Sunshine is turning seven in less than a month.  Developmentally and emotionally she is right about four years old, which is one of my favorite ages.

Though Sunshine had an incredibly rough Spring, she is doing amazing now and has made so much progress when working through emotions, being patient with herself and with others.  

We are so excited to celebrate her success by allowing her to have items she previously couldn't handle due to safety issues.  Each and every item on this wish list Sunshine picked out on her own.  She was quite specific and opinionated about it if you want to know the truth.  Lol.

If you have a little girl on your shopping list this holiday season, these Gift Ideas for Little Girls, personally selected by Sunshine may be exactly what you need for inspiration!

Let's take a closer look at what Sunshine picked out!

Sunshine loves board games and card games so long as they are easy enough for her to play with ease.  Her siblings love playing them with her too which means we're able to fit in some extra family time on a regular basis.  We're very excited about the new games she's selected!

SET Junior Board Game

Tall Tales Story Telling Board Game

The Fairy Game (Purchased)

ZOORegatta Board Game

Pengaloo Game (Purchased)

Disney Tsum Mancala Board Game

Sunshine has been begging for dress up clothes.  This makes perfect sense as most four year olds love dress up.  However, Sunshine's size and sensory issues complicate things a bit.  She is notorious for picking off sequins, buttons, jewels, etc.  Sunshine does not like wearing anything with buttons, snaps, zippers, etc.  And then there's the itch factor.  Say goodbye to Disney Princess dress up gowns!

Thankfully there are some other options out there.  Designers have become very creative when it comes to pajamas for kids, so much that they're just sensory friendly costumes.  Sunshine is so excited to receive any and all of these dress up outfits to wear at home and on the go.  Lol.

Bell Blue Dress Size 10-12

Kids' Dinosaur Pajamas Size 10-12

DC Comics Girls' Wonderwoman Pajamas Nightgowm Size 10-12

Lion Pajamas Size 125 (Purchased)

Pink Stitch Pajamas Size 125

Color Unicorn Pajamas Size 125 (Purchased)

Last year for Christmas Sunshine received her fist doll house. She played with it for hours and hours, that is until her furniture that we bought to go along with it started to break.  I must confess, we went the cheapest route we could not knowing how she'd respond to the doll house and accessories at the time.  We definitely paid for our mistake.

Throughout the year we have been rebuilding her collection of furniture with sturdy replacements, which she's loved.  Hape has some pretty incredible doll house furniture!  The items below are ones that she's specified she still needs.  The family in particular is important to her as it includes grandparents and baby, which she doesn't have.

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Dining Room Set (Purchased)

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Kitchen Set with Accessories (Purchased)

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Family Bathroom Set (Purchased)

 Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Master Bedroom Set

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Baby's Room Set (Purchased)

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Children's Room with Accessories

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Patio Set with Accessories (Purchased)

Hape Wooden Dollhouse Furniture Family Car Play Set

Melissa & Doug 7-piece Poseable Wooden Doll Family (Purchased)

Sunshine has always loved books, but has struggled to care for them properly.  Over the past six months she has done so well with them that she's now able to keep all of her book in her bedroom.  

When asking her what she wanted for Christmas and her birthday one of the first things she asked for was more books.  She has a ton of nonfiction books, but has decided it's time for some fun ones with her favorite characters too.  

Knowing that Sunshine will literally sit down and look at books for almost an hour at a time, we went with larger books with multiple stories to keep her occupied.  I must confess Mommy and Daddy are looking forward to the variety that larger books provide as well for nighttime story time.

Disney Pixar Storybook Collection (Purchased)

Disney Story Book Collection 3rd Edition (Purchased)

Disney Story Book Collection 4th Edition

A Treasury of Curious George (Purchased)

Curious George Big Book of Adventures

Mickey and Minnie Storybook Collection

Anyone who has been to our home knows we have a very large collection Schleich and Safari Ltd. animal figures.  It all started with Dinomite who was and still is obsessed with dinosaurs, prehistoric creatures, and wildlife.  Our collection grew with Bulldozer's love for farm animals and elephants.  Then came our Montessori preschool journey which definitely rounded things out.

Now, it seems it's Sunshine's time to enjoy animal figures.  Of course she has her own interests when it comes to animals, preferring forest animals and horses, which none of her siblings have shown an interest in before.  She also enjoys taking care of her animals and has requested food for them, which is also new in this house.

