Our Grammar Farm!
Well as promised, here is our Grammar Farm. I really love this idea of introducing the terms and meaning of grammar to kids. What you do is give a child labels for things on the Farm. These labels are nouns. Then you introduce articles, adjectives, and other parts of a sentence. This is an easy and, lets face it, a fun way to learn! I thought that this was a work that is still to far ahead for Bunny at this point. It is meant to be introduced after a child is reading fairly well, and Bunny is hardly reading at all. So I really just started using this as a means to help her start to sound words out and to play eye spy in a fun theme based way! 🙂 It fits so well with our theme. Today was her first chance at actually working with it (she and Pup have been playing with for a few days!). I wrote a few labels for the smaller nouns and I asked her to place them by the right item, and I was shocked that she sounded them out. Then she asked for more! She labeled everything!
So I told her these words were nouns and that they were naming words. I guess its not as far ahead of her as I thought! I really think that it is a work worth investing in! Plus I was able to do it for rather inexpensively! Our Farm is Melissa & Doug and I got from Amazon for $14! I don’t know why it was so inexpensive! They I just bought the Farm Toob and the Petting Zoo Toob from Safari LTD.. I then made a felt mat so that I was able to add other words like pond, path, and nest! I also plan on buying the farm labels that Montessori Print Shop makes, so that I dont have to do it myself! 🙂 They make a great set of them!
If you want more information on Grammar Farms check out these great links link:
http://www.blog.montessoriforeveryone.com/grammar-materials.html
http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/2011/05/grammar-farm.html
http://livingmontessorinow.com/2011/05/16/activity-of-the-week-the-montessori-grammar-farm/
http://kathysmontessorilife.blogspot.com/2010/12/farmy-farme-i-e-i-oooo.html
June 9, 2011 @ 5:08 am
So much fun!!
Patty
http://www.olivesandpickles.blogspot.com
June 9, 2011 @ 6:20 am
It looks as is Bunny is ready for the noun labelling game. This is where she reads a label (black letters on white, or white letters on black card) and then puts that label on the object. We do it around the whole classroom and it is so funny coming into the room and spotting “peg” on a peg and “jug” a jug and knowing that a child is really getting the reading. Keep it to CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words – you’ll be amazed how many you can think of!
June 9, 2011 @ 1:29 pm
I have never yet met a child who wasn’t thrilled with the Farm. The hardest part is keeping the new 3 year old children from taking it off the shelf to play with it! lol It’s such a wonderful, concrete way to introduce children to the function of words. They love setting it out, and often times will pursue reading labels that they would otherwise not even try.
It sounds like it’s been a hit for Bunny!
Thanks for the link up 🙂
June 9, 2011 @ 3:45 pm
Thanks Patty!
Anna~ That is a really good idea! I really dont know how much to present since she really isnt reading much. But if I leave the lables out then maybe she will just do it! I did have a question for you though. I know that you teach the older kids (6-9) right? Do you know of any good albums that I can look into? I know Bunny isnt there yet, but soon. I want to do some research, so that if she jumps ahead, I will know what to do! 🙂 She seems to work in spurts! If you have any ideas I would appricate it!
Montessori Print Shop~ I love your stuff so I am happy to link up! So far everything I bought I have used! I really do have to find a way to let the farm be just a work! Pup LOVES it and wants to play all the time! Bunny ususally joins in! Right now I am letting it do double duty, because, like you said, what child can resist a farm? 🙂 I’m sure that once it is “old” then I can use it more for work! Thankd for stopping by!
June 9, 2011 @ 9:50 pm
I want to make a grammar farm, too! I just read about this a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be so much fun for my daughter. Thanks for posting yours and these links.
April from Karen’s class!
June 9, 2011 @ 11:29 pm
I can’t wait until John Robert is ready for the Grammar Farm. You presented it beautifully! I <3 Montessori Print Shop too. 🙂
June 10, 2011 @ 3:52 am
Love the grammar farm. I also love your great addition of the felt pieces for field, path and pond! I need to set this up for D too, thanks for the inspiration!
June 10, 2011 @ 12:33 pm
Stephanie- I teach 6-9 but I did my qualification in 0-6!
as for albums, Have a look at Moteaco http://www.moteaco.com/index.shtml and Miss Barbara http://missbarbara.net/ as a start.
There are plenty of albums that you can buy but I don’t know which to reccommend. You could try asking on a forum.
We have found that the materials that you introduce in the 3-6 classroom are re-used in the 6-9 room all the time. I am about to use the farm to review all the parts of sppech known so far and introduce conjunctions with a 10 year old. She came to us at the beginning of the year and I am not sure she has a handle on them yet. All the geometric shapes and the geomentric cabinet are enlessly used in my classroom. We had to get our own set.
I have a little advice about the farm, I hope that is ok! If Bunny is only just starting to read then keep the words you give her to cvc words. Until she can read them without spelling them out, not just the famr words but any word she comes across then you risk upsetting her by introducing too much too soon. I would take out pond, field and path because they all include parts of reading that you haven’t intorduced yet. other that “the” I would keep it completely phonic. It is very against what a lot of us grew up with but it is worth it. For “the” You need to introduce it with a 3 part lesson.
June 10, 2011 @ 1:59 pm
Thanks everyone! I love getting comments and it really made my day to get som much positive feedback!
Annaa~ I agree that I need to linit the words I give her. When we started the game, I only wrote about 5 words and I offered them to her. My thought was to sound them out for her and let her hear the sounds. (we are doing the Dwyer appraoch to language, so this was stage 4 or 5 of eye spy). But she took it from me and wanted to do it herself. After she got through the words I had, she was mad because I left out Bunny, Chicken, and Girl. So I wrote them and helped her out as she sounded them out. She did really well, but I can tell its too much. So The next time we play the game I will do it as more of a sound game. She knows about half of the double letter ponograms, so i need to get her to learn the rest and that was what I had planned for the animals when I bought them (the barn was too goood of a deal to pass up).Thanks for your thoughts! You are so very right! I also want to thank you for the websites. I had found the one, but i have to check out the others. I really just want to start looking so I know what I am getting myself in to! 😉 Thanks for all you help, and tell your daughter that a letter from Bunny is on the way!