Today the girls worked for a while today and both of them did quite a bit of math! Bunny finished the parrot book I made last week with math problems in it, so I made a new lizard one. Now I have decided to get smart and instead of thinking up all the problem myself, I bought the command cards from Montessori Print Shop! I printed them off and stapled some of them together to make a book. Whew! That makes it so much simpler for me. She has been choosing to work with the stamp game alot of late. I don’t know if it is because its easier or because it is fun! But she has been doing a great job with it! I am hoping to get a bead frame made soon so she can work on that! I think she is almost ready!
Pup has also been really interested in doing her own math problems! I have been working with the sandpaper numbers with her as well as the spindle box. I know that I am going a bit ahead of the program, but she has wanted to count so badly and she does know the numbers 0-4. We worked on 5,6,7 today and some more counting with the spindle box! She is doing a really great job and she loves it!
After we did out work, we had lunch. During lunch, Bunny decided that she was still hungry, so I offered her a carrot. She peeled it herself. This inspired her to make some vegetables for dinner. Her idea was to use carrots and other veggies to make a salad like fruit salad! She did! She peels, chopped and added carrots, lettuce, cucumber, and black olives to the bowl. We ate this with out dinner. She was so proud of her veggies and I was so proud that she did it all 100% on her own! We have our real Montessori moments sometimes! 😉 Here is a picture of her salad.I didn’t get any pictures of her making it since the table where she was working was still filled with the lunch plates and it was super dirty! I’m not sure I’m ready to show the world what my kitchen can really look like! 😉
Today we headed into our next part of the waseca biome study~ soil! This is a rather long section and I I think it will take us two weeks to get it all in! I had planned to go out today and explore soil, but the girls were rather tired so we will do that tomorrow! We did get some work though, and I added some trays that are soil related! We also read a couple of books today about soil. So i think that this will allow us to have a good base for our exploring tomorrow! Bunny and I were able to talk about all the things that make up soil and we found that alot of it we have covered with our rock study in October. But we were talking mostly about rocks at the time, so now we will see how it all fits in with soil and the rest of the world! Very cool!
Spooning Soil
Scrubbing a rock
(I have done this work a million times, but I thought I would officially present it to Pup now that she is a bit older! She really liked it!)
Sorting parts of the soil
(I have small stones, brown leaves, and acorns)
Transferring moss with chopsticks
PomPoms in the Spindle box
(this work is for Pup!She is starting to know some of her numbers and she loves to count! This is a work that we did several time today. She loved that 0 means nothing!)
As a side work, Bunny has discovered Lizards. She wants to know all about them. Today she explored all the continent boxes to find all the pictures that we have of them and there is not very many of them! So I guess we are moving on from Parrots to Lizards. Hmmmm….another thing I know nothing about! Anyone have some tips?
Stamp game.
I also found these awesome Animal Discovery pages that Bunny can fill out after she learns about a particular animal! The website for these is here.
Bunny read a little book today!
So that is what we are up to! Stop by tomorrow to see where our soil study ( with a side of lizards) ends up! I think it will be great! I hope you are all having a great start to your week! If you want to see more Montessori fun, stop by Living Montessori Now for some amazing ideas!!!! As always, I linked up there! Happy Schooling Everyone!
Today we jumped into our next theme~ Water!!!!! I of course made a few tray last night and we were all ready for school right away this morning! Here are a few pictures of the work the girls dug into today!
Counting, sorting and open close! 🙂
Pup sorts the beads into the right containers, then counts them and puts the lids on!
Pouring water with beads
Water Transfer
Bunny is still wanting to know everything about parrots, so I brought out the parts of a bird nomenclature cards!
More Puzzle Work!
Water Pouring
Counting the beads. Pup has been counting everything!!!! She really enjoyed counting the numbers. She is also starting to recognize her numbers!
Golden Bead! I made a small booklet with math problems in it and put a parrot on the front! Now its a super cool thing to do! I love using their passions to inspire more learning! 🙂
Speaking of parrots, Bunny has really been reading and looking at everything parrot she can find! Today her first work of the day was to make a parts of a parrot book! She used our Parts of a bird cards from Montessori Print Shop! She did a really great job!
