDs from SparkFun that slowly cycle through different colors. When combined with fiber optic light rope (which lights up when LEDs shine into the ends), the effect is super cool!

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!
To sew my circuit, I positioned my battery holder in place on the back of my vinyl and taped across the center to hold it. I threaded my needle with conductive thread, knotted the end and made about 5 stitches on the positive side of the holder (you’ll see a plus on it). Following my circuit plan, I stitched the positive line around to the first LED. I flipped to the right side of the vinyl, then stitched several times through the positive loop of the first LED. I then stitched to the next LED and repeated until I had all the LEDs sewn down through their positive loops. I tied off my conductive thread and started a new one. I then repeated the whole process, starting on the negative side of the battery holder and working my way around to each LED, sewing through their negative loops. When both lines are complete, you can pop in a battery to test it. (Note that I had an older version of the circuit plans in these photos, but it is the same.)

 I sewed a strip of reflective tape in between the LEDs for a little extra flash.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!
To make the “power tubes” glow, I started by sanding the surface of two lengths of light rope. Sanding the surface causes more light to “leak” out, which makes them look brighter. I cut one of my pieces a little longer than the other using sharp scissors so they could criss-cross. For each tube, I took one of the little drinking-straw-like connectors that come with glow bracelets. The perfectly fit my 5mm LEDs! I used 3mm light rope so it would be more flexible, so I couldn’t just still the rope into the connectors. I took Super Glue and put a pea-sized glob on each end, then stuck them into the connectors. I made sure they were at the angle they’d need to be when on the LEDs. After drying overnight, they were ready to stick onto the LEDs.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Controller Button Pad

Supplies: circuit plans, 5mm Assorted Clear LEDs (8 Colors, Pack of 80), Coin Cell Battery Holder – 20mm SewableConductive Thread BobbinButton Pad 2×2 – LED CompatibleButton Pad 2×2 Top Bezel, 4 jewelry making head pins, 4 beads, reflective sew-in piping

Special Tools: round nose pliers, jeweller’s pliers, super glue, sand paper

SparkFun sells so many great components to go along with LEDs. The majority are meant for traditional LED use, but I’m crafty – I knew I could adapt them! I absolutely had to have an LED button pad on Jaxbot. The button pads are molded white silicone with domes that go over the LEDs. Then you add the black plastic bezel over top (I skipped the bottom bezel.)

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I first sewed the battery holder and LEDs in place according to my plan. This section shares a battery with the first half of the rainbow above, so I needed to stitch down a ways from it. You need to be fairly precise with the the LED placement so they fit into the button pad grid. Using ssss decorated with red beads, I attached the button pad to the vinyl through the 4 corner holes. I used a sew needle to punch a hole for the wire, then used jeweler’s pliers to bend the wires into a coil.

For a more finished look, I sewed some reflective piping around the edge of the button pad, tucking the seam allowance towards the pad to hide it.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Rainbow Central Processing Unit

Supplies: circuit plans, 5mm Assorted Clear LEDs (8 Colors, Pack of 80), Coin Cell Battery Holder – 20mm SewableConductive Thread Bobbin, large heart sequin, nail polish

I had to include a rainbow since I had the right colors. Jax loves them! (There is an LED in the set that seems like it is violet. It is actually ultraviolet – think blacklight – and not as bright as the others. I used the pink instead.)

When sewing the LED circuits for the rainbow, you have to do them in two parts. The red, orange and yellow LEDs will become a second chain coming off of the button pad’s battery. You then need to start a new battery holder and LED chain for the green, blue and pink LEDs.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Circuits are sewn, but ow, that green is bright!!

One thing you might notice if you scroll back up and look at the LED chart, is that the green’s millicandela (mcd) is higher than most of the others. The mcd is a measurement of the LED’s intensity. Woo, that green is painfully bright! I tried various things with the circuits, such as adding a resistor, but ultimately I called on my craftiness again.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I grabbed to dark gray nail polish I’d just bought and coated the top 1/3 of the green LED with it. I thought for sure it would dim it too much, but it was perfect! (The LED set I got comes with 10 of each color, so it was easy to do some testing to see what worked. I started with a sheer glitter polish, but the very dark one was what I needed.)

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I sewed a large heart sequin (from the thrift store) under the rainbow.

Here is my circuit plan overlaid on top of a photo of my circuits. You can tell where my LEDs are by the thick clumps of stitching. You can also see the attachment points of the two knobs, which I will explain next.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Volume Control and Power Level Adjustment Knobs

Supplies: Red Knob – 15x19mm (2), shank-back buttons (2), wire scraps

Special Tools: round nose pliers, super glue

The knobs I chose are red and smaller that you might guess. But they are adorable and just the right scale for Jaxbot. They also come in black. They are intended to be placed onto a post that has a screw hole in the side, so you can screw the knob on and the whole this rotates. I had to be crafty to get mine attached but still able to turn.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I ended up digging through my button jar to find two shank-back buttons that were slightly smaller than the indent in the back of the knobs. I used super glue to attach them and let them dry overnight. Using sharp scissors, I cut a hole in my vinyl. Then I used a scrap of wire to hold them in place on the back side.

Communications Center

Supplies: scrolling LED name badge

I’m all about simple and inexpensive when possible. There was no way I’d be able to figure out programing my own LED display (though SparkFun certainly sells what you’d need!) I knew that LED name badges existed, so I started searching Amazon. When I found one for $10 from the same seller I was getting my LED equalizer (I’ll tell you about that soon!), I decided to try it despite the 1 star review. I always read product reviews, but that one’s only complaint was that it was hard to figure out.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I was expecting instructions in broken English and a unit that took 2 weeks to figure out. I seriously understood it in a minute. Read my Amazon review at the link above for more details. This badge is held on by a magnet panel. I placed it between the knobs.

