Montessori Monday~ Getting Ready for Elementary!

Today I spent the day going through all of my Elementary albums and was making a material list! One that that I realized as I went through is the Bunny is WAY behind where the albums put her in the beginning! This make Bunny what the AMI albums call a remedial student. WoW! That sounds so bad doesnt it? Well its not as bad as I thought as I as read on. What we have is that Bunny didnt get through all of the primary albums. Why? Because I didnt know what I was doing, because she wasnt ready, because we started Montessori when she was 4 1/2 and it just isnt enough time! Well, regardless of what you do or dont do, a child is still moving into a new plane of development! She is ready to move on, but she needs more information! So what my albums do is break it down so you can cover the missed materials quickly and in a way that will make more sense in their new plane. What happened in May when we started our summer break was that Bunny hated using the materials. She was board and frustrated with having to move so many pieces each time we did math and things like that. She was done with all the sensory hands on. However, I felt like I needed to keep presenting her with the material that we didn’t get to. She never got through the strip boards or even memorizing any of the facts. Because she has had some reading challenges, we never got into any grammar work or word study. We missed alot! So I was feeling pretty bad as I dug into my new plan, but then I found a plan to make that better! The albums I have show you have to cover the work we missed without using all the materials and going through all the steps that the primary albums do. Whew! I was so excited to see this! Bunny will respond so much better to the simplified presentations and I will be able to make sure we cover the missed materials while still getting into some of the awesome new work too! There is so much wisdom in the remedial plan. Same info, at the child’s pace, but presented in a way that make more sense to them at their plane!
So Now that I have worked out what to do for the missed work, I need to really make sure that I have what I need for the new work! The amount of materials that I need is more then I thought. I need some science stuff like test tubes and microscope. We need math materials like more bead bars, multiplication board, and division materials. We also need some geometry materials! WOW! That is where I can rack up some serious cash! I am hoping that with some research I can find a way to teach the same thing, but with some either homemade materials or repurposed materials. Hmmmm…I will have to keep thinking on that! And finally, it is time for me to really do some music! This is the year that I start the bell work! I think it is something that both girls will be able to use. Pup for sensory work and Bunny for music. Having read all about What DID We Do All Day’s awesome Music Plan I thought that is was something that we could do! So I plan to try and make the bells like she did! Here’s hoping! We are also going to do rather alot of art since it something that is so near and dear to Bunny’s heart! So I plan on doing some artist studies from Adventures of Bear! I also think that we may do some of the Drawing with Children. I also found out that our museum offers free art projects weekly, so I hope we can stop out there too! As for the biology and zoology, I am sure that Bunny’s interest will cover that, so I am not worrying too much about it! So those are my thoughts and plans at the moment! Things always change though, so I will post more when I get it together! I thought I would link this up over with Deb at Living Montessori Now. Now I off to keep shopping! Wish me luck! Happy Schooling!