Week 7 review

No, I haven't had the baby or dropped off the face of the earth. But I am 39 weeks today and have totally lost steam. My idea of a good morning with Nugget is being able to lay on her toddler bed with my eyes closed while she pretends to be a fish next to me.

So between the end-of-pregnancy blahs and Nugget being in a very imaginative, scattered phase, getting into the Montessori room requires more effort and energy than I have available.

I think, from now until things are settled after Sprout's arrival, I'm just going to let any time in the room happen on its own. Since I'll be spending some time in bed after he comes and the Montessori stuff is in that room, she may get into it more for a while.

On another note, have you seen Postcrossing? I think this is a great way to get some additions for our future continent boxes! So far I've just sent off my initial 5 postcards -- to England, France, Brazil, Russia, and China. I put in my profile that we were a homeschooling family looking for insight into daily life, and asked for day-in-the-life info or a favorite recipe. I'm excited to see what we get -- and from where!

Week 6 review, week 7 preview

Remember how I said I was going to be more prepared for the next week and not leave all my preparations for the last evening?

Yeah.... that didn't happen.

I think I've been expecting that Sprout will arrive before we get back into the room, so my exhaustion and evening contractions took priority in my brain over new activities.

Well, he's got one more night, but it looks likely that we'll be headed into the room tomorrow. So I spent this evening pulling some new stuff together.

I'm still planning on trying my best to ignore the Sensorial material unless she heads there herself. I added two new textures to the texture balloons, which I bet she'll notice. And I know she'll notice the mystery bag, filled with fairly distinct items.

I haven't done much in the Language area, just moved all the Sandpaper Letters out.

Practical Life is getting new flowers for arranging, new yoga cards, a pin-punching activity (she LOVES making holes in cardboard with a pen, so I think this will be up her alley), and Easter egg tonging.

I'm still waiting on the Small Number Rods from Montessori Outlet (supposed to ship Wednesday, then supposed to ship Friday, now... who knows?) to start Math.

Science-wise, I'd thought to continue with animal classification. But I don't think that will mean too much to her yet. However, she does constantly ask what animals like to eat. So I'm going to try a food chain activity.

I'll try to get pictures tomorrow, when there's some more light in the room. But I'm feeling pretty positive about most areas (wish I had more Language out, but I also want to get to bed at some point :) ).

Week 5 review, week 6 preview

I think last week went well for getting back on track for more stability! I'm going to keep that up this week. I've got some new items to put out for tomorrow, but then things will stay stable (except for the language materials).

Most of what I'm adding is Sensorial -- some Knobless Cylinder extensions, texture balloon matching, and a mystery bag. I also did a swap of the main Practical Life activity -- funnel pouring to scrubbing a seashell -- and new yoga cards.

In Language, we've got one more day's worth of consonant Sandpaper Letters and noun cards. After that, I think I'll put out the vowels and associated cards. At that point, I can be sure that she can recognize all the letters and their sounds and that she can hear those sounds at the beginning of words.

So I guess, after that, I'll need to work on some activities for ending and middle sounds. There's I Spy, of course (a constant through our day), but I'd like to have some activities for her to work through.

I think Nugget will be kind of disappointed that I don't have another animal sound activity out, but I'm really burned out tonight. I've been working on the room for 90 minutes, and I'm not sure where the time went! I don't feel like I've made that many changes!

Part of it is that I just tonight decided that we'd try to grab some time in the room tomorrow. We won't be around Tuesday morning (various appointments), so I need to get in there when I can this week.

Week 4 review, week 5 preview

We had one really good day this week, the others were mediocre. I definitely felt like we needed this weekend break, though. We have the choice of getting back into the room on Monday, but I'm going to have to ponder whether I'd rather delay until Tuesday.

Nugget is very much looking for what's new these days, and I think it's preventing her from going back to things she's seen once. So now that I've tried it both ways, I think I prefer making most changes over our break. I imagine I'll need to swap out the language material more often (like rotating letters every day), but I'm going to aim to make practical life and science changes weekly and sensorial changes even less often.

