Monthly Archives: August 2013

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 Patterns • Africa • Antarctica • Asia • Europe North America • Oceans • South America

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.

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.

Materials I Used

The Pattern (see the first post for the main patterns) Felt from American Felt & Craft – big 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.

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.

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.)

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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!

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.)

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.

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

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!

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

Safari Ltd. Musical Instruments Giveaway & Free Montessori Printables

60 Replies

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!)

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

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.

Congrats 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.

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

Fruit Sorting & Patterning with Free Printables

9 Replies

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

DIY Sewing Labels

6 Replies

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

Materials

Printer fabric (I have this type.)
Iron & sewing machine
Label Template (Here are some quick ones I made: Side Labels and Top Labels.)
Fonts (If you use my templates, you may need to download the fonts Elsie Swash Caps & Crafty Girls.)

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Top Labels

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

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.

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!

Happy sewing!

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

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

21 Replies

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.

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 Patterns • Africa • Antarctica • Asia • Europe
North America • Oceans • South 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.

Materials I Used

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

Felt from American Felt & Craft – white, salt & 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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 CVC Word Match Printables

19 Replies

Today I am sharing a little word game I made for Jax’s Montessori language lessons. We have been working on “pink series” words – CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) that can be read phonetically with soft vowels. (There are some exceptions, like egg and ant, but the pink series sticks to the soft vowel sounds as a start.)

As we’ve been working on these kind of words for a little while, Jax could sight read at least a third. Little smarty pants! But the rest he sounded out, and I helped him blend the sounds.

The free printable includes: 20 word cards to match a Montessori movable alphabet set (we have this one), 20 illustrations drawn by me, and 20 word cards in D’nealian handwriting font (they have a set like that too.) So far, I have printed and assembled the pictures and colored text cards. I’ll be adding the handwriting cards soon.

This is Jax’s movable alphabet set.

To make these cards, I printed and cut them out. I cut 2″ squares of pink construction paper and used a dab of glue stick to attach them. Then I ran them through my laminator and cut them out. Make sure to trim our corners if you laminate – they get sharp!

Jax paused to tell me “w” looks like an upside-down “m”…

Jax was so excited to play this “game” that he couldn’t sit still! I had him choose a word card, then read it and choose the matching picture. (If you want to add a control of error – self-correction – you could make your picture cards double-sided.) He then chose to use his movable alphabet to copy the word.

When he got to the word “cup”, he realized I drew the tiny cup he has in his current language object basket (tiny objects used to represent words in our language studies.) He then changed the game to include finding the right objects.

A quick update! Later in the day we played outside with chalk. I wrote all the words for him to hop on and read as a review. Before bed, we played the game again, this time, spinning the basket to pick a word!

I’ll need to get more miniatures, but we had a lot of them!

Please enjoy this free printable! I plan to add more language materials to share as Jax needs them.

Please check out Montessori Monday for more fresh homeschool ideas! Link & Learn is great too!

DIY Felt Poppy Headband

1 Reply

Jax has a birthday party to go to tomorrow for a sweet 3 year old girl. A girl! You know I couldn’t resist the urge to sew something girlie for her! (We did get her a fun present as well – one of Jax’s current favorite school toys.)

The first thing I made for little E was a fat quarter pillowcase dress. I fell in love with a poppy print bundle of fat quarters when I went in search of something pink. I swapped one of the fabrics for a hot pink, since the fabrics I chose were more peach and coral. The dress was very easy and quick to make! I went with the lined version and used some white cotton leftover from Jax’s quilt. But I needed something to go with it. And of course it needed to be felt!

And so, I present the Felt Poppy Headband!

You could easily make a felt flowered headband to suit your own tastes. Change up the colors and flowers! You can take a look at my Bumble Bee Lacing Maze pattern for more felt flower ideas.

Materials

The pattern
Wool blend felt from American Felt & Craft (in hot pink, honeydew, tomato soup and sweet pea)
Wool felt for the top layer. I got mine at the craft store, but this is just like it.
Embroidery floss. I use two strands.
Satin ribbon – two 22″ lengths.