We also did the first water experiment from the Waseca Biome Study that helped the girls see how much water there is on the earth. We also looked at how much of that is fresh water and how much of it is frozen! First we filled up a bowl of water with 100oz of water. Then we took 4 tablespoons of it out and out it into a cup. This represented how much of the water on earth is frozen ( had frozen another container with the 4 T of water last night so it would be ready). We also took out another 2T to represent the the fresh water in the world! Finally we talked about how all the water left is salt water that is mainly in the ocean! It was really interesting to “see” what water is in the world and what the percentages are! I of course took a few pics!
Adding salt.
We also tasted the salt water and talked about how we need to protect our fresh water since it is such a precious and limited resource. As you can see Bunny really thought it tasted BAD. Pup however told me it was ok! Silly Girl!
So that was what we were up to today! I hope that we have a great week and I hope you do too! If you want to see more fun Montessori work, be sure to stop by Living Montessori Now! I linked up to Montessori Monday there and there are a million of amazing ideas! Happy Schooling Everyone!
Today started off just like any other day! We got down to the classroom and started our work time. I had pulled together a few new works today for the the girls before we started and they were excited to see what I was working on during breakfast. I had a project to help teach them about the atmosphere and I had an extension of that about the layers of the atmosphere for Bunny. Both of these presentations were from the Waseca Biome Study. I also bought and printed off the geometric nomenclature cards from Montessori Print Shop! They are really perfect! They are the right color and a great size (and only a couple of bucks. I really don’t have time to make everything.)! I made these for Pup to match the solids to the card. She loves to do this kind of work and I hope that she repeats it. She was happy to have a new “big girl” work!!! Here are a few pictures!
Atmosphere is like a blanket around the Earth! 🙂 Our project was to make a model of the earth. We traced a circle and cut it out. Then used the North and South America puzzle pieces to add some land. Finally we used cotton balls to show how air is the atmosphere around the earth!
This is Bunny’s!
This is Pup’s!
After we did this, I laid out this layers of the atmosphere example! It was a cool presentation to explain how there are different layers to our air!
Aren’t these cards great? I love them!!!!!!
Pup also worked really hard on drawing her very own little work! She has been drawing people and she drew everyone in our family! I was proud of her and she was super proud when we made it into a book!
Dad
Me
Bunny
Pup
Now after I finished the layers of the atmosphere with Bunny, she went back to the world project we did! She wanted to add some stars to the outside edge of the earth since that was space! But then she was really interested in the continents that we traced and she went and got the South American Box. This led her to look at and draw some of the animals in that box. In the box she found a parrot and decided that she wanted to make a book of all the parrots in all the continent boxes! She worked really hard to color each parrot she found and copy their names. I used the Internet to figure out what parrots eat and which bird we considered parrots. She asked the questions and we found the answer together! As she was working on her book, she told me that she really wished she could see some real parrots!!!! Well…..I told her we could an we packed up to go to the zoo! Bunny and Pup was so excited and Bunny wanted to add all the parrots we found at the zoo to the book! So off we went and it was so fun to find different parrots that were in the zoo! Bunny and I discovered that they eat nuts, seeds, buds, and fruits. They like to nest in holes in trees, and they live in warm environments! Bunny really absorbed all of this information and she really did add some of the parrots to her book when we got home! Here are some pictures and Bunny’s Book!
Here are the stars!
She worked so very hard and I really wanted to show you the pages of her book! I also added the pictures I took at the zoo and the pages she made from those pictures.
This is the “report” that we added to the front of the book!
Today was such a great experience for all of us!!!!! I got to see Bunny starting to think like a elementary kid and Pup just keeps learning new things every day! Today was such a great chance to see how a Montessori classroom can work! Bunny was learning one thing and then used all of the materials in our classroom as a jumping off point to explore more!!!! She really took off on this and I really hope that it is just the beginning of deeper study! Gosh learning is so cool sometimes (I am a Montessori nerd I think!)
I hope that you all had an amazing Easter! I know that we did! My girlies were super cute (if I do say so myself) in their Easter finery! I posted up all the pictures of them here! Anyway, on to the business of the day….we are back to school today and working on the next element of our Waseca Biome Study~ Air! Since we were still recovering from all of our Easter fun, it was a simple presentation day. We talked a bit about how the plants use the air to grow and they make oxygen for the animals, and the animals make carbon dioxide which the plants need. It is a complicate “dance” that living things do with the air we so desperately need! After that I let the girls get to work with what they chose! I did make a few air related work and I think that there will be a couple more that will be added as we talk more about air this week. Here are the pictures of the trays I have out this week!