So over this weekend, I'll get the sensorial to a place that I'd like it to stay for a while. I'll add Cylinder Block #4. I think I'll reduce the 6 Sound Cylinders to 3 (I'd had it at 6 because I didn't expect her to try matching). I still have in reserve the Red Rods (STILL waiting for the back ordered stand for them), the Baric Cylinders (those are HARD), a mystery bag (not sure if she'd get the concept), and the Knobless Cylinders. I also need to finish the color shade matching, although she's not terribly interested in that right now. I wish I could think of a better way to display it. And I'm thinking about making sensorial balloons (deflated balloons filled with different textured items to feel and match, like beans and popcorn kernels and flour).

I'm a bit torn about introducing the Red Rods; I'm not sure she'd grasp lining them up with their bottoms even, and I don't really have space for them without the stand. So I guess those will stay back. I'm also unsure about the Knobless Cylinders, mostly because they seem like a nice, easy thing to be able to add in once Sprout comes... but I guess, if I'm following the idea that she should be allowed to pick her own direction, that they should go out.

Practical life.... I think I want to keep a weekly rotation going here. I have one shelf to dedicate to practical life, so I can have out 2-4 activities. She's been completely ignoring the dressing items, so I'll probably remove those. She also completely ignored wet pouring all week, so that'll be gone. Maybe folding? Oooh, maybe a funnel for solids. I've also received prints of the yoga cards from Montessori by Hand and have a nice little basket for them, so I'll start by putting about 3 out and slowly add cards. Nugget LOVES her gymnastics class, and I think she'll really love the yoga. I'm also hoping it'll provide the opportunity to take a more physical break during our work time.

Language. I guess I'll keep working through Sandpaper Letters and beginning sound cards until I've verified that she remembers all the letter shapes and their sounds (since it's been a few months since we've worked on them officially). Of course, we're still doing language work outside of the classroom, like I Spy, rhymes, and recognizing beginning and ending sounds in random words. She so loved that animal set-up that I think I'll do another one. I've got a bunch of arctic animals, and that's easy to make -- white for ice, blue for water.

Science! Well, I've got the animal and botany puzzles tucked back. She's been into puzzles lately. I guess, if I'm putting it all on the table... those should come out. More experimental-type activities, I'd like to rotate weekly. I'll put sink and float away, but maybe something where I have a "boat" that floats and she adds weights (coins, etc) one-by-one until it sinks?

Geography, I'm going to continue holding back on even though I have a nearly-completed sandpaper globe and the continents puzzle. That's definitely something that can wait; it's still pretty abstract for her at this stage.

This next week will be the start of our second month doing this! Amazing!

Week 3 review, week 4 preview

Not much of a break this week! We got that bonus day in on Saturday and DH has yet another doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, so we may have time to pop in the room before the library's storytime. So only one day off.

Week 3 went pretty well, I think! Nugget absolutely loved the beginning and ending sounds, toothpicks, and Smelling Bottles. She's still excited and runs toward the room whenever I suggest doing some Montessori. And she still asks for the sink and float material back. :)

I'm simply happy that we're going into week 4. Things were so rough in the beginning, but we just needed to push through it and start to find our own rhythm. We're not totally there, of course! But I can see progress, and that makes it all worth it.

This week I'm going to keep a lot of the existing materials out because she's actively working on so many of them. I'm tempted to replace the animal beginning/ending sounds, but the fact that she works with them every time for so long makes me think she's still getting something out of them. Maybe I'll try to add in a few of the more obscure animals.

I do need to make some environmental changes. The lighting in there is just terrible -- and now the overhead in that section of the room is burned out. I need a new bulb in there, a brighter bulb in the floor lamp, and maybe even a couple more lamps. Ugh. It's just so dark back there. No natural light whatsoever. Well, we do what we can!

