Some linky appreciation

This is a really mixed bag of stuff, but I have been saving a few links and recommendations that I have wanted to share for a while and have not gotten round to putting it all together!

Firstly, there is this post from Motherhood and More in which she shares her prayer box idea. I love this idea, we have used something similar in the past for learning virtue quotations during our circle time, but I love the cards she has put together. They are great for children’s classes or for family use.

Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations, has been putting together fun preschool packs under a number of different themes that children will love (and she is making more). I plan to use some of them for Damian.

Two items which are making my housekeeping SO much easier. One is this nifty cordless vacuum cleaner that my folks bought for me (thank you, Mom and Dad!). I love this thing – it is light weight, swivels to get under and around things easily, does not break my back like those little handheld dust busters, and best of all no cords! I keep it in my laundry room, which is right off my kitchen, and it is easy to whip out and do a quick vacuum after meals or the end of the day. It works well on carpets too, which is fantastic for when I pull out a sensory tub in the school room!

The second item is my new bread machine which my hubby got for me. I prefer to make our bread, rather than use the store bread, but making it was taking too much time in my already too busy days. But this thing is awesome, it takes me 5 minutes to put the ingredients in, press a few buttons, and a few hours later I have a perfect loaf of healthy, fresh bread.  This model has two kneaders, which I have been told makes all the difference, though I wouldn’t know, since this is my first bread machine.

This post from Deb at Living Montessori Now that provides a great list of free Montessori materials online.

And tell me these art supply pouches are not just the cutest way to organize your kids pencils and crayons?

An old classic: the Lite Brite

The other day we were over at my sister’s home, and since she has grandkids (yes, her grandkids are the same age as my kids, I was a late comer in my family!) she has a stash of toys in her house that my boys love investigating while visiting her. This time she pulled out something new for them – a Lite Brite, which she had just picked up from a garage sale.

When I saw it, it brought back a flood of childhood memories! I remember spending hours creating pictures and patterns on this toy. It was an equally huge success with my boys. They laid down on a rug and created together on the Lite Brite for the rest of our visit there. Since it uses small pegs to create an image it is excellent for practicing the pincer grip and fine motor coordination in general. And the reward when you switch off the lights and see your image colorfully glowing in the dark is bound to be a hit with the little ones. Win, win.

My sister had picked up an old style one at a garage sale, which was like the one I used when growing up. Does it look familiar to you?

When I got home that night I did an online search to see if they still made them. Sure enough they do, but they have been updated somewhat.

The newer one has a smaller board than the original one, which is a shame, but it still works nicely. It has a convenient little peg holder built into the board, so the pegs stay with the board all the time. It is also battery operated, so it does not need to be plugged into the wall, like the original ones. We bought one, and the boys have enjoyed many hours of creating on it! Me too! ;)

Activity boxes: my secret weapon in teaching multiple ages

I promised in my school room tour post that I would give you more details on our activity boxes set up, because they work so well for us. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get to it, but as you would have noticed I don’t get round to posting every day, just not enough hours in the day! It is not for lack of things to post about, I have about 10-15 partially written posts just sitting and waiting to be finished and published!

So, what are activity boxes? They are my secret weapon in keeping two active boys, in very different stages of development happy while working one-on-one with only one of them. They are basically a set of boxes or plastic drawers in which I place a variety of activities, all educational in some way. The boys are only allowed to use the items in the drawers when they are finished with their work and waiting for me to finish off with their brother. The items in the boxes are kept only for this use, and I rotate the items every 1-2 weeks, depending on how popular an activity is.

Right now we have a set of six plastic stacked drawers which I bought from Walmart, but I am hoping to change them to a more open bin or trays on shelves set up when I next visit IKEA.

Here are some examples of the items I have placed in the drawers recently:

~Haba peg board~

~tactile numbers (like our sandpaper letters)~

~clothing peg number cards (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~Spanish color match up game~

~magnetic counting book~

~large peg pattern board~

~color match up game (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~lacing cards~

~pattern blocks and boards~

~magnetic shapes book~

~rubbing plates~

~puzzles (this one is an infantino puzzle, but we use a lot of different ones)~

For more ideas refer to my Montessori inspired workboxes post, we use all the activities in that post in our activity boxes too.

