Today my son turns 5.

Happy Birthday, Cale!

Seeing that I have posted a lot about Montessori in the past few weeks I thought I would compile a few resources I have found. I am by no means  pure montessori, there are some aspects I just don't care for or see the point in. But the aspects I do like are the early instruction for practical life and getting the children to be more independent early on. I like the level of concentration the children can achieve when given appropriate material. The subjects of math is one of my favorites, and I really like a lot of the math manipulatives used to help children really understand they why behind the process. Geography is also a big one. Map puzzles and pin maps are used a lot to help children really see the world and learn the location of all the different countries and other geographically important places. I've got 2 in the early stage and 1 in the elementary and then Cale somewhere in the middle I am trying my best to creat an environment that is a good fit for everyone. We are on an off week from school and I am in the middle of planning our next 4 week block. I am trying to figure out what I want to incorporate into our classroom and what I want to stay the same. Anyway...on to the links...

To start here is a basic FAQ on the Montessori Method. And another informational site on the basics of the Montessori method and history.

This site is a wonderful resource, especially for someone who is not at all trained in the Montessori method. The site is broken down into the different subjects and each subject is described and along the sidebar you can look at all the different activites, the directions for all the games and activities and how to present it to the child is right there for you.

For the younger kids- ones working with numbers up to 1000s, understanding the logic behind numbers and place value, you can view videos online of the activities.

Another good site for some of the activites for the 3-6 age group is Montessori Mom. There is a lot of explanations of the different activites from sorting to the addition. Some info on language and Montessori in general. And here is another album of activities for the 3-6 age range

Here you can view a scope and sequence for the different age ranges, 3-6, 6-9 and 9-12. They also have teacher training albums for the different subjects for the different levels too. THis is one of the few sites I have come across with a good amount of info on the older ages.

Montessori for Everyone has a selection of inexpensive materials you can buy- and some free to to download. Lots of sorting cards and parts of an object cards. I personally don't like too much of the card work but I see a place for some of it in our schooling esp. for independent work and refining the skills. I also use these to get ideas on how to make my own; I have made animal classification cards and Living/non-living classification cards using printable business card paper. It makes it much easier with no cutting. Another site for free resources is Montessori Materials it has free, donated material from other teachers and homeschoolers.

There are also a few good catalogs to buy, or if you are like me, get ideas and put them into play using your own resources. Montessori Services has a wonderful selection for practical life and Michael Olaf has an online catalog, you can purchase a print copy, but the catalog is divided into age ranges and there is a lot of good information on methods as well as products.

And since I am a visual learner and I like to see how a lot of this goes together and how it looks, Sew Liberated has a lot of pictures of her materials and classroom (again, 3-6 but you can use your imagination for older kids, and the set up is similar just different materials for their level). She also has a lot of pictures in herprepared environment gallery. Another nice blog isMy Montessori Journey. There are also a few youtube videos where you can see an elementary classroom at work.

This is by no means a complete list of resources, but a jumping off point for someone looking for more information. And a way for me to organize some of  the information I have come across.

A few months ago I made this with the a few of the plastic bags taking over my living room. Family Fun Magazine also showcased a very similar project in their August edition. Look here if you want to see a fellow blogger's finished project. Now when you have nearly 1000 bags creeping out of corners of your dining room, flattening and cutting; then ironing and sewing them isn't a good use of time. Plus I didn't have a huge need for plastic fabric. But I did have a need for the book corner in our playroom. We had a bean bag, but it got ruined (bad, bad, cats!) So all we  had was a rug. So When I was shoving the zillions of bags into a large ones the thought struck me that they would make a great filler. So I went to the closet and took out two old recieving blankets (now I wish I didn't give the rest away) and sewed them together and once turned right side out Cohen helped me stuff it full of bags. Then I sewed it shut. Voila....a nice huge pillow for my playroom and no more bags. The 2 younger boys were in with me at the time and immediately sat down and read to themselves and each other for a good 20 minutes.

I made this one  back at the beginning of July. Since then I have made another, using an old pillow case (very little sewing on that one). I'll probably make a few more as the bags collect, so there is room for all in the corner. But it is now a favorite place to read and sit during school time. So we are all happy!

We were talking about the different types of scientists last week, Wednesday was Archeologist day. I have seen this project a couple of times, on a few different blogs over the past few weeks, and when I looked on my schedule I thought that it would be the perfect activity for a "dig".

It took a few days to prepare since I wanted the items fairly hidden. I covered the bottoms of 3 large containers with water and froze them. Then I placed more water and a few objects and froze again. I did this 3 times before topping with water. The items were just small ones from around the house. Mini-cars, pennies, buttons, shells, tiny plastic animals. etc.... Then I took them out on the back deck, where there was about 2 ft of shade handed them butter knives and forks and let them dig.

