Nugget has decided that she wants to enter the science fair that one of our homeschool co-ops is putting on next month. You have to format your entry around the scientific method, so we studied that today.
I put 2 cups in front of Nugget, one blue and one purple. I said that I was going to put water in both, and that the question we were going to try to answer was which cup had hot water and which had cold water.
Nugget formed a hypothesis (that the blue cup had the cold water). We talked over the method we'd use -- I asked Nugget how she might test it, and what senses she could use. She came up with:
1. Feel the cups.
2. Feel the water in the cups.
3. Look at the water in the cups.
We then did the experiment. We felt the cups, felt the water, and looked at the water (and saw ice in one).
We recorded our observations, then came up with a conclusion. Her hypothesis turned out to be wrong -- the purple cup had cold water!
Nugget got a huge kick out of this, and asked to do more. So we did an experiment using the scientific method to see what happened when you mixed the hot and cold water.
And then she spent the rest of the day laying out experiments.
As I was in the bathroom, I hear, "I wonder what will happen if I leave this red block outside the door..... my hypothesis is that Mommy will step right over it! (....) My hypothesis was wrong! Mommy picked the block up!"
As I'm cleaning the dining room -- "My question is, what will happen if I lay in the middle of the floor when Mommy is cleaning? .... My hypothesis was right! Mommy stepped right over me!"
I made sure to emphasize to Nugget that scientists are ok with it if their hypothesis is wrong. I wanted her to know that it's not a sign of anything bad to come to a different conclusion; in fact, that's an important part of science!
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Homemade materials
Hundred board:
I'd been wanting to make a homemade hundred board for a long time, but had been putting it off. I couldn't figure out in my head how to make it good enough. Finally, one of my endless Google searches turned up a reference to using tiles from the home improvement store. Lightbulb! I went to Lowe's and bought a sheet of 144 small glass tiles. They peeled easily off the backing, and I used a Sharpie to write the numbers on each.
For the board, I took a leftover piece of flannel and sewed straight lines to delineate where the tiles should be placed. This turned out to be a fabulous solution, because I can roll or fold up the board for storage, and the tiles don't slip at all when on the board.
I'm storing the tiles in an old silicon muffin tin that fits perfectly into one of my trays.
Of note is that I decided, instead of going from 1-100, to go from 0-99. I think it makes more sense to start each row with the next 10 group. However, Nugget was disappointed not to have a "100" tile at the end.... so I made one up for her quickly, and told her that her reward for counting to 100 was that she got to put this 100 tile into a small cup on the shelf. Every time she gets to 100, she can put a new 100 tile into the cup. That way, she can see how many times she's completed the hundred board.
Now, this was probably presented to her a bit early. We hadn't worked yet with making 11-99 with the bead stair. But I had the material sitting out, and she found it.... Even though it was a bit early, she was able to complete it with some encouragement from me. It's a lot of work!
Hundred squares:
When I purchased our materials, I only bought 10 hundred squares. I figured I could make that work, but I had forgotten that I needed enough to do regrouping of hundred squares into thousand cubes. I thought about putting in an order, but ended up needing the extra hundred squares before I made up my mind.
I did a lot of thinking about how to make homemade hundred squares, but once I thought to use foam core for the material, I knew that was the right answer. It's lightweight like the squares that I have and easy to cut to the right size.
Figuring out how to make the dots was the hard part. I tried using paint and applying it different ways (eraser, brush, q-tip, etc), but it blobbed and didn't look good. Plus -- painting hundreds and hundreds of small dots?! No thank you. I finally decided to just print out some sheets of dots and spray glue them on. It wasn't the look I was going for in the beginning, but it worked out well enough.
Bead stair tray:
This is a pretty simple one. I had a bead stair but no tray. Another thing I thought I could do without, but once we started to use it, I realized we really needed to be able to lay out the stair in order and not have it roll away. This is just foam core again, one sheet on the bottom and one with a triangle cut out glued on top of it.
Taxonomy:
Nugget has a strong interest in animals, and it's been a common topic of discussion around our house if an animal is a mammal, reptile, bird, etc. I decided to show her a bit more formally how we classify things and where these divisions came from.
To start with, I printed off some pictures. Four each of non-living, plant, invertebrate, mammal, fish, bird, amphibian, and reptile. I took a bit piece of felt and drew a graph on it.
At the top, we separate living from non-living.
We take the living and separate plant from animal.
Then the animals are split into invertebrate and vertebrates.
And, finally, the vertebrates are split into bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, and mammal.
For even more interest, I also put out a selection from our Safari Toobs.
Some of these animals end up "helping" with the rest of the Montessori work. :)
I'd been wanting to make a homemade hundred board for a long time, but had been putting it off. I couldn't figure out in my head how to make it good enough. Finally, one of my endless Google searches turned up a reference to using tiles from the home improvement store. Lightbulb! I went to Lowe's and bought a sheet of 144 small glass tiles. They peeled easily off the backing, and I used a Sharpie to write the numbers on each.
For the board, I took a leftover piece of flannel and sewed straight lines to delineate where the tiles should be placed. This turned out to be a fabulous solution, because I can roll or fold up the board for storage, and the tiles don't slip at all when on the board.
I'm storing the tiles in an old silicon muffin tin that fits perfectly into one of my trays.
Of note is that I decided, instead of going from 1-100, to go from 0-99. I think it makes more sense to start each row with the next 10 group. However, Nugget was disappointed not to have a "100" tile at the end.... so I made one up for her quickly, and told her that her reward for counting to 100 was that she got to put this 100 tile into a small cup on the shelf. Every time she gets to 100, she can put a new 100 tile into the cup. That way, she can see how many times she's completed the hundred board.
Now, this was probably presented to her a bit early. We hadn't worked yet with making 11-99 with the bead stair. But I had the material sitting out, and she found it.... Even though it was a bit early, she was able to complete it with some encouragement from me. It's a lot of work!
Hundred squares:
When I purchased our materials, I only bought 10 hundred squares. I figured I could make that work, but I had forgotten that I needed enough to do regrouping of hundred squares into thousand cubes. I thought about putting in an order, but ended up needing the extra hundred squares before I made up my mind.
I did a lot of thinking about how to make homemade hundred squares, but once I thought to use foam core for the material, I knew that was the right answer. It's lightweight like the squares that I have and easy to cut to the right size.
Figuring out how to make the dots was the hard part. I tried using paint and applying it different ways (eraser, brush, q-tip, etc), but it blobbed and didn't look good. Plus -- painting hundreds and hundreds of small dots?! No thank you. I finally decided to just print out some sheets of dots and spray glue them on. It wasn't the look I was going for in the beginning, but it worked out well enough.
Bead stair tray:
This is a pretty simple one. I had a bead stair but no tray. Another thing I thought I could do without, but once we started to use it, I realized we really needed to be able to lay out the stair in order and not have it roll away. This is just foam core again, one sheet on the bottom and one with a triangle cut out glued on top of it.
Taxonomy:
Nugget has a strong interest in animals, and it's been a common topic of discussion around our house if an animal is a mammal, reptile, bird, etc. I decided to show her a bit more formally how we classify things and where these divisions came from.
To start with, I printed off some pictures. Four each of non-living, plant, invertebrate, mammal, fish, bird, amphibian, and reptile. I took a bit piece of felt and drew a graph on it.
At the top, we separate living from non-living.
We take the living and separate plant from animal.
Then the animals are split into invertebrate and vertebrates.
And, finally, the vertebrates are split into bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, and mammal.
For even more interest, I also put out a selection from our Safari Toobs.
Some of these animals end up "helping" with the rest of the Montessori work. :)
Friday, November 5, 2010
Australia, insects, and golden beads
I'm really loving how "school" is flowing around here these days. We don't have sit-down time; instead, the materials are out for us to pick up at any time and I have a few topics in mind that I try to emphasize throughout our day. Some days we do nothing, some days we do a lot. But it's so much easier and more enjoyable than what I was trying to do before.
We're slowly moving along the math progression. I put the golden bead material out a few weeks ago, and we worked on terminology for a while. She mixed up "hundred" and "thousand" quite a bit, but when she seemed to have them straight, I brought out the 1, 10, 100, and 1000 number cards. We've worked with those for a few days, but now she's mixing up "hundred" and "thousand" again. So we're going to slow down and I'm going to try to come up with ways to bring those terms up a lot more.
We've spent a couple days on each of a number of insects -- butterflies, ants, and ladybugs. My choices have been driven by what life cycle models I have. :) Nugget LOVES the life cycle models. Sometimes she'll choose one to take to the store with her. I have a pile of library books about different insects, and when we've hit a lull, I just pull out the next one that seems interesting. I'm thinking about maybe going with bees next.... or maybe I'll wait until we can get to the local farmer's market and taste samples from the local honey producer!
Our main focus has been on Australia. Once Nugget was able to name all of the continents on the continents puzzle, I let her choose which one to learn about first. Her choice of Australia was a surprise to no one.
I've been worried about doing continent studies because I don't have many items or materials. But we just jumped into it and I started making things to stay one day ahead of her. Over the last 2 weeks or so, we've covered a lot and accumulated quite a collection.
This is our continent/science/language shelf. The top shelf is Australia, the bottom has sandpaper letters and Progressive Phonics readers (we're not doing much language these days) and insect books and life cycle models.
The Australia shelf. The "artwork" is our versions of Aboriginal dot paintings (there's an outline of a wombat somewhere under Nugget's) and coloring book pages of Australian kids. I put out some of Nugget's stuffed animals from Australia, a couple of our MANY Australia books (the rest are with the rest of our books), and figures from the Coral Reef and Australian animal Safari Toobs.
This is a felt map of Australia that I cut out. The pictures are of Australian landmarks; they're attached with velcro, so next year she can remove them and figure out where they go.
Nugget's obsession, as always, is with the animals. So that's where we've done most of our focus. And Australia has some of the most interesting animals, ones that my husband and I have always been fascinated with!
Her main interest is the Safari Toob animals. She talks about them and carries them everywhere, which provides opportunity for all sorts of interesting discussions. Like when she's burrowing under blankets with her wombat, my husband can talk to her about how wombats dig their burrows and what they're like.
I've made some activities for with the animals. I printed out pictures of habitats and food, so that she can match the figures to the appropriate picture (answers are on the back).
I also made cards for her to sort by how the animals have their babies (egg, pouch, or live).
In the past few days we've also listened to didgeridoo music and decorated a paper towel tube like one. Today we started to touch on the Great Barrier Reef.
This has been really interesting and fun for both of us. I've learned a lot, too!
I am a bit worried about the other continents.... Australia is so easy because continent == country. Those continents that are so much more diverse -- like Africa, which she expressed interest in doing next -- are going to be much more difficult.
We're slowly moving along the math progression. I put the golden bead material out a few weeks ago, and we worked on terminology for a while. She mixed up "hundred" and "thousand" quite a bit, but when she seemed to have them straight, I brought out the 1, 10, 100, and 1000 number cards. We've worked with those for a few days, but now she's mixing up "hundred" and "thousand" again. So we're going to slow down and I'm going to try to come up with ways to bring those terms up a lot more.
We've spent a couple days on each of a number of insects -- butterflies, ants, and ladybugs. My choices have been driven by what life cycle models I have. :) Nugget LOVES the life cycle models. Sometimes she'll choose one to take to the store with her. I have a pile of library books about different insects, and when we've hit a lull, I just pull out the next one that seems interesting. I'm thinking about maybe going with bees next.... or maybe I'll wait until we can get to the local farmer's market and taste samples from the local honey producer!
