Toddler Trays, Including No-Choking-Hazard Bead Stringing

Now that Chrismukkah is done and the New Year is almost here, I thought it was time for some new trays:

Open-close tray items, clockwise from top: Rocket-pop popsicle mold, travel-size Infusium 23 bottle (this one's a double-header, technically, since the bottle top both flips open and screws off), a card-like mints box with a paper-fold opening, a USB thing with a flip-out cover, and a jewelry box with a love note for the kiddo inside.

Squishy sparkle pom-poms and "novelty beakers" from the dollar-stuff section at Target, aka our first attempt at a "dry pouring" exercise.

I've been looking for a way to do a bead-stringing thing, but I am a child-safety paranoiac and the commercial stringing beads sets are totally a choking hazard (every stupid thing is a choking hazard, but the beads stress me out extra for some reason). As such, I've been looking for a DIY alternative. I thought  thread spools might serve as a bead substitute, but I could never find any that were affordable and easily available. Then I was in Bed Bath & Beyond and stumbled across "Cedar Hanger Rings" and thought "Aha!" They totally pass the toilet-paper roll test, plus they're fabulously chunky and substantial for little fingers learning how to do this work. I tried strangling myself (as you do) with various lengths of shoelace, and cutting a 45-cm shoelace into quarters resulted in a cord a little less than 5 inches long (~11 cm), which like it's a less risky length that still provides some room for the kid to work.

Meanwhile, Jackson wants a "lesson" by which he means a proper sit-down thing where I unroll a work mat and demonstrate something, three-period-lesson-style. Mostly he loves the rolling and unrolling of the mat, but I think I'm going to use some of new Christmas blocks to explore same and different sizes and colors. I'll try to photograph it if it happens.

Montessori-Style Upcycled Locks & Latches Board

Montessori-style locks and latches board (with bonus switches and wheels and magnets and geegaws)

Much much love to my mom for helping me make this activity board for Jackson. Inspired by these pins on Pinterest, we went through Sylvia's Wondrous Garage Hardware Store and found a collection of old hardware stuff that seemed to fit the bill. Some of it we screwed on, and some of it we glued on with silicone, but everything is firmly and safely attached. FWIW, the board was almost free and totally recycled/reused but we did have to spend .59 to buy one extra box for the second light switch.

Here's what's what on the board, just because I made my mom tell me the names of everything:

Barbara Leonie Picard's Stories of King Arthur and His Knights

I've had more than a few visitors to this site stop by via Google Images wanting to see this picture of the covers of Barbara Leonie Picard's Odyssey and Iliad books (all illustrated by her frequent collaborator Joan Kiddell-Monroe) so for all the Picard fans out there, I thought I'd post a few images from another one of her wonderful long-lost books, Stories of King Arthur and His Knights (1955), published by Oxford University Press in the UK and Walck in the United States.

Text from the front flap is as follows:


Stories of
KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS
By Barbara Leonie Picard
Illustrated by Roy Morgan


"...here with simplicity and directness and the joy of a good story for its own sake are told, from Malory and other sources, the 'lovely tales': the sword in the stone, Merlin and Morgan Le Fay, the loves of Guenever, the two Elaines, the two Isolts, Linette and Enid and many others. It is a cause for rejoicing that there are also a fine retelling of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, that perfect short story, and an unusually moving account of the quest for the Holy Grail. The spring green cover is just right to encase these enthralling, ever-youthful adventures and Roy Morgan's woodcut decorations have strength and a truly medieval flavor.


This finely made book should be in homes as well as in all libraries. The short chapters are well-adapted for reading aloud. The prose is modern and straightforward, extremely easy to follow yet always with a turn of phrase to give the feeling of the days of old..."


—New York Herald Tribune


HENRY Z. WALCK, Inc.

How's This for a Four-Year Cycle?

Morris Bishop's "storybook" cycle, illustrated by Alison Mason Kingsbury, published by Cornell University Press: A Classical Storybook (1970), A Medieval Storybook (1970), A Renaissance Storybook (1971), A Romantic Storybook (1971)

Aren't these just screaming to be used in a four-year history study cycle? This series is all but forgotten now, but I found one of them (maybe the Medieval one?) in a used bookshop and immediately went hunting for the other three on the Interwebs. More on these in the future, but I wanted to at least get a picture of these four treasures posted for any once and future readers of these books.

In Case of Asian Studies With Children, Break Tuttle

Some Tuttle books already in the Post-Apocalyptic Homeschool collections:  Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Malaysian and Tibetan Children's Favorite Stories

On Christmas Eve Eve Day (which is to say, Dec. 23), the whole family hit the Bowers Museum in Orange County to see the terra-cotta warriors exhibit, and the well-stocked gift shops there reminded me how much I love Tuttle books on Asian and Asian-American themes.

Tuttle is a Vermont-based publishing company that first caught my eye with their [Asian Country Name Here] Children's Favorite Stories series. I grew up with the venerable (and wonderful) Japanese Children's Favorite Stories, and now you can get a version of these beautifully illustrated storybooks for virtually every major Asian country. But the Tuttle booklist has been growing beyond Favorite Stories for quite a few years now (you can look at their spring 2012 catalog online), and there were a couple of titles at the Bowers book shop that caught my eye:

The Chinese Wonder Book by Norman Hinsdale Pittman, illustrated by Li Chu-T'ang, which is actually in the public domain (having been printed in 1919) and is available for free online via Project Gutenberg and other ebook publishers. Obviously you should just download the freebie if you and your kiddos like digital editions, but if you want a printed copy, an original edition starts at $75, and the new reprint from Tuttle is a much more managable $13. So so pretty.

Side note: Fairy-tale hunters, if you spot anything on a shelf that carries the title "wonder book," give it a look-see, as this phrase was a popular way of labeling fairy tale and folklore compilations around the turn of the century (probably due to the success of Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys in the 1850s).

Another title that caught my eye was the adorable Japanese Celebrations: Cherry Blossoms, Lanterns and Stars!, which via the Internet (whee!) introduced me to several other titles by Betty Reynolds, wherein she makes Japanese culture easily accessible for children. If my kiddo is ever lucky enough to get into the Japanese-language immersion program at the local elementary school, don't think her books won't be flying into our house post-hasty.

In the meantime, history dorks will enjoy the Tuttle Publishing About Us page, which briefly explains how New England antiquarians and Occupied Japan intersected to create this outstanding institution.

Long story short, if you're ever on the hunt for well-edited and respectful books about Asian history and culture, be they intended for children or otherwise, Tuttle may have what you need!

A Brief Word on Puzzles

A brief word on puzzles, just because the theme of the next two days will be TOYS!!!

If I had to do it all over again, I think I would have put fewer "academic" Melissa & Doug puzzles (ABC, 123, colors) on my baby registry and instead asked for more of the "chunky" piece puzzles. Yes, the knob puzzles are supposed to be good for developing pincer-grasp, but as we age up, I realize that the chunky pieces of the various puzzles could have been harvested for stand-alone play toys. Big fat wooden dinosaurs, farm animals, shapes, butterflies, etc., are always of the good, even after the fun of the puzzle itself has dissipated.

In other news, Merry Holidays everyone. XOXO, ~j

Recommended Reading: 31 Days of Play

I wait, each day, with bated breath for the newest post in Dirt and Boogers' 31 Days of Play series. Just so smart and inspired and well-illustrated and well-organized. Check it out if you have a chance.