Hundred chain

I have been away for a few days and unable to post. I'm glad to be back and be able to share Little-N's learning with everyone. School is about to start and there are many preparations to do.

Here are pictures of Little-N working with the hundred chain. He still needs a bit more practice with this. The arrows make it fun for him, but counting can get boring after a while. I think it will be a while before I attempt the Thousand chain!

The chain next to the 100 square to show Little-N that they are the same.
Laying out the arrows.
Labelling the beads.

Bracelets activity

This is the threading activity that I have for Little-N. He helps with sorting the beads, then I provide some elastic that perfectly fits my wrists and he makes all sorts of wonderful bracelets. This activity is addictive and the result is always beautiful. I usually wear the bracelets he makes and that encourages him to make more.

New curtains

I haven't been able to go into school much these past few days. I have been overloaded with trying to plan and organise a 3 day creche program. There was a lovely surprise when I went to school last Thursday: NEW CURTAINS! I asked a couple of time for the classes curtains to be changed to something simpler and more cosy. I love new curtains, they're perfect. It really adds a golden feeling to the class.

On the left under the curtain you can see a wooden dolls house, that's used for the grammar materials. I'll write about the other materials once I finish setting the whole language area.

Although I will be teaching in the 6-9 classroom, I still have to help with the setting up of the 3-6 class. One area that I wanted to redo was the cultural area. Previously the children were going onto the later cultural materials too early, because they were not ready for the materials they were being presented to they developed a bored attitude to learning. I decided to have a good look at the cultural sequence for materials. Many colleges follow different sequence, in the end I decided to use the sequence from my first Montessori college [MCI] and the years of experience i had. We have decided that the cultural materials will start with paring activities. On the shelves above we have pairing fruit, pairing berries, pairing flowers, pairing animals and pairing trees. The 2.5yr old will start with these and learn the names of all the fruits, plants, trees or animals. We will also add in some concrete pairing activities. Next we will have the zoology puzzles for the different parts of each animal and terminology cards that go with them. Next the child will go onto life cycles and then classification of the animal kingdom. I want the children to do all this before going onto the globes and puzzle maps. Its essential that the child has a good understanding of the world that they can see around them and experience everyday before teaching them about continents. That's all I can write about now, once the shelves are all set up I'll take pics and explain the sequence more.

Egg tray activity

I was flicking through some pictures of the old school I worked in and came across this. This is an 'Egg tray activity' I came up with while setting up Montessori in a school in Egypt. The children loved it to bits.

At home you can use a regular egg tray [instead of the plastic one] and ping pong balls [ or real eggs if you want to be brave]. Show the child how to take an egg [or ball] from the basket and place it carefully in the top left hole. Its important to emphasis left to right and top to bottom movements when presenting to a child.

The older children also liked this activity, they would make patterns with the eggs [balls] and sometimes write letters.

Bead keyring

The other day my nephews and niece came to visit. While I was showing my niece how to make a beaded star one of my nephews [2 years old] decided that he wanted to have a try. Obviously a star will be too complex so I came up with this beaded keyring. It turned out really cute so I thought I would share this with everyone. To make one you will need beads and metal rings [the ones you find in stationary stores and are used for folders].

A few great finds..

I found two great materials at Tesco, they're not strictly Montessori but can easily be used in a Montessori way.

The first is a magnetic map of Europe, it comes with a set of magnetic flags and magnetic labels for all the countries and cities in Europe. Little-N loves working with this. I decided that I will introduce him to 5 flags at a time.

The second is a a squared magnetic board that comes with small magnetic number tiles. These can be used for Addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. Little-N will use this with the Montessori beads when he doesn't want to write. I was hoping that they would have magnetic numbers from 1 -100 [perfect for hundred board] but they didn't.

From Hungry to Hungary

This is why I love Montessori Homeschooling. Yesterday morning Little-N was asking for his breakfast the conversation went something like this:

Little-N: I'm hungry

My mum: Your from Hungary?

Little-N: No I am hungry.

Me: Did you know there is a country called Hungary.

Little-N: Ha Ha no there isn't

Me and my mum: Yes there is....

And that is how a project starts. You follow the child and seek those precious moments to inspire him into learning.

So we got out the atlas. Look Little-N what does that say 'h...u...n...g...a...r..y' 'Hungary'. Checked what continent it's in and looked at some pictures from the country. Then Little-N decided to make a flag. Out came the paints and a flag appeared. This is a learning experience that will last with him for life, he will always remember those colours he painted, and the continent he found the country on!

Each day in a child life should be a day full of learning and wonder!