Versatile Bloggers Award

                                                      

                    I  love what I do and I am pleased to hear from all of you that read and leave me comments here. I am happy that I am able to show this through blogging.  Elle Belle's Bows  gave me The Versatile Bloggers Award.

                                      Rules for the Versatile Blogger Award
              
              Rule number 1:
              Thank the person who gave you the award.

                     Thank you. Thank you Elle Belles' Bow  I really love all the cute hair bows you design, and my daughters love them too. Your blog is awesome and brings some hope to me since I don't have the slightest clue in hairstyling fashion for my two girls.

              Rule number 2:
              Share seven things about yourself.

                1. I can be very shy until I get to know you, then you have to tell me to "be quiet"

                2.  I met my husband when we were attending school at Eastern Michigan University in 1992.

                3.  I have a toy wooden kitchen in my bedroom.

                4. My favorite cookie is Peanut Butter made by "Grandma's". My local store orders them just for me. Family Dollars sell these. You have to try them, it will surprise you how good this store brought cookie is.
                 5.  I am thirty seven years old.
                  
                 6. Still a nail biter.
             
                 7.  By the time I was in middle school I really disliked school.

                   Rule number 3:
                   Pass the award onto 15 bloggers whom you have just recently discovered and who you think are fantastic! 
                                  I want to click on all the blogs that I follow, but I must follow the rules. The Versatile Bloggers are not listed in any certain way.

    1. Sowing 3 Seeds
    2.A Montessori Musing Place
    3. cows go moo and ducks go quack
    4. Dinosaurs & Trains
    5. Montessori Ponderings
    6. Living Montessori Now
    7. Real Life Montessori
    8.Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns
    9. Delightful Learning
  10. Kathy's Montessori Life
  11.Little Hands, Big Work
  12.A Thousand Joys
  13. good tree montessori homeschool
  14.Wildflowers and Marbles
  15. tots and me

            Rule number 4:
             Contact the bloggers you picked and let them know about the award.

              Thanks you for the visits and the comments on this blog. It is all about the children and they love the great ideas you all come up with.

Chores (Practical Life)

        My three children are very helpful in keeping our home enviroment clean for us, and our school family. For DJ his work in the practical life area is really paying off in everyday life. DJ wants to clean the walls, he loves to vacuum. Ken  is excited about cleaning mirrors, and is now working on cleaning toilets, yes cleaning toilets! Michelle is already responsible for washing dishes, does a great job with sweeping and mopping . Here they are in action.
                                                                   

DJ putting the garbage in the container.

 

Ken cleaning the toilet.

 

Michelle sweeping and mopping the hallway.

When my children do their chores they feel good that they are working in a way that is helping out everyone. Teaching them about the care of the enviroment has given them rhythm to their day. My husband and I never have to remind them , they are just doing it. The chores have given my children a reminder that everyone in the family has a job to do and it is all equally important. We depend on each other and doing your work allows everyone in the family more time to do whatever we enjoy doing most.

                                                           

Colors

                               I set up a new work table with the goal of children learning the names of the colors. The color boxes have been left untouched for the most part. I hope that setting this work table up I am guiding them to gain more interest in the color boxes and other color activities.


On the table is color box #1, a color mixing activity, and a color matching activity that has the color words printed on them.

Below the table is color box #2, and color box #3

Here is how the child would do the matching activity that would be done on a mat.

The color matching activity I found on Childcareland.com under the teaching videos section.

                                          
             I plan to keep this work table a permanent spot for exploring color. I plan to switch out activities maybe every two weeks, depending on the childrens' interest.

Thank you, No Thank you

                                   I have been working on manners with DJ. As a group we talked about how to be polite, and practiced how to say "Thank you" and "No thank you".  I also showed DJ how to offer someone something using the phrase "Would you like....?". We have been role playing this in different ways. This is DJ actively working on this skill with the children.
                                                                           

DJ preparing snack.

                                                        Offering snack to the other children.

                                            DJ did a super job with offering the snack to the children. The children did a wonderful job using their polite words  "Thank you", "No thank you". DJ felt very happy about his work and he finished by washing the dishes he used for preparing snack.

                                                                            
                                                        
                                                        

Sensorial Fun (Toddler Tuesday)

                                           
 The toddlers are growing everyday, some have just moved  from being just infants, and some are almost ready to move on to what is considered preschool. Take a look at our sensorial exploration last week.


                                                Pink Tower/Brown Stairs

                                       

                                    

                                              
                          Would You Like To See More?

 

                                                                     
                                            Extensions !!
                                     

                                              
                                They lead, I follow.
                          
                         To see other toddlers doing montessori activities pop over to One Hook Wonder

OOPS!! ( Montessori Monday)

                                                                 
               Lil turned three last week. Yeah I know you have seen her pictured here in Montessori Monday posts for ages three and up. I guess thats why you should read the date of birth on the required paperwork , because this is important information. Well I will share with you Lil and I never did work together about how old she was. Thats' a good thing!  Lil has been with me since the end of February. Her strong vocabulary, ability to sit through circle time, asks questions, tell me everything there is to know about hummingbirds, may have led me to assume she was three. When her mother told me that Lil will be three my mouth dropped. So
in order to be able to close my mouth, I started thinking how important is age when your following the child?
Take a look at some works that Lil has choosen off the shelve since her arrival.

Rubbing insect plates.

Scissor practice.

Pencil sharpening.

Flower arranging.

Squeezing water from a bottle.

                                                          Working with sandpaper letters.

Helping another two year old count to ten.

When Lil arrives at 5:00 am she brings her special friend "Duck".

 So it no surprise that Lil favorite activity off the shelf last week was this.

 

This activity the child matches the number on the duck to the other duck.

This activity is also great for one to one correspondence.

Well now that I know Lil is three years old how does this change anything? I guess knowing the age of the child can help with identifying certain developmental delays. Using the montessori method it calls for great observation of the child, so really age could be just a number. All children even from the same family develop at different rates. I wonder if I knew Lil was two what kind of boredom could I have caused for her.

                                                          
                 To see other montessori activities go to One Hook Wonder.

DNA (Science Sunday)

                             Michelle has been learning about DNA. Here she will show you some of what she has learned.
                                                                
                   Build A DNA Ladder                                     

You use four different colored tubes to build this model of DNA. Green is for Adenine, Red is for Thymine, Blue is for Guanine, and Yellow is for Cytosine. To build the ladder you must follow these rules: Green A can only pair with Red T. Blue G can only pair with Yellow C.
                                   

A Double Helix

This is a shape of the DNA molecule.

You should make a complete twist every 10 base pairs.

                                                        
                                                 Unzip The DNA Ladder
                                              Pull apart the DNA ladder. Put one half of the DNA ladder on the left, put the other half on the right

Remember: A always pairs with T and C always pairs with G.

You have now learned the secret of DNA Replication.

                                                         
                                    To see what others are doing having fun with science go visit Adventures In Mommydom for Science Sunday.