I started by stitching the details on the top piece of the poppy. I stitched the center of the poppy on using black floss, then went around the circle making long stitched of various lengths, topped with French knots.

I set my poppy aside to make the leaves and stem next. I pinned it in place for the photos to show the placement. I made the stem with back stitch, attaching the leaves with a few stitches up the centers,

For the lilac flower, I made a stitch to anchor my thread to the headband, then ran my needle through the ends of all the petals, then fanned them out into a big swirl. I made a bunch of stitches in the center to secure them down. (I added the long stitches in the center of each petal later, but you should do that now.)

I stitched the center onto the flower, then filled it in with French knots.

The last design element I added was a lazy daisy stitch. (See diagram 2.) I added some stitches in a circle in the center of my daisy to give it extra hold.

I went back to finish my poppy next. I blanket stitched the back of the flower on, pulling a little too tight so that the petals curled up. When I was finished sewing the back on, I ran the needle out the center back and made a bunch of stitches to hold secure the flower onto the headband top.

The next step is to assemble the headband. I pleated the end of one of the ribbon lengths and made a few stitches in it to hold the folds. I layered it in between the two layers of the headband and started blanket stitching around the edge.

When I was about 2/3 down one side, I paused to trim the backing to match, as the wool felt shrunk a bit with all the stitching. At the other end, I repeated the steps for adding the ribbon.

All done! I think it came out beautiful.

Yes, this is Jackson… I didn’t have any other models handy!

This headband is fully adjustable, as it is meant to be tied in a bow at the nape of your neck. You could also tie it to one side to make the bow more of a feature. I think it looks so pretty with the pillowcase dress because the ribbons bring the two together.

I’m sure an adult could wear this same headband, but you could also increase the length of the base to make a larger one. I plan to make one (or many!) for myself. What a great scrap-buster!

Thank you to all of you who voted for this tutorial on our Facebook page!

You’ll be seeing a tutorial for this soon!

But to those of you who voted for the other choice – DIY sewing labels – I’ll be posting those for you next week. So everybody wins!

Happy sewing!

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

27 Replies

If you haven’t been introduced to our Montessori wall map and quiet book yet, you can read all about it here. This post isn’t actually for a continent… It’s for the oceans! Every continent (and the oceans) will have landmarks and animals. Some, like Europe, have more landmarks than animals. The oceans have a lot of labels, 9 animals and one island landmark.

Overview and Map Patterns • Africa • Antarctica • Asia • Europe
North America • Oceans • South America

Those of you who follow along on Facebook or Instagram have been seeing my progress as I’ve worked on the ocean animals. I’m so exciting to be 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!

Materials I Used

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

Felt from American Felt & Craft – lilac [purple], cilantro [green], stone [beige], pomegranate [pink], white, salt & pepper [dark gray], elephant [med gray], black and gray. From Benzie Design – swan [blue] for the water.

Hook & Loop – I used white snag-free Velcro on the backs of all these pieces. I used aqua blue hook where the animals attach to the ocean.

I updated this 8/6/13 to add one more ocean Velcro piece in the Pacific near Hawaii!

Other Things: 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.

Sewing the Pieces

For all of the animals & landmarks, I started by gluing the pieces down to a scrap of background felt with a very light amount of felt glue. I glue several 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.

Sea Star: (Felt used: lilac purple for the star and swan blue for the background) I glued down the sea star then sewed all around it. Using long straight stitches, I sewed a starburst in the center.

Killer Whale: (Felt used: black for the body, white for the markings and swan blue for the background) For the killer whale (orca), I glued the black body down first, then the white markings and the fin. I stitched around all the edges.

Sea Turtle: (Felt used: cilantro green for the shell, stone beige for the soft parts and swan blue for the background) For the sea turtle, I glued the soft parts of the turtle down, then glued the shell on top. I sewed around the edges of the soft parts. On the shell, I used a lighter green thread and stitched all around the edge using longer stitches than I usually do. Then I used long stitches to make a shell pattern. View the image full size to use as a guide.

Tiger Shark: (Felt used: elephant med gray, white for the teeth and swan blue for the background) For the shark, I glued down the teeth first, then the body and fin. I sewed around all the edges, made some long, parallel stitches for gills and a French knot eye. I made some white zig zag stitches over his teeth.

