I love the ability to "do school" anywhere. We had about a 45 minute drive home from a playdate the other day. Just a few minutes into the drive, Nugget started figuring out and talking about various addition facts (up to 5). So I picked the thread up and we chatted about those for a while. Then we moved on to the 5+x facts that RightStart Math emphasizes. We made a little game out of both. Then we reviewed odds and evens, then Nugget decided to count to 100. THREE TIMES. By the time she'd finished that, we were almost home -- and math was done for the day!
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Supplementing math
Math has been going ok with Nugget. She's got the golden beads down pat, we've done an introduction to golden bead addition, worked with the hundred board a few times, used the number rods to find the various combinations that made numbers from 1-10, and formed teens with beads. She did the work readily enough... asked to "do math" during homeschool time... but wasn't really taken with it.
The other day, a post by Laura (formerly of My Montessori Journey, now of Walnut Hill Homeschool) got me looking at Right Start Mathematics. It's a math program written by a Montessori teacher, but not a traditional Montessori progression. It emphasizes understanding over memorization and working problems mentally (using an abacus as an aide in the beginning). I was really taken with it because it teaches solving problems the way I've learned to do it but NOT how I was taught. Things like "seeing" the numbers up to 5 instead of counting them, learning 6-10 as 5 plus something else, and adding larger numbers by "making 10".
I fell so in love with it that I bought levels A and B (used). We're going to combine it with elements of Montessori to make something that works for Nugget -- and really engages her. I want her to see math as puzzles and patterns instead of just columns of numbers. Yes, memorization of basic facts has its place. But a lot of that comes free with practice (and with the math games that are included with Right Start). I want to make sure she sees the fun and beauty and usefulness in math first.
To that end, I've made sure to watch some of Vi Hart's mathematical doodling videos with Nugget peeking over my shoulder. It's worked -- we've spent the last couple of days drawing "math pictures" on a huge sheet of paper and playing "math games" to color them in.
This is the math that I love!
The other day, a post by Laura (formerly of My Montessori Journey, now of Walnut Hill Homeschool) got me looking at Right Start Mathematics. It's a math program written by a Montessori teacher, but not a traditional Montessori progression. It emphasizes understanding over memorization and working problems mentally (using an abacus as an aide in the beginning). I was really taken with it because it teaches solving problems the way I've learned to do it but NOT how I was taught. Things like "seeing" the numbers up to 5 instead of counting them, learning 6-10 as 5 plus something else, and adding larger numbers by "making 10".
I fell so in love with it that I bought levels A and B (used). We're going to combine it with elements of Montessori to make something that works for Nugget -- and really engages her. I want her to see math as puzzles and patterns instead of just columns of numbers. Yes, memorization of basic facts has its place. But a lot of that comes free with practice (and with the math games that are included with Right Start). I want to make sure she sees the fun and beauty and usefulness in math first.
To that end, I've made sure to watch some of Vi Hart's mathematical doodling videos with Nugget peeking over my shoulder. It's worked -- we've spent the last couple of days drawing "math pictures" on a huge sheet of paper and playing "math games" to color them in.
This is the math that I love!
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Handwriting
I've started incorporating another non-Montessori material into our curriculum -- Handwriting Without Tears. Nugget has recently developed an obsession with a wipe-off tracing book that we got her that shows letter formation, and she's been writing her name on her art projects. I love the jump, but I noticed that she wasn't getting very good direction from the tracing book -- for instance, she was making her "X" out of 2 'v's (one right-side up, one upside-down). So I picked up the preschool and kindergarten curriculums of Handwriting Without Tears. We've just started -- doing some crayon grip & scribble exercises as well as playing around with the letter shapes (I didn't buy the wooden ones; the teacher's guide has a pattern and I used craft foam).
This makes 3 core subjects for us. Phonics (via "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"), we do every day FIRM. We're up to lesson 30-something and she's reading two sentence stories in the book. Handwriting I'll be trying to get to every day or every other day, depending on how things are going. Math (following the Montessori progression, currently working on teens formation, the hundred board, and addition with the golden beads and number rods) I try to get to 3-5 times a week.
Last week and this week, Nugget has been attending an art camp at a local Montessori school. It's from 9am-1pm, and she comes home pretty drained emotionally. Because of that, I've backed us off to _just_ phonics on camp days.
We did math today, but it's the first time in a week. She did the hundred board solo (well, with Buzz Lightyear's help). She's been wanting me to "count to the speed limit" or "count to 100" in the car all the time lately, so I figured the hundred board would hit her right in the sensitive period. :) There was quite a push there at the end to make it all the way through, but she did it! (Just in time, too -- Sprout woke up from his nap not a minute later.)
