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Friday, September 25, 2009

Thank you Bloggers!

Thank you to all of the Blogger's out there. You help motivate me. You know that I've been very tired and sick due to my pregnancy. This leaves me with absolutely no desire to do ANYTHING. But after reading one of your blog posts I get energized and motivated. Then, once I see the kids enjoying a craft or a school work, I start to feel a little better.

I did not take a a lot of pictures this week. Here is what I did capture.

After talking about the 'D' sound, Bella went to get this book called Little Digger. She said "D, like little Digger!".

Painting
The kids made Fall art work for our frames. I traced pumpkins, acorns, and flowers so they could paint or collage.




And we visited the Library!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

More Fall Activities

A few more Fall Works!!

Stamping
Art
There is actually a few more bird stamps not shown in the picture. The children can stamp and color the tree and birds.


Paper Punching
Helps strengthen fingers. We also use these punch outs in our collage work.


Playdough
Sensorial
Two cookie cutters in the shapes of a leaf and pumpkin say Fall is here!



Painting
Art
Here I've changed out the little towel and paint colors.



Collage Work

Art


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Fall is here, Fall is here

Fall is here, Fall is here
It's the best time of the year!!!

I LOVE FALL
I LOVE the smell of fall and the colors!

I LOVE to decorate the house for fall and also change things up on the kids shelves.
Here is two fall works. I will post more tomorrow.

Seasons

This seasons clothing sort work came from Montessori For Everyone's free dowloads.
I put a label on top of the seasons in English and wrote them in Spanish.

Leaf Rubbing

I picked a leaf and showed the kids leaf rubbing. They were so excited they went outside to gather all kinds of different leafs! We did this last year but I guess they had forgotten!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

A little of what we did last week

Here is a few pictures of what we did last week.



Here is sweet boys work.



Here is Bella's work. She traced a few letters and then wanted to make a puzzle.



Some map work and stamping.

The kids also used the moveable alphabet for spelling. Sweet boy was working with me as my husband helped Bella. She is just learning her letters so this was great for her.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Expecting....

Our family is growing! I am 10 weeks pregnant!

The first trimester of my pregnancies are very bad. I am nauseous all day with constant heart burn. I do not have energy for much and I don't want to eat, smell, or look at food. So, I don't have much to post since we have not been doing very much. After the kids get home from school, they eat lunch and then I just lay on the couch and read to them stories and play I Spy games, color, work on puzzles, or something that does not require much energy!

Now that I received the new montessori materials maybe I'll get excited to do something....maybe! Hopefully I will be feeling better in 2 to 3 weeks.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Materials came in!

I ordered from Adena Montessori and received my order in 6 working days.

I ordered the following.
Lower Case Sandpaper Letters, Cursive
Small D Nelian Moveable Alphabet
9 golden Bead Bars of Ten
Color Bead Stair
Hundred Board

I received everything in good condition except for the Hundred Board. It was not in my box. The shipping print out did not say that it was in back order but after I e-mailed them, they said it was in back order and would not come in until October or November. They said I could get a refund if I wanted. I have asked for a different item with equal cost.

Also, the 'y' sandpaper letter was on a blue tablet like the vowels. Is this suppose to be this way? I just got through looking at those closely and noticed that.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Organizing our Learning Materials

Here is what I am doing to help with organizing our Learning Materials. My system has evolved with the more I gather and the more ideas I get from the Blog world!!

First, I loved Laura's idea from My Montessori Journey on having bins for each month of the school year so I copied it! I started by using it just for Spanish materials but I ended up changing it to the months. I have 1 bin for Summer, September, October, November, December, January, February, March/April, and May. In the bins I have themed items that go with that Month. For example: for February I have heart trays, heart stickers, valentine stamps, craft projects, heart cookie cutters for playdough, etc..


Here is a picture of last years shelf with the Valentine theme. All of this stuff gets put in the bin. Also, I always purchase craft items after the Holiday sales when they are 50% off, so all those go here for the next year! When February rolls around, I can just pull out the bin and quickly I can change up their shelves to add interest and/or new craft activities.





I have a closet with boxes sorting my items for Geography, English Language, Flowers, Bugs, Spanish Language, Math, Space, and Dinosaurs. In these boxes I have books/puzzles/3 part cards/small items like plastic bugs. Some boxes are bigger because I have more things. I will change the boxes to bigger boxes as I need to and add boxes as I have more categories.


All of the craft items, extra pencils, pens, tape, glue, etc... is in this cabinet. This is only for their schooling activities. I have my personal office with my personal office supplies. I'm still working on finding a good way to organize the craft materials so if you see any good ideas out there, let me know! The two bottom drawers are for general practical life items and general craft items.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Purchasing/Making Materials

I finally made a purchase I should have made months ago.

My children's school actually encourage the parents to buy some materials and work with the kids at home. They gave us information on how to present the material. For example: the sandpaper letters. They told us the order they present it and how we should present it. They say to pull the letters out when we are going to work with the kids instead of leaving them out since they will see them all of the time at school. It will feel special to work with a parent on these. They stress how not to force the child to work on it and stop when the child wants to stop. They also suggested a Montessori book with games to play with the kids that re-enforce what they are learning at school. I can't remember the name of the book.

We also received a little book titled "The Pink What?" A quick reference guide to Montessori materials. Very helpful for parents not familiar with Montessori or the materials they see in the classroom. Another great thing they are doing is a Saturday morning exploration day in the classrooms. You get to explore the works on the shelves from Primary to 8th grade.

So here is what I purchased from Adena Montessori:

Lower Case Sandpaper Letters, Cursive
Small D Nelian Moveable Alphabet
9 golden Bead Bars of Ten to use with the Tens and Teens Board (I will purchased the single beads at the local store)
Color Bead Stair
Hundred Board

I'm very excited about my purchase. I know the kids will love these items

Here are works I am working on making:

Tens and Teens Boards (need to print and cut)
Fall-Thanksgiving Matching Cards (need to print and cut)
Initial Sound Cards (English and Spanish) (need to make)
Season Clothing Sorting Cards (Spanish) (done)
Pink Green and Blue Cards (English) (need to print and cut)
Action Words (Spanish) (need cutting)
Grammar Box 1 (print and cut)

























Number Recognition


Here is another number recognition activity I created for Bella.

This activity is suppose to be a puzzle but I did not want to use it this way since we already have a puzzle. Bella places a stone on each red dot. I showed her by saying "One - 1 stone" "Two - one, two stones", etc...


I downloaded this file from MM_Math yahoo group. The file name is numberrecognition.pdf. When you join this group you are automatically accepted. There are great resources here!! Once again, she loved it!