Our main focus has been on Australia. Once Nugget was able to name all of the continents on the continents puzzle, I let her choose which one to learn about first. Her choice of Australia was a surprise to no one.
I've been worried about doing continent studies because I don't have many items or materials. But we just jumped into it and I started making things to stay one day ahead of her. Over the last 2 weeks or so, we've covered a lot and accumulated quite a collection.
This is our continent/science/language shelf. The top shelf is Australia, the bottom has sandpaper letters and Progressive Phonics readers (we're not doing much language these days) and insect books and life cycle models.
The Australia shelf. The "artwork" is our versions of Aboriginal dot paintings (there's an outline of a wombat somewhere under Nugget's) and coloring book pages of Australian kids. I put out some of Nugget's stuffed animals from Australia, a couple of our MANY Australia books (the rest are with the rest of our books), and figures from the Coral Reef and Australian animal Safari Toobs.
This is a felt map of Australia that I cut out. The pictures are of Australian landmarks; they're attached with velcro, so next year she can remove them and figure out where they go.
Nugget's obsession, as always, is with the animals. So that's where we've done most of our focus. And Australia has some of the most interesting animals, ones that my husband and I have always been fascinated with!
Her main interest is the Safari Toob animals. She talks about them and carries them everywhere, which provides opportunity for all sorts of interesting discussions. Like when she's burrowing under blankets with her wombat, my husband can talk to her about how wombats dig their burrows and what they're like.
I've made some activities for with the animals. I printed out pictures of habitats and food, so that she can match the figures to the appropriate picture (answers are on the back).
I also made cards for her to sort by how the animals have their babies (egg, pouch, or live).
In the past few days we've also listened to didgeridoo music and decorated a paper towel tube like one. Today we started to touch on the Great Barrier Reef.
This has been really interesting and fun for both of us. I've learned a lot, too!
I am a bit worried about the other continents.... Australia is so easy because continent == country. Those continents that are so much more diverse -- like Africa, which she expressed interest in doing next -- are going to be much more difficult.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Parts of a flower
I finally ordered the guides from New Child Montessori. I'm really looking forward to looking over it and having a bit more structure. I know there's a whole big debate about a "curriculum" versus "follow the child". And I have a whole rant in my head about it. But I'm just too tired to get it out now. Suffice to say that I don't think homeschooling can HELP but be "follow the child". If we're "studying" the five senses in our Montessori time, and Nugget asks about spiders later in the day, that doesn't mean we're not going to look at pictures of spiders online, talk about what's neat about spiders, and go look for them outside. The "curriculum" is just a way for me to keep things moving in the school area in a reasonably organized fashion and keep me from totally giving up because one day I think I want to focus on swamp animals and the next day I think we should learn about magnets and it all seems too overwhelming.
Okay. Maybe that was a rant, anyway.
In other news, we continue to go into the school room for a bit every other day or so. Nugget still wants to do lots of counting, which is fun. She's had a huge leap in number recognition, and can now identify numbers and count out items for them. Still in a holding pattern on assembling words -- she knows the sounds, but can't seem to make the jump to laying them out in order. I have a few ideas for intermediary activities that might help. And, as should be of no surprise, sink and float is back out.
The other day, while I was nursing Sprout, Nugget pulled out the tree puzzle. We hadn't really talked about any of the puzzles before, but I took the opportunity to make a game of having her identify and pull out various pieces -- the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. She had all of those down flat. She went to the flower next, and this gave me the chance to introduce the parts of a flower vocabulary. She got a real kick out of it, and asked me to repeat it numerous times.
Since she was so taken with it, I proposed that we go to a florist and find a real flower for her to examine. She loves the florist, so this was pretty exciting. They had a beautiful yellow lily that we bought, and she got to look in the flower cooler while there. We got home and matched all of the parts of the lily to the puzzle.
The next day, I noticed that one of the buds had fallen off. So I got a knife and dissected the bud with her, pulling out the immature parts (which were still identifiable). She's gotten a kick out of looking at those all day today, and when her Pop-pop and Nana came over, she brought the pistil over to show them. :)
And in other, other news, I've started slowly assembling infant materials for Sprout. He can't sit up or even hold things consistently yet, but I'm slowly gathering things as I see them. I found a couple of baskets on sale that seemed perfect -- not too tall, no pointy pieces, and flexible enough that he won't damage them by smooshing. My first order of business, I think, is some beanbags made with different fabrics. I've already raided my scrap boxes and chosen some that I think will work great!
Okay. Maybe that was a rant, anyway.
In other news, we continue to go into the school room for a bit every other day or so. Nugget still wants to do lots of counting, which is fun. She's had a huge leap in number recognition, and can now identify numbers and count out items for them. Still in a holding pattern on assembling words -- she knows the sounds, but can't seem to make the jump to laying them out in order. I have a few ideas for intermediary activities that might help. And, as should be of no surprise, sink and float is back out.
The other day, while I was nursing Sprout, Nugget pulled out the tree puzzle. We hadn't really talked about any of the puzzles before, but I took the opportunity to make a game of having her identify and pull out various pieces -- the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. She had all of those down flat. She went to the flower next, and this gave me the chance to introduce the parts of a flower vocabulary. She got a real kick out of it, and asked me to repeat it numerous times.
Since she was so taken with it, I proposed that we go to a florist and find a real flower for her to examine. She loves the florist, so this was pretty exciting. They had a beautiful yellow lily that we bought, and she got to look in the flower cooler while there. We got home and matched all of the parts of the lily to the puzzle.
The next day, I noticed that one of the buds had fallen off. So I got a knife and dissected the bud with her, pulling out the immature parts (which were still identifiable). She's gotten a kick out of looking at those all day today, and when her Pop-pop and Nana came over, she brought the pistil over to show them. :)
And in other, other news, I've started slowly assembling infant materials for Sprout. He can't sit up or even hold things consistently yet, but I'm slowly gathering things as I see them. I found a couple of baskets on sale that seemed perfect -- not too tall, no pointy pieces, and flexible enough that he won't damage them by smooshing. My first order of business, I think, is some beanbags made with different fabrics. I've already raided my scrap boxes and chosen some that I think will work great!
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Finding more time
Nugget has been asking to go into the Montessori room every day for the past few days. We've been able to get about 30 minutes at a time in there, which is a nice balance for right now.
I've refreshed a few things in the room. I'd love to show you pictures, but Sprout is asleep and I'm not going to turn on the light for that. :)
For Practical Life, I put out a marble-placing activity again. This time I put tongs out as an option; she tried that once, then went back to using her fingers.
In Sensorial, I made sound shakers out of plastic Easter eggs. The ones from Montessori Outlet are really difficult to tell apart, even for me. The eggs are filled with coins, rice, and other household things. They're much more appropriate at her level.
I also found another way to display the color shade matching activity. Nugget helped me change it around, and also matched the colors so that I could write control of error symbols on the back.
In Math, I put out a number line and some stickers marked with numbers for Nugget to place in order. She really enjoyed this and did it two days in a row. She recognizes maybe half the numbers right now, and I'm trying to work on this lately. She learned her letters so fast, I'm not sure why the numbers aren't sticking as easily.
For Language, I put out a few new things. I bought a pack of small wooden hearts and wrote the letters on those, and stored them in a wooden treasure chest. We made a game of pulling out one letter at a time and saying its sound.
I also put out a beginning sounds game from a workbook, where you match ants with letters on them to the picnic food that starts with that letter. Because this involves animals that she can narrate, this is a big hit, of course.
Lastly, I set out 3 of the Controlled Word Building Cards from Montessori by Ayashy. I'm a bit disappointed in the images on these -- instead of photographs of real things, they're very cartoony clip art. But Nugget got the idea, so they work fine. She struggled a bit with this activity. She identified the sounds in the word and knew the sounds the letters made, but couldn't put the letters in that order. I'm wondering if it's a problem grasping the sounds -> words idea, or if it's simply a problem of not understanding left to right/first to last. Definitely something for me to try to tease out, and an activity for us to revisit later.
In Science, I put out Sink/Float. I didn't plan to, but Nugget begged for it. That is such a huge hit. I'm curious if a magnetic/non-magnetic one would be as engrossing for her.
Although I'm happy that we've gotten back in the room, I've been unhappy with how scattershot my approach has been lately. I'm not upset with myself about it; a 2 month old is a valid excuse, in my book. But I would like to be more organized and have more of an overarching plan.
So I've been considering buying the New Child Montessori curriculum. I like that it's designed to work with the Montessori materials, but provides a framework for studying other subjects that are outside of the traditional materials. I like that it can be reused each year, just at a deeper level.
If anyone else out there has used it, I'd love to hear your opinions!
I've refreshed a few things in the room. I'd love to show you pictures, but Sprout is asleep and I'm not going to turn on the light for that. :)
For Practical Life, I put out a marble-placing activity again. This time I put tongs out as an option; she tried that once, then went back to using her fingers.
In Sensorial, I made sound shakers out of plastic Easter eggs. The ones from Montessori Outlet are really difficult to tell apart, even for me. The eggs are filled with coins, rice, and other household things. They're much more appropriate at her level.
I also found another way to display the color shade matching activity. Nugget helped me change it around, and also matched the colors so that I could write control of error symbols on the back.
In Math, I put out a number line and some stickers marked with numbers for Nugget to place in order. She really enjoyed this and did it two days in a row. She recognizes maybe half the numbers right now, and I'm trying to work on this lately. She learned her letters so fast, I'm not sure why the numbers aren't sticking as easily.
For Language, I put out a few new things. I bought a pack of small wooden hearts and wrote the letters on those, and stored them in a wooden treasure chest. We made a game of pulling out one letter at a time and saying its sound.
I also put out a beginning sounds game from a workbook, where you match ants with letters on them to the picnic food that starts with that letter. Because this involves animals that she can narrate, this is a big hit, of course.
Lastly, I set out 3 of the Controlled Word Building Cards from Montessori by Ayashy. I'm a bit disappointed in the images on these -- instead of photographs of real things, they're very cartoony clip art. But Nugget got the idea, so they work fine. She struggled a bit with this activity. She identified the sounds in the word and knew the sounds the letters made, but couldn't put the letters in that order. I'm wondering if it's a problem grasping the sounds -> words idea, or if it's simply a problem of not understanding left to right/first to last. Definitely something for me to try to tease out, and an activity for us to revisit later.
In Science, I put out Sink/Float. I didn't plan to, but Nugget begged for it. That is such a huge hit. I'm curious if a magnetic/non-magnetic one would be as engrossing for her.
Although I'm happy that we've gotten back in the room, I've been unhappy with how scattershot my approach has been lately. I'm not upset with myself about it; a 2 month old is a valid excuse, in my book. But I would like to be more organized and have more of an overarching plan.
So I've been considering buying the New Child Montessori curriculum. I like that it's designed to work with the Montessori materials, but provides a framework for studying other subjects that are outside of the traditional materials. I like that it can be reused each year, just at a deeper level.
If anyone else out there has used it, I'd love to hear your opinions!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Turtles!
Nugget has really wanted to get back into the Montessori room recently. Luckily, she hit an interested period at the same time that my husband could take Sprout for a walk to get him a nap. So Nugget and I were able to have a relatively long work period -- less than an hour, but still good for having a 7 week old in the house!
I've been slowly working on some turtle-related materials for our new theme. In a burst of luck, May 23 is World Turtle Day -- and Disney's Animal Kingdom celebrated Turtle Day on Wednesday. We HAD to visit for that (we're local to the parks, and visit pretty often). Nugget had a blast there, seeing vets doing check-ups of Egyptian Tortioses, wearing a pretend turtle shell, playing turtle-related games, etc.
