100 Acts of Kindness ( Montessori Monday)

 Last week was a wonderful week. Unfortunately I didn't take that many photos, but I still wanted to share the ones I did take.

                                                  Sandpaper numbers.

                                        Multiplying with the large bead frame.

                                      Learning the parts of the computer project.

 
                                 Writing with corn meal.

                                          Working with blue objects.

                                                   Knobless cylinders.

Jessica completed this brown stair extension not by a presentation but by observing the older children when they were doing this. Jessica is working with the brown stairs that are specifically for the toddler age being introduced to this work. They are the same as the brown stairs that the preschoolers use just only six stairs instead of ten.

                                                  Color mixing.

                                                                
   Here are some pictures of how we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

                                                   We read a few stories.

                                                                  
                                                             Colored pictures of him.

 Celebrated Martin Luther King Jr's birthday with a Happy Birthday song and some cake.

                                                                             
 Here is the icing on the cake while reading a post on livingmontessorinow.  I found out about the 100 Acts of Kindness Project at the wonderful blog Toddler Approved! The first challenge was to have the children in your lives cut out ten hearts and give them to ten different people. The project started on January 18 and continues to February 14th when you will have a celebration party to celebrate your 100 Acts of Kindness. It is not too late to join the project. I spoke with my kids on Friday about this and they were excited.
                      
         DJ  got really good at cutting hearts out and didn't stop at ten.

                                                                  
  Here are the hearts that were are using to record our 100 acts of kindness. We are going to make a garland with these.

                                                                                 
 So part of the rules in this project is that someone else has to report your acts of kindness. This is fun! When DJ was reminded of this you should of seen how many things he did for his sisters to get them to report his kindness.

To make the hearts accessible to the children when acts of kindness are reported I placed the hearts on our peace table. Our peace table displays a picture of the peacemaker we are learning about. Right now we are still learning about Dr. King our next peacemaker will be Mahatma Gandhi.

 Today I will be sending home a letter to the parents about our 100 Acts of Kindness project so I can involve the children that come here to learn everyday.

  So far three acts of kindness have been reported this is how our heart garland looks today.
                                                                               

   

 To see what other lessons children have been doing inspired by the montessori method please visit Montessori Monday hosted by One Hook Wonder.
                                                                        
                                                                           

  

Let's Go Rock Collecting (StArt)

                                          
                                                                             
Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans was a fun book for the kiddos. They loved the text and the pictures. At first I thought I would have to read this book in its entirety at different times, but no they wanted to finish reading it in one sitting. The book tells how the oldest things you can collect are rocks, rocks cover the whole earth and no matter where you live, you live on a rock. The illustrations are wonderful. The kids love the pictures of the volcanoe, and the different kinds of rocks. They wanted to collect rocks themselves. We are in Michigan where the weather is very cold, going outside collecting rocks under snow is not an option so using our rock/ shell sort tray the children found their very own special rock.

After the children collected their rocks. We painted them blue for water and green for land to represent our planet Earth. We have painted a lot here, but I have never witnessed the concentration the children had while completing this activity. Our rocks weren't big at all, they took a whole hour just painting their rocks. I loved every minute watching them absorbed in their work.

                                                   Close ups of the process.

 Another thing that the children did that they don't normally do is that they were very watchful  for the paint to dry. I knew that this art activity was a simple one, but I didn't expect to receive all these great responses from the children.

                                                             
To see more children doing art projects inspired by stories please visit StArt hosted by A Mommy's Adventures.  

Surviving In The Rain Forest

Ken has a survival project that is for school due this Friday. Over the weekend she worked very hard on this project. The location she chose was the rain forest. Kens' teacher told them that they had to choose five items that she will use to survive the conditions of that location. Also Ken has to illustrate the five things along with an explanation of how she would you them.  The items Ken used to illustrate her items were found through my scrapbooking materials, a sticker collection I have that shows animals in the rainforest, and some images from the internet. I helped Ken by reminding her of the geography and climate of the Amazon rain forest. Ken  already had background knowledge of this wonderful place. Ken also used various books that I made avaliable to her. Ken did a fantastic job with this project. I love how she used the materials. The last thing Ken has to do now is give an oral presentation to her class. She has been practicing this since her completion of her bulletin board. Here are some pictures of the process and the final result.

  Ken decided she would make the layers of the rain forest for her backgound.

                          Here is the understory and the canopy layers.

 Sorry about the photo. This is the background complete with the layers if you look closely Ken has added rain  below the clouds.

 Now she is adding the animals  that spend most of their time in the canopy. During this part Ken initiated a discussion about food chains and food webs it was very interesting how she was applying her prior knowledge in every step of this project.

                                    Photos of the emergent level. The middle of the board.

                                                   The left side of the board.

        
                                                       The right side of the board.

                                                      The canopy.

The understory is where Ken decided to do her illustrations of the five items she would use to survive the conditions of the rain forest, she also added animals that you would find in the understory. This photos shows the fishing pole, and the thermos. To keep it short she said she would use the fishing pole to fish for food and  to get berries from trees she couldn't reach. The thermos as a container to hold the water so she could boil it.

Saplings and the lighter. The saplings she would use for shelter and also collect water from it. The lighter she would use to start a fire.

Garlic Ken said she would use to protect her body and her shelter from insects, and also eat if she became sick.

                                                     The completed project.

                                     
Come and share your adventures in time and space at History/Geography exchange hosted by Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

Montessori Monday/ Toddler Tuesday

We are getting very, very close to normalization!! I am like a kid holding their tongue out waiting for the snowflake to fall on it. I know everything happens on their time, I'm just saying.
                                                         
                                                        Practical Life

                                Dry pouring with buttons.

Reviewing how to properly brush our teeth. Painting with a toothbrush.

                               Pin pinching North America.

                                 Using pincer grasp to transfer marbles.

                                           Scissor practice.

                                        Sweeping up her mess.

                               Scissor practice with play doh.

                                                                     

                                     Language

                                Learning  rooms of the house with furniture objects.

                                     Independently practing writing letters.

                                                                     
                          Sorting objects by beginning sounds.

                        Matching letters to pictures by beginning sounds puzzle.

                                                                 
                                                   Mathematics/Sensorial

                                                Cylinder block #1

                                              Working with red basket.

                                    Blue Constuctive Triangles work.

                                       Doing a brown stair extension work.

                                           Color box #2.

                                    Brown stairs with marble extension.

                              Matching numbers to number line.

                                   Geoboard with geometric cabinet cards.

                                                                                  
                              
                                                                   Cultural

                                           World puzzle map puzzle.

                            Working with Tag United States map.

Rock and shell sort work.

                                                                            
       Lil brought in her treasured rock she found for Show and Tell.           
                                  

                                                                          
                   L