Weigh-Ins/Meaurements

                      Keeping with the philosphy of the montessori method "following the child" I have decided to implement a monthly weigh-in and growth measurements of the children. I often hear the children talking among themselves about whos' taller or bigger this reminded me of one of the things that Dr. Marie Montessori also did with the children she had in her care. I plan on keeping this information in their portfolios. As a montessori guide in training camp, I know monitoring growth is a good thing but how this falls in the whole scheme of things I will be learning along the way, but at least I already will have the information.  Here are photos of some children that were present three and up, enrolled in the Fall semester.

                                              My daughter Michelle. Age 12, afterschooler.

My son DJ. Age 6, afterschooler.

My daughter Ken. Age 9, afterschooler.

Carmicheal. Age 9, afterschooler.

Mumble, age 4.

Lil, age 3.

                                                                        E, age 3.

C, age 3.

                                                                     Jamesha, age 3
                                                                           

 

Dre, will be three in September.

The scale I have is child friendly. The children loved stepping onto the scale. Some have even tried to weigh themselves . For now I just have a regular measuring tape, hope to get a actually growth chart. Here is a photo of the scale we used.

I purchased this years ago so I really don't remember where I brought it from.

Thanks for stopping by!! By the way I love reading comments. Now pop over to One Hook Wonder to see others learning using the montessori method.

                                                                               
              
                                                                         
                                                                    

Storytellers Inc.

 The children here have been showing a lot of interest in acting out stories and fingerplays. So I asked them if they would like to do this type of thing in front of people, they all shouted yes and quickly begin brainstorming some wonderful possibilities about what they would perform and where they would perform. Out of this they have developed a wonderful group called Storytellers Inc. I begin brainstorming ways that I could guide them in the right direction. As I was looking for materials to help them I came across this at Barnes & Nobles.

The children were truly inspired when I showed them this.

This is published by the Now I'M Reading! series. It comes with the following.

                                        Read- along storybook, four masks, and five scripts.

            As they were browsing through the materials, they were saying how we can build the houses, make our own costumes. They were very excited! Everyone wanted to be a certain character. This is when I shared with them some of the ideas I had when I found this material. I said we all need to participate and here are some ways; Making the story prop materials, maybe we can present a lesson about how houses are built, and different houses around the world. They loved this idea. So now we have those who want to present lessons about homes, those who want to build homes, and those who still want to be a character. I ensured them that their hard work will pay off and we may perform this in front of different groups of people so everyone may get a chance to perform their favorite character.
                             
                                                    So we are going to use other books to collect information regarding how houses are built, and about different houses around the world. I have printed off classification cards for the parts of the house like the living room, bedroom , kitchen. I also purchased this Parts of a House work from Montessori services.

The cards.

Front of the replicard

back of the replicard.

                                                 
            I still need to find the materials for our props but I am loving their creativity and how I am able tie in many learning opportunities for the children, The toddlers are able to help with the making of the props, the preschoolers will be encouraged to want to read and the schoolagers are doing research. I have gotten  a positive response from my childrens' school that they would allow us to do a monthly performance. Our parents can't wait to see the performances. We will officially begin our new endeavor the second week of September and hope our first performance will take place the latter part of October. All of my school age children return to school on September 7th. They all attend the same school and return back to me when school is dismissed, this is a wonderful opprtunity for them to still be exposed to the montessori method daily.

Circle Time

                  This may change as the school year progresses. I purchased a curriculum to supplement montessori education to ensure that all children are being exposed to a variety of activities everyday. What I like most about this curriculum is that it has take home projects, the art projects are able to be done independently once presented, and it has weekly themes that will allow the childs' interest to peak and therefore gain even more interest in the montessori materials. I have used this curriculum before and the children loved it. The way I will be implementing this is during circle time. It will not interrupt our three hour work period. I will still be presenting all units of studies outlined in the montessori method. The curriculum is Mother Goose Time you can find them at http://www.mothergoosetime.com/.

                                                           Here is our Circle Time Bullentin

We use this as our guide on some of the concepts that will be talked about during circle time,the month,the year,days of the week,weather and what shall we wear.

Our Wall Calendar

Our calendar number pattern for the month of September

This is our days of the week buckets with weather sticks that the child will place according to the weather on that day. Also the meterologist will match this weather wheel to the one on the chart to use as control of error.

Our job chart

After we have did our greeting song. We do jobs, calendar, weather. We have an alphabet treasure hunt. I purchased this from Lakeshore Learning. I hope that this will add some more excitement to our "I Spy" time. The children hunt for the letter in the clue, they can also match it to our alphabet tree. The letters are choosen  purposefully, and I added objects as part of the hunt.

Next we discuss the days' circle time topic and complete the Day bag circle time activities.

Here is an example of some in Day One.

"Pick Me"  the childs finds their name on the name tag. I will then have tracing paper on tray on the shelf so the child can later use their name tag to practice tracing their name.