I only had 2 turtle activities for her today -- a life cycle and a sorting work. For the sorting, I printed out pictures of various turtles -- 4 pond turtles, 4 tortoises, and 4 sea turtles. Then she sorted them by type by putting them in their appropriate home (kindergarden-level drawings I did of the ocean, a pond, and a grassy hill). This was a hit, and she did it at least 3 times today.
She also worked with the animal name sound activity, but with a twist. We changed out the beginning sound letters for ending sound letters. The last time I set this up (2 months ago, maybe?), she had a really hard time hearing anything but the beginning sound. This time, she was identifying sounds in the middle of the word and at the end. I think she might be getting ready for some Trap Door Readers....
After that, she did a bunch of Sensorial. The mystery bag, sandpaper tablets, texture balloons, and even some work with the Pink Tower and Brown Stair. We finished up with the Knobbed Cylinders. That was extra amusing, because she talked while she did it. She's always talking to herself while playing, but in a low voice that we can't hear. This time, she was speaking to herself, but loudly. So I got to hear the strange train of thought that went along with working with the cylinders. First they were a family, baby to great-grandparents. They got in and out of a car and tried to find their places. Then the big one was a mommy pushing out a baby. It was a water birth. Then the baby had tongue tie that had to be clipped. I find it amazing the ways that she processes the world around her.
I've been slowly working on some turtle-related materials for our new theme. In a burst of luck, May 23 is World Turtle Day -- and Disney's Animal Kingdom celebrated Turtle Day on Wednesday. We HAD to visit for that (we're local to the parks, and visit pretty often). Nugget had a blast there, seeing vets doing check-ups of Egyptian Tortioses, wearing a pretend turtle shell, playing turtle-related games, etc.
I only had 2 turtle activities for her today -- a life cycle and a sorting work. For the sorting, I printed out pictures of various turtles -- 4 pond turtles, 4 tortoises, and 4 sea turtles. Then she sorted them by type by putting them in their appropriate home (kindergarden-level drawings I did of the ocean, a pond, and a grassy hill). This was a hit, and she did it at least 3 times today.
She also worked with the animal name sound activity, but with a twist. We changed out the beginning sound letters for ending sound letters. The last time I set this up (2 months ago, maybe?), she had a really hard time hearing anything but the beginning sound. This time, she was identifying sounds in the middle of the word and at the end. I think she might be getting ready for some Trap Door Readers....
After that, she did a bunch of Sensorial. The mystery bag, sandpaper tablets, texture balloons, and even some work with the Pink Tower and Brown Stair. We finished up with the Knobbed Cylinders. That was extra amusing, because she talked while she did it. She's always talking to herself while playing, but in a low voice that we can't hear. This time, she was speaking to herself, but loudly. So I got to hear the strange train of thought that went along with working with the cylinders. First they were a family, baby to great-grandparents. They got in and out of a car and tried to find their places. Then the big one was a mommy pushing out a baby. It was a water birth. Then the baby had tongue tie that had to be clipped. I find it amazing the ways that she processes the world around her.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Week 9, day 1: Slowly getting back on track
Nugget had been showing a growing interest in getting back to the Montessori room. She was going in their on her own (just for a few minutes) and talking about it again. So I decided to try to get us back in the room a bit.
To give me a framework for developing new activities, I'd decided to try incorporating some aspects of unit studies. I'm going to focus on swamp animals for a few weeks, since we live near some swamps and she's been interested in them recently. This week I chose frogs, and developed variations on some basic activities using frogs.
Her biggest request was a new animal beginning sounds activity. So I made her a swamp with all kinds of animals and insects. The sounds were easy, but she was quite taken with all the animals (as expected).
I used some of our Safari frogs for her to match to pictures of their real-life counterparts.
She put the appropriate number of frogs on each lily pad (this was difficult -- she's not quite ready for this yet).
I put out the pieces to a frog craft and an example that I made. I let her figure out on her own how to put it together. She did great!
She used her new magnifying glass to match tiny pictures to big pictures.
As a gross-motor activity, I cut lily pads out of felt for her to jump between.
The only old activity she chose (at my suggestion) was the knobbed cylinders, which she pretended were frog daddies and babies who needed to get back to their houses.
(Is anyone surprised to hear that Nugget is obsessed with being a vet when she grows up? This kid LOVES animals. Nearly all of her play is animal-based, and anything can be made more interesting by throwing animals into the mix.)
All of this was accomplished with Sprout asleep in the sling on my chest. I felt like super-mom!
To give me a framework for developing new activities, I'd decided to try incorporating some aspects of unit studies. I'm going to focus on swamp animals for a few weeks, since we live near some swamps and she's been interested in them recently. This week I chose frogs, and developed variations on some basic activities using frogs.
Her biggest request was a new animal beginning sounds activity. So I made her a swamp with all kinds of animals and insects. The sounds were easy, but she was quite taken with all the animals (as expected).
I used some of our Safari frogs for her to match to pictures of their real-life counterparts.
She put the appropriate number of frogs on each lily pad (this was difficult -- she's not quite ready for this yet).
I put out the pieces to a frog craft and an example that I made. I let her figure out on her own how to put it together. She did great!
She used her new magnifying glass to match tiny pictures to big pictures.
As a gross-motor activity, I cut lily pads out of felt for her to jump between.
The only old activity she chose (at my suggestion) was the knobbed cylinders, which she pretended were frog daddies and babies who needed to get back to their houses.
(Is anyone surprised to hear that Nugget is obsessed with being a vet when she grows up? This kid LOVES animals. Nearly all of her play is animal-based, and anything can be made more interesting by throwing animals into the mix.)
All of this was accomplished with Sprout asleep in the sling on my chest. I felt like super-mom!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Week 8: Her choice
As I mentioned before, I haven't pushed or even suggested going into the Montessori room lately. Nugget has just been too scattered and I've been too wiped to spend my evenings making new materials (39 weeks, 3 days today!). She's been spending lots of time playing on our bed lately, usually being a worm or a snake or a bird or serving up picnics. Our Montessori materials are in our master bedroom, so she's been seeing the materials; she just hasn't chosen to use them.
This morning, I left Nugget playing on my husband and I's bed while I took a shower . When I came out, she had settled at the little table in the Montessori area and was doing puzzles. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to see if she wanted to do some work. So I removed the turtle pin punching and put out a Stegosaurus suction shape with marbles. I've wanted to have one of these out for Practical Life for ages, but I've had no luck finding the shapes at a store! I was finally able to pick up a set of 3 from the Montessori Swap Yahoo group. I just put out the marbles for Nugget to place with her fingers; I'll have to see if I can dig up an appropriately sized set of tongs or some such later today. As I expected, Nugget got a kick out of the silliness of "decorating" her Stegosaurus.
While she did the marbles, I unrolled a rug and worked on changing her food chain activity a bit. Setting out the entire chain in order to sort the herbivore/carnivore/omnivore cards was too much for her to manage on her own, so I put out three pieces of construction paper -- one with a leaf, one with a drumstick, and one with both. I showed her how to lay out the sorting areas and then place each card in its appropriate spot. She did perfectly on this, and still really enjoys seeing what each animal eats.
I thought, since there were no more new materials, that Nugget might disengage at this point. But she pulled out the texture balloons and we played with those for a while. Then she wanted to do the Mystery Bag, which she's gotten so much better at! She uses it appropriately and always finds the right object.
I decided to put out one more new activity -- the Small Number Rods. I just put out 1-5, and showed Nugget how to arrange them from smallest at the top to biggest at the bottom. In a few days I'll pull out the Sandpaper Letters and start associating the rods with the numbers. She's into a counting phase these days, so I think this might be a good time to introduce this.
After the Number Rods, she did the marbles again and some more puzzles. Then she went to the animal beginning sounds activity and ran through that with no problem at all (expect needing to be reminded of the names of a couple of the more unfamiliar animals).
She now wanted to pretend to be a duck in a pond (our blue striped rug often is her pond; the brown striped one is a mud puddle). I suggested we pull out the Knobbed Cylinders and do all 4 so that when they were done, she could jump into the middle and pretend it was her pond. I was shocked that she thought that was a great idea! She brought out the Cylinder Blocks (counting each one as she did so) and we disassembled and reassembled them (I made a show of helping, but she really did nearly all of it herself). Then she jumped into the middle, jumped out, and removed all the cylinders AGAIN! My husband was really getting a kick out of listening to this because she pretends each cylinder is a baby looking for its home or its mommy. I think he said Maria Montessori would be spinning in her grave. :) But I'm happy, because Nugget was doing the activity on her own and enjoying it!
The last item she chose was tonging Easter eggs, and she did that quite a few times. We finally finished up about 90 minutes after we started! We had a great time in the room, and I'm feeling so much more positive about the whole thing. I'm so glad that she chose to start working on her own. I might even have a bit more motivation to get a few more materials made before Sprout comes.
This morning, I left Nugget playing on my husband and I's bed while I took a shower . When I came out, she had settled at the little table in the Montessori area and was doing puzzles. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to see if she wanted to do some work. So I removed the turtle pin punching and put out a Stegosaurus suction shape with marbles. I've wanted to have one of these out for Practical Life for ages, but I've had no luck finding the shapes at a store! I was finally able to pick up a set of 3 from the Montessori Swap Yahoo group. I just put out the marbles for Nugget to place with her fingers; I'll have to see if I can dig up an appropriately sized set of tongs or some such later today. As I expected, Nugget got a kick out of the silliness of "decorating" her Stegosaurus.
While she did the marbles, I unrolled a rug and worked on changing her food chain activity a bit. Setting out the entire chain in order to sort the herbivore/carnivore/omnivore cards was too much for her to manage on her own, so I put out three pieces of construction paper -- one with a leaf, one with a drumstick, and one with both. I showed her how to lay out the sorting areas and then place each card in its appropriate spot. She did perfectly on this, and still really enjoys seeing what each animal eats.
I thought, since there were no more new materials, that Nugget might disengage at this point. But she pulled out the texture balloons and we played with those for a while. Then she wanted to do the Mystery Bag, which she's gotten so much better at! She uses it appropriately and always finds the right object.
I decided to put out one more new activity -- the Small Number Rods. I just put out 1-5, and showed Nugget how to arrange them from smallest at the top to biggest at the bottom. In a few days I'll pull out the Sandpaper Letters and start associating the rods with the numbers. She's into a counting phase these days, so I think this might be a good time to introduce this.
After the Number Rods, she did the marbles again and some more puzzles. Then she went to the animal beginning sounds activity and ran through that with no problem at all (expect needing to be reminded of the names of a couple of the more unfamiliar animals).
She now wanted to pretend to be a duck in a pond (our blue striped rug often is her pond; the brown striped one is a mud puddle). I suggested we pull out the Knobbed Cylinders and do all 4 so that when they were done, she could jump into the middle and pretend it was her pond. I was shocked that she thought that was a great idea! She brought out the Cylinder Blocks (counting each one as she did so) and we disassembled and reassembled them (I made a show of helping, but she really did nearly all of it herself). Then she jumped into the middle, jumped out, and removed all the cylinders AGAIN! My husband was really getting a kick out of listening to this because she pretends each cylinder is a baby looking for its home or its mommy. I think he said Maria Montessori would be spinning in her grave. :) But I'm happy, because Nugget was doing the activity on her own and enjoying it!