Details and Attachment

Supplies: printables, photo fabric, gray felt, red felt, silver pleather scraps, square sequins, reflective sew-in piping, wire scraps, seed beads, tiny red button

Special Tools: round nose pliers

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I added some details to the chest panel next: a row of square sequins; some felt gears with silver pleather circles sewn in the centers. Then I hand stitched some reflective piping around the whole edge. Using my sewing machine, I sewed two tall, skinny clear vinyl pockets for glow bracelets, leaving enough room for the control panel to be in the middle.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Final placement of the panel and Dial. Everything in the dark. Everything in a flash/headlights.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!I printed out the printables onto photo fabric then cut out the front dial with a 0.5″ seam allowance. I added a layer of white felt behind the photo fabric before folding back the seam allowance. This gives it dimension and keeps you from seeing the folds through the fabric. I folded under the allowance and pinned the dial in place with a strip of reflective piping along the curve. I hand stitched along the curve to sew it to the chest.

I then laid the control panel in place at the bottom of the dial, and hand stitched along its piping on the top edge to attach it to the chest as a big flap. You need to be able to get to the back side of the panel to insert batteries, so I added 4 sew-on snaps to hold it in place (bottom corners and one on each side.)

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

To make the dial’s needle, I made a loop at the end of a piece of wire, then loaded it up with red seed beads. When it was nearly long enough, I made another loop to hold the beads in place. I then placed it on the dial and sewed a button on, making my stitches all go through the bottom loop of the dial needle. This lets the needle turn. You may want to curve it in towards the chest a bit so it doesn’t flop down.

Midpoint Illumination Band

Supplies: LED shoelaces (only used one of them)

Also known as the glow belt! When I saw LED shoelaces in Target’s Dollar Spot, I grabbed a pair in red. I wasn’t sure what I would do with them, but they are basically a cheaper version of fiber optic light rope. If you can’t find them at Target, amazon has similar items.

I turned one of the shoelaces into a belt. It was just the right size! I just had to find the point on the A-line shirt that it was a perfect fit. Then I made little stitches around the tubing to hold it in place. The little power unit is not actually attached to the shirt. It is held in place by the tubes, but you can also pop it off to change the battery.

Audio Input Visualizer

Supplies: LED sound-activated equalizer panel, black elastic scrap, red fleece scrap

I definitely wanted the back of Jaxbot to light up, but I didn’t want to have to wire LEDs on both sides. I knew I’d seen sound-activated LED t-shirts before, so I did some hunting. It turns out, you can purchase the LED panels separately from the shirts for $7! It does need you need music or noise to have the panel light up. I plan to load my phone up with robotic songs and keep a custom Jaxbot soundtrack going as we trick-or-treat. Loud voices can trigger it as well.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

There isn’t a lot you need to do to the panel. You do need to make sure you plug it in correctly. The plug isn’t labeled and if you do it upside-down it with light up oddly. It comes with sticky Velcro (ugh, always annoying!) that you can press in place. I found it didn’t stick that great, so I spent an uncomfortable hour stitching mine down with an old needle. I threw the needle out afterwards, as it was all sticky. You may want to ditch their Velcro and use the sew-on kind (loop side). I added some black felt scraps to fill in the corners of the panel area, then surrounded it with reflective piping.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I cut a slit in the tunic and fed the cord through. I basted a scrap of fleece inside so I could keep the excess cord neat and out of Jax’s way. I clipped the sensor unit to the back collar and added some elastic to keep it from flopping.

Fuel Cells

Supplies: printables, glow braid, clear vinyl, glow tubes (red and blue)

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

To decorate one side panel of the body, I machine sewed a clear vinyl pocket with a divider in the center. I made the two sections large enough to hold standard glow stick tubes. I took the “fuel cell” printable and stitched over the letters with glow-in-the-dark braid.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

You could leave your printout as-is, but I was running out of yellow ink and mine printed too dark. I stitched the label in place above the pockets. When we put the costume on, I activate two glow tubes to act as our fuel cells!

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Fuel Gauge

Supplies: printables, photo fabric, reflective sew-in piping, white felt, wire scraps, seed beads, tiny red button

Special Tools: round nose pliers

This gauge is made the same way as the one above the control panel, except you add the reflective piping all the way around. I added a layer of white felt behind the photo fabric before folding back the seam allowance. Then I sewed it down with reflective piping, beaded a gauge needle and sewing it on with a button.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Head Encasement Unit

Supplies: printables, dm red anti pill fleece (~ 0.5 yd.), silver pleather (~ 1.5 yd.), batting (~ 1 yd., from stash), gray textured vinyl scraps, mesh tubing, red pompom, large circle sequins (2), reflective sew-in piping (2 packs), photo fabric, red felt, gray felt, pipe cleaner, glow bracelet, sew-on snaps (4), 5mm Assorted Clear LEDs (8 Colors, Pack of 80), Coin Cell Battery Holder – 20mm SewableConductive Thread Bobbin, helmet circuit plans

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

That’s the helmet! I didn’t use a pattern for this. I took basic measurements of how long and wide the top of Jax’s head is, then cut a rounded-corner rectangle slightly larger than that. I cut 1 layer of silver pleather, 2 layers of batting and 1 layer of red fleece. I zigzag stitched all the way around the layers.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I then used a sewing measuring tape to measure the circumference of the of the helmet top (add 1″ for seam allowance) and the height of the distance from the top of Jax’s head to his shoulders (add 1″ for seam allowance) I cut this long rectangle out of 1 layer of silver pleather and 1 layer of red fleece. With right sides facing, I sewed along one of the long sides. I turned it the right way and top stitched along the hem. I then sewed it into a tube, making the fleece the inside, and then sewed the tube to the helmet top.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I cut my face hole afterwards. I used the same rounded rectangle as the top of his helmet. Try making the shape out of paper and holding it up to your child’s face first. Once I cut it, I carefully folded in both layers of the hole’s edge, layering reflective piping between them. I machine sewed it in place, but hand sewing might be easier. It was slow and awkward, and I had to go back and hand stitch some places.