Alongside the activity boxes, my boys are encouraged to look through the items in our feature study area of the classroom – read the books, or use whatever manipulatives are there – to become more familiar with the topic we are learning about, be it geography, science, or history (for more on our feature study area see our classroom tour post).

From time to time I will share more ideas for activity boxes.

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Preschool fun: review of our letter C week

• We started the week reading our Baha’i Alphabet Book in which the letter C was for courtesy, so we spent our virtue time for the week learning about courtesy. For ideas on teaching courtesy, see this post.
  
• We made the letter C using our new Haba peg board which Grandma gave to Damian recently (both boys love this peg board).

• We went through the C items in our alphabet box. We practiced the phonetic sound of the letter C using the song from Leap Frog’s Letter Factory DVD.
  
• We completed many of the “C is for caterpillar” activities from the Letter of Week curriculum by Confession of a Homeschooler.
  
• I printed 2 copies of the Do-A-Dot sheet from the “C is for Caterpillar” post and made up this activity to add some pincer grip exercise: I put a glue dot into each of the dots on the sheet, provided Damian with chopsticks and container of pompoms, then asked him to tweeze the pompoms and stick them onto each glue dot.
  
• We practiced writing Cs in rice. Damian loves this activity, so when he is finished I just leave him with the tray of rice and he draws and plays for while.
  
• Damian sorted these little pompoms by color.
• He watched the scholastic DVD version of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”.
  
• We did the “C for caterpillar” exercise from Yoga for Kids, Vol. 2: ABCs.
  
• We wrote Cs on magic scratch paper. I bought our pack of scratch paper from a local store, but I found this on amazon too.
  
• I gave Damian this matching upper and lower case letters sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler to complete (it is laminated, so that we can re-use it).
  
• We read Farfallina and Marcel going with the caterpillar theme.
  
• We completed the week with our ceremonial reading of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and added our Cs to the palm tree.
  

This has been added to Preschool Corner & 5K too.

There’s a preschooler in my home again!

And a proud one at that! I decided it was time to focus on a slightly more formal curriculum for Damian, mostly because he wants to get in on the school action! :) I was getting all excited about creating a whole curriculum for him, preschool is such a fun stage, and there is so much to work with, but honestly after looking around I decided there was no point in re-inventing the wheel! There is a wealth of fantastic material online for this age group. So, instead I am going to be pulling from various sources, and just adding a few personal touches when necessary to create his curriculum.

He will continue to participate in our circle time – memorizing prayers, learning about virtues, calendar time, charting the weather, etc. – then Rylan will set off to work through his morning workboxes while I have focused time with Damian. During this one-on-one time with Damian we will be working through the Letter of the Week curriculum created by Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler. It is a curriculum that helps preschoolers learn and perfect many basic skills with an alphabet focus. To this I will be adding Baha’i inspiration (e.g. A Baha’i Alphabet Book), Montessori activities, and special projects/themes I know will appeal to him. Since Damian loves the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we will definitely be working on adding to the alphabet palm tree as we work through the Letter of the Week curriculum, as Erica shared on her blog. In fact, we just put our tree up!

We started this week with Aa is for apple – Erica has very generously provided all of the Letter of the Week activities for free download in the drop down menu “ABC’s & 123’s” or under the “My printables” tab on the Confessions of Homeschooler site, or you can purchase the whole curriculum, so you have everything organized in one space (with a few extra bits and pieces) here for only $10.

Damian will also be participating in some aspects our geography studies and science experiments. Right now we are studying Europe for geography and the human body for science, both of which I will share with you when we have completed the units.

Other great preschool resources that we will be using often:

• I love Counting Coconuts filled with the most amazing Montessori activities.
• Homeschool Creations – check out Jolanthe’s “Preschool Corner” and “ABC’s” tabs which provide lots of fun activities, printables, and other resources for preschoolers up to kindergarten.
• Kids Learning Station – a site I am excited to have just found because it will save me hours of making printables of my own!
• Pre-Kinders
• Totally Tots

Montessori Activities for Multi-Age Teaching

I homeschool my two boys, who have a 3 year age gap between them. This means that I have to keep two children at very different skill levels happy and focused on learning at the same time. I have found many Montessori activities fall naturally into this category, because often Montessori classrooms are comprised of students of multiple ages...to read more pop over to The Homeschool Classroom where you can find me today.

