Waldorf Inspired Winter Nature Table & Winter Themed Books For Kids (VLOG)

Nature table holds a very important place in Waldorf inspired classrooms. This is how I set up my Winter themed nature table with some story props, polar animals, Christmas scene & some activities that we did as a part of winter season. You can also set up seasonal nature tables for kids. Briefly, I will also take you through some Winter themed books that we read this season.

Watch this video below to check out my humble Waldorf inspired winter nature table setup for my almost 3 year old son. You can grab some ideas & understand how to setup a seasonal winter table for your child.

You can also check out this YouTube playlist that has all our Winter & Christmas activities, Winter DIY tutorials, stories books.

And here are 18 Christmas & New Year themed Montessori inspired activities for kids that I did in 2016.

Hope you enjoyed watching this nature table. I would love to see your nature tables, so do drop your links below in comments.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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How To Make Cheap DIY Fake Snow - Winter Sensory Activity For Kids (VLOG)

Make your own quick & cheap DIY fake snow at home using just two ingredients & gift your child hours of free play & pretend play fun. Watch the video below to see how to make your own DIY fake snow for kids.

We did this activity as a part of our winter theme unit. My almost 3 year old son enjoyed it to the core playing with the fake snow & building snowman out of it. I also included polar animals figurines to his free play / pretend play. You can find more of our Winter Themed activities HERE in this YouTube playlist.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Pattern Writing & Waldorf Inspired Chalk Drawing For Winter & Christmas Season (VLOG)

Watch this video to know how we did our prewriting & tracing exercises this winter season using the DIY chalkboard wall at home. I also did my first ever Waldorf inspired chalk board drawing, so watch the video to know how we are going to utilize our chalk drawing. This video is a part of the Youtube playlist where I am sharing (on-going basis) winter & Christmas theme activities that I am doing with my 34 months old son. Last year Christmas activities were all Montessori inspired, but lately I am reading & researching more about Waldorf philosophy so you would see more of nature based learning, seasonal activities, celebrations of festivals, handwork etc in our day to day activities in addition to Montessori materials & activities.

Hope you liked these ideas.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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All About Christmas - Story & Activity Book For Kids - Book Review

All About Christmas is a story & activity book for kids based on the Christmas theme. It has the Nativity story, facts & stories about Santa Claus, and an amazing set of engaging & educational activities for toddlers, kindergartners & little older kids too. It has over 400 stickers for the related activities. Check out the inside pages, review & buy link in this post.

As promised, here is a video review of this beautiful Christmas book - All About Christmas - written by Kajal Dharod from Your Learning Capsules. If you are a regular follower of my blog, you must have seen Kajal's Diwali activity book few months back. Me & my 2 year old liked it a lot! You can check out Diwali book HERE.



Publisher - Your Learning Capsules
Age Group - 2.5 Years +
Price - Rs. 349 (FREE shipping anywhere in India)

Click HERE to buy this book.

BUY NOW so that the book reaches you well before Christmas this year! This will certainly give your kids an enriching experience!

Here are few pages from this activity book that my almost 3 year old son has done.

You may like more of our featured products & discounts related to early learning for kids HERE.

Click HERE to buy this book.

Check out YourLearningCapsules.com for more such awesome stuff for your kids and some free printables of activities!

I also have a FREE collection of 18 Montessori Inspired DIY activities for Christmas & New Year from the year 2016 & you can do those activities as well with your kids! Check out the entire collection HERE. 

Disclaimer : I received this book for free in return for a review but the views shared are honest and solely mine. I believe in using the products/service myself before putting up the review or opinion about them here.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Christmas Nativity Setup For My Toddler And The Experience That Followed

This is my small & humble Christmas Nativity Scene setup :) My first ever in life, for my 22 months old son! I took a big tray, covered with red cloth, spread some shredded cardboard & put figurines of Baby Jesus, Angel, Mary, Joseph, Shepherds, Wisemen, Animals to create the scene of a stable where Baby Jesus was born. I got these figurines from Kerala for 150 INR when we visited there for vacation.