On the right side of the helmet, I sewed two large round sequins, A loop of mesh tubing and a red felt gear with a silver pleather center.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

On the left side of the helmet, I sewed down the dark gauge with the edges folded under. I didn’t line that one. I cut a length of mesh tubing long enough for a glow bracelet and sewed the top end to the helmet.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

I cut two squares of gray felt and cut a hole in the center, large enough for a glow stick to fit through. Then I cut a strip of felt to be a cover over the hole and sewed all around the edges to hole it together. I sewed the other end of the mesh tubing to the top of the felt square (the side without the cover) and sewed four snaps to the bottom. I figured out where I wanted the tube to be positioned and sewed down the other half of the 4 snaps. You’ll have to sacrifice a glow bracelet to get the positioning just right, so be sure you have an extra.

To make the antennae, I folded a pipe cleaner in half and sewed a casing of silver pleather around it. at the top, I sewed on a pompom. I cut out a circle of gray vinyl and made a hole in the center for the antennae. I put the antennae through the hole, sewed the end to the center of the helmet and then sewed down the vinyl circle.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Helmet Circuitry: The helmet circuitry is hard to draw because at one point the lines go up either side of the antennae to an LED sitting on the pompom. Take a close at both the helmet circuit plans and the perspective view above.

I’ll try to explain best I can. I placed the battery holder just outside the gray circle towards the back of the helmet. I sewed the positive side of the holder down with several stitches, then stitched a line out and over to the antennae. On the back side of the antennae, I sewed a line of stitching up to the pompom. Make sure you only go through that side of the pleather so the folded pipe cleaner acts as a barrier between the circuits on each side of the antennae. I brought the positive thread up through the pom pom about 1/3 of the way in from the far side of it and made a few stitches. You can’t stitch super securely on a pom pom, so I tied off and put some Fray check on the stitching. I started another conductive thread and connected it to the positive line at the base of the antennae. I stitched around to the front in an arc and the straight out to the front of the helmet. I stitched through the round positive coil of the orange LED then stitched over to the yellow and did the same. I then stitched back to the orange over top of the stitches I’d just made. It’s fine because it is the same circuit. I continued my stitched out to the red LED, stitching through its round positive coil and tying off.

I started the negative line by stitching several times in the negative side of the battery holder. I stitched out in an arch to the front side of the base of the antennae, making sure to stop before reaching the positive line. I stitched up the antennae along the front side the same way as the positive line, this time attaching the negative side of the LED. I started a new conductive thread and linked it to the negative line at the front base of the antennae. I stitched out parallel to the positive line and then went around the outside of the LEDs as shown, sewing in each of their square negative coils.

I hope that made sense!

And now you should have…

The World’s Best Robot Costume!

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Final Shopping List

Joann’s Fabric

Amazon.com

SparkFun.com

American Felt & Craft

Target

Dollar Store

  • yellow glow bracelets (3)
  • glow tubes (red and blue)

Unknown/Already Owned

  • silver rope trim (unknown, from stash)
  • jewelry making pliers (round and flat)
  • large heart sequin
  • large circle sequins (2)
  • red pompom
  • pipe cleaner
  • shank-back buttons
  • black elastic scrap
  • red seed beads
  • tiny red buttons (2)
  • jewelry making head pins (4) and wire (2 scraps)
  • glow braid

What do you think of Jaxbot 3000? Do you think you are up for the challenge of sewing your own? I’d love to see photos of your little one’s home made costume. Stop by my Facebook page and post a photo to our wall, or tag me in an Instagram photo @iolstephanie.

Make the World's Best Robot Costume!

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

This quiet book page was designed last year, but I ran out of time before autumn ended to actually sew it. This year I made sure to pause my projects and get it finished. We don’t have any trips coming up that require a quiet book, so I especially like making ones that fit in well on our Montessori homeschool shelves. This page certainly does!

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

There are a number of features to this page: practice with snaps (which improves motor skills and the ability to dress yourself), sorting colors,  sorting sizes, and counting.

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

I included three bins with snaps to add number labels. (The labels can also be placed on the trees!) I left it open for Jax to decide how to use the bins. He could potentially put the largest quantity of leaves in the largest bin, or he could put the largest sized leaves in it. This is something you could explore with your child.

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

When you are finished with the page, you can snap the bins to the trees for storage.

What I Used:

This biggest bummer about this project is that I bought the leaf buttons last year, and now they are no longer made by the manufacturer! When I posted to our Facebook page about it, I linked to the one source I had seen so far. But now all 10 packs are sold out.

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

Here are a few non-felt button options you could try. I’m not sure how well sewing a snap to a plastic button would work though. There is a pack of 12 buttons that match the colors and sizes I used, but you’d need multiple packs to have the same number as me. Here is a larger listing of those buttons. This is another brand, but the colors and sizes seem more assorted. There are a number of felt die cut leaves on Etsy, but they all seem to be larger. This seller has some that are 25mm. (Last photo below copyright Planeta Costura.)

etsy

You may be better off cutting out your own out of felt. If you want to skip snaps, you could just cut one layer of felt for each leaf (I recommend thicker wool-blend felt), but be aware they are more likely to get damaged or lost. You could take the time to cut 2 layers per leaf and sew them together. It’s so frustrating that they aren’t sold anymore!

Sewing the Page

Background: I started by cutting everything out and pinning it down: first the ground, then the trunks, then the tree tops (green, red, then yellow). I sewed down the tree trunks, then sewed down the tree tops. Then I sewed down the top edge of the ground that was showing between the trees.

Note: This is how I sew my quiet book pages together. Because I sew all the way around the edge while sewing on the backing, I don’t usually bother to sew elements along the edges of the page.