They concentrated very hard...

These were pretty solid blocks of ice and they had a blast breaking into it and finding the items inside. They've asked to do it again and I think next time I will be better prepared and bring out their hammers, some brushes, salt, maybe some water for them to see how different items work with the ice. But it's a great activity for a near 100 degree day.

Geography is a subject that is often overlooked in schools today. I know when I was in school all we were taught were the continents, oceans, US States, we needed to know the major countries around the world and that was all. A handul of seas and other countries, maybe. My plan this year is to have more geographical items in our school room. We have maps, a globe, puzzles of the states and a puzzle of the world. We talk about individual countries as we do our studies but I want a little more. I want my kids- and I will be learning right along with them- to know where Guatemala, Nigeria and Romania are. Not just a vague- they are in Central America, Africa or Europe....but I want them to be able to point to it on a map,see it's place in the world. So my first step was to make and add this to our shelf:

I got the printable from a free Montessori resources website- I would love to share it and credit the person who made it, but I don't remember where I downloaded it from. It was simple to make....just a printable map with the country borders shown. One blank and one labled. Then I cut out the names of all the countries, seas, and other noteworthy places and taped them onto straight pins to form flags. There are 26 flags. The control map is to help the boys be independent while working on this, and so their concentration isn't broken while waiting for me to come and help.  The map and flags are places onto a corkboard piece and the control map is free beside them.

ETA I found it....this map is from Polestar Montessori they have a N. America and a World map available to download.

Happy Birthday to me.....

Today I turn 28....

Handmade cards,birthday wishes and 4 smiling faces make every birthday a good one

Today I finished up this project to add to our shelves.....

It is for writing a book/stories. Like a lot of boys, my oldest is somewhat of a reluctant writer. It takes too long is his number one complaint. While he is getting better at writing longer sentences he still doesn't write a lot. I want to encourage them to write down their stories and get their imaginations running. So here 's what is in this "kit":

First I made these books. Simple folded in half cardstock, with 3 sheets of paper inside. One is blank for a title page, 2 are lined on the bottom, front and back to form 8 writable pages. My stapler wasn't long enough to staple the binding so I sewed them...and I think they turned out nicer that way...

Then I made some story starter cards, in case they needed them. They are fairly generic...."One day I..." and "This weekend I...". I sewed a little pouch for the cards. Then I made a little information card with basic instructions...pick a topic or starter, write and illustrate your story, think of  a title. Then a basic template for a cover and the information it should include. I stuck it all in, well actually it is a "mailbox" they made at Lowes, on the shelf with a jar of fancy pencils, colored pencils and my pens.  

Cale has plans to write a story about a cat tomorrow.

I mentioned last week that I have a new interest in the Montessori way of teaching. I love the preschool ideas and the practical life instruction. I have found in the past week that information on the elementary- or 6-12 class- is hard to find. There is a wealth of information on setting up a 3-6 classroom, but not so much on the older kids. So I have been adding things to our "classroom" and rearraging our existing items in more appealing ways. 

One thing I have been making is this:

The beads are a major mathematics manipulative. And if you buy the ones through the Montessori stores they are ridiculously expensive. We actually don't really have much in the way of manipulatives. My kids have never used them much for counting. They just learned by counting things; while building, reading etc. I like it that way. Rylan was a natural when it came to addition and didn't take long to go counting objects to abstract problems. We own cuisenaire rods, but they aren't marked so it makes it hard to know which rod is 8 and which is 6. I can see a lot of uses for these beads. Montessori uses them for everything from counting to understanding higher numbers, to mulitplication and square root. So I went to Hobby Lobby- lucky for me the beading section was in the flyer last week and plastic beads were all 50% off. So I bought a bunch and used some wire left over from the chicken coop and started stringing. I made 10 sets of the bead stair (above) and I also am working on long chains- about 10 long- of each number for use in skip counting. Rylan need some work with that- esp since he will be coming into multiplication before too long. I set the beads out and they have loved "play" with them so far.

And Cohen has taken to these changes like a moth to a flame. He is at the perfect age for this. He's pouring and counting and scooping. I made him a salt tray to write in. He has actually been trying to write some letters- can do a c, o and i. He was so excited and ran to find his dad after each letter, yelling "Daddy, come see my "o"!!"  Today I made this sorting set and he wanted to use it immediately. (excuse the smile, he's at the stage where he puts this grin on when he hears the camera...I tried to get one of him actually working but he would here the focus and look up with this smile)

Once he was done, I asked him to roll up the mat and put it away, which he did, but then he wanted to use the red mat. So I found an old counting game we made last year. An egg carton, numbered to 12 and enough beads to fill each with the appropriate number. I think for a not quite 3 yr old  he is an excellent counter. He did all of them. A little help near the end keeping his 1:1 correspondance straight but overall he did it alone, counting the beads one at a time to put them in the right spot.