This makes 3 core subjects for us. Phonics (via "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"), we do every day FIRM. We're up to lesson 30-something and she's reading two sentence stories in the book. Handwriting I'll be trying to get to every day or every other day, depending on how things are going. Math (following the Montessori progression, currently working on teens formation, the hundred board, and addition with the golden beads and number rods) I try to get to 3-5 times a week.
Last week and this week, Nugget has been attending an art camp at a local Montessori school. It's from 9am-1pm, and she comes home pretty drained emotionally. Because of that, I've backed us off to _just_ phonics on camp days.
We did math today, but it's the first time in a week. She did the hundred board solo (well, with Buzz Lightyear's help). She's been wanting me to "count to the speed limit" or "count to 100" in the car all the time lately, so I figured the hundred board would hit her right in the sensitive period. :) There was quite a push there at the end to make it all the way through, but she did it! (Just in time, too -- Sprout woke up from his nap not a minute later.)
Teen bead worksheet
I added a file to my Box.net (accessible from the side of this page). We're working on making teens, so I made this coloring/stamping worksheet for Nugget. There are 2 styles; in each, you build the teen from a 10 bar and the bead stair, color the bead stair bar, then stamp (or write) the resulting teen. Hope it's helpful to someone!
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.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Small steps
Yeah, I'm liking this new way so far! We managed to grab a few minutes again during Sprout's afternoon nap. We went over the terminology for the golden beads again, and I demonstrated that there were 10 in each (10 units in a ten bar, etc). Nugget decided to build a house with them -- which I allowed because I was subtly bringing in the terminology as she built. Ha, tricky me!
Later, we reviewed the continents again. She picked them up a lot faster than I expected! I did the orange-peel demonstration to show how a globe turns into a flat map, and then I brought out the continents puzzle. A hit, of course. It's a puzzle! Nugget *loves* puzzles.
We continued to talk about butterflies a bit. We watched some videos of their life cycle, Nugget brought the caterpillar model to Target, and I mixed up some "nectar" for her to taste (water, a bit of orange juice, sugar). She used a curly straw to be her proboscis. So fun!
We read through the Progressive Phonics books that she's had and moved on to a new one. She's mostly memorized them, not so much reading them. But sometimes she has to, and it's small steps, at least. They're there when she's ready to start to read.
Later, we reviewed the continents again. She picked them up a lot faster than I expected! I did the orange-peel demonstration to show how a globe turns into a flat map, and then I brought out the continents puzzle. A hit, of course. It's a puzzle! Nugget *loves* puzzles.
We continued to talk about butterflies a bit. We watched some videos of their life cycle, Nugget brought the caterpillar model to Target, and I mixed up some "nectar" for her to taste (water, a bit of orange juice, sugar). She used a curly straw to be her proboscis. So fun!
We read through the Progressive Phonics books that she's had and moved on to a new one. She's mostly memorized them, not so much reading them. But sometimes she has to, and it's small steps, at least. They're there when she's ready to start to read.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Trying another approach
I'm still working out the best way to make homeschooling work for us. Today was my first shot at another approach -- more of a traditional homeschool situation with Montessori materials than Montessori at home. I didn't try to set everything out the night before for Nugget to work independently. When Sprout went down for his nap, Nugget and I settled into the nook to work together.
The last few days, I made a list of the big subject areas and the next 2-3 topics I want to cover. That way, when we had a few minutes to sit down together, I knew what we could cover.
In Math, I spent the last few days verifying that she can count out items from 0-9 and that she can identify the written numbers (she has to think extra about [and sometimes mixes up] 6 & 9, but everything else she has down). So we're going to move into the golden bead material -- I brought out the decimal tray and we've been looking at and playing games to become familiar with "one unit", "ten bar", "hundred square", and "thousand cube".
In Language, I have out the Progressive Phonics books (which she hasn't touched in a while) and we're going to talk about the double letters ('ee', 'sh', 'th', etc). I've come around to seeing reading as very much something she will step up to herself. I'm not really pushing a progression toward reading at this point (she's not even 3.5 yet!), just giving her pieces of the puzzle and waiting until she's reached the developmental point where it starts to click.
For Science, I put away the plant and seed materials and we'll start into insects. Today we read a book about butterflies, played around with butterfly life cycle models, and glued down pictures of the life cycle. Later, we hit the library and stocked up on books about different insects, so we'll pick our way through those over the next few weeks.
In Geography, Nugget really wants to learn about Australia. But today we started in the beginning, looking at the sandpaper and continents globe. We talked about the continents globe for quite a while, learning the names and talking about where we live, where penguins live, etc.