Sperm Whale: (Felt used: salt & pepper dark gray and swan blue for the background) For the sperm whale, I glued down the body and fin. I sewed around all the edges, made a long stitch for his mouth and a French knot eye.

Dolphin: (Felt used: elephant med gray and swan blue for the background) For the dolphin, I glued down the body and fin. I sewed around all the edges, made a long stitch for her mouth and a French knot eye.

Beluga Whale: (Felt used: white for the body and swan blue for the background) For the beluga, I glued down the body and fin. I sewed around all the edges, made a few pink long stitch for her mouth and a French knot eye.

Octopus: (Felt used: pomegranate pink for the body [but I’d recommend a coral or peach if you have it] and swan blue for the background) For the octopus, I glued down the body and eye bugles. I sewed around all the edges and made French knot eyes in black on the bulges.I made a few light pink long stitches in between the tentacles to show the webbing. Then I made ten bazillion French knots! I used two strands of embroidery floss (of the 6 it comes with) and wrapped my needle twice for each knot.

Humpback Whale: (Felt used: elephant med gray for the body, gray for the belly and swan blue for the background) For the Humpback whale, I glued down the body, belly and fin. I sewed around all the edges and added a French knot eye.

SafariLTD provided me with this beautiful World Landmarks TOOB. 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!

Sewing the Landmarks

I only did one landmark in the ocean set: the mo’ai statues on Easter Island.

Easter Island: (Felt used: salt & pepper dark gray for the statues, cilantro green for the ground and sparrow blue for the background) I went very simple for this one and just glued and stitched the statues and background down. 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.

Did you notice I sewed the backing on? I used regular craft store polyester felt in black – the large piece that they sell in a package. It was only $3, and I figure I can turn it around and use the back as a felt board. I added two loops of ribbon for hanging. I sewed the backing on with a blanket stitch.

Montessori Ocean Animals 3-Part Cards

Montessori-style 3-part cards are great tools to help your young child learn new things. Jax loves them! I like to pair them with nature video clips from BBC and NatGeo that I play on YouTube about each animal. I created these ocean animal cards to be used along with SafariLTD’s TOOB figurines and my felt wall map animals. For the ocean, I used the following TOOBs: the Whales and Dolphins Toob and 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 orange construction paper (to match North America’s Montessori color) then laminated laminated them. It makes them shiny and strong.

Montessori Ocean 3-Part Cards & Control Chart

Jax just started his world continent unit with the world continent 3-part cards I made up for him. He loves his new Montessori globe, and has his continent song memorized! This ocean set may be a bit advanced for him right now, but who knows – he is always surprising me! Montessori circles back through material, diving deeper into it each time, so it never hurts to introduce something when your child show interest.

This set includes 3-part cards for the world’s oceans and a control chart showing the oceans outlined and labeled. You can start with a basic presentation of the oceans on our globe, comparing the globe to the cards. Click here to download my free pdf file to make your own

For younger kids, you can have them match the labels to the labels on the control map to help early reading skills. Talk about how the continents look on the cards versus the globe and control chart map projection.

For older kids, try a little painter’s tape on the backs of the labels and have them use the control chart to label your globe. Once your child is familiar with the labeled cards and chart, have them start matching the unlabeled cards as well. Eventually you can have them label the cards and the globe on their own.

Ocean Books

I’ve started collecting some ocean books, so when Jax chooses one in the schoolroom, I can pull out our SafariLTD figurines and 3-part cards to match them. Most of my books are from the thrift store and out of print. These are The Blue Whale, Seashore, John Denver’s Ancient Rhymes: A Dolphin Lullaby (Audio CD Included) (John Denver & Kids Series), Way Down Deep (All Aboard Science Reader) and Baby Beluga (Raffi Songs to Read).

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, tag me on Instagram @iolstephanie and come comment on one of my pictures (I can’t see your photo if it you are private, but I can request to follow you temporarily if you comment on mine) or share photos on Facebook. You can also email me.

It’s Montessori Monday on Tuesday for me this week, but I hope you’ll check out the other great links!