Montessori Monday~ Soil….ok….lizards! :)

Well today we started off with some school work! It went well. Bunny wanted to work with the homemade lizard 3 part cards, and Pup wanted to do her math problems! So Pup and I got to work while Bunny worked on her own! Pup has been doing really well working with the sandpaper numbers and I am really proud of her. I have been starting to introduce her to letters as well since she has been asking and pretending to sound things out! 😉 She likes to know the sounds. I wanted to use the Dwyer Method with her in the reading, but it looks like we will be doing more PBG instead. I think ti will most likely be a combination of sorts. We’ll see!

Here is the 2ond period where I asked her to “poof” the number. She did pretty well. We still have a few we need to work on!

Pup loves to trace the letters with her fingers. I know that is how its supposed to be, but I didnt have Montessori when Bunny was at this age, so its been fun to see the different sensitive periods with Pup! I will just embrace this now while she is loving it!

I also asked for her recall, but there are a few we will need to redo later! But we had fun and that is what matters!
Another thing that I presented to Pup today was filling in the metal insets with lines. She has been in a crazy intense phase of filling things in when she is coloring. She always hands me her work and tell me that it was really hard. She is satisfied with her work when she gets it all filled in with color. So this work was right up her alley! She did 4 of them on her own!
While Pup and I were working, Bunny did all the three part cards for the lizard and then made her won book (I forgot to get some pictures). She did a great job though and it inspired me to look into getting us to the zoo to really see the lizards that Bunny wanted to know about!

Bunny also did a few math problems today using the stamps. She did a pretty good job and I was happy that she seems to be working hard at it! While she did that, I check on the weather conditions here! With no rain on the radar for a few hours, I packed up the kids after they finished their work and we headed to the zoo! Bunny has been wanting to see the lizards and I wanted to be sure she had a chance to! We saw a bunch of things (the reptile house was closed for an hour and a half when we got there) and it was fun to check things out. While we were killing time, we came across a HUGE chunk of coal that was on display. This was a HUGE opportunity for me to talk to Bunny a bit about the Carbon Cycle. This was a presentation in the Waseca study on soil. I wasnt sure if Bunny was really ready for it since it was aged 6-12. I think that it was a little more then she was ready for yet this year. However, the grammar presentation and the great lessons talk about coal and in the albums I was reading they suggest making sure that the child has some idea of how coal is formed. So I did a impromptu presentation using the coal at the zoo! It turned out well. I dont think that Bunny is going to be writing an essay on the carbon cycle, but she has been exposed to it, so I am happy! After that, we hit the reptile house! Bunny really loved seeing all the different types of lizards that there were. We learned about how lizards are cold blooded and how they lay eggs. We also learned about the different names for lizards~ gecko, iguanas, monitors, etc. Another things that I didnt know I was going to be talking about was salamanders! I really had no idea that they were different then lizards! Whew! I had to read quickly to figure out the difference and tell Bunny! I love that her interests allow me to learn too! Its great to learn together! 🙂 When we got home, Bunny and I hit the Internet to get some more information about lizards. Afterward Bunny and I filled out one of those animal discovery pages together! It was a good day and we both learned alot!
Giraffes

Gorillas!

There were a bunch of Red Admiral Butterflies flying around! They are just like the ones in our backyard a couple of weeks ago!

Here is coal that we used for our presentation!!! Cool Huh?

So that was our day! It was a good one! Stop on back tomorrow for some DIY landforms! That’s right, I made some and they were really easy!!!!! Don’t forget to check out the Montessori Guild Books I have for sale! I am linking up to Montessori Monday! Stop by there for some amazing Montessori fun! Happy Schooling!