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

Leaves: For all of the leaf buttons, I used A LOT of stitches to attach snaps to the backs. Then I coated the stitches with Fray Check and let them dry overnight.

Tree Snaps: On the green tree, I sewed down 3 size 1 snaps. I sewed the matching halves to the backs of the green leaf buttons. On the red tree, I sewed 6 size 2/0 snaps on to the tree top and the red leaves. On the yellow tree, I sewed down 9 size 4/0 snaps to the tree top and leaves. Not that I left a 2″ area on the left without snaps to allow for where I sew my binding and add grommets. I have not added grommets yet. I usually do that right before a trip when I need to link pages together.

I added a size 1/0 snap to each tree trunk to hold either the numbers or the bins.

Numbers: I back stitched numbers on the fronts of each number pieces and the other half of those 3 size 1/0 snaps to the backs. Then I sewed them together.

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

Bins: The bins were just sewn together with an open top. I cut mine on a fold so I didn’t have to sew the bottom. I added a snap to each one – one half of the snap set on each side of a bin. These snaps let you either attach the number label or attach the bins to the trees.

Montessori Use

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

This page works well as a Montessori activity for our autumn unit. I adore this wooden leaf tray I found at a thrift store! It is perfect for presenting the leaves or other autumn supplies. I’ve also laid it out in a tray with the leaves spread out on the ground just like Jax finds them outside.

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

Here is our current main shelf of our homeschool room. The bells will be featured in an upcoming post!

Autumn Leaves 3-Part Cards

Autumn Leaves 3-Part Cards

In the Montessori method, 3-part cards are an essential tool that can follow your child through multiple levels of development. They can be used in any subject to aid in adding vocabulary, learning to sort/classify, reading practice and so much more. Three-part cards are made up of two photos – one with a label, one without – as well as a separate label. Younger children start with the labeled card to help them learn the vocabulary. One of the best ways to use them is with small objects that match the photos. Older kids can work with the unlabeled card, matching the correct words or writing their own.

Autumn Leaves 3-Part Cards

I put together a set of 3-part cards for Jax to learn how to recognize various leaves in our area. I used only trees that can be found in our area, but they are very common ones. You are welcome to use my free pdf to make your own set! I am hoping to take our cards out on a walk once more leaves start changing colors so we can match them up. (Our server caching is causing troubles for some people. Here is an alternate download link!)

Autumn Leaves 3-Part Cards

To make mine, I cut them out, glued them to green card stock (this is simply a color I chose to assign to all my future botany collateral) then laminated them. It makes them shiny and strong. I really love my laminator – as everyone told me I would!

Autumn Leaf Watercolors

Autumn Leaf Watercolors

We needed a quick afternoon activity the other day, so I took some watercolor paper and traced some leaves using my artist pen. (For the exact materials and techniques I used, see my recent watercolor post.) Then Jax and I each painted in our leaves with watercolor paints.

Jax was very set on painting his leaves only the proper colors you’d find in nature. He also wanted to add a red sky and green ground (he still does sky and ground as little strips at the edges of the page!)

Autumn Leaf Watercolors

We both ended up with beautiful artwork, worthy of a frame!

For an even quicker activity, print out my free leaf coloring sheet!

Autumn Nature Walk

Autumn Nature Walk

This past weekend was beautiful here in northern Virginia! Jax and I grabbed a basket and set out looking for early autumn treasures. The leaves are just now starting to turn, so we focused mainly on other items.

Autumn Nature Walk

We found all sorts of seeds and acorns, bits of birch bark, leaves and acorns. Jax quickly got into our “treasure hunt” and was very excited to show me each new find!

Autumn Nature Walk

We brought our bounty home to look through and enjoy.

Autumn Sensory BinAutumn Sensory Bin

I don’t do many sensory bins, but I should! I pulled together an autumn sensory bin for Jax using our nature walk treasures. I added them to a basket of dried corn, and autumn season stickers I’d laminated and cut out. I provided a wooden bowl from the thrift shop and a little wooden spoon (from an old brown sugar jar.)

Autumn Sensory Bin

Jax jumped right in and started scooping the contents and exploring the textures. I’d drawn a few autumn items on our schoolroom chalkboard along with writing the words. I had Jax hunt for those three stickers in the sensory bin, then let him choose three more for me to draw. Next time he can hunt for all six.

Autumn Sensory Bin

We plan on doing many more autumn-themed activities throughout the season. Do you have any fun ideas for us? Let me know here, or send me ideas via Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Here is a Pinterest-ready photo for you to pin!

Autumn Leaves Quiet Book & Fall Homeschool Unit

I am linking up to the wonderful Montessori Monday! If you do any homeschooling, I urge you to check out the weekly link up for great ideas!

Montessori Monday

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

This past weekend was a 3-day holiday weekend here in the U.S. thanks to Labor Day. My husband announced we would be painting our powder room. I love color in my house, so I he didn’t have to ask twice. But of course I never DIY something halfway, so I was immediately brainstorming ways to involve Jax in the decorating.

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers  IMG_2918

Once we chose a lovely spring green called Pear by Behr, I was inspired to try watercolor painting with my toddler! The bright citrus color just begged for some sweet watercolor paintings to be hung on it! Don’t be afraid to try watercolors. It is great medium for young kids!

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

The materials you need are: watercolor paper, watercolor paints, a pencil and eraser and an art pen. I have a fine art degree, so I bought nicer watercolor paints that I could add to my fine art supplies as well as use with Jax. Mine is the Cotman Watercolor Compact Set. I have this 11″ X 15″ Watercolor Paper Pad that was 40% off at the craft store for back-to-school. I used a Faber-Castell Pitt Artists’ Pen, also from the craft store (with a 50% off coupon.) I also used a bunch of old thrift and dollar store picture frames and a can of white spray paint.

Start by having your little one draw pictures on the watercolor paper with a pencil. Remind them they don’t need to color anything in at that point. We are just making the outlines. I LOVE that Jax loves to draw actual pictures now instead of just rainbows and scribbles. (He still loves drawing rainbows, though!)