Week 2 review, week 3 preview

We only had 3 real work days this week, which I'm not really happy about. But life intervenes, and with a little one due soon, that's only going to get worse. So I either need to be ok with it, or try harder to get us in the room even on days when we're not running on a usual schedule.

Those days we were in the room were meh. Nugget was more active and imaginative, which meant she didn't want to engage with the materials in a "normal" way. I'm happy with my use of the Running Tower, and I think that sort of extension of the materials is a good trick to have.

None of the Practical Life materials really seemed to engage her -- except the containers. I'm constantly keeping my eyes open for additions to her collection, but no luck so far. I wonder if a latches board would be as interesting. I need to un-Valentines the Practical Life stuff, and I'll probably take the opportunity to swap most everything. The dressing frames and containers will stay, but I think I'll turn the beads-and-pipecleaners into dropping toothpicks through the shaker holes, change spooning to wet pouring, and replace the stamps with.... something.

For Sensorial, I think I'll put the bells away and add the Smelling Bottles. She's been waiting for those, and I'm really curious to try them as well. Everything else will stay; I'm hoping to just let Sensorial grow as much as possible. Hmm. Maybe the bells should stay out, then.... I guess I kind of like the idea of bringing things like the bells and Smelling Bottles out intermittently to keep them special. But then she can't choose them freely when her sensitive period strikes. Thoughts?

I'm definitely going to try some Language materials. I've got 9 pairs of rhyming cards, and I'll start with a subset of those. I'll put up pictures of those and my word list a bit later.

Nugget's already really good at beginning sounds, but I might try a review of that before moving on to ending sounds. I'm not going to use miniatures, as is usual. I love the idea, but I KNOW that it would degenerate into play. So I'm going to stick to pictures. Although... I think I read on a blog somewhere about putting animals into "caves" based on the sounds in their names. I think Nugget would get a real kick out of that, so I'm going to keep that idea in my back pocket.

I think my biggest goal for this next week is just to get more time in the room. And that is all about my own motivation. I have to either push through the exhaustion or be more flexible about finding time in other parts of the day. It's not going to be any easier in a month or two. :)

First week review, second week preview

I've been thinking back over our first week of this adventure. Even though the beginning was rough, I'm really glad to have week one behind us.

I've learned:
- that it's not going to be perfect from the beginning, so it's better for me to jump in and start SOMEWHERE.
- to relax and have fun with things!
- that a little assistance (especially for such a young kid) can kick-start interest in an ignored area.
- to let her have some flexibility with the materials, especially things like story-telling while working.

I've been reassured (after some fears those first few days) that this method is very compatible with how Nugget thinks and works. She flitted around a lot when she was grumpy and everything was new, but the last day or two she settled down and was working a lot more like I had expected, given her day-to-day personality.

I've been surprised at the difficulty she has with some of the materials (the Pink Tower, specifically). She's done nesting/stacking blocks before, so I'm not sure what's different about the Tower. Perhaps that they're closer in size, or all the same color? Or maybe she's just not interested at the moment and can't concentrate on it, or doesn't want to build it correctly?

Next week, I'm going to extend our Sensorial area a bit. I'll definitely put out Cylinder Block #2, probably the rough/smooth boards, and possibly one of the "games" (smelling bottles or sound/no sound bells). I'll also up the difficulty of some of the Practical Life -- I'm going to change out the spoon in our spooning activity (from a nice, deep measuring spoon to something a bit trickier), switch from the buttoning ribbon to a buttoning frame, and switch from dry to wet pouring. As a freshening activity in the middle of the week (something fun to do together, not necessarily Montessori), I'm thinking of working in some activities with animal tracks.

I think the next few weeks will be a time for me to figure out how many and the best way to introduce new activities -- all at once in the beginning of the week, or spread out each day. There are advantages and disadvantages of each, and I just need to see which works best for her.