Nativity Scene Setup

I put all his Christmas gifts around this setup at night so that when my son wakes up on 25 December 2016, he is greeted with everything here :)

Here are the details of the setup - 

• Christmas tree with some decoration - I got the tree & ornaments from a local shop
• Gifts for my 22 months old son - My son is a vehicle & book lover & these days crazy about planets! Gifts include fighter plane set, swing with Jesus Christ ( I got this from a facebook group Ionica Toys, DIY planetarium (Again this is from Ionica Toys), shoes, car, tanker, books (from Amazon) & snowflake threading toy from Skola Toys! You can see the snowflake activity post HERE. By the way, you can get an exclusive discount of 15% on ALL Skola Toys till if you use the discount code I shared on my group. Just visit my group HERE & view the pinned post to get the discount code & use it during checkout when you shop Skola Toys from their website www.skola.toys. 

#UPDATE

My #22months old has been playing with these #NativityStory figurines for the last 2 days now & loving it! Look at how he is holding, admiring & kissing baby Jesus :)

I had also read to him nativity story from a book few days back when we were traveling.

I was surprised, he named the characters  correctly on his own during free play & even narrated the story in his own keyword style.

Here is his version :)

Mamma!

Bethlehem, Mary Joseph, Hotel

Andhera, raat ho gayi (dark, night time)

I asked where was Jesus born?

He says mamma stable. Animals.

Shepherds, dekhbhaal (take care), sheep

Wisemen, gifts, baby Jesus

Pretty accurate a narration! My Christmas is made! :)

The #freeplay with #Christmas #Nativity figurines continues.

Some brand new story being weaved here ;)

My son 'A' talking to himself...

A : Ye kaun hai? Wisemen. Ye kaun hai? Camel. A camel pe baitha. Shepherd. Dekhbhaal. Shepherd leto. Camel leto. So jaao. (Who is this? Wisemen. Who is this? Camel. I sit on the camel. Shepherd. Take care. Shepherd lie down. Camel lie down. Go to sleep. )

Mum : ab? (Now?)

A : Subah utho. (Wake up in the morning)

Mum : Ab? (Now?)

A : Khelenge. (Will play)

Mum : Kya? (What?)

A : Chess

I always wonder how creativity fosters during free play!

I also hosted an 18 days FREE kids' activity series on Christmas & New Year theme. If you missed it, check out HERE. My son enjoyed the activities thoroughly & my articles on the same on BabyChakra were received very well too :)

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Gratitude Post - 18 Days Of Christmas-ness

I am feeling so happy, content & grateful at this moment today!

I am finally done with publishing all the articles of my 18 days of christmasness series! It was a long but interesting project that challenged me on many fronts like creativity, time management, writing skills, photography & editing skills apart from coming up with 18 different activities that covered all the skills areas #Montessori suggests like #finemotor #grossmotor #sensory #language #culture #practicallife #music #Maths #Logic #science #arts #freeplay . I am happy with what I could do with more than 15 days of travel on & off whole of December. The series started on 15 December when I was travelling. I had submitted 11 articles to babychakra before I started my travel & schedule-posted them on my blog also. After coming back, I again got back to creating the activities & writing the remaining articles amidst unpacking, tons of laundry & entertaining my toddler :)

If you have liked even a single activity in the series, please give me a thumbs up here :) That will make my day!

For those, who are new here, THIS is the landing page of my 18 days kids activity series.

I thank babychakra for this awesome association.

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Baking A Cake - Day 18 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 18, the last day of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. We are ending this series today. The goal of this series was to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities! Hope you have found this series useful for your child. Of course, you can come back to it any time of the year to do these activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 18 - Today's activity is BAKING WITH KIDS

My 22 months old son was reading one of his books on his own & blabbering to himself. On a page, there was a cake. He stopped at that page, saw the cake for few seconds & then turned up to me saying, “I want to eat cake, I am hungry”, with those desperate eyes! Who could have said a no! He was adamant he wanted the cake right there & then and was getting impatient. So I thought let me involve him in the cake making process. That way he will get distracted from his “I want now, I want now”, learn that food has to be made & is not readily available. That he would appreciate the entire procedure when he actually sees & does it. And of course, with the benefits of practical life activities as Montessori tells us! We used THIS recipe.

Works on practical life, fine motor, sensorial, maths & sequencing skills.