Alphabet Box

A few weeks ago I made a Montessori alphabet box for Damian to use during our school time in the mornings. I have been dying to share this great idea with you all, and finally found a moment to finish this post!

As soon as I saw this idea, I started putting the pieces together, I knew Damian (and Rylan for the matter) would LOVE this learning tool. Even I love it! :) Just wait until you see it, I know you will be running out to put one together for your little ones…

So, you start with a box (I have also seen the use of envelopes) with lots of little drawers, labeled with the letters of the alphabet. I got my box from Walmart for $10 in the hardware section. And the alphabet labels are stickers from the craft store.

Then the fun part, you fill the drawers with little miniature objects that start with the corresponding letter. For example a little apple in the “a” drawer. Here are some examples from my drawers (I am still adding to some of the boxes):

~Bb: bone, basket, butterfly, bird, boy, baby, binoculars, broom, bowling pins and bowling ball~

~Dd: dolphin, deer, dish, dog~

~Ff: flowers, fox, fork, fire truck ~

~ Hh: hedgehog, heart balloon, heart, hammer, hydrant, hay, hat~

~Pp: plate, pineapple, penguin~

~Rr: rooster, rabbit, raccoon, rake~

~ Ss: spades, squirrel, square, sign, skeleton, stool, strawberry, saw ~

~ Tt: tea set, triangle~

Most of the object I used to fill these boxes I already had in the house. My boys love Playmobil and we have several different sets, so I just picked out bits and pieces from the Playmobil box. Another great resource I found are the Japanese Iwako erasers. They are a craze right now for older kids, but they have everything imaginable in miniatures, they are cute, and non-toxic (read the safety info for Iwako brand here, be careful of other brands, they may not be of the same quality or safety). Of course, just remember, little toys such as these can be choking hazards, so you need to be present and judge if your little one is ready to use them. The cute capital letter cards I downloaded from 1+1+1=1.

Really the learning possibilities with this alphabet box are endless, and I am sure we will be using it for a very long time during many different stages of Damian’s learning, plus because it is so fun, Rylan also loves using it with Damian, and I can just sit back and watch big brother teach little brother! :)

I first got this idea from Cindy at Along the Way (super cute blog!), but for a great resource on the alphabet box from how to put one together, to activities you can do using the learning tool, check out Counting Coconuts (I LOVE Mari-Ann’s blog, it is filled with the most amazing Montessori ideas, I just found it recently and have a whole bunch of stuff bookmarked to try out!).

Now, admit it, you want to put one together too, right?

A Montessori post at The Homeschool Classroom

You can find me over at The Homeschool Classroom today writing about how Montessori principles can be used to create an environment in your home that fosters learning and independence in young children.

Hop over to read more.

Montessori activity: walk the line

This is a fun and very easy activity to set up for your kids. It is excellent for developing gross and fine motor skills depending on how you approach it. In its most basic form you would lay out a line of some sort, we used a jump rope (you could also use string, colored tape, a measuring tape, sidewalk chalk if you are outside, etc), and demonstrate for your children how to walk the line going heel to toe, with your arms stretched out on either side for balance.

Allow them to repeat this activity several times until they feel confident in doing it (maybe even on several different days, if they are younger and find it more challenging). Once they have the hang of it, you can make it more challenging by increasing the skill required. Some examples are:

- have them hold something while walking the line

- have them look forward at an object, and not look down at the line

- have them walk to a beat (play some music or use a drum)

- have them change directions while staying balanced on the line

- have them walk backwards on the line

- see if they can toss and catch a ball (or some other object) while walking the line

- have them sing a song while walking the line, to see if they can concentrate on something else while staying balanced

- have them take a step, stand still, bend their knees, straighten up and step again and repeat, all while staying balanced. You can come up with endless ways to make this activity more challenging, and all the while having lots of fun!