Practical Life, I'm just going to let happen in daily life. If I'm particularly inspired by something in a blog, I might put it out. But I'm not going to try to keep that stocked daily. And Sensorial I'm going to follow her lead. She doesn't really seem to want to do much Sensorial, but I'll keep a shelf or two of it out, in case she comes back to it (which she did today, after our other topics -- she played around with the Pink Tower and Brown Stair).
We had a nice time. We didn't cover a ton, but she seemed really "present" while we worked together. She showed a lot of interest and was very cooperative. It was a nice touch-base time for the two of us without the little Sprout sticking his nose (well, fingers) into everything.
And can I just say how much I LOVE the three period lesson?
The last few days, I made a list of the big subject areas and the next 2-3 topics I want to cover. That way, when we had a few minutes to sit down together, I knew what we could cover.
In Math, I spent the last few days verifying that she can count out items from 0-9 and that she can identify the written numbers (she has to think extra about [and sometimes mixes up] 6 & 9, but everything else she has down). So we're going to move into the golden bead material -- I brought out the decimal tray and we've been looking at and playing games to become familiar with "one unit", "ten bar", "hundred square", and "thousand cube".
In Language, I have out the Progressive Phonics books (which she hasn't touched in a while) and we're going to talk about the double letters ('ee', 'sh', 'th', etc). I've come around to seeing reading as very much something she will step up to herself. I'm not really pushing a progression toward reading at this point (she's not even 3.5 yet!), just giving her pieces of the puzzle and waiting until she's reached the developmental point where it starts to click.
For Science, I put away the plant and seed materials and we'll start into insects. Today we read a book about butterflies, played around with butterfly life cycle models, and glued down pictures of the life cycle. Later, we hit the library and stocked up on books about different insects, so we'll pick our way through those over the next few weeks.
In Geography, Nugget really wants to learn about Australia. But today we started in the beginning, looking at the sandpaper and continents globe. We talked about the continents globe for quite a while, learning the names and talking about where we live, where penguins live, etc.
Practical Life, I'm just going to let happen in daily life. If I'm particularly inspired by something in a blog, I might put it out. But I'm not going to try to keep that stocked daily. And Sensorial I'm going to follow her lead. She doesn't really seem to want to do much Sensorial, but I'll keep a shelf or two of it out, in case she comes back to it (which she did today, after our other topics -- she played around with the Pink Tower and Brown Stair).
We had a nice time. We didn't cover a ton, but she seemed really "present" while we worked together. She showed a lot of interest and was very cooperative. It was a nice touch-base time for the two of us without the little Sprout sticking his nose (well, fingers) into everything.
And can I just say how much I LOVE the three period lesson?
Monday, October 4, 2010
Geometric solids!
I'm so excited! I just rounded out our collection of geometric solids!
I've been wanting them for a while, but wasn't happy with any of the sets I found on the various Montessori sites. I really bought Margaret Homfray's guidance and wanted smaller shapes with more variety.
What I ended up doing was getting was the set of 19 solids from Learning Resources which covered a lot of the list. The big gap was the Platonic solids, which I just couldn't find anywhere! Thank goodness for playschool6, where someone pointed me to the Gallery of Wooden Polyhedra in Japan. I paid $35 for the small set of solids and shipping and got them in about 2 weeks. They're gorgeous and exactly the right size to match up with the rest of my solids. I'm so excited!
I'm going to try to hold off working on them with Nugget until we do some 2D geometric work. But.... maybe I won't be able to!
I've been wanting them for a while, but wasn't happy with any of the sets I found on the various Montessori sites. I really bought Margaret Homfray's guidance and wanted smaller shapes with more variety.
What I ended up doing was getting was the set of 19 solids from Learning Resources which covered a lot of the list. The big gap was the Platonic solids, which I just couldn't find anywhere! Thank goodness for playschool6, where someone pointed me to the Gallery of Wooden Polyhedra in Japan. I paid $35 for the small set of solids and shipping and got them in about 2 weeks. They're gorgeous and exactly the right size to match up with the rest of my solids. I'm so excited!
I'm going to try to hold off working on them with Nugget until we do some 2D geometric work. But.... maybe I won't be able to!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sept wk 3, day 1: Food and water (human needs)
Argh. Aaaaargh.
We spent 45 minutes in the room, but Nugget only did about 10-15 minutes worth of work. She would do one small piece of something, then spend ages hanging over me asking questions and talking. I'd respond briefly, then after a while ask if she was done and wanted to leave the room. No! She wanted to work! So she'd do one or two small pieces of something. And then stop again.
Aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
Oh, and her little Hulk action figure joined us. He rode around on the trays as she carried them.
So. What did we do? Well, we read books about food. She traced two metal insets with her fingers (I saw her tracing the puzzle pieces last week and wanted to give her an outlet for that, since I don't have the geometric cabinet.... although I'm thinking about making some 2D shapes). She set a place setting (PL work).