On Monday we headed back up to Townsend to swim and fish- although it was too hot to fish and the algae bloom in the lake made it not too inviting, but we did swim. A goal this summer was to get the boys swimming. Rylan, up until this year, as been very scared of the pool. But now he can walk the length of this pool (4ft at it's deepest) and he is relaxing a bit more. BUT still not enough to swim. Cale on the other hand paddles all over in his water wings and wants to learn. I told them they are both taking lessons in the fall if it doesn't happen in the summer and they have a reward for learning too. So this week we got them some kick boards and they helped a lot- got their bodies up in the water. And when they saw a 3 yr old jump in and swim under water both immediately dunked!! I was so pleased with that since the week before it took 10 min of reasoning to get Rylan to dunk his head.

Now this little boy.....he fell off the step on the 4th of July and went under for a second- not even under he was bobbing with his eyes out.....he didn't even choke. But he got scared. I was sitting right next to him, but looking on my otherside....turned around to his eyes peering out. So last week he cried and cried and refused to get near the pool. He did finally sit on my lap on the top step. This week he sat on the first step in by himself and thanks to a big beach ball and Lakin throwing it- he came out into the water with me- nails digging in....but out in the water.

And this one just floated around....chasing a beach ball....dunking his face in the water in front of him....

And today when Rylan and Cale were out playing with the chickens....Lakin and Cohen made bubbles....2 buckets of water, 2 whisks, 1 hand beater and some soap. It took awhile for him to work the beater fast enough to get a good foam....but soon the bowls were overflowing. They had a blast. And were covered in bubbles. Cale came over later and threw bubbles all over the walls and glass door. Then they dumped them and paraded around in the foam. Rylan was too good for this activity....it might get him dirty??

We also did a chemical reaction experiment today....forgot my camera...but they experiemented for awhile. I set out baking soda, paking powder and corn starch. And water, lemon juice and vinegar. All unlabled (although the liquids were easy to guess). They we tested each possibility for a reaction. Cornstarch made none. They were suprised when they discovered that water and baking powder produced a reaction. We talked about baking and the bubbles that cause rising. We also talked about carbon dioxide and it's uses and dangers. Then we made dancing popcorn. Back when Cale 2 or 3 he wanted to make dancing popcorn all the time. He vaguely remembered it....but they all had fun watching the kernals dance and dropping more vinegar or baking soda in to make more bubbles.

And finally...since I took away a lot of their toys...including their plastic car garage....they have a renewed interest in the wooden unit blocks. They are all about the monster trucks right now so they have been making tracks, ramps, garages, etc....Today Rylan made a huge high rise hwy for them during quiet time. But yesterday they built this:

(Good thing I took a picture when I did, since hurricane Lakin knocked it down a second later trying to drive up it). They specifically asked me to photograph it so we could show my brother- Uncle Justin- they love to build with these when he visits. So Uncle Justin- if you read this- the above building ramp is for you.

I have always been interested in the Montessori Method of teaching. I like the ideas and the tools. We have gotten the catalogs in the mail and order from them for gifts and my boys seem to really enjoy the Montessori inspired activites we do....I stumbled across this blog the other day....and I read a lot, and looked at her prepared enviroment pictures. For a few weeks I have been itching to reoganize our play/school room. They have too much stuff, too much clutter. Some days they go without playing in the playroom at all. So once they went to bed I started clearing. I ended up boxing up 3 tubs of toys, cars, etc. More if you count the art supplies I put up. I don't plan on getting rid of them- yet. Rotate them as needed. See what really gets played with. Drop some off at the camper up in the mountains for recharging playtime. Probably donate some to a friend whose house recently burned down. But the point was to simplify. Put things in order. Keep everything clearly visible. I don't have a before picture, but this is our arts shelf. Other than Rylan and Cale's school book shelves, before were jammed packed with coloring books, paper, boxes of collage fixings, a lot of stuff that frankly was never seen. This is what it looks like now:

I left a smaller amount of different papers, organized. I DRASTICALLY reduced the playdough toys- rolling pins, hammers and knives are all thay is left for a packed box. The top shelf, and 1 from the next level down, are for rotating. Currently there are the rubber band board, rubber stamps/ink, paper punches and cutting activities. On top is the color mixing set my mom got for Cohen last year for his birthday. They spent a good hour this morning punching shapes into paper. But it is so much cleaner and nicer looking and easier for them to pickup afterwards (we do still have our hanging shoe organizer with the paints, crayons, pencils, markers, etc...)