Blow Away or Stand Still
(this is like sink or float, the child guess what she thinks each object will do, then blows to see if it move or if it stand still!)
Sponge Tower
(Child will build the tower with the tongs and then blow it over!)
Blowing across the top of the bottles to hear the different sounds!
Our work time today was better then I thought it would be. Bunny worked on some reading and some skip counting. Pup and I worked together a bit today and I think that I need to really try and work more with her since she is clearly ready for the “big girl” work! She completed the binomial cube several times today for the first time and she was really proud!
More puzzles!!!! She has been on a roll with this!
This work was pretty tricky for Bunny, but she really was interested in trying to hear the different sounds that the bottles made!
Object boxes. Bunny read all the words today in the box! There are quite a few in there and she did really great! I think that we are getting closer to reading more!!!!
She was so very proud that she was able to do the binomial cube all by herself!
Both girls pulled out the different cubes! They really love these works and Pup is so happy that she was able to do the work on her own!
Skip counting by fives.
Pup and I played with the red rods! I laid down on the floor and she laid the rods the length of me! She thought it was super funny to “measure” me with rods!!!! After she did me a few times, I “measured” her! It was fun and she thought it was the best!
I showed her the red rod maze again. She handed me the rods as I needed them and she really has figured out which ones are the longest!
She also has been drawing! That is me with the red rods down the side there! I love that she is noticing and processing so much!
That is what we were up to today!!!! We are off to another good week I hope! Be sure to stop by later this week, for more air fun! I hope that you all stop by and see Deb at Living Montessori Now! I linked up there! Happy Schooling everyone!!!!
Well the last couple of days we have had a bunch of fun with friends and cousins, but we have still gotten a bit of work done! I have been so glad that we are working on keeping our school work more consistent! They are doing so very well and I love watching them learn! Here are a few alot pictures of what we have been up to!
Object box work!
I finally put together another one for Bunny to practice her reading!
Pup has been working everyday with these puzzles! She is so proud she can build them!
Daddy was home on this day and she was so happy to show off what she knew!
Bunny worked with trinomial cube! After she finished it, she had Daddy do it too! She took great delight in the fact she could do it faster! 😉
Pup also worked with some of the botany puzzles! These are hard and she did it! Puzzles are just her thing right now! Its amazing how focused she is with them!
Bunny was game to try some blindfolded work! That almost never happens!
More Puzzles
Playing eye spy.
This is something that we are just starting. She really doesnt get it yet, but hey it cant hurt!
Pup has also been able to do the number rods! She even self corrected her mistake!
As you can see she was pretty proud!
I also showed her this week how she can count the segments! She LOVES this and wont let me help her count! She wants to do it herself! The crazy thing is that she count up to seven, then says eighteen, nineteen, ten! 🙂 I guess I will have to help her count out loud some more!
Bunny wrote another book! She wanted to write a sea book and she did it all on her own! She started by writing the title out on the chalk board so she could correct any spelling mistakes she made before she wrote it all out. I only correct her spelling when she asks, which she does alot. She really wants to be sure that it is all right.
Here is her book. I know that she mixed up her “sh”. I told her, but she told me that you all would still be able to read it! Hahaha! You know you have a blogger child when she talks about what the readers will think! 😉
We also did some more work today from the Waseca Biome Study. We are talking about the sun’s energy. Our work today was two presentations. One was all about the the zones of the earth where the sun energy is stronger or weaker. Our next presentation showed how the sun’s axis allows us to have seasons. We talked about where we were on the globe and showed how the tilt of the earth changes how close we are to the sun. This work is one that you can buy from the Waseca website and it is amazing! But I made ours since I needed it sooner then I could get it . The season trees should have animals and plants that change too, but these were the only clip art I had. It worked for us!
So that is what we have been up to! I hope you are all having a wonderful and blessed Holy Week! I have been working really hard to figure out what is next in our Montessori Journey. I have been looking into what the elementary material means for us! Don’t worry I will share when I finally get things worked out! Happy Schooling everyone!
