I've taken a hiatus from blogging because we've taken a hiatus from Montessori. Nugget has done a few activities, but I haven't suggested or encouraged any time in there.
I've been working through the New Child Montessori guides, setting up a plan for our fall. I'll be putting the materials away over the next week, giving us a clean slate for starting up again in September.
We just need a do-over after these months with Sprout have ruined our routine and her habits. The other day, she spread all the smelling bottles out on the bed and started throwing them around; later, she stood on the cylinder blocks.
In the meantime, I'm working pretty hard on gathering things up to start continent studies in the winter. Part of that is participating in a scavenger hunt put on by Sunrise Learning Lab, so there'll be some posts up relating to that over the next few days!
Friday, July 23, 2010
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!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Starting into math
Nugget's been into numbers more lately. She's counting things and counting on her own, just for fun. In the car the other day she started counting to herself. We started to hear her in the 30s... "thirty-eight, thirty-nine, thirty-ten". We corrected her "thirty-ten" to forty and she kept going. So we helped her with the names for each of the ten increments and she just kept counting, up to 100.
The sticker number line is still out, and she does that nearly every day. I also put out the spindle box, but I'm not expecting that to be used much quite yet.
My husband and her had a discussion the other day about his iPod holding 1000 songs. He was trying to explain a thousand to her, relatively unsuccessfully. When I heard this, I was thrilled! I went into the homeschooling closet and pulled out the decimal tray. I was able to show her one bead, a ten bar, a hundred square, and a thousand cube. Man, those thousand cubes are gorgeous! Montessori math materials are just great.
Nugget also spent some time tracing the sandpaper letters and we matched lower case to upper case. I wasn't sure where she was in her knowledge of upper case, since we've never explicitly taught them to her. But she knew them all! It's amazing what kids pick up.
And, it's not typically Montessori, but Nugget likes it -- I've put out pages from the Kumon tracing workbook. I have them in sheet protectors and have a wet-erase marker so that we can just wipe off the pages and use them again. When workbooks cost as much as Kumon ones do, you don't want to get just one use out of them!
The sticker number line is still out, and she does that nearly every day. I also put out the spindle box, but I'm not expecting that to be used much quite yet.
My husband and her had a discussion the other day about his iPod holding 1000 songs. He was trying to explain a thousand to her, relatively unsuccessfully. When I heard this, I was thrilled! I went into the homeschooling closet and pulled out the decimal tray. I was able to show her one bead, a ten bar, a hundred square, and a thousand cube. Man, those thousand cubes are gorgeous! Montessori math materials are just great.
Nugget also spent some time tracing the sandpaper letters and we matched lower case to upper case. I wasn't sure where she was in her knowledge of upper case, since we've never explicitly taught them to her. But she knew them all! It's amazing what kids pick up.
And, it's not typically Montessori, but Nugget likes it -- I've put out pages from the Kumon tracing workbook. I have them in sheet protectors and have a wet-erase marker so that we can just wipe off the pages and use them again. When workbooks cost as much as Kumon ones do, you don't want to get just one use out of them!
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!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
New source of Montessori downloadable, printable materials
I got a message on playschool6 (a Yahoo group for Montessori homeschoolers) that there was a new store online with downloadable, printable Montessori materials -- Montessori By Ayashy.
Places like this and Montessori for Everyone are great for me right now. It's stuff I could make myself, but never seem to find time to actually do.
I found a problem with the site while I was browsing around, and Yana sent me a sample of her materials after I emailed her about it. I liked it enough to download a number of the materials -- I ended up with some of the samples of Sensorial extensions as well as the baby animals matching and controlled word building. The baby animals will be perfect for my animal-obsessed daughter, and I think the controlled word building hits right about her ability level in language these days.
I'm happy with the materials, and I like having another option in addition to Montessori for Everyone. Hopefully there will be more materials popping up there soon!
Places like this and Montessori for Everyone are great for me right now. It's stuff I could make myself, but never seem to find time to actually do.
I found a problem with the site while I was browsing around, and Yana sent me a sample of her materials after I emailed her about it. I liked it enough to download a number of the materials -- I ended up with some of the samples of Sensorial extensions as well as the baby animals matching and controlled word building. The baby animals will be perfect for my animal-obsessed daughter, and I think the controlled word building hits right about her ability level in language these days.
I'm happy with the materials, and I like having another option in addition to Montessori for Everyone. Hopefully there will be more materials popping up there soon!
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.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Intermittent
Well, I made a good go of it. But I've found we're just not at the point yet where we can get back into the room on a regular basis. It didn't help that the week I tried to get us back there was the busiest week in a while, with Nugget's birthday and a visit from distant family.
Even after that all cleared up, though, we just aren't running on enough of a schedule for me to be able to know when we'll have a stretch of time to work in the room. Nugget's been grabbing herself some time in the room, a few minutes here and there, but except for the one day we haven't really had a work period.
That wouldn't be quite so hard to overcome or work around except for the fact that I have no time to keep things updated. I used to work on new materials and refreshing and organizing the room in the evenings. That time is now taken up with Sprout's witching hours -- when we're alternating walks outside (the only place he stops crying in the evening) with nursing sessions on the couch. Even those times that my husband is holding him, I'm just too drained to get my brain moving enough to do what needs to be done.
As I said, the room hasn't been completely abandoned. Nugget will grab a few minutes in there for herself sometimes, and we spent about 20 minutes in it together one morning. She actually chose Sensorial works, which is very different. But it shows that we've been away for a while -- she put the Pink Tower together incorrectly! Her mind just wasn't into it.
We're all distracted and out of sorts. Perfectly normal for having a 6 week old in the house. But I am a little sad and definitely starting to miss our time together in the room.
Even after that all cleared up, though, we just aren't running on enough of a schedule for me to be able to know when we'll have a stretch of time to work in the room. Nugget's been grabbing herself some time in the room, a few minutes here and there, but except for the one day we haven't really had a work period.
That wouldn't be quite so hard to overcome or work around except for the fact that I have no time to keep things updated. I used to work on new materials and refreshing and organizing the room in the evenings. That time is now taken up with Sprout's witching hours -- when we're alternating walks outside (the only place he stops crying in the evening) with nursing sessions on the couch. Even those times that my husband is holding him, I'm just too drained to get my brain moving enough to do what needs to be done.
As I said, the room hasn't been completely abandoned. Nugget will grab a few minutes in there for herself sometimes, and we spent about 20 minutes in it together one morning. She actually chose Sensorial works, which is very different. But it shows that we've been away for a while -- she put the Pink Tower together incorrectly! Her mind just wasn't into it.
We're all distracted and out of sorts. Perfectly normal for having a 6 week old in the house. But I am a little sad and definitely starting to miss our time together in the room.
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