The last item she chose was tonging Easter eggs, and she did that quite a few times. We finally finished up about 90 minutes after we started! We had a great time in the room, and I'm feeling so much more positive about the whole thing. I'm so glad that she chose to start working on her own. I might even have a bit more motivation to get a few more materials made before Sprout comes.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Week 7, day 1: Food chain
Back into the swing of things... for a while, at least. :)
Nugget worked exclusively with the new materials today, so I'll just show pictures of those.
In Practical Life, as always she got new flowers and new yoga cards. I also went back to basics with a tonging activity. Nugget chose to both use her hands
and the tongs.
I also put out pin-punching with some pieces of foam as the backing, some construction paper with a picture of a turtle, and a push pin. The goal is to poke enough holes along the lines to punch out the shape. My understanding is that this is done a lot with maps in Montessori schools.
Nugget isn't quite old enough to grasp the idea that a lot of little holes will add up to punching the entire thing out. She just wanted the turtle out NOW. I got her to do some punching (some on the line, some not), and I did some while she was working on another activity. My hope is that each of us will work on this a bit throughout the week, and at the end, we'll have gotten far enough that the turtle will be punched out for her.
After a while, though, she just wanted to push the pin into the backing. That was just fine with me.
I put out two (semi-)new Sensorial works. I added two new texture balloons -- popcorn kernels (which are very similar in feel to the barley, so it's a bit tricky) and pompoms. I also put out a Stereognostic Bag filled with household items, because I figured the wooden shapes I have would be too similar to work well as an introduction to the idea. I managed to find a number of distinct, paired items, and put one of each in the bag and one in the bowl.
I picked one at a time from the bowl and asked her to find its match in the bag. It took her about half the items to get the hang of this -- first she wanted to pull all of them out, then she wanted to look in the bag to find them. But by the time we were half through (and it probably helps that the number of items was greatly reduced by this time), she understood the concept. The second time she did it, though, she pulled the items from the bag, THEN found the matching one in the bowl. *lol* Oh, well.
The last new item was in Science, the food chain I'd mentioned. The tray contains a sun, some arrows, and piles of cards (plants, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores).
When Nugget chose this, I pulled out a rug and we talked as I laid out the chain.
I had planned to leave the omnivores for another time, but I knew she'd be curious about what people are. And although her Dad is an herbivore, she and I are definite omnivores. So, at the last minute, I pulled out the omnivore cards and included them.
She was very interested in this as we talked about it, and loved pretending to be various animals and eating different things. We've talked about it a few more times throughout the day, and she's got an amazingly good grasp on the idea (for example, she knew that a jellyfish was a carnivore). The terminology sometimes slips away (or she "forgets" it), but the concept seems solid in her head.
I'm thinking about doing an activity where I have a picture of an animal as well as pictures of what it eats, and having her sort based on that. Maybe after that we can add in some more complexity -- scavengers, decomposers, etc. I also think she'd get a kick out of learning about the various biomes and what lives in them.
Ah, my animal-obsessed daughter. She could spend all day pretending to be animals, learning about animals, watching animals... I bet if I put pictures of animals on the Pink Tower, I could even get her to do that activity! *lol*
Nugget worked exclusively with the new materials today, so I'll just show pictures of those.
In Practical Life, as always she got new flowers and new yoga cards. I also went back to basics with a tonging activity. Nugget chose to both use her hands
and the tongs.
I also put out pin-punching with some pieces of foam as the backing, some construction paper with a picture of a turtle, and a push pin. The goal is to poke enough holes along the lines to punch out the shape. My understanding is that this is done a lot with maps in Montessori schools.
Nugget isn't quite old enough to grasp the idea that a lot of little holes will add up to punching the entire thing out. She just wanted the turtle out NOW. I got her to do some punching (some on the line, some not), and I did some while she was working on another activity. My hope is that each of us will work on this a bit throughout the week, and at the end, we'll have gotten far enough that the turtle will be punched out for her.
After a while, though, she just wanted to push the pin into the backing. That was just fine with me.
I put out two (semi-)new Sensorial works. I added two new texture balloons -- popcorn kernels (which are very similar in feel to the barley, so it's a bit tricky) and pompoms. I also put out a Stereognostic Bag filled with household items, because I figured the wooden shapes I have would be too similar to work well as an introduction to the idea. I managed to find a number of distinct, paired items, and put one of each in the bag and one in the bowl.
I picked one at a time from the bowl and asked her to find its match in the bag. It took her about half the items to get the hang of this -- first she wanted to pull all of them out, then she wanted to look in the bag to find them. But by the time we were half through (and it probably helps that the number of items was greatly reduced by this time), she understood the concept. The second time she did it, though, she pulled the items from the bag, THEN found the matching one in the bowl. *lol* Oh, well.
The last new item was in Science, the food chain I'd mentioned. The tray contains a sun, some arrows, and piles of cards (plants, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores).
When Nugget chose this, I pulled out a rug and we talked as I laid out the chain.
I had planned to leave the omnivores for another time, but I knew she'd be curious about what people are. And although her Dad is an herbivore, she and I are definite omnivores. So, at the last minute, I pulled out the omnivore cards and included them.
She was very interested in this as we talked about it, and loved pretending to be various animals and eating different things. We've talked about it a few more times throughout the day, and she's got an amazingly good grasp on the idea (for example, she knew that a jellyfish was a carnivore). The terminology sometimes slips away (or she "forgets" it), but the concept seems solid in her head.
I'm thinking about doing an activity where I have a picture of an animal as well as pictures of what it eats, and having her sort based on that. Maybe after that we can add in some more complexity -- scavengers, decomposers, etc. I also think she'd get a kick out of learning about the various biomes and what lives in them.
Ah, my animal-obsessed daughter. She could spend all day pretending to be animals, learning about animals, watching animals... I bet if I put pictures of animals on the Pink Tower, I could even get her to do that activity! *lol*
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Week 6 review, week 7 preview
Remember how I said I was going to be more prepared for the next week and not leave all my preparations for the last evening?
Yeah.... that didn't happen.
I think I've been expecting that Sprout will arrive before we get back into the room, so my exhaustion and evening contractions took priority in my brain over new activities.
Well, he's got one more night, but it looks likely that we'll be headed into the room tomorrow. So I spent this evening pulling some new stuff together.
I'm still planning on trying my best to ignore the Sensorial material unless she heads there herself. I added two new textures to the texture balloons, which I bet she'll notice. And I know she'll notice the mystery bag, filled with fairly distinct items.
I haven't done much in the Language area, just moved all the Sandpaper Letters out.
Practical Life is getting new flowers for arranging, new yoga cards, a pin-punching activity (she LOVES making holes in cardboard with a pen, so I think this will be up her alley), and Easter egg tonging.
I'm still waiting on the Small Number Rods from Montessori Outlet (supposed to ship Wednesday, then supposed to ship Friday, now... who knows?) to start Math.
Science-wise, I'd thought to continue with animal classification. But I don't think that will mean too much to her yet. However, she does constantly ask what animals like to eat. So I'm going to try a food chain activity.
I'll try to get pictures tomorrow, when there's some more light in the room. But I'm feeling pretty positive about most areas (wish I had more Language out, but I also want to get to bed at some point :) ).
Yeah.... that didn't happen.
I think I've been expecting that Sprout will arrive before we get back into the room, so my exhaustion and evening contractions took priority in my brain over new activities.
Well, he's got one more night, but it looks likely that we'll be headed into the room tomorrow. So I spent this evening pulling some new stuff together.
I'm still planning on trying my best to ignore the Sensorial material unless she heads there herself. I added two new textures to the texture balloons, which I bet she'll notice. And I know she'll notice the mystery bag, filled with fairly distinct items.
I haven't done much in the Language area, just moved all the Sandpaper Letters out.
Practical Life is getting new flowers for arranging, new yoga cards, a pin-punching activity (she LOVES making holes in cardboard with a pen, so I think this will be up her alley), and Easter egg tonging.
I'm still waiting on the Small Number Rods from Montessori Outlet (supposed to ship Wednesday, then supposed to ship Friday, now... who knows?) to start Math.
Science-wise, I'd thought to continue with animal classification. But I don't think that will mean too much to her yet. However, she does constantly ask what animals like to eat. So I'm going to try a food chain activity.
I'll try to get pictures tomorrow, when there's some more light in the room. But I'm feeling pretty positive about most areas (wish I had more Language out, but I also want to get to bed at some point :) ).
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Week 6, day 2: A wash
Well, this week isn't our best. We had school time on Monday, but Tuesday we had a bunch of appointments and Wednesday we took advantage of a nice day squeezed in between cold days and rainy days to make a trip to the Magic Kingdom. We got into the room for a bit this morning, but Nugget's sniffles were on their way to turning into a full-blown fever and she only spent about 15 minutes working.
She's made a half-hearted attempt or two at scrubbing the sea shell (I rubbed it with dirt the other night to make her efforts at cleaning it more purposeful), but she's really not interested.
The texture balloons are still a hit. Last night, I added plastic baggies filled with the same materials as is in the balloons. That way, she could match what she could see to what she could feel.
She also chose to do the new letters. I had out all of the vowels and their noun cards, and she did as well as I expected -- got most of them, but had more trouble than with the consonants.
Her final choice was living/non-living cards. We defined living as "grows, eats food, has babies". She added "goes away" to that, which I think is the result of a conversation we had a few months ago about plants dying once they're picked. There were a couple that we had to talk about, but she seems to have the concept down pretty well.
I've been taking notes on supplies I need and ideas for the next step in different areas, so I'm feeling better about being more prepared for next week. I'm just going to let this week be a wash -- try to get some more time in, but not worry too much about it -- and move forward more in language, science, and maybe even math in the next week or two.
She's made a half-hearted attempt or two at scrubbing the sea shell (I rubbed it with dirt the other night to make her efforts at cleaning it more purposeful), but she's really not interested.
The texture balloons are still a hit. Last night, I added plastic baggies filled with the same materials as is in the balloons. That way, she could match what she could see to what she could feel.
She also chose to do the new letters. I had out all of the vowels and their noun cards, and she did as well as I expected -- got most of them, but had more trouble than with the consonants.
Her final choice was living/non-living cards. We defined living as "grows, eats food, has babies". She added "goes away" to that, which I think is the result of a conversation we had a few months ago about plants dying once they're picked. There were a couple that we had to talk about, but she seems to have the concept down pretty well.
I've been taking notes on supplies I need and ideas for the next step in different areas, so I'm feeling better about being more prepared for next week. I'm just going to let this week be a wash -- try to get some more time in, but not worry too much about it -- and move forward more in language, science, and maybe even math in the next week or two.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Week 6, day 1: Textures
New material: texture balloons, flower arranging, scrubbing, Knobless Cylinder extensions, new Sandpaper Letters (the last of the consonants!).
I spent way too long getting ready for this week last night. I hadn't done any preparation the other evenings during our break, and I had to rush to put things together. I don't want to end up in that position again -- I was totally wiped and burned out, and I don't think I did a great job of choosing materials. I really need to keep a list through the week of what I might want to put out the next, and spread the preparation out over a few evenings.
In any case, things got done. For Practical Life, I swapped the yoga cards, removed the funnel pouring, and added flower arranging and scrubbing.
Flower arranging is one of the activities from way back in the day, before I had official Montessori materials or work time. She's always loved it. I took advantage of a sale at Joanns to pick up some new flower bunches and set those out today. It's simple but enjoyable for her -- she puts a stem in each small vase and then scatters the vases around the Montessori area.