Monthly Theme Poster/"My Family Tree" art project

After the activities are completed we will end circle time with a poem and each child will be dismissed individually.

 I believe that this period of time will help the children use their work period more efficiently. As the school year progresses the art activities will be presented and placed on the shelf which will cut down the amount of it takes to complete our circle time.

To see others using the montessori method pop over to One Hook Wonder.

Not A Good Week

  Starting on last Wednesday things started to go down hill. Our pet "Froggie" died!!  I noticed this in the morning, I left him there. I didn't really know how to tell the children. Around noon time Kay figured out Froggie wasn't moving, now all of the children are telling me this, so we all sat down and talked about how Froggie passed away. They took it better than I expected. They wanted to know if we could get another one. When I said yes they moved on real quick. Kids are just fun to be around and easy to please. I am just trying to figure out exactly what went wrong so it dosen't happen again. They all understand living versus non-living , that is what good came out of this. Then Thursday my computer crashed on me. I lost a lot of files, and pictures, downloads that I paid lots of money for are gone.  I am also behind now in my material making and just need to see a good comedy show. I will still be blogging, it will probably be about all the plans I have for the children for our Fall semester that will start in the next two weeks. Did I mention that my camera was damaged on Tuesday?  Now that I have shared this I think I can move on. Glad this blog exist or all the pictures would be gone. Had some really good photos though (lol) . Let me move on !!

Language Work (Toddler Tuesday)

Last week I introduced the Sound Bin "Mm" to the toddlers they have been having a blast with the activities that are inside.

                                                          Here is our Mm Sound Bin

The following are pictures of the two toddlers working with the activities in the Sound Bin

Lacing m&m's. Printable from Confessions Of A Homeschooler.

Sound objects: mat,marble,mouse,monkey, magnifying glass.

Using playdoh to form letters. Printable from Confessions Of A Homeschooler.

Sound Card. This was printed from Beautiful Sun Montessori.

Picture Cards. Downloaded from Goldmark Montessori.

                       M&M Building. Printable from Confessions Of A Homeschooler.       
                                
The internet is a wonderful source of information. I appreciate all the time these people put into making materials that are accessible for everyone. The children love all of  the materials and they enjoy learning.                        
                                       
                      Amber has found great interest in the sandpaper letters.

Amber can proudly tell you the sound Mm makes.

                                                                            
                 To see other toddler activities pop over to One Hook Wonder.

Music

                             My children have shown some interest in learning a musical instrument. So I decided to take them to the music store. They were surprised to see the different selections of  instruments. Luckily we arrived at the store when there weren't many people .

The people who worked at the store were very pleasant they even showed us around. DJ fell in love with this drum set. My goal of this visit was to show them a variety of instruments, so they could really think about what musical instrument they would like to learn. It was clear to everyone what DJ interest was. It was clear to me that I have to prepare an isolated area for DJ's music time in the near future, or purchase a year supply of Tylenol if I am going to follow this childs' musical interest.

After all the politeness I felt obligated to purchase something. So the kids helped me to decide on this.

The Music Maker

                         It comes with music sheets with musical notes. The child lines up the sheet with the strings. The child uses the pic and stums the string. It involves a lot of  hand/eye coordination. With practice a child can quickly learn to play one of their favorite melodies. 

Well those who still stayed interested in this musical instrument had questions. What does this mean? asking about the musical notes. I printed some materials from Montessori for Everyone. The Musical Family Sort Work, and The Musical Notes Match Work.

The questions kept coming, and coming from my kids so I decided it was time for a science lesson in sound.

The Box Guitar

Get a box, elastic bands. Stretch the elastic bands around the box.

Pluck and strum the strings to make sound.

Objective: Make different sounds by plucking strings of different thickness and length.

                                                                               

                                                                    Pan Pipes

Equipment: Plastic straws,clay,cardboard,scissors,tape,ruler.

1. Cut straws to 9,8,7,6,5 and 4cm lenghts.

2. Cut out strip of cardboard(11cm x3cm) and line up straws along it, about 1cm apart tape them in place.

3. Put some clay at the bottom of each straw.

4. Blow quickly over the pipes to make different musical notes.

Objective: Make different musical sounds with pipes of different lenghts.

Metal Bells

Grab a string, and three metal rods.

1. Tie the metal rods along a length of string.

2. Hold the string ends and listen to the metal rods hitting against each other.

3. Next, raise the strings ends to your ears.

                                                 Objective: To listen to sounds traveling through the air and through a solid.

                                They also learned about wavelengths by taping a string to a table and moving the string from side to side. This helped them visualize sound waves. Learning about reading music, and the different music instruments have helped my kids to really think hard about what instrument they really want to begin formal lessons with.  DJ is sticking to the drums. However until that time comes I have managed to keep him occupied with these.

Here he is practing with the handbells "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star".

I must say he is pretty good at this song. I don't have much time left before the drums.

I am linking this post to Montessori Monday hosted by One Hook Wonder and Science Sunday hosted by Adventures In Mommydom.