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

While they are drawing their second picture, trace their pencil lines with the waterproof artist’s pen. Jax got ahead of me to I send him to the school shelves to choose an activity to do until I finished tracing. When you are finished tracing and the ink is dry, erase the pencil lines.

And then comes the fun part! Painting!

Painting his rainbow.

Painting his rainbow.

I started out loading and cleaning Jax’s brushes for him. I showed him how he could get extra water on his brush to spread the paint more if it starts to get dry. We explored the different marks each brush made.

I let him do some careful paint loading, and also let him help mix colors in the tray. When he painted his house scene, he asked that we “work together” on the sky, so I helped fill it in. I think he was worried he’d mess it up.

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

Jax really enjoyed painting!

"House"

“House”

"Fruits & Veggies"

“Fruits & Veggies”

"Rainbow"

“Rainbow”

He was so proud to see them hanging up in the finished powder room.

Have you tried watercolor paints with your toddler? When Jax was even younger, I painted outside with him on canvas with acrylics.

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

Watercolor Painting with Toddlers

How can you not smile when you see art like this?

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

If you haven’t been introduced to our Montessori wall map and quiet book yet, you can read all about it here. This post is for the continent of South America! Every continent (and the oceans) will have landmarks and animals. Some, like Europe, have more landmarks than animals. South America has all animals, as it has so many great ones to choose from!

Overview and Map PatternsAfricaAntarcticaAsiaEurope North AmericaOceans • South America

All our pieces so far!

All our pieces so far!

A quick note: Do you have a website that fits in with our readers’ interests: sewing, felt, homeschool or Montessori? I am trying out a new sponsor banner system and I have my 125×125 spots open for free swaps! There are currently 3 spots left, so please visit the Sponsor page to read more! Check it out to the left! Thank you for the help!

Those of you who follow along on Facebook or Instagram have been seeing all the fun South American animals I’ve sewn. I love that there were some brighter colors, thanks to the rainforest animals! I made: a poison dart frog, a toco toucan, a spider monkey, a jaguar and a sea lion.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

I want to say a quick thank you to Libby A. for the surprise off of Jax’s Amazon wishlist! I use his list to bookmark school and craft items until I am able to get them. I’d added some trims I need for Jax’s robot Halloween costume (which will be featured here!) and they arrived in the mail to us this week! Thank you!! For more ways to contribute to this site, visit my support page.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Materials I Used

The Pattern (see the first post for the main patterns) Felt from American Felt & Craftbig apple [red], orange juice [orange], gold nugget [gold], limeade [lime green], cilantro [olive green], stone [taupe]  doe [brown] elephant [med gray], white and black. Hook & Loop – I used white snag-free Velcro on the backs of all these pieces and pink hook & loop (loop only) on the front of the South America puzzle piece. My pink hook & loop was store brand at Joann’s but you can find all colors here. Felt glue to tack down the pieces before sewing, printer fabric for the continent label, embroidery floss in colors to match the felt and micro tip scissors.

South America shares a page in the quietbook with Antarctica.

South America shares a page in the quietbook with Antarctica.

Sewing the Pieces

South America: (Felt used: bubble gum pink) For the South America continent puzzle piece, I sewed down pieces of pink loop Velcro. On the back, I sewed a strip of white snag-free Velcro to correspond with the Velcro in the quietbook. I finished it by sewing the two sides together around the edge with a blanket stitch. Label: (Felt used: bubble gum pink) For the continent label, I folded under the edges (just a tiny bit to hide the rough edges) and creased it with my nails. The printer fabric held the folds nicely without ironing. Then I stitched the label to some white felt and trimmed it down to be a border. I cut a matching felt rectangle for the back, sewed snag-free Velcro to it and then sewed both sides together.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

For all of the animals, I started by gluing the pieces down to a scrap of background felt with a very light amount of felt glue. I glue multiple animals at a time to give them time to dry. I sewed them down, trimmed the background and cut a matching backing piece. I sewed snag-free Velcro to the back and sewed both sides together with a blanket stitch. Poison Dart Frog: (Felt used: big apple red for the body, black for body details and limeade lime green for the background) I started by gluing down the red body, then gluing the strips on top. I sewed around all the edges. I matched my frog to the one in the Safari Ltd Rainforest Toob, which our animal encyclopedia says is Lehman’s Poison Dart Frog. You could make yours any color, especially if you have the Frogs and Turtles Toob. (My 3-part card is not a red Lehman’s. I never use photos without permission and I was unable to find a photo I could use of one. But the photo I took of a Golden Poison Dart Frog at the aquarium makes for a fun lesson where we can match them to our book.)

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Spider Monkey: (Felt used: doe brown for the body, black for body details and cilantro olive green for the background) I glued the brown body of the spider monkey down first, then his hands, feet and face. I sewed all around the edges. I gave him French knot eyes, a little brown stitch for his nose, and a long black stitch to make an open mouth. Toco Toucan: (Felt used: black for body, orange juice for the beak,  limeade for the background and white) I first glued down her orange beak and gray leg, then her black body and wing. I glued the white chest on top and then the orange eye area. On top of the beak, I added the black felt piece. I sewed around all the edges then I gave her a bright blue French knot eye. (Their eyes are not really blue – that is a ring of blue skin around their black eye.) On her wing and tail, I made long straight stitches to show the feathers.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Jaguar: (Felt used:gold nugget gold for the body and cilantro olive green for the background) I glued the golden body of the jaguar with his far legs layered underneath. I glued one side of his ear down, then added a stitch to hold it once it was dry. I gave him a French knot eye with little black stitches on either side to make a cat-eye shape. I used white to make a mouth and black to make a small nose. For the spots, I made the larger ones using a similar technique to the lazy daisy stitch (a loop of thread that is pinned down by a small stitch at the peak) but used arch shapes instead of closed loops. The smaller stitches are just tiny stitches – some with a few close together to make medium spots.Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables Sea Lion: (Felt used: doe brown for the body and stone taupe for the background) I glued the brown body of the sea lion, then sewed around the edges. I made long stitches on his flippers to show the webbing. I glued one side of his ear down, then added a stitch to hold it once it was dry. I gave him a French knot eye and a little black mouth.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Montessori South American Animals 3-Part Cards

Currently jax is focusing on his world continent 3-part cards, but we’ve done a small session with each of the animal card sets as I’ve made them. He sees me making them and insists! We will study the animals with more depth when we focus on a particular continent.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

For now, we pull out our SafariLTD’s TOOB figurines and use our 3-part cards to match them whenever he shows interest. We like to watch short videos about an animal, then study some pictures and draw our own.