Now that she's done funnel work with the sugar, I'm looking forward to extending her skill to using liquid and adding in pouring to a line. Then she'll be able to fill the small vases with water, and we can use real flowers! Of course, then I have to worry about the cats eating them....
I also put out our first scrubbing activity. It's simple -- toothbrush, soapy water, big seashell, and cloth.
I'd expected this to be a bigger hit, but Nugget tried it once, briefly, and was done. Maybe if I got the shell visibly dirty, so that there was some point to cleaning it?
I also added some Knobless Cylinder extensions available from A Bit of This and A Bit of That. Unfortunately, her cylinders must be a slightly different size than mine, because although the smaller cylinders fit just right, the bigger circles are different enough to be noticeable. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. I really like her patterns, and I don't really have the time/energy to go making my own.
Of course, this is kind of a moot point -- I tried to interest Nugget in these (both by offering them and by working on them myself), and although she half-heartedly added a few, she really didn't want to do it.
I really just need to give up on these spatial Sensorial activities. I tried three times to interest her in other ways. First, a Pink Tower extension where I built the tower, had her close her eyes, and removed one of the cubes. The idea was that she would show me where it was missing from. Did it once, wanted nothing else to do with it. I tried showing her that the small block was the difference between the sizes of other blocks. She moved the block up and down the tower but showed no real interest. And then I tried building a Pink Tower + Brown Stair extension, which she first tried to get me to stop doing, then half heartedly added the top one or two.
It's just not her thing. I think that finally got through to me today. The problem is, I hate having these core Montessori activities staring at me day after day. I feel like I have to try to get her involved in them. But that's my vow for today -- I will drop my pushing of the Sensorial materials. I will pretend that they aren't even there.
Well... except that I'll set out the Red Rods soon. We're short on space, so I've been waiting for the back-ordered stand from Montessori Outlet. I called them (again!) today, to hear that Color Tablet box 4 and the Small Numerical Rods should ship this week, but the stand isn't expected until late April. Guess it's time to start asking other Montessori suppliers if they think their stand will work for these rods. In the meantime, maybe I can find the space for them somewhere.
The Sensorial activity she really enjoyed was the texture balloons.
I filled 4 pairs of red and blue balloons with flour, oatmeal, dry barley, and beads. Nugget chose to do this activity multiple times today, and we did it a bunch of different ways. We matched, held two and said if they were the same or different, ranked them by "bumpiness", and identified their contents by feel. Sometimes I was the "teacher", sometimes she was the "teacher", so we both did all these activities multiple times. She got quite a kick of of this!
Nugget also chose to do yoga, Sandpaper Letters, and some puzzles.
We spent about an hour in the room, and it was getting close to time to go to storytime at the library. She was starting to get antsy, but we could have extended our time a bit. But when I was taking down the Pink Tower + Brown Stair build, one of the larger Pink Tower cubes fell out of my hand and smacked her in the back. Those things are HEAVY! The poor girl was rightfully upset, and that ended our Montessori day then and there.
We probably won't have any time in the room tomorrow. Later in the week I want to put out some vowel Sandpaper Letters and noun cards. She's also asking for another animal activity, so I want to come up with something for that. I have the Desert Toob that I could do in the same vein as the Arctic and North American, but I'm not really feeling it. I'd like to think up something new.
Since she loves Loves LOVES animals so much, I think I really should move into living/non-living and then further into animal studies. I think she'd get a real kick out of trying to identify the various types of frogs and turtles in the Toob or sorting animals by where they live. I think that's much more up her alley than playing with blocks -- no matter how traditionally Montessori they might be.
I spent way too long getting ready for this week last night. I hadn't done any preparation the other evenings during our break, and I had to rush to put things together. I don't want to end up in that position again -- I was totally wiped and burned out, and I don't think I did a great job of choosing materials. I really need to keep a list through the week of what I might want to put out the next, and spread the preparation out over a few evenings.
In any case, things got done. For Practical Life, I swapped the yoga cards, removed the funnel pouring, and added flower arranging and scrubbing.
Flower arranging is one of the activities from way back in the day, before I had official Montessori materials or work time. She's always loved it. I took advantage of a sale at Joanns to pick up some new flower bunches and set those out today. It's simple but enjoyable for her -- she puts a stem in each small vase and then scatters the vases around the Montessori area.
Now that she's done funnel work with the sugar, I'm looking forward to extending her skill to using liquid and adding in pouring to a line. Then she'll be able to fill the small vases with water, and we can use real flowers! Of course, then I have to worry about the cats eating them....
I also put out our first scrubbing activity. It's simple -- toothbrush, soapy water, big seashell, and cloth.
I'd expected this to be a bigger hit, but Nugget tried it once, briefly, and was done. Maybe if I got the shell visibly dirty, so that there was some point to cleaning it?
I also added some Knobless Cylinder extensions available from A Bit of This and A Bit of That. Unfortunately, her cylinders must be a slightly different size than mine, because although the smaller cylinders fit just right, the bigger circles are different enough to be noticeable. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. I really like her patterns, and I don't really have the time/energy to go making my own.
Of course, this is kind of a moot point -- I tried to interest Nugget in these (both by offering them and by working on them myself), and although she half-heartedly added a few, she really didn't want to do it.
I really just need to give up on these spatial Sensorial activities. I tried three times to interest her in other ways. First, a Pink Tower extension where I built the tower, had her close her eyes, and removed one of the cubes. The idea was that she would show me where it was missing from. Did it once, wanted nothing else to do with it. I tried showing her that the small block was the difference between the sizes of other blocks. She moved the block up and down the tower but showed no real interest. And then I tried building a Pink Tower + Brown Stair extension, which she first tried to get me to stop doing, then half heartedly added the top one or two.
It's just not her thing. I think that finally got through to me today. The problem is, I hate having these core Montessori activities staring at me day after day. I feel like I have to try to get her involved in them. But that's my vow for today -- I will drop my pushing of the Sensorial materials. I will pretend that they aren't even there.
Well... except that I'll set out the Red Rods soon. We're short on space, so I've been waiting for the back-ordered stand from Montessori Outlet. I called them (again!) today, to hear that Color Tablet box 4 and the Small Numerical Rods should ship this week, but the stand isn't expected until late April. Guess it's time to start asking other Montessori suppliers if they think their stand will work for these rods. In the meantime, maybe I can find the space for them somewhere.
The Sensorial activity she really enjoyed was the texture balloons.
I filled 4 pairs of red and blue balloons with flour, oatmeal, dry barley, and beads. Nugget chose to do this activity multiple times today, and we did it a bunch of different ways. We matched, held two and said if they were the same or different, ranked them by "bumpiness", and identified their contents by feel. Sometimes I was the "teacher", sometimes she was the "teacher", so we both did all these activities multiple times. She got quite a kick of of this!
Nugget also chose to do yoga, Sandpaper Letters, and some puzzles.
We spent about an hour in the room, and it was getting close to time to go to storytime at the library. She was starting to get antsy, but we could have extended our time a bit. But when I was taking down the Pink Tower + Brown Stair build, one of the larger Pink Tower cubes fell out of my hand and smacked her in the back. Those things are HEAVY! The poor girl was rightfully upset, and that ended our Montessori day then and there.
We probably won't have any time in the room tomorrow. Later in the week I want to put out some vowel Sandpaper Letters and noun cards. She's also asking for another animal activity, so I want to come up with something for that. I have the Desert Toob that I could do in the same vein as the Arctic and North American, but I'm not really feeling it. I'd like to think up something new.
Since she loves Loves LOVES animals so much, I think I really should move into living/non-living and then further into animal studies. I think she'd get a real kick out of trying to identify the various types of frogs and turtles in the Toob or sorting animals by where they live. I think that's much more up her alley than playing with blocks -- no matter how traditionally Montessori they might be.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Week 5, day 5: A few minutes here, a few minutes there
Again, I didn't plan to get into the room today. But I was cleaning the kitchen and Nugget was playing with some stuffed animals, and suddenly I realized that I hadn't heard her in a while. I checked her room and the playroom, but finally found her in the Montessori room!
She'd pulled out the new Sandpaper Letters I set out and the noun cards, and was busily matching by beginning sound. How fabulous!
She did those just fine and then did a few puzzles. We didn't have time to go any further because my husband got home from work and needed to head to bed.
I had been a bit torn about her recent jaunts into the room to do the puzzles. We purposefully separated the Montessori area from the rest of the house to keep it special. That she was going in there more frequently but for shorter bursts only for the puzzles -- even though I love what the recentering does for her -- causes me some concern that I won't be able to get the longer work cycles out of her when we do "school time".
But seeing her chose another activity besides the puzzles (the letters, in this case) gives me hope that she's choosing to use the room when she's in a receptive state for a particular skill.
If things worked out that we spent 1-2 hours a day, 2-4 times a week in the Montessori room together and that she felt free to choose to work in there independently for short bursts, I think that would be just perfect.
There've been some interesting posts up on other Montessori blogs recently about length and frequency of work time (for instance, this one from Walk Beside Me and this one from What DID We Do All Day), so this is a topic that's been on my mind. I'm trying to figure out how to balance the benefits that I believe come from a consistent and extended work period (one of the reasons I chose Montessori) with the flexibility that our family wants in our day to day life (one of the reasons we chose homeschooling). Add into that that we're just beginning all this, so I lean toward being less flexible in order to establish a good pattern and work habits... and, on the flip side, that we've got a newborn due any day now which will, of necessity, disrupt things for a while.
All that to say... I have no idea what I'm doing. *lol*
She'd pulled out the new Sandpaper Letters I set out and the noun cards, and was busily matching by beginning sound. How fabulous!
She did those just fine and then did a few puzzles. We didn't have time to go any further because my husband got home from work and needed to head to bed.
I had been a bit torn about her recent jaunts into the room to do the puzzles. We purposefully separated the Montessori area from the rest of the house to keep it special. That she was going in there more frequently but for shorter bursts only for the puzzles -- even though I love what the recentering does for her -- causes me some concern that I won't be able to get the longer work cycles out of her when we do "school time".
But seeing her chose another activity besides the puzzles (the letters, in this case) gives me hope that she's choosing to use the room when she's in a receptive state for a particular skill.
If things worked out that we spent 1-2 hours a day, 2-4 times a week in the Montessori room together and that she felt free to choose to work in there independently for short bursts, I think that would be just perfect.
There've been some interesting posts up on other Montessori blogs recently about length and frequency of work time (for instance, this one from Walk Beside Me and this one from What DID We Do All Day), so this is a topic that's been on my mind. I'm trying to figure out how to balance the benefits that I believe come from a consistent and extended work period (one of the reasons I chose Montessori) with the flexibility that our family wants in our day to day life (one of the reasons we chose homeschooling). Add into that that we're just beginning all this, so I lean toward being less flexible in order to establish a good pattern and work habits... and, on the flip side, that we've got a newborn due any day now which will, of necessity, disrupt things for a while.
All that to say... I have no idea what I'm doing. *lol*
Friday, March 5, 2010
Week 5, day 4: Recentering
Although I hadn't scheduled any official Montessori time for a few days, Nugget has gone into the room on her own a few times recently. It seems the animal and botany puzzles have become her recentering activity of the moment.
This changes frequently -- for a while it was jigsaw puzzles or stamps or books. Right now it's telling stories to herself while doing the same puzzles over and over again. It's interesting to watch. She goes into the activity scattered and easily aggravated. Then she becomes totally involved in what she's going and starts to talk to herself. Occasionally, she'll pop out with a question for one of us. If you listen to what she's muttering and asking, you'll sometimes notice that she's kind of reviewing the day. Questions about things from earlier will come out of nowhere.