Today we had another work day and did another wonderful Waseca Presentation! This is one of the works that the they sell on their site, but I made mine using some nesting boxes that I had on hand. There is a story that goes along with the presentation that help the child see all the elements in a the universe and how they relate. It is simple and concise, and really cool! Bunny loved it, but is was too old for Pup. She worked on other stuff while I shared this with Bunny.
It starts with the Galaxy and we move into the solar system and then to our earth.
Next we talk about the biomes, and the ecosystem, and the plants and animals that live in an ecosystem.
We then talked about how the tissues and organs of the plant of animals is what allows them to adapt. We then saw that these tissues are made up of cells which are made up of an atom!!!
Whew! It was really cool to see how it all goes from really big to really small.
We also did some regular work too! Bunny made some parts of a biome cards, and she also labeled some of our Botany puzzles. I really encouraged her to read some of the labels I knew she could get! She also worked a bit with the stamp game. Pup worked really really hard on building some small Melissa and Doug jigsaw puzzles. This is a work that she has never been able to do before, but today she built all four of them and started them over again! She got it and was so proud of herself!!!! Here are a few pictures of our work day!
Biome Cards
Pup colored some pictures of the stations of the cross.
Puzzles
Reading the labels. She could do all of the ones for the parts of a tree.
See how proud they are?
Stamp Game Review.
Working
Here is the problem she did. I realized halfway through that the number was going to be higher then 9000! This was a bit confusing, but we talked a bit about it and she seemed to understand it!
Another thing that we did today was make bread from scratch! The girls and I mixed the dough and I kneaded it. We let it rise forever, but I dont think that my yeast was good. 🙁 So they were a little flat and hard when they cooked. I did make a second batch and it looked so much better! 🙂
Ready to rise.
Here it is risen. See…not too good.
This is the second batch. It was really good!
I hope you are all having a wonderful week! Happy Schooling everyone!!!!
Well today both of my girls did a few things that they have not done before! Bunny made a train track with blocks and the train tracks. She has never really built something that was so out of the box! I was surprised with her creative problem solving to make it all work together well! It is also really symmetrical! That is such a Bunny things to do. Everything in its place and everything balanced! 🙂
Another really big thing that Pup did today was draw her first person all on her own!!!! She made the head, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the body, the arms, everything! I don’t know when it happened, but she just did it! I am really shocked at how she just drew it!
By the way, this is me! 🙂 Didn’t she do a wonderful job!
So that is all that’s new today! I think that things are going to be a little quite here over the weekend as I prep for our next theme (plus I need to do some shopping for Bunny who has outgrown everything!). I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Today we took some time to do some work today just the three of us! It went really well for most of it! Bunny was given her first presentation in static division and she LOVED it! She told me it was her favorite! We did a problem together and then she did two on her own! I should have done it a while ago I guess! 🙂 Pup really was at loose ends for a bit. Then I pulled out the Continent puzzle and globe! She loves pulling out the pieces and matching them to the globe. So we said the continent names as she did it. She was really enjoying it. After that, I put the puzzle back by the continent boxes and I sort of directed her attention to the pictures on the boxes! She saw they were the same as the puzzle! 🙂 So she started exploring the North America box. Inside she found a dolphin and wanted to know about it. So we talked about how it swims in the warm ocean, it eats fish, and it lives in North America. She retained quite a bit of the information! I was really surprised and I think that we will be doing more of this soon! While we were doing that, Bunny was actually upstairs overcoming her frustration over some words. She wanted to read a book after her math. I suggested that we work on a few words before she read the book. I made words that had the sounds we have been working on. Some were short, some longer, but all of them contained sounds she knew or was working on this week. For some reason she had a meltdown about the first word and it took a long time to get her to relax. After she finally did, we managed to read all of the words! This reading is something we have done at other times in the past week and it has worked well. So I guess that she was just having a hard day!
Playing “eye spy” with objects!
This is something that I have started doing more with her, and I think that she is ready! She likes to play it, so I think that this is something that we will do alot!
