Treasure Basket Objects

A few people commented that they will be making treasure baskets too. To make it easier for you I've listed the objects that I put in mine:

From home:

• Wooden spoon
• Small metal whisk
• Spring metal egg cup
• Large pompom
• Wooden paint brush
• Large avocado seed
• Velvet bag
• Small mirror with wooden frame
• Cardboard box
• Velvet/ leather ring box
• Crochet coaster
• Pine cone
• Large polished rock
• Piece of off cut wood sanded
• An apple
• A carrot
• A green pepper
• A plum
• A beaded keyring
• Old keys on a ring
• Small teddy bear
• Wooden dolly pegs

Bought:

• Wooden massage tool
• Wooden whistle [from Asda for £1]
• Rabbit rattle
• Wooden bath scrub with natural bristles
• Wooden castanet
• Wooden tambourine rattle
• Wicker ball
• Loafa scrub
• Rosary beads
• Small wooden hair brush
• Wooden camel
• Shiny golden snail box
• Small heart shaped wooden plate

Made:

• Triangular rattle: made the same as the smell bags but has a bell inside.
• Metal sweet tin with rice inside
• Smell bags: as in last post.
• Wooden ribbon teething ring
• Wooden home made rattle : Made with two wooden curtain rings, a piece of ribbon and a large bell.

There are many more things you can put in a treasure basket. I only spent £5 on the objects for my basket. The rest of the things I collected from around my home [and my mums and a friends :)].

Treasure Baskets

As part of the Montessori Degree that I'm doing, we had to make treasure baskets that are typically used with babies from 4 month until they become mobile. Treasure baskets are not a piece of original Montessori materials, but were first made by Eleanor Goldschmied who spoke about them in her book 'People under 3'. A good treasure basket should contain about 100 everyday objects for the child to explore. Objects should be natural and not made from plastic. A large basket should contain objects to develop each sense. Alternatively you can make smaller baskets, one for each sense. Below are some pictures of the basket and the objects I gathered.

I made these smell bags. The green one contains mint tea bags, the purple one contains lavender, the brown one contains clove and the rose patterned one contains rose petal. To keep the smell i store them in zip-lock bags and only take them out when a baby is using the treasure basket.
This is a teething ring that a friend made for my treasure basket. She used scraps of fabric and a wooden curtain ring. There is a tutorial for it here.

I found many of the things in charity shops and around the house. Interestingly the baby's favourite object was a wooden paint brush.

Biomes of Africa

My children love studying with the maps. To keep the maps interesting I allow them to choose how they want to study them. Some children are happy working moving from map to map only learning the names of the countries. Some children work with one map and study it further learning the names of the capital cities and flags. Other children decide they would like to look at the land forms in the continents, search for the rivers and lakes, look at which animals live and learn about the culture and people who live on the land. There's such a variety of ways to work with a map, but I always insist that the children learn about the countries first.

Below is the work of one of my older students. At first she learnt all the names of the country in Africa. She coloured in and labelled a print out map. Next she decided to look at the rivers in the continent, she carefully drew each river in Africa, noting which countries it travels through. She then decided to look at the biomes in Africa. I suggested that she find out about the land and try to construct it using materials that relate to the type of land.

For the deserts she used sand. She coloured the sand to differentiate between the different deserts in Africa. She used tissue paper for the forests, and layered it to show the layers of a rain forest. She used pieces of finely cut yellow card for the grass land.

The end result is amazing. The learning that took part in the construction of this piece is likely to stay with her forever. After completing this work she decided to do another project on landforms.

Layers of the Earth

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging lately I'm too busy I can't even find time to eat! Doing a degree and working with primary children is so difficult. If you've emailed me and I haven't replied plse forgive me, I'll try to do so soon. Here is something we recently did in my class.

Last week I made this earth model. I first saw this presentation done when I was living in Egypt and attended a science session at a Montessori centre run by an 80 year old American woman who trained many many years ago. I wanted to make it perfectly, so I matched the layers inside to the cards I downloaded from Cultivating Dhrama, I then covered the coloured ball in a layer of blue. I cut out continents and stuck them on [except for Antarctica which one child pointed out]. The children were so excited as I walked around the classroom carrying 'THE WORLD' in my hands. Then to their amazement I cut it! Yes I cut my work of art :( and we talked about the different layers inside the earth and how they were formed. This was a follow up lesson to the first great lesson.


The layers of the Earth shown inside the model. The children loved it and so did I.
This is how I have the activity set up on a tray. Not perfect I know but it was what I could find in a rush.
Little-N and his friend working with the earth model, globe and layers of the earth cards. Some of the children went on to make project books about the earth. Another child drew an amazing picture using pastels.

I noticed that Monressori en el hogar recently did a similar activity, it's always lovely to see what other bloggers do.

Snow Decorations

We still have snow outside!!! A new term has started and all the children are excited about the lovely change of weather. This week we started off by decorating our classroom with snowflakes and stars.

Above is a beautiful paper snowflake hanging in our door way. It's very easy to make, there is a tutorial for it here.

The children made loads of paper snowflakes. Each one came out different even if they tried to make them the same. They really enjoyed it and our windows look lovely :)

Kittens

Knitting projects

The recent snow and cold weather has triggered off my knitting addiction. For some reason knitting seems to have a 'warming' effect on me even before I wear the finished projects. So here's what I've been knitting:

Wrist warmers for a friend at school following this free pattern. Very easy and straight forward to make. The only problem I encountered was that each one was a different colour. I didn't realise that the yarn I used had a long colour repeat. So i ended up knitting four and I will give the two best ones to my friend and keep the rest.

A purple scarf made from my favourite yarn that had been lurking in my drawers for 3 years. I already have a pair of wrist warmers made from this yarn and I have a purple coat that matches. So all I really need now is a perfect purple scarf and I'll be feeling very happy with myself. I used this lace scarf pattern which is very simple and straight forward. Perfect for knitting on the train or when watching TV.

And of course a project for Little-N, mini wrist warmers to match a hat of his. I made it in about 20mins and he loves them :)