Most of her time was spent doing -- or, really, not doing -- an alphabet book. I put together a blank book with a letter on each page, then cut out pictures of various types of food for her to glue on the appropriate page for the beginning sound. She was doing fine hearing the sounds, although she mixes up some letters (h and n, b and d). She would glue one.... then talk.... and talk.... and talk.... glue one.... talk.....
Anyway. She did that for a while. Then tried the trapdoor readers again. And lastly, counted Cheerios into the spindle box.
I'm not too disappointed with our day in there. Mondays are always hard, because we're getting back in the swing of things. So it wasn't unexpected. It was frustrating at the time, but she did get a little bit of decent work done. If I could do it over again, I'd probably try to engage her in a more physical work, like moving the Brown Stair, or a work that she could get into imaginatively (like the Cylinder Blocks). That might have kicked her into more of a concentration mode.
We spent 45 minutes in the room, but Nugget only did about 10-15 minutes worth of work. She would do one small piece of something, then spend ages hanging over me asking questions and talking. I'd respond briefly, then after a while ask if she was done and wanted to leave the room. No! She wanted to work! So she'd do one or two small pieces of something. And then stop again.
Aaaaaaaaaaaargh.
Oh, and her little Hulk action figure joined us. He rode around on the trays as she carried them.
So. What did we do? Well, we read books about food. She traced two metal insets with her fingers (I saw her tracing the puzzle pieces last week and wanted to give her an outlet for that, since I don't have the geometric cabinet.... although I'm thinking about making some 2D shapes). She set a place setting (PL work).
Most of her time was spent doing -- or, really, not doing -- an alphabet book. I put together a blank book with a letter on each page, then cut out pictures of various types of food for her to glue on the appropriate page for the beginning sound. She was doing fine hearing the sounds, although she mixes up some letters (h and n, b and d). She would glue one.... then talk.... and talk.... and talk.... glue one.... talk.....
Anyway. She did that for a while. Then tried the trapdoor readers again. And lastly, counted Cheerios into the spindle box.
I'm not too disappointed with our day in there. Mondays are always hard, because we're getting back in the swing of things. So it wasn't unexpected. It was frustrating at the time, but she did get a little bit of decent work done. If I could do it over again, I'd probably try to engage her in a more physical work, like moving the Brown Stair, or a work that she could get into imaginatively (like the Cylinder Blocks). That might have kicked her into more of a concentration mode.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Sept wk 2, day 5: Touch
We had a really nice day in the room today. I think it was about an hour we were in there, but I'm not really sure where the time went. I can't point to any one thing that occupied her time, but we had fun.
We do one fiction book to kick off the theme, and today's was a favorite from the library -- "Tickle the Duck". So it started out on a fun note. I made up some touch tablets from textured scrapbook paper, and we talked about how they felt and did a blind matching. I put out the texture balloons from a few months ago, and those are always a hit.
In the rest of the room, she successfully filled the spindle box with counting bears, did a very little bit of practical life, went back to the hearing game, and worked with me on the Pink Tower and Brown Stair.
I printed out and set out 4 of the trap door readers. I LOVE these. I'm not sure how she did with them -- she had trouble holding them without pinching the slider and just wanted to see the pictures. I intervened a bit to make them work correctly, and she did seem to be blending.... but it's hard to tell.
Now, a weekend of preparations for next week -- human needs!
We do one fiction book to kick off the theme, and today's was a favorite from the library -- "Tickle the Duck". So it started out on a fun note. I made up some touch tablets from textured scrapbook paper, and we talked about how they felt and did a blind matching. I put out the texture balloons from a few months ago, and those are always a hit.
In the rest of the room, she successfully filled the spindle box with counting bears, did a very little bit of practical life, went back to the hearing game, and worked with me on the Pink Tower and Brown Stair.
I printed out and set out 4 of the trap door readers. I LOVE these. I'm not sure how she did with them -- she had trouble holding them without pinching the slider and just wanted to see the pictures. I intervened a bit to make them work correctly, and she did seem to be blending.... but it's hard to tell.
Now, a weekend of preparations for next week -- human needs!
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!
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!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Week 8, day 3: Just a few minutes
This doesn't really even count as a day, but Nugget grabbed some time in the room while I got ready for the morning and DH got ready for bed (he works night shifts). She chose to do the counting activity and then pulled out the Sandpaper Letters for the first time in a while! She told DH what their sounds were and traced them (I wasn't hovering, so I don't know if she traced them correctly). I didn't really think kids would choose the Sandpaper Letters just to trace them, but... there you go!
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 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.
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