Paper Star Book

Recently I made paper star books with my children at school. They're really easy to make and the children only have to know a few basic folds to make one. Here is a mini [not so good] tutorial:

What you need:

Square pieces of paper [for the above book I used 10]

2 square pieces of card that are cut to the size of your folded paper

String

Glue

and Cello tape

Step 1: Fold a square piece of paper in half on both sides. Unfold. Turn the piece of paper over so that you can see the back of the previous folds and fold diagonally once. Unfold. Turn over.

Step 2: hold the paper so that the diagonal fold is horizontal and the bottom point is towards you. Next squish in the to horizontal points so that it looks like the above and squash it down into a square. Yes I know my instructions are not so good so you can follow the instructions here. You need to fold all your square papers as above.

Step 3: Cut out two pieces of card that are a few millimetres bigger than your folded paper squares. You can cover the card with wrapping paper on one side.

Step 4: Using Cello tape stick the string to the card as above so that it runs through each piece of card [corner to corner] and leave about 4 inches on either side.

Step 5: Stick a folded square to the card so that the open corner is lined up to the corner with the string.

Step 6: Stick your other squares on top, making sure that they all open up in the same direction. Once you have stuck down all your squares, stick the second piece of card on top.

In the background of the picture above you can see all the squares that have been folded. This book was actually made by one of my 9 year old students.

The strings are to hang the book as decoration or to tie the book closed. You can open each page in the book and write in it, then fold it closed again.

I know this tutorial isn't all that great and I'm not sure whether its actually clear enough to follow. If your finding it difficult leave me a comment and I'll answer it.

: )

On the 30th of November I had my Montessori 6-9 exam. I was so nervous!!! But yesterday I was told that I HAVE PASSED. It feels so good :)

Now I just need to complete my teaching practice/intern to upgrade my certificate. Hopefully I'll get it done by September 2010.

Parents Evening and a Money Activity

Only one more week of school left until the holidays. As the first term comes to an end I find myself feeling very content and happy that it has gone so well. There have been a few usual hiccups here and there but overall the children have done great. Last night was the parents evening and it was lovely to show the parents all the work the children have done. I've worked so much this term its unbelievable. I'm looking forward for the holidays to unwind and relax. But I also have a lot of work to do as I have several Montessori related projects that I need to work on.

This term has again proved to me that the best thing you can do as a Montessori teacher is to ' Follow the child' and 'believe in the child's learning capacity'.

And just before I end this post, I'd like to share with you one of the money activities that I do for children who are finding it difficult to understand the value of each coin. Basically we start at 1p and I ask the child to put the correct quantity for it in unit beads. Then we do the same for the 2p and 5p. For the 10p the child will place a ten bar, for 20p 2 ten bars and 5op five ten bars. Next they will place a hundred square for £1 and 2 hundred squares for £2. Using the beads helps children to visualise how the value of the coins increase although the sizes of the coins don't.

Children In Need

Yesterday was the 'Children in Need' day. We arranged a sponsored dress up for the children at school to raise money. To make things a bit more tasty and to get a bit more money out of people I made these yummy Pudsey bear cupcakes. They sold out straight away. It was really fun making them, but took quite a long time! I think I have found myself a new obsession and I'll be making more cupcakes on the weekend for one of the teachers 40th birthday.

Triangles

Recently one of my older students wanted to work with the detective adjective game [shown in the picture at the end of this post] which is a grammar activity but the child must know the names of all the triangles to work with it. Last term she tried to learn the triangles by doing a three-period-lesson with the geometric cabinet, but she couldn't get it and quickly lost interest. After reading the geometry manual at Cultivated Drama I decided to teach this differently.

I began by asking the child to construct three triangles with the geometric stick material. The first triangle was made from 3 pieces of the same size, we spoke about how all the sides are equal. Then I asked the child to construct a triangle with 2 sides the same and one side different. Thirdly she made a triangle with all the sides different. We then did a three-period -lesson and after the final period I questioned her 'Why is this an isosceles?', 'Why is this a scalene?', 'Why is this an equilateral?'. We then labelled them. To ensure that she fully understood, I got her to draw the three triangles in her book, write the names and a description for each.

The next day I checked if she could remember the names for each triangle. Next we did the same thing for the angles. We used the geometric sticks and placed a pencil in the end hole and drew three angles. We did a three-period-lesson, labelled them and recorded them in her book.

We then got out the geometric cabinet triangle tray. She sorted the triangles according to the names and then sorted those by the angles. She did it well!
You can't really see the labels in this picture but the top labels say, 'right angled', 'acute angled' and 'obtuse angled'. The labels on the right say 'isosceles triangle' and 'scalene triangle'.
The next day I asked her if she wanted to work with the triangle terminology cards. First she matched them with the control cards, then she matched them without. Here is a link for these cards I made if you want to download them.
Next she made a triangle chart all by herself. She traced around all the triangles in the geometric cabinet and cut them out from blue paper. She stuck them on her chart in the correct places.

Finally she was ready to work with the 'Detective Adjective Game'. She was thrilled!

I love how children in a Montessori classroom can work day after day, hour after hour to achieve a certain goal they have without giving up. This story is just one example of the many that happen daily in a Montessori setting.

Geometirc Stick Material

I have always been fascinated by the Montessori geometric stick material and it's many uses. We couldn't buy it because it's very expensive, so I decided to make my own set. It's very easy, I cut card to the correct sizes and used a hole puncher to make the holes. I then laminated everything. The only problem I am having is finding a suitable storage box, so for now they live on a tray.

Montessori Spanish has a few good post about this material.

In this picture one of the children was using the material to learn the names of the different triangles. I like the fact that the child can easily see which sides of each triangle are different and which are the same. And so making it easier for them to recognise and name each triangle.

Countries, Capital Cities and Flags Sheets

Map work is still very popular with all the children in my class. Many have learnt all the countries in Europe and know their capital cities and flags. As an extension to the pin maps I made a little sheet for the children to record their knowledge on. It's very simple and the children are enjoying it, so I thought I'd upload it to box.net so that you can use it too. If you would like to download it click here.