I used the Rainforest Toob for these cards. The sea lion is from the Ocean TOOB.

I used the Rainforest Toob for these cards. The sea lion is from the Ocean TOOB.

Click here to download my free pdf file to make your own. To make mine, I cut them out, glued them to pink construction paper (to match South America’s Montessori color) then laminated them. I love my new laminator! It makes everything so shiny and strong! I’ve been giving it a workout!

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Exploring South America’s Animals

I’m still so happy I found my The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide when our basement flooded! (Though I’m less happy that my dining room table is covered in 2′ high piles of books.)

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

It has a lot of beautiful photos and useful facts about many different animals. Jax and I will be using it to match up with our 3-part cards and read more about the animals. We also use my iPad and YouTube to watch short video clips.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Here we used the encyclopedia to identify which kind of spider monkey we had.

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables  Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

I know many of you are sewing along (or about to!) If you are, stop by my Instagram @iolstephanie and leave a comment on one of my photos (I can’t see your photo if it you are private, but I can request to follow you temporarily if you leave a comment on mine about it) or share photos on Facebook. You can also email me. I love seeing others’ take on my patterns!

Animals of South America for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

It’s not even slightly Montessori Monday still, but I hope you’ll check out the other great links!

Montessori Monday

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

The giveaway is now closed. Thanks for playing!

Jax and I will be starting a music unit in homeschool this fall, so when I came across this Musical Instruments TOOB by Safari LTD I had to get them!

Our family has always had a great love of music. My brother and I were both “band geeks” throughout our school years. (Though I find nothing geeky about music!) I played the oboe, and still have mine. I was also in the marching band, playing cymbals in the drum line. I married a DJ and we’ve surrounded Jax with music since before he was born. He adores dancing and singing. Anything we can put in a song he learns faster. I hope that providing him with a solid base of knowledge in music fundamentals now will help cultivate a lifelong love.

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Disclosure: I purchased this Safari Ltd TOOB on my own, but Safari Ltd kindly is providing the winner of this giveaway with a Musical Instruments TOOB. All opinions expressed are my own.

Musical instruments are beautiful to look at! They definitely capture a child’s attention. And combined with learning about the sounds that they make, you have a learning opportunity that is all fun!

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

The Safari Ltd Musical Instruments TOOB contains: Trombone, Flute, Saxophone, Classical Guitar, French Horn, Clarinet, and Trumpet. Strike up the band!

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Safari Ltd TOOBS are collections of individually hand painted miniature replicas featuring vibrant colors, fine, professional sculpting, and accurate detail. They are available in dozens of themes, and each set comes in a reusable acetate tube that snaps open and closed for easy storage. The tube also has a spinning globe on its cap. TOOBS are perfect for educational projects, traveling, collecting, and imaginative play.

Safari Ltd® is a family-owned, educational toy company whose mission is to teach children the importance of nature and its conservation through the joy of play. With more than 1,000  hand-painted products ranging from mythical creatures to famous landmarks, learning meets fun with Safari Ltd.

Safari Ltd

Montessori Musical Instruments 3-Part Cards

In the Montessori method, 3-part cards are an essential tool that can follow your child through multiple levels of development. They can be used in any subject to aid in adding vocabulary, learning to sort/classify, reading practice and so much more. Three-part cards are made up of two photos – one with a label, one without – as well as a separate label. Younger children start with the labeled card to help them learn the vocabulary. One of the best ways to use them is with small objects that match the photos. Older kids can work with the unlabeled card, matching the correct words or writing their own.

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

I have created a set of free musical instrument 3-part cards to correspond with Safari Ltd’s Musical Instruments TOOB. Because I had room for one more card on my printout, I included an oboe. I used an oboe necklace charm (and my real oboe!) for matching. You could set that card aside when doing object matching.

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Click here to download my free pdf file to create your own. To make mine, I cut them out, glued them to charcoal gray card stock (this is simply a color I chose to assign to all my future music collateral) then laminated them. It makes them shiny and strong. I really love my laminator – as everyone told me I would!

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Musical Instruments and Their Sounds

Here is a collection of video links you can play to listen to each instrument’s sound and learn more about them: Trombone, Flute, Saxophone, Classical Guitar, French Horn, Clarinet, and Trumpet. (And Oboe!)

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables  Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables  Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Bookmark this page to come back to when you are studying instruments with your child.

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

Musical Instruments TOOB Giveaway

1 lucky winner from the US will win the Safari Ltd Musical Instrument TOOB (ARV $12). If you a a follower of Safari Ltd on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube or Google+, they will throw in a bonus prize!

Who is Eligible:

This giveaway is open to anyone 18 and older living in the US. Safari Ltd. will pay for shipping the prize to you.

To be eligible, leave a mandatory blog comment below telling me why you’d like to win the Safari Ltd Musical Instruments TOOB. After you’ve commented, be sure to click “enter” on the Rafflecopter form to open up the additional entry options. Enter as many ways as you’d like, once you’ve completed the mandatory blog comment. If you are already a follower of Safari Ltd or Imagine Our Life, you can still enter via that option by verifying your username!