Schleich North America Forest Babies Set

Schleich North American Forest Dweller Set

Schleich Forest Animals Baby Set

Schleich Wildlife Mountain Animals

Schleich Wildlife European Forest Dwellers

Schleich Feed Set

Schleich North America Feed for Pigs and Piglets

Schleich North America Cow and Calf Feed

Schleich Feed for Dogs and Cats

Schleich Tinker Family Set of 3 Horses with Feed (Purchased)

Sunshine loves art!  She always has, but this year her passion has grown even stronger.  With our kid friendly art area in the house, it's normal to see her working on some project at least once a day.  The products below are ones that she's requested.  Note: There are two links for paint. Each one is different.  

Crayola Washable Tempora Paint Pack of 12 (Purchased)

Do-A-Dot Art 6 Pack

Melissa & Doug Favorite Things Wooden Stamp Set

Melissa & Doug Scissor Skills Activity Pad (Purchased)

Colored Construction Paper 500 Pack (Purchased)

Crayola Pip-Squeak Skinnies Washable Markers 64 Count

All of Sunshine's siblings have loved LEGO from the moment they were old enough to build with them.  Sunshine is no exception.  This year it's her turn to start building up her own collection.  

We're not starting with just any LEGO set though.  The LEGO Juniors kits are specifically designed for younger kids who have progressed past LEGO duplos but aren't quite ready for the regular LEGO sets.  They're designed for kids ages 4-7, which is absolutely perfect in Sunshine's case.

Sunshine absolutely loves Disney, so it seemed only natural to put the specific sets below on her wish list.  She is so excited about each and every one.

LEGO Juniors Disney Princess: Beauty and the Beast-Belle's Story Time (Purchased)

LEGO Juniors Ariel's Underwater Concert (Purchased)

LEGO Juniors Ariel's Dolphin Carriage Playset

LEGO Juniors Disney Frozen: Anna and Elsa's Frozen Playground (Purchased)

LEGO Juniors Snow White's Forest Cottage

LEGO Juniors Cinderella's Carriage

Sunshine loves watching movies as much as her brothers do and looks forward to her Saturday movie night all week.  Though still frightened easily, she's watched all of the movies on this list and loved them enough to want her own copy.  I'm excited to build up our Disney collection!

The Emporer's New Groove in Blu-ray

Hercules in Blu-ray

Tangled in Blu-ray

Sleeping Beauty in Blu-ray

Peter Pan in Blu-ray

Lady and the Tramp in Blu-ray (Purchased)

I think I may be as excited as Sunshine is about her wish list this year as it has so many fun items on it. I hope you've found some great inspiration from it as well!

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Princess, Bulldozer, and Dinomite are now in a place where they're ready to be introduced to the Montessori advanced language curriculum.  

For some this may be called the green series, depending on what training you've received.

For others advanced language skills may simply include phonograms and long vowel sound combinations.

No matter what you call it, everything you're looking for and more can be found in the Montessori-inspired Advanced Language Bundle!

This bundle is incredible with 323 pages of advanced language resources.

Let's take a closer look!

Montessori-inspired Advanced Language Bundle in Action

The table of contents itself is quite impressive.

• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Control Cards 
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Tracing Cards 
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Writing Cards 
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Easy Identification Clip Cards
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Hard Identification Clip Cards
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Letter/Blends Clip Cards 
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Fill in the Word Clip Cards 
• 59 Advanced Language/Green Series Picture and Phrase Sentence Match Up Sets 
• 100 Advanced Language/Green Series Picture and Word Match Up Sets

Now here are the details about what's included in the 100 cards!

Each page of the control cards includes two words with matching long vowel sounds/phonograms.  There is only one exception to this rule which you'll understand when you come to it.

These same words are used throughout the entire printable.

Here are the long vowel sounds/phonograms included:

Long vowel sounds covered in this bundle include:

• a: a_e, ai, ay, a, ea, and ei
• e: e_e, ee, ea, e, ie, ei, and y
• i: i_e, ie, i, igh, ig, and y
• o: o_e, oa, ow, oe, o, ou, oo, and ough
• u: u_e, ue, ew, and u

Other vowel sound combinations covered in this bundle include:

• ea as in eh
• oo
• ou as in ow
• ou as in aw
• ough as in ow
• ough as in uf
• ough as in aw
• ough as in oo
• oi
• er
• ir
• ur
• or

Consonant combinations covered in this bundle include:

• qu
• mb
• bt
• wh
• kn
• wr
• ch
• sh
• th
• ph

There really is no other bundle where you'll find all of these letter combinations covered so extensively.