She worked on this for nearly an hour, distracted only when her Dad woke up from his nap.
After a break for some play time, I made up a game using some beanbags she was throwing around. I wrote all the letters on a huge sheet of packing paper, then handed her a bag and gave it a name ("This is a mommy bag. This is a bunny bag.") Her job was to take the beanbag to the letter sound that the word started with. We did this for quite a while, and I was able to nail down the few letters she needs help with (hearing a/e, i/e, and r/w, recognizing b/d/p). This'll be a great help for the next few weeks; I can feel like we're making progress in the language area instead of just review.
This changes frequently -- for a while it was jigsaw puzzles or stamps or books. Right now it's telling stories to herself while doing the same puzzles over and over again. It's interesting to watch. She goes into the activity scattered and easily aggravated. Then she becomes totally involved in what she's going and starts to talk to herself. Occasionally, she'll pop out with a question for one of us. If you listen to what she's muttering and asking, you'll sometimes notice that she's kind of reviewing the day. Questions about things from earlier will come out of nowhere.
She worked on this for nearly an hour, distracted only when her Dad woke up from his nap.
After a break for some play time, I made up a game using some beanbags she was throwing around. I wrote all the letters on a huge sheet of packing paper, then handed her a bag and gave it a name ("This is a mommy bag. This is a bunny bag.") Her job was to take the beanbag to the letter sound that the word started with. We did this for quite a while, and I was able to nail down the few letters she needs help with (hearing a/e, i/e, and r/w, recognizing b/d/p). This'll be a great help for the next few weeks; I can feel like we're making progress in the language area instead of just review.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Week 5, day 1: Putting it all on the table (or shelves, as the case may be)
I feel like a lot has changed since the last pictures of our Montessori environment, so I took some overview shots today.
This is our little corner of the master bedroom. (Yes, I know the last picture like this had the cat in it, too. He's the into-everything type.)
The Practical Life shelf is to the left on the picture. It has a funnel-pouring activity and yoga cards on the top shelf, dressing items and containers on the bottom shelf.
The funnel pouring has some orange sugar. I wanted to use dry barley, which would be a lot easier to clean up. But my funnel kept clogging on it (a great reminder to always test activities before setting them out). The orange sugar looks neat and pours well, but is definitely harder to clean up.
The yoga cards are from Montessori by Hand, as mentioned previously. I only have the 6 easiest of the 25 total cards out right now.
This is the Sensorial area, against the back in the overview picture. I have a small Ikea shelf to hold all the Cylinder Blocks and the Pink Tower extension sheets next to it. The first plastic shelf holds the Pink Tower, Knobless Cylinders, and Brown Stair. The top of the second plastic shelf has color matching; the bottom has rough and smooth, a blindfold, Smelling Bottles, and Sound Cylinders.
This is a close-up of the color shade matching. I'm happier with how it's presented now, although it's still not perfect.
Here's 3 of my homemade rough and smooth boards. This is the smooth, roughest, and middle grade. I have two other in-between grades tucked away.
This is the Language shelf. It's pretty empty today because I wanted to review some letters before putting out the next animal activity; that will go on the bottom. The top has 4 Sandpaper Letters and a treasure chest filled with coordinating noun cards. You can kinda-sorta see our rugs, rolled up in the corner space between the Sensorial and Language shelves.
These are the Math and Science shelves. Right now, the top has a shape puzzle and the bottom has our animal and botany puzzles.
I bought the shape puzzle set on sale at some discount store recently.
And finally, just a shot of our little table that Nugget does most of her work at. You can see my notebook on it; I take notes during each session about what she chooses and anything that strikes me (if something seems too easy or too hard, if the environment isn't working for her).
So, how did Nugget do with all this new stuff to go through? Much better than I expected, actually! I thought we'd have one of those days when she bounces from one thing to the next without spending any time on them. She checked out everything new, of course, but actually worked through everything.
I think the colorful box lids of the Knobless Cylinders grabbed her attention. That was what she pulled out first; the yellow box. I showed her how to line them up biggest to smallest and how to build a tower. Like the other size-based Sensorial items (Pink Tower, Brown Stair), she did them well but without much interest.
She did the funnel pouring once. That vase is way too tall, but I don't really have another option.
Then she spent 20 minutes working through each puzzle in order. She sat at her table, I sat on the bed and worked on the week's grocery list. She'd ask for help ("Mommy, can you help me with this? I need some help...."), but if I gave her an extra 5 seconds, she'd get it herself. That's just the phase she's in -- in Montessori and in daily life. The tree puzzle was by far the most difficult, but she finally got it. I was a little worried a few times -- she's got awkward and over-enthusiastic toddler hands, and those puzzles are made of pretty thin wood. But no damage so far....
Nugget spent some time wandering after the puzzles. She poked at the Sound Cylinders and the Sandpaper Letters before trying the shape puzzle. She tried the bird shape first, but got frustrated pretty quickly. I encouraged her to flip the sheet over and try the train, and I sat with her while she worked through it. Then we went back to the bird and completed that with some encouragement.
She went back to the Sandpaper Letters; I'd set out c, f, p, and s. She recognized each one and had no problem matching the noun cards. She did them all perfectly the first time.
Then she poured a few times -- cleanly for a while, then things got a bit messy. Next, we did the yoga cards together. That was pretty fun, and I was really happy with her body awareness. She's pretty slow on gross motor in general, but she enjoys things like gymnastics and yoga.
The wandering started again... poking at the Knobless Cylinders... wandering... looking at the color shade matching... wandering....
She settled in with the Sound Cylinders briefly. I reduced the number from 6 to 3, but two of them still sound too much alike. I might make our own, more distinct version and move to these laster. We at least talked a bit about loud and quiet.
Nugget started to wander again, and I pulled out Cylinder Block #4. She worked on some containers while I did that -- and it is tough! In Cylinder Block #4, all of the cylinders are the same diameter, but different heights. If you put a too-short cylinder in a too-deep hole, you have to turn the whole thing over and dump all of them out.
When I finished with Cylinder Block #4, I put all four out in a square and worked with them all at the same time. Nugget wasn't happy with me when I started out, but she finally settled in to watch... and then started to help... and then took over. And she did it just fine. She had to tell a story during it, of course. :) Something about an animal digging a hole? Her "reward" for finishing all four was to be able to climb in the middle of them and pretend it was a muddy hole.
And that pretty much ended our day. All together, about an hour and fifteen minutes. As I said, I was happy with her level of concentration given all of the new material.
Tomorrow, most of what's out will stay constant. I'll put out some new letters and, hopefully, another animal beginning sound activity (this depends on my energy level tonight which, so far, is pretty low). I think I'll set out another shape pattern card, as well.
We'll see how she reacts to a day in a nearly-identical set-up. I think it'll take at least a week or two for her to get used to this idea, so I'm going to go into it not expecting too much.
This is our little corner of the master bedroom. (Yes, I know the last picture like this had the cat in it, too. He's the into-everything type.)
The Practical Life shelf is to the left on the picture. It has a funnel-pouring activity and yoga cards on the top shelf, dressing items and containers on the bottom shelf.
The funnel pouring has some orange sugar. I wanted to use dry barley, which would be a lot easier to clean up. But my funnel kept clogging on it (a great reminder to always test activities before setting them out). The orange sugar looks neat and pours well, but is definitely harder to clean up.
The yoga cards are from Montessori by Hand, as mentioned previously. I only have the 6 easiest of the 25 total cards out right now.
This is the Sensorial area, against the back in the overview picture. I have a small Ikea shelf to hold all the Cylinder Blocks and the Pink Tower extension sheets next to it. The first plastic shelf holds the Pink Tower, Knobless Cylinders, and Brown Stair. The top of the second plastic shelf has color matching; the bottom has rough and smooth, a blindfold, Smelling Bottles, and Sound Cylinders.
This is a close-up of the color shade matching. I'm happier with how it's presented now, although it's still not perfect.
Here's 3 of my homemade rough and smooth boards. This is the smooth, roughest, and middle grade. I have two other in-between grades tucked away.
This is the Language shelf. It's pretty empty today because I wanted to review some letters before putting out the next animal activity; that will go on the bottom. The top has 4 Sandpaper Letters and a treasure chest filled with coordinating noun cards. You can kinda-sorta see our rugs, rolled up in the corner space between the Sensorial and Language shelves.
These are the Math and Science shelves. Right now, the top has a shape puzzle and the bottom has our animal and botany puzzles.
I bought the shape puzzle set on sale at some discount store recently.
And finally, just a shot of our little table that Nugget does most of her work at. You can see my notebook on it; I take notes during each session about what she chooses and anything that strikes me (if something seems too easy or too hard, if the environment isn't working for her).
So, how did Nugget do with all this new stuff to go through? Much better than I expected, actually! I thought we'd have one of those days when she bounces from one thing to the next without spending any time on them. She checked out everything new, of course, but actually worked through everything.
I think the colorful box lids of the Knobless Cylinders grabbed her attention. That was what she pulled out first; the yellow box. I showed her how to line them up biggest to smallest and how to build a tower. Like the other size-based Sensorial items (Pink Tower, Brown Stair), she did them well but without much interest.
She did the funnel pouring once. That vase is way too tall, but I don't really have another option.
Then she spent 20 minutes working through each puzzle in order. She sat at her table, I sat on the bed and worked on the week's grocery list. She'd ask for help ("Mommy, can you help me with this? I need some help...."), but if I gave her an extra 5 seconds, she'd get it herself. That's just the phase she's in -- in Montessori and in daily life. The tree puzzle was by far the most difficult, but she finally got it. I was a little worried a few times -- she's got awkward and over-enthusiastic toddler hands, and those puzzles are made of pretty thin wood. But no damage so far....
Nugget spent some time wandering after the puzzles. She poked at the Sound Cylinders and the Sandpaper Letters before trying the shape puzzle. She tried the bird shape first, but got frustrated pretty quickly. I encouraged her to flip the sheet over and try the train, and I sat with her while she worked through it. Then we went back to the bird and completed that with some encouragement.
She went back to the Sandpaper Letters; I'd set out c, f, p, and s. She recognized each one and had no problem matching the noun cards. She did them all perfectly the first time.
Then she poured a few times -- cleanly for a while, then things got a bit messy. Next, we did the yoga cards together. That was pretty fun, and I was really happy with her body awareness. She's pretty slow on gross motor in general, but she enjoys things like gymnastics and yoga.
The wandering started again... poking at the Knobless Cylinders... wandering... looking at the color shade matching... wandering....
She settled in with the Sound Cylinders briefly. I reduced the number from 6 to 3, but two of them still sound too much alike. I might make our own, more distinct version and move to these laster. We at least talked a bit about loud and quiet.
Nugget started to wander again, and I pulled out Cylinder Block #4. She worked on some containers while I did that -- and it is tough! In Cylinder Block #4, all of the cylinders are the same diameter, but different heights. If you put a too-short cylinder in a too-deep hole, you have to turn the whole thing over and dump all of them out.
When I finished with Cylinder Block #4, I put all four out in a square and worked with them all at the same time. Nugget wasn't happy with me when I started out, but she finally settled in to watch... and then started to help... and then took over. And she did it just fine. She had to tell a story during it, of course. :) Something about an animal digging a hole? Her "reward" for finishing all four was to be able to climb in the middle of them and pretend it was a muddy hole.