I also added a couple things from around the house:

I inherited this very old silver sugar/creamer set from a great great grandmother.  I had forgotten it was stuck in the bottom of my china cabinet. So I filled it with beans and set it in front of my almost 3 year old. He loved it. Sat for a long time working with the tongs. They were tough for him to use on such small beans but he did great. I also added a little silver spoon which he used after he got tired of the tongs. All 3 used this today.

And I added this:

The Montessori catalogs have a lot of practical life items such as pouring. And I actually own a few little pitchers- but they come from the fore mentioned great grandmother and I am not sure I am ready to hand them over to my kids. I even have a small pitcher/bowl set like they used to use to wash hands. Again I am not ready to hand it over. But I do have this. I don't think it is old...seeing that the pitcher has mints on it. I am thinking it was probably from some holiday set. But I filled it with water and set it with a little tiny goblet and let them pour with it.

They also got out their older sets:

So they had a busy day. They used their hands a lot. They swept up their holes from punching and nut shells from cracking. They dried water spills. I am still reading, doing more research- esp on using these ideas for kids older than 6. But I have my head filled with ideas on what things I want to change in our home.

This year I have planned  to study a handful of artists. This week we began with our first artist: Wassily Kandinsky. His abstract art and use of color and shapes seemed to be a good first choice for my boys. In my planning I discovered that our library is not a good resource for art prints, so I had to improvise. There are a number of online galleries- this one was one of my favorites- so I set my printer on 4x6 photopaper and saved a few images from the galleries. They turned out nicely- with the exception of the one print I really wanted. Farbstudie Quadrate wasn't avaiable in a good print size. I did manage a smaller one though. So throughout the week we have been looking at the prints, discussing colors and abstracts, narrating a few of the prints, and today we got out the paints to make our own "Kandinsky". So after blocking their papers and a brief discription of concentric circles they went to work.

Here is the print I chose for them:

Hard at work:

And here are the masterpieces: (Cohen, Cale, Rylan) 

And finally the little artist. This is the first time I have let him go all out with the paints. He could pick and choose just like the bigger boys and he had a blast (was a mess by the end too) 

I really like this picture. Maybe because getting my oldest to hold a pen the right way was torture- he was heading on 5 before he did, or maybe because this hand looks like it belongs to someone much older than a 14 month old...

And Lop- who is the most adorabe bunny

1 of 3 loaves I made yesterday, from a recipe I completely threw together. It tasted delicious too...and I used 5 of our many dozen eggs

The passion flower that sprung up in our compost section a few years ago. It is beautiful, and I have sucessfully trasplanted at least one into my flower bed this year

I picked something sort of easy for our first project. Something they would find fun, but incorporated some of the information they need to know: full name, address, phone numbers etc. Most of this was review for my 2nd grader but not quite memorized for my Kindergartener. I also wanted to introduce the concept of history in thier own lives before we jump  into the history of everything else.

The minibooks/parts included:

• A self portrait
• My Time Line, downloaded from somewhere but I can't remember where
• a family tree- I c/p a clipart tree and drew the boxes I needed in Word
• Likes and Dislikes
• My Family
• Measurements accordian book
• graph of the above measurements
• a person shape book taken from an Evan Moor Theme Pocket book, downloaded from Googlebooks. Name, age, height, right/left handed, boy/girl, etc

Most of the books were made by me. It was pretty simple. But they enjoyed working on it.

Today finished up our first official week of school. The entire week went as well as the first day. It was an amazingly easy week. Here is a some of the stuff we did:

Spelling: Each had a list. Cale's were all short A, Rylan's were double consanants at the end. The each spelled all their words correctly today.

Language Arts: In addition to the 1 required book to read each day, they did activities like these: 

The first one was an idea from this fellow blogger, and I also saw something like it in the Montesorri catalog. Most of the words were CVC- cat, pin, bug, top, etc....some were harder for my almost 5 yr old, But he did very well.  The second was for my 2nd grader. It is a little kit on syllables....1-4. I downloaded one of the Evan Moor Phonics Center bools off of Google Books. It he did very well reading the longer 4 syllable words. Most of thier writing this week was done in the All About Me Lapbook.

For math we mostly focused on add and sub facts for Rylan and counting 1:1 and writing the numbers with Cale. This went over really well with Rylan and he loved doing it.

For the past few days our afternoons have been filled with june bug catching. It is a new favorite for them. They take their jars and lids and a big  pitcher and we go out. Once we get about 50 of them we stop and throw them into the henhouse. The birds, and boys, love it. So it was only natural that our nature notebook entry for this week was the june bug. My boys are not natural artisits, at least as far as sketching goes, so a couple times this week I have had them actually pay attention to detail and draw what they see. Rylan especially lacks the confidence in himseft, plus his perfectionist nature wants his drawing to look exactly like what it is. I guess that is why he likes photography. But here are their June Bugs: (Cale's, Rylan's)

And the final project was our lapbook....

and the details of those I will post separately