Now let's take a look at the printables themselves.  

I had hoped to share photographs of my kiddos hard at work using these printables but my printer broke last week.  A new one was ordered and has arrived, but I'm struggling to find the right toner for it.  So until then, I hope these previews of the printable itself will do.

Advanced Language Control Cards

These control cards are designed to be used with the Kid Advance Small Black and Red Movable Alphabets.  

Once a child is learning phonograms he switches to these movable alphabet colors to better isolate the language skill being worked on.

In this case long vowel and consonant sound combinations being emphasized are created using the red letters. The rest of the letters in each word are black.

The control cards are created to work with the movable alphabet letters.  They fit almost perfectly.

If you have a child who is delayed in fine motor skills and writing you may want to consider this option.

For those without delays don't hesitate to print four pages to one page to preserve paper and ink.  The smaller cards look beautiful and are perfect for all sorts of activities.

The cards above are called control cards but can be used for so many other things. 

When isolating different ways to write long vowel sounds the cards can be used for sorting or a match up.  The same can be true when working on consonant blends.  The sky really is the limit here.

Advanced Language Tracing Cards

These tracing cards were designed for Sunshine who struggles with fine motor skills, particularly writing.  

Providing her with large words to trace eliminates the frustration she usually has when attempting to trace small, fine lines in other tracing activities I've seen.

If you child doesn't struggle so much with fine motor and pre-writing tasks, but is beginning their writing journey these cards look great and are fabulous to use printed four pages to one page.  

They just require a more refined tracing skill.

Advanced Language Writing Cards with Lines

You have two options when using these cards.

1. Use the Kid Advanced Movable Alphabet to spell words that match the pictures, placing them correctly on the lines.

2. Using a writing utensil, practice writing the words that match the pictures on the cards.

Depending on your child's abilities will depend on how large you'd like the cards printed.  If your child struggles with fine motor skills and writing in general, print the cards as they appear in the bundle.

If your child is confident in their writing abilities, don't hesitate to print these four pages to one page to save on ink and paper.

Advanced Language Easy Word Identification Clip Cards

These clip cards are designed for children just learning to read and pronounce words.  Each card includes choices that differentiate short vowels and long vowels, as well as different words in general.

Whether you use stamps, stickers, clothespins, glass beads, or even a writing utensil doesn't matter so long as you choose a way to identify the answer on each card.

To preserve ink and paper, feel free to print these two pages to one page.  They work just fine that way.

Advanced Language Hard Word Identification Clip Cards

 These cards are very similar to the easy ones above, except they're much more challenging.  

Answer choices include different possible ways to spell long vowel sounds taught in the bundle.  

If you're looking for activities for a child in the early elementary classroom these work great!

To preserve ink and paper, feel free to print these  two pages to one page.  They work just fine that way.

Advanced Language Letter/Blend Clip Cards

This activity is once again designed for children in the early elementary classroom.  The child must choose an answer from several different ways to write the long vowel sound needed to complete the word.

To preserve ink and paper, feel free to print these two pages to one page.  They work just fine that way.

Advanced Language Fill in the Blank Cards

Depending on the needs of your child and whether they prefer paper with or without lines, these work great for confident writers.

Your child will write the word that matches the picture in the space provided.  We laminate these cards and use whiteboard markers to save paper and provide opportunities for multiple uses.

To preserve ink and paper, feel free to print these two pages to one page.  They work just fine that way, so long as your child can write small.

Advanced Language Sentence/Phrase and Picture Match Ups

 

Kiddos will love matching sentences and phrases to beautiful pictures in this printable.  All of the sentences and phrases use advanced language words.

Advanced Language Picture and Word Match Up

These cards are perfect to use as your child progresses to feeling confident spelling words without a control.  Whether you present the picture cards and have the child write the words on a sheet of paper, or you use the movable alphabet, they work fabulously well.

Bulldozer loves to use these cards to play a game of memory once he's learned which words represent which pictures.

You'll note as you go through the cards that not only are they great for spelling, reading, and writing, but they are designed to enhance a child's vocabulary.

