Birds: Ornithologist to be?

Little-Ns big interest at the moment is in birds. For the last three months everyday has included independent research and studies about birds. His favourite birds are birds of prey, specifically falcons. His interest began to develop from watching flight patterns of birds in our area. It was further developed one day at school when he was sitting by himself reading in my classroom as I rushed around my school managing and teaching children. He found this little bird book in a cupboard:

We also had some RSPB bird posters on the wall. He suddenly rushed up to me and said his favourite bird is a Merlin. I had no clue what a Merlin was and he soon filled me in with too much information about a Merlin along with a hand drawn picture.

Over the next few days Little-N went through every book at school, home and the library reading about birds. Here are some of the books he read:

This book is amazing. He read it so much it's falling apart!

These are really good for taking on outings.

Birds of Britain  Essential Guide, with lovely fold out pages about birds.

 A very detailed book about birds of prey.

This book has amazing maps of birds.

This book is fantastic, his favourite with so many beautiful pictures.

Along with the reading comes a lot of independent research and pictures:

Here is a picture of a Merlin that he drew:

Here is what Little-N calls a 'fact file' about gyrfalcons, this is all his independent work that I often don't know about until he's completed it:

Here is a book he made one day while I was out working:

This is an example of one of the pages inside:

He has made so many bird books and drawn so many bird pictures. Even today I came home to another bird book he made :) I'm so happy with his independence and ability to sit and work on his projects without my help. 

Reading about birds had exposed Little-N to Latin as many birds have Latin names that are included in his books. Somehow he has found away to learn the Latin names of birds and some other Latin words. I'm so surprised that Little-N is walking around saying 'Falco rusticolus' apparently that's the Latin name for a gyrfalcon!

He read about the RSPB bird reserves and asked me to take him to visit one. I found one 15mins away from my home so we went for a quick visit. He loved it!

Little-N is keen to join the bird spotting club in our local park and has already identified all the birds we've seen while cycling through to school. 

Semi Precious Rocks

Little-N has developed a huge interest in semi-precious rocks and gems.  He started to collect rocks and gems and I was amazed at how quick he was able to build a collection from little gifts from friends and family. We bought him these books and he has read them cover to cover.

Little-N used the books to identify his small collection of rocks. I came across this amazing precious rocks,  gems and minerals magazine collections which I bought him as a gift. Each fortnight Little-N receives a magazine with a rock or gem. The collection is brilliant, the stones are huge and the magazines are so informative. So far Little-N has received gold, amethyst, rose quartz, blue agate, desert rose, obsidian and geode.

He started to look into birthstones and was eager to identify everyone's birthstone. I made him these birthstone cards.



When Little-N gets interested in a subject he becomes totally obsessed. He sat and research each rock making what he calls 'fact files' about each rock. He drew picture after picture of different rocks. He started to talk about crystal shapes and taught himself the names of different mineral crystal shapes. I printed him a set of cut out crystal shapes that he could assemble himself. I also made him colour coded name cards so he can sort and name the shapes. This is how he set up his work:

My husband took Little-N to the natural history museum where he had the opportunity to see and identify many precious rocks and gems. 

Little-N's favorite precious stone is diamond, he asked if I could buy him some but I told him he'll have to wait till he's older. His next favorite is emerald and he is eagerly awaiting the emerald magazine that comes with his collection.

Update on Little-Ns education

Managing a new Montessori school is a lot more work then I initially thought. The school has taken up all my time which means that unfortunately I am unable to prepare and work with Little-N. Little-N is still pretty much homeschooled, or perhaps unschooled is a better way of explaining his education at the moment. Little-Ns week goes something like this: Mondays he goes out on trips with my husband, Tuesdays- Thursdays he comes to school with me and Fridays he goes for prayer with my husband.  

My school does not have 6yrs+ facilities, but I have set up a little area for him, in which he has access to a selection of resources and books. Since I don't really have much time to prepare work for him, he spends the days at school reading and pursuing his burning interests. He is now in charge of his learning and it's been amazing to see what he is able to do and how he has furthered his development without any help from me. The last three months have really shown me the independence and autonomy that Montessori has allowed Little-N to develop. The Montessori education has prepared Little-N and helped him to acquire important skills that he needs for learning, and now that he's been set free he's blossoming and flying through learning.

I've been taking pictures of his work and over the next weeks I'll be posting his work so you can have a look.

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.