And that pretty much ended our day. All together, about an hour and fifteen minutes. As I said, I was happy with her level of concentration given all of the new material.
Tomorrow, most of what's out will stay constant. I'll put out some new letters and, hopefully, another animal beginning sound activity (this depends on my energy level tonight which, so far, is pretty low). I think I'll set out another shape pattern card, as well.
We'll see how she reacts to a day in a nearly-identical set-up. I think it'll take at least a week or two for her to get used to this idea, so I'm going to go into it not expecting too much.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Week 4 review, week 5 preview
We had one really good day this week, the others were mediocre. I definitely felt like we needed this weekend break, though. We have the choice of getting back into the room on Monday, but I'm going to have to ponder whether I'd rather delay until Tuesday.
Nugget is very much looking for what's new these days, and I think it's preventing her from going back to things she's seen once. So now that I've tried it both ways, I think I prefer making most changes over our break. I imagine I'll need to swap out the language material more often (like rotating letters every day), but I'm going to aim to make practical life and science changes weekly and sensorial changes even less often.
So over this weekend, I'll get the sensorial to a place that I'd like it to stay for a while. I'll add Cylinder Block #4. I think I'll reduce the 6 Sound Cylinders to 3 (I'd had it at 6 because I didn't expect her to try matching). I still have in reserve the Red Rods (STILL waiting for the back ordered stand for them), the Baric Cylinders (those are HARD), a mystery bag (not sure if she'd get the concept), and the Knobless Cylinders. I also need to finish the color shade matching, although she's not terribly interested in that right now. I wish I could think of a better way to display it. And I'm thinking about making sensorial balloons (deflated balloons filled with different textured items to feel and match, like beans and popcorn kernels and flour).
I'm a bit torn about introducing the Red Rods; I'm not sure she'd grasp lining them up with their bottoms even, and I don't really have space for them without the stand. So I guess those will stay back. I'm also unsure about the Knobless Cylinders, mostly because they seem like a nice, easy thing to be able to add in once Sprout comes... but I guess, if I'm following the idea that she should be allowed to pick her own direction, that they should go out.
Practical life.... I think I want to keep a weekly rotation going here. I have one shelf to dedicate to practical life, so I can have out 2-4 activities. She's been completely ignoring the dressing items, so I'll probably remove those. She also completely ignored wet pouring all week, so that'll be gone. Maybe folding? Oooh, maybe a funnel for solids. I've also received prints of the yoga cards from Montessori by Hand and have a nice little basket for them, so I'll start by putting about 3 out and slowly add cards. Nugget LOVES her gymnastics class, and I think she'll really love the yoga. I'm also hoping it'll provide the opportunity to take a more physical break during our work time.
Language. I guess I'll keep working through Sandpaper Letters and beginning sound cards until I've verified that she remembers all the letter shapes and their sounds (since it's been a few months since we've worked on them officially). Of course, we're still doing language work outside of the classroom, like I Spy, rhymes, and recognizing beginning and ending sounds in random words. She so loved that animal set-up that I think I'll do another one. I've got a bunch of arctic animals, and that's easy to make -- white for ice, blue for water.
Science! Well, I've got the animal and botany puzzles tucked back. She's been into puzzles lately. I guess, if I'm putting it all on the table... those should come out. More experimental-type activities, I'd like to rotate weekly. I'll put sink and float away, but maybe something where I have a "boat" that floats and she adds weights (coins, etc) one-by-one until it sinks?
Geography, I'm going to continue holding back on even though I have a nearly-completed sandpaper globe and the continents puzzle. That's definitely something that can wait; it's still pretty abstract for her at this stage.
This next week will be the start of our second month doing this! Amazing!
Nugget is very much looking for what's new these days, and I think it's preventing her from going back to things she's seen once. So now that I've tried it both ways, I think I prefer making most changes over our break. I imagine I'll need to swap out the language material more often (like rotating letters every day), but I'm going to aim to make practical life and science changes weekly and sensorial changes even less often.
So over this weekend, I'll get the sensorial to a place that I'd like it to stay for a while. I'll add Cylinder Block #4. I think I'll reduce the 6 Sound Cylinders to 3 (I'd had it at 6 because I didn't expect her to try matching). I still have in reserve the Red Rods (STILL waiting for the back ordered stand for them), the Baric Cylinders (those are HARD), a mystery bag (not sure if she'd get the concept), and the Knobless Cylinders. I also need to finish the color shade matching, although she's not terribly interested in that right now. I wish I could think of a better way to display it. And I'm thinking about making sensorial balloons (deflated balloons filled with different textured items to feel and match, like beans and popcorn kernels and flour).
I'm a bit torn about introducing the Red Rods; I'm not sure she'd grasp lining them up with their bottoms even, and I don't really have space for them without the stand. So I guess those will stay back. I'm also unsure about the Knobless Cylinders, mostly because they seem like a nice, easy thing to be able to add in once Sprout comes... but I guess, if I'm following the idea that she should be allowed to pick her own direction, that they should go out.
Practical life.... I think I want to keep a weekly rotation going here. I have one shelf to dedicate to practical life, so I can have out 2-4 activities. She's been completely ignoring the dressing items, so I'll probably remove those. She also completely ignored wet pouring all week, so that'll be gone. Maybe folding? Oooh, maybe a funnel for solids. I've also received prints of the yoga cards from Montessori by Hand and have a nice little basket for them, so I'll start by putting about 3 out and slowly add cards. Nugget LOVES her gymnastics class, and I think she'll really love the yoga. I'm also hoping it'll provide the opportunity to take a more physical break during our work time.
Language. I guess I'll keep working through Sandpaper Letters and beginning sound cards until I've verified that she remembers all the letter shapes and their sounds (since it's been a few months since we've worked on them officially). Of course, we're still doing language work outside of the classroom, like I Spy, rhymes, and recognizing beginning and ending sounds in random words. She so loved that animal set-up that I think I'll do another one. I've got a bunch of arctic animals, and that's easy to make -- white for ice, blue for water.
Science! Well, I've got the animal and botany puzzles tucked back. She's been into puzzles lately. I guess, if I'm putting it all on the table... those should come out. More experimental-type activities, I'd like to rotate weekly. I'll put sink and float away, but maybe something where I have a "boat" that floats and she adds weights (coins, etc) one-by-one until it sinks?
Geography, I'm going to continue holding back on even though I have a nearly-completed sandpaper globe and the continents puzzle. That's definitely something that can wait; it's still pretty abstract for her at this stage.
This next week will be the start of our second month doing this! Amazing!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Week 4, day 3: Mid-week perk-up and pondering on being stingy with materials
New material: some Sandpaper Letters, matching Smelling Bottles, blue shade matching, blindfold.
Things perked up today! The first half was so-so, but we broke the ice and had some fun starting about mid-way through.
Nugget certainly started out enthusiastically. I was still making my breakfast and hadn't even mentioned doing Montessori today when she took off into the Montessori room. When she got into the room, she spotted the Sandpaper Letters that I'd put out next to the animal beginning/ending sound activity. All hope of a relaxed breakfast was lost at that point -- she HAD to work with them immediately. My lovely husband finished making my breakfast and brought it into the room for me so that Nugget could get right into the language material.
We didn't do anything extraordinary with the Sandpaper Letters -- I just showed Nugget how to run her finger over each and then had her find the animals that had each beginning sound. (I'd just put out the letters we'd need -- about 8 of them.) She matched the sounds perfectly, but the tracing was hard. She uses way too much pressure with her fingers. I need to figure out a way to work more on a soft touch with her.
After that, she was poking around, asking what else was new. (As people have mentioned, putting something new out each day makes her expect it. I'm still not sure which method we're going to use long-term.) I mentioned that the Smelling Bottles were a bit different (they're in a covered box, so she couldn't see the change). Last night, I selected 3 of the most distinct smells (almond, clove, cumin) and filled 3 blue-topped bottles with those smells, as well. I wanted to introduce the idea of matching the smells with a smaller set than the full 6. Sure enough, this was difficult for Nugget. She still doesn't quite get the idea of these more abstract matching games. I think she just needs to get a bit older. Until then, the Smelling Bottles with fun smells will be enough.
Her next choice was the new blue color shade matching. Once again, she was quite good with this, making one or two mistakes but recognizing and correcting them independently. The red shades she did without error.
She moved on to sink and float and then helped me with 2 Cylinder Blocks (I disassembled, she reassembled). Once again, she did this without a problem. I'm kind of reluctant to bring out #3 because I'd hoped to spread this material out over a greater period of time, but it seems really easy for her and I think that's why she doesn't choose it. I'm wondering if introducing a third (and possibly a fourth) would make it more interesting, or if she just isn't in the mind space for this right now.
Nugget chose to cut and glue for a while, then started to fade. Another mom on the Montessori homeschooling thread in the Mothering forums had suggested blindfolded rough and smooth as a change of pace, so I pulled out the blindfold for the first time. This is when the giggles started.
So we did blindfolded rough and smooth (is this rough or smooth? is this more rough or less rough?), blindfolded jingle/no-jingle bells, and I did a Cylinder Block blindfolded (she didn't want to give it a shot). I thought it was pretty fun!
Next, I started the Pink Tower bunny ears extension, which Nugget helped with a bit. But she decided she wanted to do the caterpillar extension, so she moved onto that pretty quickly. These extensions are also no problem for her.
We went to put the Pink Tower away, but Nugget wanted to build it up high again. So we built it back on the shelf, with me lifting her up to put the blocks on top while she giggled away.
Next, she handed me the Brown Stair (in correct order) while I laid it out in a somewhat-caterpillar-like shape. And then she spent just a few minutes on containers before breaking off and wanted to be read to.
I hadn't really expected us to spend much time on Montessori work, so I didn't precisely note when we started. But I think it was about an hour. Nugget bounced around a lot, but I think that's because I'm not finding a sweet spot in difficulty level.
I'm kind of torn. I'd wanted to enforce moving through the materials slowly. But I'm concerned that I'm moving too slowly. There are some things she's clearly just not ready for -- Smelling Bottle matching, for instance. But other things I feel like I'm holding back on just to hold back -- like the rest of the Cylinder Blocks. I want these materials to last us; I have a probably unrealistic fear of running out of activities! I suppose the answer is that if we "run out of activities", then she's likely ready to move on to more complex things.
But now that I've written that out, I realize how ridiculous it is. The idea of Montessori is to let her move through these materials at her own pace. If she might be ready, I should expose her to them and let her needs drive what she chooses -- not my stinginess.
How do you ration the materials for your kid?
Edited to add:
I've thought about this for a bit, talked it out with my husband, and glanced over the 18 page list that I printed out of materials and extensions. My concerns really come down to running out of Sensorial materials -- she's not ready for math yet, science and geography aren't very material-intensive and have endless variety, and language... well, if she runs out of language, then she can read, and that's not exactly a bad thing! So this is just an unrealistic hang-up of mine that I need to get past.
Things perked up today! The first half was so-so, but we broke the ice and had some fun starting about mid-way through.
Nugget certainly started out enthusiastically. I was still making my breakfast and hadn't even mentioned doing Montessori today when she took off into the Montessori room. When she got into the room, she spotted the Sandpaper Letters that I'd put out next to the animal beginning/ending sound activity. All hope of a relaxed breakfast was lost at that point -- she HAD to work with them immediately. My lovely husband finished making my breakfast and brought it into the room for me so that Nugget could get right into the language material.