There is so much included in the Montessori-inspired Advanced Language Bundle!  It's a must for every classroom whether at home or school.

Click HERE to grab your own copy of the Montessori-inspired Advanced Language Bundle today!

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Though my three older kiddos can pick up anything and read it for hours, my husband and I have noticed some pretty big gaps in their language skills, especially those related to spelling.  

Sunshine is almost finished with the Montessori-inspired Beginning Language Bundle and is begging for more as she desperately wants to read and write.

It seemed quite obvious I needed to create the Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle.  Already the kiddos are enjoying the work I've been able to print out for use on our shelves.

By the time they're finished with the 296 page bundle, I'm 100% positive they'll have mastered the blue series materials aka consonant blends.

Now I had full intentions of showing you photographs of all of these printables in use, however my printer had different plans.  

Two weeks ago my printer died.  I ordered a new one which works great but only came with small samples of toner.  When I ordered the printer I was told I could find the toner at Walmart.

It turns out, our local Walmart does not carry the toner, nor does the Office Depot that I drove an hour one way to over the weekend.  

Apparently because I use a professional grade printer/fax/scanner/copier the toner I need is only available online.  Grrr.

In an effort not to go back on my word about giving you a preview of this bundle I'm sharing one page of each section of the Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle with a brief explanation of how it can be used.  I hope you enjoy!

Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle in Action

Intermediate Language Control Cards

These cards were originally designed to work with the Kid Advance Small Movable Alphabet.  The letters in the movable alphabet fit almost perfectly over the letters on the cards.  

For Sunshine who struggles so much with fine motor skills, writing and reading, the use of the movable alphabet has been transforming.  

She absolutely loves to spell without frustration.  The words on the cards make a perfect control.

When it comes to teaching my older kiddos I don't need to print these cards out quite as large.  

Printing four pages to one page provides us with perfect control cards to use for any intermediate language activity.

Now in case you're not aware, you receive 100 word control cards, about 20 for each short vowel sound.  

Control cards can be used for sorting beginning and ending consonant blends, rhyming words, vowel sounds and so much more!

Intermediate Language Tracing Cards

Once again these cards were designed for Sunshine who struggles with fine motor skills, particularly writing.  

Providing her with large words to trace eliminates the frustration she usually has when attempting to trace small, fine lines in other tracing activities I've seen.

If you child doesn't struggle so much with fine motor and pre-writing tasks, but is beginning their writing journey these cards look great and are fabulous to use printed four pages to one page.  

They just require a more refined tracing skill.

Intermediate Language Writing Cards with Lines

Sunshine is beginning to show an interest in writing on her own using lines, but struggles to know how the letters fit exactly.  

These cards are created using the same font and sizes as the control and tracing cards, which means letters from our Kid Advance Small Movable Alphabet fit perfectly on the lines.

As Sunshine spells each word using the movable alphabet, placing the letters in the correct spaces on the lines she's learning exactly where each letter goes without the frustration of writing.

Once she's ready to write, these cards provide her with plenty of space to create large letters.

And finally for my older kiddos I print out four pages to one. They are able to write the words in the small spaces provided.

Intermediate Language Word Clip Cards

These clip cards use all of the same words and pictures provided on the control, tracing, and lined cards.  This is one more activity to reinforce learning each word separately.  

The pictures are a great control as the kiddos have seen them before.  If necessary control cards can be added to the activity to ensure success.

The kiddos can use glass beads, clothespins, or a writing utensil to mark their answers. It just depends on which you prefer.

There are 100 clip cards to reinforce all words introduced in the previous activities.  

If you're looking to preserve ink, these cards still look great printed two pages to one page.  

If you're looking to focus on only one vowel sound, print out only twenty out of the 100 words.

Intermediate Language First Letter/Blend Clip Cards

As with all activities in this bundle, there are clip cards for all 100 words that emphasize the first letter or blend.  This activity further isolates the necessary skills for writing, reading and spelling.

The kiddos can mark their answers using any number of manipulatives including stamps, beads, clothespins, stickers and more.

If you're looking to preserve ink, these cards still look great printed two pages to one page.

Intermediate Language Ending Letter/Blend Clip Cards

This activity focuses on the ending letter sounds and blends of the 100 words presented in this bundle.  You can use these cards the same way you use the two activities explained above.

Once again, if you're looking to preserve ink, these cards still look great printed two pages to one page.