Here we are working with the blue knobless cylinders to make an ocean for the dolphins! 😉
Here are the words for Bunny. I think that as I look at the picture, I should have done only a few at a time. Huhhhh……I will get it eventually! 😉
After that we ate some lunch and headed out to the park for a walk! It was a really wonderful day! The sun was out and the temperatures were warmer, and everything screamed “get outside”! So off we went! We walked (and ran) some trails, and climbed over a break wall to get down to the beach! It was really awesome! No one is down at this part of the beach much, so there was a lot to see and it had a much more natural look. Here are a few pictures that I took there!
I have also been searching though ideas for the next month of work. I think that the girls are just about done with the Body unit and I need a plan for a new theme. However, with all the other issues that we have going on, I think that we may need to change things up. So I was thinking a bout studying Biomes. This isn’t something we have done before and I think that the girls would like it. So I did a web search and came across this program written by a Montessori teacher. It look amazing and its free! I have to read a bit more, but I think that this is something that I want to do, either this summer or even next fall. If you want to check it out, here is a link to the website! So that is what we did today! I hope you all had a wonderful day! Happy Schooling!
Ok, so like I said yesterday I have been doing a ton of thinking and planning! We have not been getting in any work time longer then an hour. This has led to rather fragmented information and very little mastery over work! So, I rearranged some shelves and made a bunch of new work. Instead of having the tall shelf full of trays for the girls, I made all of that for Tadpole! Then I put all of the other trays over in the main cabinet area. My goal was to creat unity for the bigger kids work and a special place where Tadpole could get what he wanted without getting into something dangerous. Then, first thing this morning, I hearded the kids down stairs and held them hostage (ok maybe not hostage, but you get my point! We were going to work)! I actually worked pretty well! Tadpole worked for a while (then he just wandered and got into thing like normal!) And the girls did really well!!!!! Having more time allowed us to have a slower pace which I think allowed them to take time to conctrate! Hooray! I think that if I keep them down there then we will be able to really make some progress! So here are the trays that I made this week. I had a great time printing out a bunch of fun health works from Montessori Print Shop Taking Care of my Body Unit Starter. Pup has really been interesting in matching picutres, so I hoped she would like some the amazing stuff that was in the set! By the way, for a human body unit, this set is a really great deal! There is a ton of fun stuff! :)So here is what we have out this week!
(really not anything theme related! Tadpole really loved it!)
I really loved all the work that the kids did today! There some really great concentration and everyone worked on something new and challenging! Here are the highlights of our two hours!
Tadpole really loved the cutting!
(You can see the Tadpole shelf behind him)
Bunny and Bug worked REALLY hard at their skeltons. Bug got tierd and didnt put legs on hers. She told her mom that she had a skelton but it was only half! 🙂
I showed Pup some knobless cylinder papers. She relly isnt ready for this size grading stuff. She tried though!
Bug worked REALLY hard on the binomial cube! She picked it out all by herelf and work at it for at least 25 minutes! I was shocked at her concentration!
I moved the chalk board over by the language materials and Bunny loved it! She said it was like a little sound area! 🙂 She really worked on some letter writing and some new sounds for a while! I was so happy! If this is what works, then I will make sure that it all stays right there!
See, still working!
Pup colored a human body picture today! She really liked it!
Here is picture that Pup took of her work! 🙂
I played eye spy with Bug and Pup today! they both did well! I really want to be able to do more of that with the girls! Pup and I did it while we were getting ready this morning, and Bug and I used the objects that are in my sound basket!
After a while the little ones were getting restless, so I pulled out the hop scotch rug!
Bunny did the whole Hundreds Board on her won today! This has been a work that she resisted even though I know she was ready for it! Today she pulled it off the shelf and did all of it!
After a while I noticed all the kids needed to move! So I printed off some Yoga Cards from Montessori By Hand! These cards are really great. They are a real child doing each pose. The girls and I did an bunch together (i wanted to be sure that they could do them correctly) and then they chose cards on their own to do! They all really loved it! I think that this will be something that will be done alot! And Yes those are work rugs standing in as yoga mats! 😉
So that is what we were up today! I really hope its the begining of a great week! I really will be good for us to work longer! Wish us luck! If you would like to check out a bunch more amazing Montessori work, then please stop by Living Montessori now for Montessori Monday!!!!! Happy Schooling Everyone!
