Well today we did some school work since yesterday was a “holiday”. (One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we can have different days off then the school kids)! So we were back to work and did some interesting things. Bunny wrote a book and did some very detailed drawings. I tend to be rather resistant to Bunny working on drawing during school time since she will draw the WHOLE time. Today started to turn into that, but it seemed different somehow. She was really focused and the fact that she was drawing small and with great detail seemed to tell me that she was working on alot of pencil control (her pencil control is really lacking and we do need to work on it). She finished 4 pages and told me she was done. There was no words though, so I asked her to write her story and she did. She always asks me how to spell things and I usually just tell her right off since she is working so hard to get the words on paper, that spelling is not the goal here! The results were really good and I was surprised and proud of Bunny’s hard work.
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Another thing that we finally did was The Fundamental Needs of Humans presentation. I have really been struggling with which direction to go with presentation and how to start working on where mail came from. I just dont know how to get that research going and where to start. So I thought that discussing the fundamental needs of all people could start us thinking about how people need to communicate and share their ideas with others. She seemed interested, so maybe this will work as a jumping off point! 🙂
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Bunny and I also working on the subtraction snake game alot this week. I am not going to lie, of all the Montessori math materials, the snake game confuses me! It took me about 10 minutes of working with it all on my own to just figure out where the beads were supposed to go! Then Bunny and I must have repeated one problem 5 time before it worked out. Argh! This is leading her to be less interested. I thought it would be fun to figure out the multiplication snake game and help her start to work with some memorization. But I am rather at a loss of where to start! So here is my question to all of you Montessori Mamas out there, where would you continue on the math sequence with Bunny? She knows her operations well, but she still seems unsure on some division sometimes. She has memorized some addition facts, but that’s about it! I feel like there are SO many things that she can be doing, but I am not sure what will be the best thing to start first! I would love to hear your ideas about that!
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Pup has been working along too! She and I have been working on alphabet sounds and rhyming games. She loves both! 🙂 She is also still doing a ton of puzzles and playdough. I showed her how to roll a snake with her playdough and she is doing that alot. I think that the highlight of her week though was trying to read with me. I put some of the sandpaper letters together and she was able to say the sounds and read the words! 🙂 I loved seeing her so excited about it!
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I think that Pup and I are going to start working on some continents. She is interested and i think that maybe doing some study would be good for her. She is really uninterested in any of the Practical Life work, and I have been having a hard time getting into any of the sensorial extensions either. So maybe some geography, and some more math will be good for her. I am thinking that she will love some number go fetch games!
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Anyway, there is our week all laid out! It was full of observations and some questions. I felt like I was floundering, but it looks like we did a pretty good job! Do you have weeks like that? I really hope that if you have thoughts on my questions I would really love to hear them! Happy Schooling Everyone!
I love Bunny’s book! On math, I have to go back and see, have you done the small bead frame? Just asking because Mustang, Kal-El, and DJ are all working on it. Figured it must be the time to work with it :).
One tip on the snake games: just practice the process first, even with the children. Don’t worry about getting just the right answer the first several times through. 🙂
Later stages include the verification, once it seems that the child is consistently accurate – and totally comfortable with the process.
Also, a tip that helped me when I was first learning it – once you have your colored beads out and created the colored snake – put all the rest of the beads away (close the box and set it aside). Leave open the box to hold the “used” colored bead bars (for the addition snake game I use the now-empty black/white bar box, then you have the triangle for the black/white bars (which are just placeholders, until they are changed into gold).
That way, you are reminded not to put the colored bars away too soon 😉 That was my main issue 😉
So step 1 – focus on the process of counting to 10 and finding the “remainder”; replacing with gold and black/white. Then the next 10 and it’s remainder. Many times.
The power of learning the addition facts and being able to understand the matching reverse subtraction fact is huge. I would run the two alongside each other if Bunny is in the process of learning the addition facts. Keep goingvwith the addition and also work on the subtraction snake game, sit on your hands and tape up your mouth so you don’t give the game away and wait for the aha moment when she realises the relationship between 1 + 2 and 2 – 1 and so on.
February 16, 2013 @ 5:46 pm
I love Bunny’s book! On math, I have to go back and see, have you done the small bead frame? Just asking because Mustang, Kal-El, and DJ are all working on it. Figured it must be the time to work with it :).
February 18, 2013 @ 6:04 pm
One tip on the snake games: just practice the process first, even with the children. Don’t worry about getting just the right answer the first several times through. 🙂
Later stages include the verification, once it seems that the child is consistently accurate – and totally comfortable with the process.
Also, a tip that helped me when I was first learning it – once you have your colored beads out and created the colored snake – put all the rest of the beads away (close the box and set it aside). Leave open the box to hold the “used” colored bead bars (for the addition snake game I use the now-empty black/white bar box, then you have the triangle for the black/white bars (which are just placeholders, until they are changed into gold).
That way, you are reminded not to put the colored bars away too soon 😉 That was my main issue 😉
So step 1 – focus on the process of counting to 10 and finding the “remainder”; replacing with gold and black/white. Then the next 10 and it’s remainder.
Many times.
Then start thinking about verifying 😉
February 19, 2013 @ 6:14 pm
The power of learning the addition facts and being able to understand the matching reverse subtraction fact is huge. I would run the two alongside each other if Bunny is in the process of learning the addition facts. Keep goingvwith the addition and also work on the subtraction snake game, sit on your hands and tape up your mouth so you don’t give the game away and wait for the aha moment when she realises the relationship between 1 + 2 and 2 – 1 and so on.