Intermediate Language Fill in the Blank Cards

These cards are designed for kiddos who are able to write appropriately given a smaller space.  Your child's writing abilities will help you decide whether to print out these cards or the lined cards.  

If you have an advanced writer and you're trying to save on ink, these cards look great and are still usable printed two pages to one page.

Intermediate Language Picture and Word Match Up Cards

These cards are perfect to use as your child progresses to feeling confident spelling words without a control.  

Whether you present the picture cards and have the child write the words on a sheet of paper, or you use the movable alphabet, they work fabulously well.

Bulldozer loves to use these cards to play a game of memory once he's learned which words represent which pictures.

You'll note as you go through the cards that not only are they great for spelling, reading, and writing, but they are designed to enhance a child's vocabulary.

Intermediate Language Sentence/Phrase and Picture Match Ups

Included in the Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle are thirty sentence/phrase and picture match ups.

These match ups are perfect for the child who's already worked through the sentence/phrase and picture match ups in the Montessori-inspired Beginning Language Bundle.

My kiddos are so entertained by the phrases and sentences, matching them up to the beautiful pictures provided.

There is so much included in the Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle.  Printables are unique and so versatile depending on the needs of your child.

Click HERE to grab your own copy of the Montessori-inspired Intermediate Language Bundle today!

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I can't begin to recall how long we've been working on writing sentences accurately.  It seems to be something that the kiddos struggle with a lot!

Thankfully the Montessori Method provides great ways to help children with this task!

Bulldozer focuses so hard on letter formation that he tends to forgets to put spaces between his words.

Dinomite is in such a hurry sometimes that he forgets basic capitalization rules and punctuation at the end of sentences.

Princess likes to do her own thing and does not appreciate help or correction at any time.

Sunshine desperately wants to learn how to write sentences in general.

All of this was inspiration for the Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges.  I wanted to come up with a fun way to work on something that can be challenging, at times boring, and just plain frustrating for some.

How to Use the Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges

How to Prepare the Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges

The printable comes with fifty sentence challenges.  Each challenge comes with three parts:

• Sentence written correctly
• Sentence written incorrectly
• Lined paper to copy sentence correctly

Beginner Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges

In our classroom I divide the fifty sentence challenges into groups of ten so they are not too overwhelming.  

I laminate, hole punch, and put them together with binder rings.  

How to Present and Use the Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges

To introduce the activity, we go over the sentences written correctly, reading through them together and noting the spacing, punctuation, capitalization and spelling.

We then go over the incorrect sentences.  The kiddos find the mistakes and we discuss how to change them.

Once we have completed these tasks I then let the kiddos go to work!

They select a group of ten sentences to work with making sure they grab the sentences written correctly, sentences written incorrectly, and the lined paper strips.

Using the incorrect sentences only, they write they write correct sentences on the lined paper strips. Once they completed the activity they use the correct sentence strips as a control to check their own work.

The kiddos have LOVED these cards. Bulldozer who usually hates writing couldn't get enough of this activity and literally squealed in delight about how much fun he was having.

I think there's just something about this activity in that the kiddos enjoy picking out and correcting mistakes that aren't there own.  He was so confident which is usually not the case.

Dinomite thoroughly enjoyed the activity as well.  He felt so confident in his abilities to write a correct sentence. I loved that he was taking time to check for mistakes.  

I can't wait to see how this activity helps with their writing in the future!

I took a picture of our five sets of incorrect sentences so you could get a better look at what they're like.

These cards include words from our Montessori-inspired Beginning Language Bundle as well as a few beginning sight words.  

You'll notice errors in

• Spelling
• Capitalization
• Punctuation
• Spacing

Other Ways to Use the Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges

I've mentioned one way to use these cards, but also want to mention a few other ideas that I will most likely be using with Sunshine when she's ready, before completing the activity I shared above.

For a  child who is just beginning to write, you can have a child use the lined paper strips to copy a sentences written correctly.

For a child who's reading but not writing, you can have a her read an incorrect sentence and then find the same sentence written correctly.

I'm sure Sunshine will complete all three of the ideas mentioned in this post as we progress with her language skills.

The bottom line is these Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges are amazing and all of my kiddos love them.

For more language resources, be sure to subscribe to our FREE newsletter by clicking the link below.

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 Don't forget to grab your own Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges by clicking the link below!

Beginning Montessori-inspired Sentence Challenges

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