Flower Arranging

Everyday we have a vase full of fresh flowers on display in the Practical Life area.

Below the vase we have a flower arranging activity which is basically a tray that contains various small vases and a pair of scissors.

Children are shown how to take a vase, fill it half way with water and use the scissors to cut the flowers they would like in their vase.

Here is an example of a four year old's flowers. Very nice!

The child can then take their vase to the table that their working at and put in the top left corner of their table. Having flowers at a child's table makes such a difference to their concentration and well-being.

Months of The Year

Last week Little-N was working on learning the spellings for the Months. I have a simple activity in which he places the months around the sun to represent our earths orbit of the sun. I have posted about this before here.

After making sure he knows all the spellings we moved onto looking at the abbreviations for each month and the numerals which can be used to represent the month.

The file for this activity can be downloaded for free from my shop.http://thelearningark.com/content/months-year

Washing Tables

This week I set up two washing tables for the children. One table is for washing hands and the other is for washing the dirty cloths from polishing and cleaning activities. Here are what the tables look like:

Hand washing table:

Cloth washing table:
The older children in the classroom have really enjoyed working with these activities. They have developed a sense of responsibility for the cleanliness of the classroom and have spent a lot of time on the cleaning activities in the class.

The Start of a New Montessori School

Finally I have found the time to blog! I've worked my entire summer, day and night setting up and preparing a Montessori school. With the help of many volunteers and parents we managed to have the school ready for it's opening on the 12th of September.

I wanted the start of the school to be smooth and tranquil allowing the children, parents and staff to have a peaceful time to settle in. To achieve this we decided to stagger our intake over a period of three weeks, starting with the oldest children. This allowed each group of children to bond with the staff and settle in the environment before the next group started. The youngest children started at the beginning of this week, this was the group I was most anxious about as some of the children have just turned 3. Amazingly our week ended with a classroom of happy and peaceful children.

A lot of time, effort, research and skill was put into the design and layout of the classroom to provide the best environment for the children. I haven't got photos of the whole classroom to share however I do have a photo of one of my favorite features: the child sized sink. With the help of two handy parents, we managed to find away to install a kitchen sink at the perfect height for children. I set the sink area up with all the necessary tools needed for children to independently wash their own dishes, this has become one of our most loved activities.

Now that things have settled and calmed I hope to post regularly about our environment and experiences. I'll also be posting about Little-Ns work and homeschooling.

Little-N's beanstalks

This summer Little-N has been enjoying the garden. Here are some photos of the beans he planted:

Little-N noticed how the beans bent towards the sun.

When the plants were big enough we planted them in the vegetable patch with some bamboo sticks.

The beans grew very quickly.

Little-N enjoyed searching for the beans and picking them.

He washed and cut the beans.

He cooked them with some garlic, butter, salt and herbs.

And proudly served it to us for dinner.

He has kept some beans for drying out and planting next year.

Little-N was so happy to completed the the cycle of cooking by planting, caring, picking and cooking.

Times Tables

Little-N has been working on his times tables. The Montessori curriculum has plenty of activities to help practice the times tables. We chose the three times table and worked with the following activities.

Multiplication with the bead stair. He wrote out his own question cards, with answer cards and a control of error on the back. He uses his cards to play a memory game.

Multiplication board.

3 bead chain and writing the number sequence.

Multiplication chart looking at the three times table.

Written multiplication chart.

3 times table on the hundred chart.

Multiplication on the peg board.

A few years ago Little-N worked with these materials to gain an understanding of multiplication. He has now revisited the material to help him with memorisation of the times tables.

Once he is confident with the three times table, we'll choose another one and work with the materials again.

New Job

Remember the post I wrote some months ago about the Montessori pre-school I was helping set up? Well initially I joined the team as a consultant, but things have changed. I am now the pre-school manager. This is a position that I swore I'd never accept, it's a big responsibility and a lot of work, however after working with the team for months and seeing their eagerness to make the school perfect I realised that I could do more to help create a school that will be amazing and touch the lives of many children.

I've spent these last weeks preparing mountains of paper work for Ofsted [official body for inspecting school]. Ordering and buying and materials to set up the classroom and preparing training session for teachers. I am lucky to be part of a wonderful team of teachers, all coming with years of experience and amazing talents. Everyone is working to the same goal, creating an outstanding Montessori school that will not only change the lives of children but also change the community.

I was extremely nervous about my suitable persons interview with Ofsted [official body for inspecting school] in which the inspector grilled me for more than three hours asking many difficult questions. But I was glad to know that it's hard for people to get a job as a manager and Ofsted are thorough in insuring that people in these positions are good people with sufficient experience. Today we received the glad news that I have passed the interview and we have got registration certificate.

This summer will be spent setting up the school, making resources and ensuring the the school is ready for September. I have stopped my homeschooling classes that I run from home. Having a full-time job in September will mean that I can no longer homeschool Little-N :( . I will set up my classroom in the school so that he can come in to the pre-school and continue his learning with me.