Short Bloggy Break

I haven't been feeling good for some time now. My family encouraged me today to go visit the Emergency Room, I am glad I listened to them diagnosis pneumonia. Yeah I am going to need some rest for the next couple of days. On top of this I have to still get our taxes done by this Friday. I should be back shortly.

Knobless Cylinders Extensions: A Montessori Print Shop Review

The children work with the Knobless Cylinders quite frequently. Some have managed to understand the relationship of the sizes and some work with them in their traditional manners like building towers. I am always looking for materials to enhance the childrens' learning that will build on their interest with the materials that they are choosing to work with on a daily basis. I was pleased while browsing through Montessori Print Shop that they offered the extension pattern cards for the Knobless Cylinders. After printing them I was very happy with the quality and that all of the pattern cards matched the cylinders perfectly! Another bonus is that I received 28 pattern cards with the download. That is exactly 7 cards for each box of knobless cylinders. Just the jumpstart I needed to keep this work interesting for some time. 

 Here is a sample of some of the cards after they were laminated.

As soon as I showed the children the extensions they became a instant hit. They loved how colorful the pages were and they were happy about having a work that helped them to create new ways of working with the Knobless Cylinders.

N worked with this work for the whole morning work period, about an hour into it Jessica came along and asked N if she would show her what she was doing.

I had accidentally pushed too many number of copies for the work. So I had placed the extra copies in our extra paper bin. Then DJ and Ken surprised me with their take on this work. They begin to cut the cylinders pattern out so that they could make their own extensions.

                                                                         
             Gluing the picture together.

                                                           
 DJ created a picture of a sailboat on water, the green cylinders represent a tree and the yellow cylinders is the sun.

                                     Ken created this picture.

                                                
How cool is that? I was able to keep children from the ages of 2 through 10  happily working with the same materials. DJ pointed out to me that I could also print some more of these out for scissor practice because he was having a difficult time cutting around a circle :)

I  am really impressed with this work fom the quality to how the children are choosing to do this work repeatedly. It has helped them to feel very successful with working with the Knobless Cylinders. This particular work is Knobless Cylinders Pattern Set 1. Montessori Print Shop also has a second set of pattern cards that I plan to purchase once the children are ready to move on to more challenging patterns.


Disclaimer:  I was given the Knobless Cylinder Pattern Cards Set 1, along with two other materials in exchange for my review of one of the products. This is my opinion entirely!! In no way has it been changed because I received the materials for free.

                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                    

                                                                 

Shelf Liners For Sewing

Not my original idea! I saw this activity on a lot of different blogs, and thought I would give it a try. Yesterday I had a new afterschooler who was really drawn to the practical life area. "T" kept looking at the work on the shelf, after some time passed she finally asked me what the work was. It worked out great for her since she had no prior sewing experience before. " T" is a kindergartener and spent most of her time yesterday doing this activity.

  I precut the shelf liners in placed them on a basket next to the yarn. The child takes one liner and a string of yarn and places it on the white tray that has the needle to carry their work to their work space.

               
               " T" enjoying her work.

I think this is a perfect lesson to introduce sewing to children, and also fosters creativity by the time "T" was done she had a rainbow of colors that she had sewn.
                                                                                                      

Montessori Monday

 The pictures I chose to take last week are examples of how our work period starts off. All the children start off with one of their favorite easier works before going straight to what we call "big works". 


 Jamesha loves coloring and was pleased to find out that Praying Mantises can also be pink, her favorite color.

 Do a Dot markers all time favorite. Lil is dotting the number four. No tracing just a blank piece of paper. Lil will be turning four years old in July and she is very excited about her birthday party she will have this year.

                   Using stickers to decorate a paper bag.

                Painting a rainbow on cloud paper.

                                Transferring water using an eyedropper.

 Visual Discrimination activity. Z is copying the picture with eggs onto the big picture of the basket. It is actually harder than it looks, Z is good at this though. This is a Time for Tots product.

              
 Waiting to clean up anything to use the table broom and dustpan.

                                              Folding paper.

                                                                                
Practing one to one correspondence, everyone enjoyed this work throughout the week.
                                                                   

                                                

To see other children doing activities inspired by the montessori method please visit One Hook Wonder.
                                                                        
                                                                        

Montessori Print Shop Review Blogger

I am so thrilled to have been picked to review products from Montessori Print Shop. Montessori Print Shop has over 950 montessori materials that are avaliable on a CD Rom or PDF digital files where you can receive your materials as soon as you click the pay now button. They also have a free materials section that they add new materials to at least once a month. I was allowed to choose three materials. I picked the Knobless Cylinder Card Set 1, Seeds Read and Illustrate, and the Toddler Air,Land,Water sort. The children are going to be so excited to get their hands on some new works I can hardly wait for school to begin tomorrow. You can expect my review of one of the materials I picked by the end of the week.

We Love Bugs!!

We have been learning about different kinds of bugs. Next week we will be learning about the parts of insects. I can clearly see that the childrens' level of comprehension has increased. Last year we touched a bit on the body parts but mostly they were learning the difference between the insect and spider, some things about ants, names of some insects and they LOVED,LOVED,LOVED learning the life cycle of the butterfly. I am excited for their growth in this subject matter, and planning some activities. We will be learning new songs about bugs. We will study a different insect a week until they want to learn more about other things in the subject of zoology.

For some the lightbulb turned on for them while reviewing Living and Non- living objects.

                Observing how insects move. Lil is observing roly polies "playing".
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   They have been enjoying matching object to picture with this specimen work.

                                                                         
Studying bugs (insects) is lots of fun when you have a group of children who are all interested in wanting to know more. Luckily there is a endless supply of resources to keep this subject exciting.

The Garden Challenge

Ken has had a desire to have a flower garden for sometime now. Ken has shown me that she is prepared to take on the responsibility to care for flowers and plants. So I thought it would be wonderful for us to participate in the Homeschool Village Garden Challenge. This past month Ken participated in her schools' science fair. Ken loved every bit of it she received an honorable mention award for her work. The passion that I see her have for plants is just amazing. Her question for her project was What is the role of leaves in the process of photosynthesis?

        Here is a picture of her science fair display.

                           This is Ken tending to her project plants.
                      

 Ken wants to grow a flower garden a place for birds and butterflies to enjoy, maybe even some fairies may enjoy a visit. This week Ken has started growing Princess Flowers to attract butterflies, Petunias to attract Hummingbirds, and Evening Stars thought to attract fairies.

The flowers were placed in her greenhouse inside until they sprout. It is still rather cold in our part of the world. Right now our challenge is being prepared to work in the garden on any given day cold or not.

 When the flowers sprout they will be planted here.                                                                                 

Kens' very own piece of land :) As you can see we have a lot of work to do!!