Damian and workboxes

A reader recently emailed to ask me how I get Damian (age 29 months) to work through workboxes every day. I thought I would answer this question in a post, so here goes:

The simple truth is I don’t!! Damian is actually too young for workboxes and formal learning (in my opinion), BUT that being said he does want to be just like his big brother who definitely does benefit from the use of workboxes. So, I got him a set and fill them for him, but I am very relaxed with how he moves through them, he doesn’t have to do them all, he doesn’t have to do them in order either, and if he just wants to play, then that is okay too! Most days he does like to work through them, although he may not do them all, if this is the case, whatever is left over stays in for the next day (but it is moved to the top). His boxes, as you can see here and here largely consist of educational toys, games, and puzzles, because at his age learning should definitely be all about playing and having fun!

When Rylan was little we did not have workboxes, but I did do two organizational things to enhance learning through play. One was to create “stations”. This would involve me placing a few key items I wanted him to work with in a noticeable and very easily accessible place. For example, a peg puzzle on one coffee table, an ABC matching game on another, and a color sorting game on his child-sized table and chair set.
The second thing that I did was to organize the toys and books on his shelves in the bedroom and living room in a Montessori-type style. The shelves were kept simple, with each activity or item being readily accessible, visible, and organized. Rylan knew where each item belonged on the shelves, so that when finished with an activity he could return it to its spot. I would rotate toys every week or two, with favorites staying out for longer, or all the time if really loved.

A Montessori exercise: making sentences (printable)

I created these word lists so Rylan and I could do a sentence making exercise, also as a basic introduction to words like adjective, noun, and verb. The word lists are below, I added pictures to the noun column just for fun and too add some color to the activity.

I laminated them (just one sided lamination to make them a little easier to work with, and so they would last for re-use) and then cut them into single words. I started by laying all the cut out words on top of their corresponding words on the sheets above, so he could see the word lists and their headings, and then he started to use them to make sentences.

If you would like to try this exercise with your children, you can download my word lists here. I actually thought afterwards that it would have been nice to have a column with punctuation marks too. I think I will add some for the next time we do this activity.

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Mystery bag with words: storytelling practice

I don't know if this is a "real" Montessori activity, but it occurred to me to take the mystery bag game and turn it into a reading/storytelling activity. Let me just start by saying that Rylan needs no encouragement on the storytelling front! But since he does love it, I thought it would be a fun way to incorporate reading practice with the challenge of trying to make a story out of a few randomly chosen words.

I wrote a bunch of words on little pieces of paper and put them in a bag. Each time he would pull out 5 words, read them to me, then have to tell me a story using those 5 words. I had a lot of words in there, so I am not going to list them all, but a few examples are: dinosaur, afternoon, tomorrow, green, food, little, crocodile, king, etc. He would wrinkle up his nose every time like he couldn't think of how to relate the words, but then would come out with something pretty clever...and some pretty silly too, so we had plenty of giggles with this one. It turned out to be a very fun activity.

Montessori inspired workboxes

I love Montessori activities, and frequently include them in the boy's learning time. Here are a few examples of how I have added them into our workbox routine.

Whenever I have filled a workbox with a Montessori inspired activity, I put our learning tray on top of the workboxes, so it is easy for us to take the items out of the drawer and put them straight onto the tray (Montessori activities are generally done on a tray or similar surface to contain the activity and create a defined work space for each child). I follow the normal process of a Montessori activity, first I demonstrate the activity by completing it myself (i.e. modelling) and then allow my boys (whoever is doing it, sometimes both of them) to repeat the task, usually several times, as long as they are enjoying it and still interested.Beginner pouring for Damian - pouring beads. Normally I would use dried beans, but I didn't have any on hand at the time, so he tried these and they worked pretty well.

Followed by rice pouring.

Transferring activity - transfer rice from one bowl to the other using only the spoon. This is excellent for the development of fine motor coordination.

Pegging activity. First peg around the block, then around the paper.

Threading beads.

Transfer activity using tongs.

And lastly, sandpaper letters.
There are so many more you could add to workboxes, this is just a few that we have done recently.

You can find this and more workbox ideas at: What's in the box Wednesday and Wednesday Workbox Day.