If you need help with Rafflecopter here is a link for a quick tutorial video. At times, the Rafflecopter form can take a minute to load on the page.

The giveaway closes 12:00 am EST on Tuesday, September 3.

winnerCongrats to our random winner, Mae P.!

Good luck!

Here is a Pinterest-ready image for you! Find me on Pinterest @imagineourlife. Find Safari Ltd on Pinterest @safariltd.

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

This post is linked up to Montessori Mondays. Please pay it a visit for lots of great Montessori and homeschool ideas!

Montessori Monday Family-Friendly Giveaway Linky

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

When I switched to Montessori-style homeschool for Jax at the beginning of the summer, Jax’s aunt and uncle kindly offered to purchase some educational supplies for him. They chose some items off his wishlist, and chose some others themselves.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables  Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

One educational toy they sent was Learning Resources Super Sorting Pie. This little fruit pie has become such a favorite for Jax that we just gave one as a gift at a three-year-old’s birthday party! I keep it in our homeschool classroom to keep it separate from our play toys. He is free to take it out and “play” with it along with the school activity trays I set up each week.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

The sorting pie comes with an assortment of little fruits – two color variations of each shape of fruit. The inside is divided into 5ths, and you can pull the dividers out and change between a variety of activity cards to encourage your little one to sort. The set also comes with two plastic tongs to help work on your child’s pincher grip. Jax only uses these about 50% of the time that he plays with the set, but I’ve already seen a huge improvement when he does.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

Recently, I wanted to start doing some work with patterning. I didn’t want to have to buy new supplies, so the little fruits in our sorting pie seemed perfect. I used Adobe Illustrator to draw each of the fruits, then laid them out into pattern strips of varying difficulty.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

I am sharing these printables with you for free! Here is the pattern printable. If you don’t have the Learning Resources Super Sorting Pie, I have added a sheet with fruits you can print and cut out.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

I recommend laminating everything. I have this laminator and love it! (These are affiliate links, btw. I get a tiny bit of Amazon credit if you purchase it, at no cost to you!)

As seen on our Montessori shelves.

As seen on our Montessori shelves.

Jax was super excited to see this tray, and was barely able to wait for me to finish prepping everything! We worked our way through all the patterns, starting with the easiest.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

I though he’d struggle with the ones that didn’t have a full pattern repeat shown (ie: 1, ?, 3, ?, 2, ?), but he surprised me and had no trouble.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

When we got to the two strips that were fully filled in, I extended them with a blank strip. He actually had the hardest time with the really long patterns.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

I’ve also included a blank sheet of patterning squares so you or your child can set up your own custom patterns. I asked Jax to make some patterns, but he just fills the squares randomly at this point. I took a turn and made some patterns for him to complete.

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

This activity was such a favorite that Jax asked to repeat it again before bedtime!

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

Want to pin it? He’s a Pinterest-ready picture! Find me here on Pinterest

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

Happy Monday! Please be sure to take a look at all the great Montessori and homeschool ideas on the Montessori Monday linkup!

Montessori Monday

DIY Sewing Labels

DIY Sewing Labels

Here is a quick little project you can do to personalize your sewing projects: DIY sewing labels!

Materials

 To create your own sewing labels, you need to start by designing them. I made mine in Illustrator and just used my logo. For side tags, I laid out two logos side by side so they could be folded in the middle. For top tags (like the kind that would be in the neck of a shirt), I just had the design on the top half. If you wanted washing directions (or anything else), you could put it on the other side.

DIY Sewing Labels

I created a couple of quick Word files to get you started. I included some free designs you can use. If you use the designs I made, you’ll need to download two free fonts from Google: Elsie Swash Caps & Crafty Girls. Of course, you can totally do your own thing!

DIY Sewing Labels

Side Labels

Follow the directions on your printer fabric, then cut out your label, making sure you have enough space to have .25″ extra all around. Iron the label flat. Iron the two long sides towards the back of the label.

DIY Sewing Labels

On your sewing machine, sew the folded edges, staying very close to the edge. I used my presser foot as a guide. (See the photos.) I sewed around three sides because I didn’t want to have to stop and start again. You could even go all the way around if you wanted to.

DIY Sewing Labels

Iron the seams flat again, then fold the label and press the fold well.

DIY Sewing Labels

To add your tag to your sewing project, place it between the right sides of the fabric with the non-fold end in your seam.

DIY Sewing Labels

Turn your project right side out and press your seam. I added a top stitch to this quick pillow.

DIY Sewing Labels

Top Labels

Top labels are made the same way, but the two short sides are the ones you want to fold under.

DIY Sewing Labels

If you want to be sure your labels don’t unravel inside the fold, you could add some Fray Check, or have a larger seam allowance and fold the edges under twice. I didn’t bother, though.

DIY Sewing Labels

If you make a project with a custom sewing tag, I’d love to see! Tag a photo to me on Instagram @iolstephanie (I can’t see it if you are private. Just come comment on one of my photos and I’ll follow you.) Or stop by our Facebook page and post a photo!

DIY Sewing Labels

Happy sewing!

Here’s a Pinterest – ready photo for your boards! You can find me on Pinterest here.

DIY Sewing Labels

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

If you haven’t been introduced to our Montessori wall map and quiet book yet, you can read all about it here. This post is for the fastest continent to sew for – Antarctica! Every continent (and the oceans) will have landmarks and animals. Some, like Europe, have more landmarks than animals. Antarctica just has two animals featured, as there are mainly just seals, penguins and other birds.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Antarctica was a bit different than the rest in another way: it is the only continent that is hugely affected by the map projection. On the wall map, it is shown as a long, unraveled strip at the bottom. So Antarctica is sewn to the map, but I also made a piece in its actual shape that Jax can compare to it or to his globe.