We didn't do anything extraordinary with the Sandpaper Letters -- I just showed Nugget how to run her finger over each and then had her find the animals that had each beginning sound. (I'd just put out the letters we'd need -- about 8 of them.) She matched the sounds perfectly, but the tracing was hard. She uses way too much pressure with her fingers. I need to figure out a way to work more on a soft touch with her.
After that, she was poking around, asking what else was new. (As people have mentioned, putting something new out each day makes her expect it. I'm still not sure which method we're going to use long-term.) I mentioned that the Smelling Bottles were a bit different (they're in a covered box, so she couldn't see the change). Last night, I selected 3 of the most distinct smells (almond, clove, cumin) and filled 3 blue-topped bottles with those smells, as well. I wanted to introduce the idea of matching the smells with a smaller set than the full 6. Sure enough, this was difficult for Nugget. She still doesn't quite get the idea of these more abstract matching games. I think she just needs to get a bit older. Until then, the Smelling Bottles with fun smells will be enough.
Her next choice was the new blue color shade matching. Once again, she was quite good with this, making one or two mistakes but recognizing and correcting them independently. The red shades she did without error.
She moved on to sink and float and then helped me with 2 Cylinder Blocks (I disassembled, she reassembled). Once again, she did this without a problem. I'm kind of reluctant to bring out #3 because I'd hoped to spread this material out over a greater period of time, but it seems really easy for her and I think that's why she doesn't choose it. I'm wondering if introducing a third (and possibly a fourth) would make it more interesting, or if she just isn't in the mind space for this right now.
Nugget chose to cut and glue for a while, then started to fade. Another mom on the Montessori homeschooling thread in the Mothering forums had suggested blindfolded rough and smooth as a change of pace, so I pulled out the blindfold for the first time. This is when the giggles started.
So we did blindfolded rough and smooth (is this rough or smooth? is this more rough or less rough?), blindfolded jingle/no-jingle bells, and I did a Cylinder Block blindfolded (she didn't want to give it a shot). I thought it was pretty fun!
Next, I started the Pink Tower bunny ears extension, which Nugget helped with a bit. But she decided she wanted to do the caterpillar extension, so she moved onto that pretty quickly. These extensions are also no problem for her.
We went to put the Pink Tower away, but Nugget wanted to build it up high again. So we built it back on the shelf, with me lifting her up to put the blocks on top while she giggled away.
Next, she handed me the Brown Stair (in correct order) while I laid it out in a somewhat-caterpillar-like shape. And then she spent just a few minutes on containers before breaking off and wanted to be read to.
I hadn't really expected us to spend much time on Montessori work, so I didn't precisely note when we started. But I think it was about an hour. Nugget bounced around a lot, but I think that's because I'm not finding a sweet spot in difficulty level.
I'm kind of torn. I'd wanted to enforce moving through the materials slowly. But I'm concerned that I'm moving too slowly. There are some things she's clearly just not ready for -- Smelling Bottle matching, for instance. But other things I feel like I'm holding back on just to hold back -- like the rest of the Cylinder Blocks. I want these materials to last us; I have a probably unrealistic fear of running out of activities! I suppose the answer is that if we "run out of activities", then she's likely ready to move on to more complex things.
But now that I've written that out, I realize how ridiculous it is. The idea of Montessori is to let her move through these materials at her own pace. If she might be ready, I should expose her to them and let her needs drive what she chooses -- not my stinginess.
How do you ration the materials for your kid?
Edited to add:
I've thought about this for a bit, talked it out with my husband, and glanced over the 18 page list that I printed out of materials and extensions. My concerns really come down to running out of Sensorial materials -- she's not ready for math yet, science and geography aren't very material-intensive and have endless variety, and language... well, if she runs out of language, then she can read, and that's not exactly a bad thing! So this is just an unrealistic hang-up of mine that I need to get past.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Week 4, day 1: Half-hearted
New material: three new animals in beginning/ending sound identification,
color shade matching,
pouring into a small-necked container,
cutting and gluing,
and sink and float returns, by popular demand!
So... today was half-hearted, all around. As I mentioned before, we only had one day off this "weekend". And I think that was a mistake. I think it does both of us -- but mostly me -- good to have a few days off to refresh and, in my case, to think of new material.
Nugget's first choice was the new color shade matching. This is my way of preparing her for Color Box #3. I've skipped Color Boxes #1 and #2 because she knows all those colors, but I'm not quite sure she's ready for lighter/darker. I figured the first step was to make sure she could identify the differences between the shades. I picked up paint chips in all the major colors, then glued a piece of each color to a clothespin. (Right now I just have the reds prepared, but I'll bring in other colors each week.) She clips the clothespin to the matching shade, which also helps with finger strength.
Nugget needed help with this, because her fingers aren't strong enough to do the clothespin one-handed. I ended up holding the paint chip while she clipped the clothespin on. She mixed up two shades on her first go-round, but noticed the mistake when we reviewed them at the end and corrected it.
Next, she moved to the collage station -- cutting and gluing. I put this out after she had such a blast with collage last week. Again, her hand/finger strength isn't great enough to use the scissors one-handed, so I held the paper strip while she cut. I think I need to look for a new set of beginning scissors to see if they're easier for her to use.
Once she cut for a bit and moved into gluing, I assumed she'd be busy for a while and ducked out to take a shower. That totally broke her concentration and she stopped her collage after 3 pieces. I tried to pull her into the beginning/ending sounds (where I'd added 3 new animals), but she didn't want to do that independently. I worked with her on it once when I got out of the shower, but we never got back into the groove.
I needed a few more minutes to myself to work up a grocery list, and she'd been begging for sink or float (any time she sees pouring, she asks if it's sink or float). So I pulled that out and she happily worked with that for a few minutes, but just one go-through.
We'll see if we go back in tomorrow. We probably should -- another single day off won't change anything. Should just get back into things. I think I'm just feeling particularly tired tonight. A good night's sleep (and hopefully a change of position from Sprout, because I'm currently getting some painful knee-into-stomach pops) may improve things.
color shade matching,
pouring into a small-necked container,
cutting and gluing,
and sink and float returns, by popular demand!
So... today was half-hearted, all around. As I mentioned before, we only had one day off this "weekend". And I think that was a mistake. I think it does both of us -- but mostly me -- good to have a few days off to refresh and, in my case, to think of new material.
Nugget's first choice was the new color shade matching. This is my way of preparing her for Color Box #3. I've skipped Color Boxes #1 and #2 because she knows all those colors, but I'm not quite sure she's ready for lighter/darker. I figured the first step was to make sure she could identify the differences between the shades. I picked up paint chips in all the major colors, then glued a piece of each color to a clothespin. (Right now I just have the reds prepared, but I'll bring in other colors each week.) She clips the clothespin to the matching shade, which also helps with finger strength.
Nugget needed help with this, because her fingers aren't strong enough to do the clothespin one-handed. I ended up holding the paint chip while she clipped the clothespin on. She mixed up two shades on her first go-round, but noticed the mistake when we reviewed them at the end and corrected it.
Next, she moved to the collage station -- cutting and gluing. I put this out after she had such a blast with collage last week. Again, her hand/finger strength isn't great enough to use the scissors one-handed, so I held the paper strip while she cut. I think I need to look for a new set of beginning scissors to see if they're easier for her to use.
Once she cut for a bit and moved into gluing, I assumed she'd be busy for a while and ducked out to take a shower. That totally broke her concentration and she stopped her collage after 3 pieces. I tried to pull her into the beginning/ending sounds (where I'd added 3 new animals), but she didn't want to do that independently. I worked with her on it once when I got out of the shower, but we never got back into the groove.
I needed a few more minutes to myself to work up a grocery list, and she'd been begging for sink or float (any time she sees pouring, she asks if it's sink or float). So I pulled that out and she happily worked with that for a few minutes, but just one go-through.
We'll see if we go back in tomorrow. We probably should -- another single day off won't change anything. Should just get back into things. I think I'm just feeling particularly tired tonight. A good night's sleep (and hopefully a change of position from Sprout, because I'm currently getting some painful knee-into-stomach pops) may improve things.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Week 1, day 4: Sink or float
New material: sink or float
Yesterday, at the end of our work time, Nugget was asking about things sinking and floating. I think it was in the context of wondering if the Pink Tower would sink or float -- which I am NOT going to investigate! :)
But I offered to set up a sink/float material for her for this morning. I wandered around the house in the evening, gathering up small things that I wouldn't mind getting wet. I ended up with a screw, coin, Duplo block, string bracket, and a few more random things. No Pink Tower cube!
This material was her first stop this morning. I filled the small pitcher and allowed her to pour the water into the container, using the towel for a few rouge drops that ended up on the tray. I tried to get her to predict what each item would do, but she was much more interested in putting things into the water -- and who could blame her?!
After each item, she sorted it into a paper onto which I'd drawn something sinking and something floating (as best I could).
She really loved this, and repeated it at least 3 times in the morning (and again a time or two to demonstrate for Daddy in the afternoon).
That took up most of our short-ish work period (maybe 20-30 minutes). We worked together on the Cylinder Block a time or two, then I tried to entice her to the Pink Tower again. She really wanted to do the extension where we lay the Pink Tower next to the Brown Stair, which required we assemble the Brown Stair. I helped -- she gets especially lost if she gets one in the wrong order. But we did it together, and she set about to laying the Pink Tower next to it on her own.
We "check our work" by making a finger spider run up and down the stairs.
Lastly, she pretended to be the teacher and helped me assemble the Pink Tower (she picked the next block and I placed it).
It was a shortened work time -- we had someplace to be in the morning -- and most of the work choices were driven by me. But we still had fun, and I think sink/float was a real hit.
It might be a few days before we work again. The midwife is coming over tomorrow morning, and my husband sleeps in our Montessori room/master bedroom during the day over the weekend. We might grab a bit of time here and there if she wants, but my plan is to be back Tuesday with some new activities!
Yesterday, at the end of our work time, Nugget was asking about things sinking and floating. I think it was in the context of wondering if the Pink Tower would sink or float -- which I am NOT going to investigate! :)
But I offered to set up a sink/float material for her for this morning. I wandered around the house in the evening, gathering up small things that I wouldn't mind getting wet. I ended up with a screw, coin, Duplo block, string bracket, and a few more random things. No Pink Tower cube!
This material was her first stop this morning. I filled the small pitcher and allowed her to pour the water into the container, using the towel for a few rouge drops that ended up on the tray. I tried to get her to predict what each item would do, but she was much more interested in putting things into the water -- and who could blame her?!
After each item, she sorted it into a paper onto which I'd drawn something sinking and something floating (as best I could).
She really loved this, and repeated it at least 3 times in the morning (and again a time or two to demonstrate for Daddy in the afternoon).
That took up most of our short-ish work period (maybe 20-30 minutes). We worked together on the Cylinder Block a time or two, then I tried to entice her to the Pink Tower again. She really wanted to do the extension where we lay the Pink Tower next to the Brown Stair, which required we assemble the Brown Stair. I helped -- she gets especially lost if she gets one in the wrong order. But we did it together, and she set about to laying the Pink Tower next to it on her own.
We "check our work" by making a finger spider run up and down the stairs.
Lastly, she pretended to be the teacher and helped me assemble the Pink Tower (she picked the next block and I placed it).
It was a shortened work time -- we had someplace to be in the morning -- and most of the work choices were driven by me. But we still had fun, and I think sink/float was a real hit.
It might be a few days before we work again. The midwife is coming over tomorrow morning, and my husband sleeps in our Montessori room/master bedroom during the day over the weekend. We might grab a bit of time here and there if she wants, but my plan is to be back Tuesday with some new activities!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