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

We end our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series with lots of gratitude, read the post HERE.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Montessori New Year Celebration - Day 17 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 17, second last day of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. We are almost at the end of this series. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities! Hope you have found this series useful for your child. Of course, you can come back to it any time of the year to do these activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 17 - Today's activity is MONTESSORI NEW YEAR CELEBRATION

Works on science, language & gross motor skills.

Tweaking the traditional Montessori style birthday celebration to celebrate birthday of Mother Earth. 

Here is an example setup (Image Source : BlossomVine). I am yet to do it for my son, will update this post with our own set of pics :)

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 18, the last day of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler New Year ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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DIY Ice Hockey - Day 16 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series (VLOG)

This is Day 16 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. We are almost at the end of this series. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities! Hope you have found this series useful for your child. Of course, you can come back to it any time of the year to do these activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 16 - Today's activity is DIY ICE HOCKEY

Works on sensorial & motor skills.

Here is a step by step pictorial guide to make Ice Hockey.

Watch it in action in the video below, you will love it !!!

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 17 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Punch Out 2017 - Day 15 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 15 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 15 - Today's activity is PUNCH OUT 2017

Works on practical life, maths & fine motor skills.

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 16 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Winter Snowflakes Activities - Day 14 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 14 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 14 - Today's activity is WINTER SNOWFLAKES ACTIVITES

This post has multiple activities, the highlight being this Skola Toys wooden snowflake threading toy. I am loving this toy so much that I have been doing this threading for some time now, it is so calming & relaxing ;) Kids benefit equally from this toy. It is a great fine motor activity. You can buy this awesome toy from Skola Toys website HERE at an exclusive 15% discount. Just go to my facebook group "The K Junction - Parenting, Early Learning, Montessori, Music, Healing" HERE & get the discount code from the pinned (topmost) post on the group. You can use this code on their website at the time of checkout. 

There are two more activities related to snowflakes, so do not forget to check them out as well!

Works on fine motor, hand dexterity, concentration & arts. 

Here is the review of Skola Toys anowflake threading toy! Do watch it, you will love it :)

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 15 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Christmas Manger Color Matching - Day 13 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 13 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 13 - Today's activity is CHRISTMAS MANGER COLOR MATCHING

Works on visual discrimination & pre-maths skills.

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 14 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Christmas Nativity DIY Puzzle - Day 12 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 12 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 12 - Today's activity is CHRISTMAS NATIVITY DIY PUZZLE

Works on logic, fine motor & hand-eye coordination skills.

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 13 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Christmas Music - Day 11 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

Merry Christmas Everyone :)

This is Day 11 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities! Today we will take a break from the regular activities & focus on the festival with some Christmas music! Let us take out our music instruments & sway away to the music.

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 11 - Today's activity is CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Works on music appreciation, language building, gross motor & social skills.

For more details on what music to play, links & resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra. It is not going to be just English songs. I have something more in store for you, so make sure you visit this Babychakra link.

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 12 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Christmas Nativity Storytelling - Day 10 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 10 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 10 - Today's activity is CHRISTMAS NATIVITY STORYTELLING

Works on language building, memory, concentration & communication skills.

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 11 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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Bread Christmas Tree - Day 9 of 18 Days of Christmas-ness Series

This is Day 9 of "18 Days Of Christmass-ness" series, presented by The K Junction in collaboration with BabyChakra. The goal of this series is to have lots of fun & bonding with our kids & explore the festivities around us this December in the form of Christmas & New Year themed activities!

HERE is the landing page of the series if you have missed any activity in this series! 

DAY 9 - Today's activity is BREAD CHRISTMAS TREE

Works on practical life, sensorial & fine motor skills.

For more details on what materials to use, how to do the activity step by step, age group, tweaking the activity for younger & older kids, time required for setup, if you can replace some materials with what you already have at home & related resources - Visit my detailed post on BabyChakra 

Have you joined already?

Make sure to either follow The K Junction via Email or via Facebook Page or via closed Facebook Group or follow me on Twitter (@kuhoogupta) or Instagram (@kuhoogupta). 

Do come back tomorrow for Day 10 of our "18 Days Of Christmas-ness" series.

If you have additional favorite simple toddler Christmas ideas please tell me about them in the comments! I always love finding new ideas!

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