Overview and Map PatternsAfrica • Antarctica • AsiaEurope
North AmericaOceansSouth America

A quick note: Do you have a website that fits in with our readers’ interests: sewing, felt, homeschool or Montessori? I am trying out a new sponsor banner system and I have my 125×125 spots open for free swaps! There are currently 5 spots left, so please visit the Sponsor page to read more! Check it out to the left! Thank you for the help!

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

My pyramids are still missing… Time to sew a new one!

Those of you who follow along on Facebook or Instagram might have seen there was a bit of a mishap in Antarctica. Well, the Antarctica in our house, at least. Our golden retriever got a little too excited about my penguin and ate him! Since I had to sew him a second time, I made him even cuter. He now is a daddy penguin with a little chick!

Regardless of that excitement, I still love working on this project! This will be an amazing resource for Jax throughout his school years. Yes, I am giving you all my patterns and printables for free! If you’d like to contribute, visit my support page. School items off of Jax’s Amazon wishlist always help! Especially because our heating/cooling unit just just freaked out and flooded our basement. We are now $6k poorer, despite insurance help. Yikes. I am currently saving up Amazon credit for the handbells on his wishlist. If I can get those, I’ll share a music unit with you all! but it looks like I won’t have enough until the end of September.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Materials I Used

The Pattern (see the first post for the main patterns)

Felt from American Felt & Craftwhitesalt & pepper [dark gray], elephant [med gray], black, rubber duckie [yellow] and gray.

Hook & Loop – I used white snag-free Velcro on the backs of all these pieces and on the Antarctica puzzle piece.

Felt glue to tack down the pieces before sewing, printer fabric for the continent label, embroidery floss in colors to match the felt and micro tip scissors.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Shown here on the quietbook page that Antarctica will share with South America.

Sewing the Pieces

Antarctica: (Felt used:white) For the Antarctic continent puzzle piece, I sewed down pieces of white snag-free Velcro. On the back, I sewed a strip of white snag-free Velcro to correspond with the Velcro in the quietbook. I finished it by sewing the two sides together around the edge with a blanket stitch.

Label: (Felt used: white) For the continent label, I folded under the edges (just a tiny bit to hide the rough edges) and creased it with my nails. The printer fabric held the folds nicely without ironing. Then I stitched the label to some white felt and trimmed it down to be a border. I cut a matching felt rectangle for the back, sewed snag-free Velcro to it and then sewed both sides together.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables  Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

For all of the animals, I started by gluing the pieces down to a scrap of background felt with a very light amount of felt glue. I glue multiple animals at a time to give them time to dry. I sewed them down, trimmed the background and cut a matching backing piece. I sewed snag-free Velcro to the back and sewed both sides together with a blanket stitch.

Penguin: (Felt used: white for the body and background, black for body details, elephant for the shoulders, gray for the chick and rubber duckie yellow for the neck) I started by gluing down the shoulders, the gluing the black wings to the back of the white body. I glued the body down over the shoulders, then glued the neck, feet and head. I then glued down the two parts of the baby chick penguin.

I sewed down all the edges with matching thread. For the baby, I sewed two long, dark gray stitches for wing flaps. I made French knot eyes then highlighted them with a ring of white stitches. The daddy penguin got a dark gray French knot eye.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Leopard Seal: (Felt used: white for the background, salt & pepper dark gray for the back and flipper, and gray for the body) I first glued the gray body down, then added the darker back and flipper. To make the spots, I just made lots of little stitches. The tiny spots are just one stitch. The larger ones are a few stitches side-by-side. She has a French knot eye, a little stitch nose and a longer stitch mouth. On the tail and flipper, I made long dark gray parallel stitches.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Montessori Antarctic Animals 3-Part Cards

Jax is still focusing on his world continent unit with the world continent 3-part cards I made up for him. We are using our Montessori globe and singing the continent song I made up. So far, He can point out the continents I ask for, and he can usually tell me the names of Africa ans Antarctica without prompting. We’ve also started using the ocean cards a lot. For the animals, we haven’t done a lot of formal lessons yet. We will when we focus on a continent. For now, we pull out our SafariLTD’s TOOB figurines and use out 3-part cards to match them whenever he shows interest. We like to watch short videos about an animal, then study some pictures and draw our own.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

These Antarctica cards don’t really have a good match in figurines. I would LOVE if SafariLTD would create continent-themed TOOBs! (Contact them if you are interested too!) You can match the Penguins Toob to their penguins. They don’t have any antarctic seals. Mine is from the craft store where they sell diorama supplies. I mention it in more detail in my ocean homeschool post.

Click here to download my free pdf file to make your own. To make mine, I cut them out, glued them to white construction paper (to match Antarctica’s Montessori color) then laminated them. I love my new laminator! It makes everything so shiny and strong!

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

Exploring Antarctica’s Animals

One thing that came of our basement flood – I had to move all our books out of the bookshelves and I found my The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide!

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

It has a lot of beautiful photos and useful facts about many different animals. Jax and I will be using it to match up with our 3-part cards and read more about the animals.

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

I didn’t notice until after I took these pictures that there is a penguin called a “jackass penguin“. Oh my! Poor little penguins!

Screenshot courtesy Google Earth.

Screenshot courtesy Google Earth.

I have Google Earth installed so Jax I I can explore the earth. It is great! If you’d like to load a special Antarctica map with all sorts of points already saved, visit this site. Make sure you have Google Earth installed already!

Animals of Antarctica for the Montessori Wall Map & Quietbook with Printables

I hope you are enjoying this project as much as I am! I’ve gotten see the maps a few of you have started! If you are sewing along, stop by my Instagram @iolstephanie and leave a comment on one of my photos (I can’t see your photo if it you are private, but I can request to follow you temporarily if you leave a comment about it) or share photos on Facebook. You can also email me.

It’s not even slightly Montessori Monday still, but I hope you’ll check out the other great links!

Montessori Monday