Dabbling in Montessori

I have been fascinated by Montessori methods for a few years now but each time I look into it I end up frustrated by my lack of funds and my lack of space to do it at home.  This year though we were able to put our daughter into a half day Montessori program and a school close by.  It costs half of what other Montessori schools costs.

I love it.  I love going there.  I love looking at all of the materials and how the classrooms are set up.

So I am trying again - doing more of it at home with my preschooler but still without a lot of funds and not a lot of space.  But I am convinced it is a great way to go.

Here is where I am starting:

This book is divided up into 5 sections:  practical life, developing the senses, language development, numeracy skills, science skills.

I decided just to start at the beginning and do a page from each section each week.  I set up the bottom shelf of my big Ikea shelf for his Montessori trays.

Like I said - I do not have a lot of room so this will work for now.  What I love about Montessori is how they teach practical life and how gross and fine motor skills are taught.

I like the order to it.

It is just tough making sense of it all and figuring it out which is why I am starting with this book.

I have also been making a few things on my own.

If you have thought about Montessori at all I would encourage you to dig deeper.

Living Montessori Now is a great blog.  I'd also go and visit a Montessori school in your area so you can see how things are laid out.

You Tube also has many Montessori videos for you to see.

 

I should probably tell you that I relax now

I should tell you that what I knew to be the right way to do things concerning educating my children has begun to change.  My friend told me she was making some of the activities that I had posted on here that I do with my kids.  I wanted to go into all the details right then and there about what I am doing now, but I thought I would do a blog post instead. 

I thought school at home was the way to go - calendar time, workbooks, planned crafts and activities.  I thought you had to do this by this time to get them ready for this.

Until my oldest son decided to teach me a few valuable lessons.  He didn't do things on the time frame that "they" said should be done.  I couldn't get him to, no matter how hard I tried.  So we struggled.  We really struggled in this left brain society that we live.  So then doing all of the other stuff I thought we should be doing with the other kids was also a struggle.  I woke up dreading the day.


I tried calendar time - over and over - a few different ways.





I printed, I laminated, I planned, I scheduled, I failed.  I tried again a different way and each time we really didn't enjoy it.  But wasn't this what I was suppose to do?  Isn't this how you did schooling?  Didn't they have to know this at this age to go on to know something else at the next age?  Wouldn't they be behind?  How would they get into college?  Forget college - how would they make it into high school?  Oh the dread, the worry . . .

Until - our journey with dyslexia.  I can't express enough how this has been THE biggest blessing in my life.  I don't know quite yet if I believe that dyslexia is a learning disability - well I actually don't believe it is - I believe it is just a different way of learning, but I can tell you this it has made me . . .

I have seen the proof that if I don't work every day (or every week day) with a child that they still end up learning.  I have seen that even if I don't do addition flashcards that my son still memorizes the addition facts - eventually, by doing, not by memorizing a card.  But we had time - time to let it be.  To let him practice - to let him see addition done several different ways - on a chart, by blocks, on paper.

Even though I don't see signs of dyslexia yet with my middle two, I am not doing what I used to do.   I am doing some things - but not things that involve a lot of time and prep by me.  I am now just laying out things on the table - or making art supplies more accessible.  I am asking them to create with no direction from me.   Then when they do I ask them to explain what they have created - and the imagination just astounds me.  My 5 year old did some painting yesterday and she explained to me that the blue streak was a dragon and the pink streak was a princess in a tower and she went on from there.

I would never think that up.  I used to read those preschool blogs for inspiration and now I'm just letting my children be my inspiration.  It is A LOT less work and it is a lot more interesting.  I still lead them - like doing our chalk art lessons.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try out my fine motor activities for littles,  I'm just saying you shouldn't force it on your kids like I did.  They HATE the lacing cards - all of them do.  Some things they find fun.  Some things they don't.





 
I just no longer find it necessary to make them do things that neither one of us enjoy.  I no longer worry if they make a bench mark set up by someone that doesn't know my children.  I'm not leaning completely towards unschooling but I am leaning a lot more towards relaxing.

I have proof that things will come eventually when we work on them slowly and without frustration.  So for those of you out there - now you know where I stand.  I don't do what I used to. 



For my oldest (8 years old) we don't work on any one subject for more than 15 minutes at a time.  We do math for 15 minutes a day (Math U See).  We do writing - one page a day (Handwriting without Tears cursive), we do his Animal Devotion book.  We do this book Toe to Toe recommended by another blogger.  We don't stop in the summer because what we do doesn't take long - a total of maybe an hour.  We will pick up more subjects in the fall - like science (he LOVES science and history).




For my daughter (5 year old) I occasionally have her do Starfall and read a Bob book but other than that I let her play.  My husband wants her to go to school in the fall (I mean summer because they do the balanced calendar) so we are going to try that out for this year.  I don't want her to do any more than she has to this summer because she will be in school for like 8 hours a day.




For my other son (4 years old) I let him play people.  He loves to play (unlike my older son who never wanted to play with toys).  He will play at the table with toys.  He will play in his room with toys.  He will make up elaborate things that his toys are doing (I used to do that with Barbies - he does it with wrestlers and superheros).  The key here is - I let him play!




And my baby girl - we just do a little patty cake here and there and I try to convince her that moving to get somewhere really isn't a bad thing - except that she has three siblings and me who will bring her whatever she wants - so why move?

Did I mention relax?

Fine Motor Activity Ideas - not just for littles - Part I

I have added Fine Motor Activities to our daily homeschool schedule because it helps with hand writing.  I even have my second grader do them with my 5 year old and my 3 year old.

I thought I would give you a few ideas for you to do too!

Magnet Pages - I bought a baking pan from the Dollar Store for - $1!  Just print whatever letter you are working on - print it on card stock and laminate it if you want it to last through multiple children.  ABC lowercase Magnet Pages from Making Learning Fun.  Make homemade pom pom magnets from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Geo Board - Buy this GeoBoard and print these GeoBoard Letter cards from Making Learning Fun - card stock and laminate.  Or just make a house - either way.

Melissa & Doug Beginner Pattern Blocks  

Pipe cleaners in a shaker - and/or thread pipe cleaners with wooden spools.  You can use pipe cleaners in cleaned up Parmesan cheese containers.   You can use them in colanders.  You can get color stickers and put them on the holes on the shakers and color match. 

Button snake - good for helping kids learning how to button.  You can also call out colors and have them pick the colored block and put that one on the snake.  You can get a tutorial from here.  Hot glue the button if you are allergic to sewing.

Sewing Cards - you can buy them or print them on card stock and laminate them.  Here are some you can print.

Spooning Beads - simple - two bowls, a spoon and some beads.  They can spoon from one bowl to the other.

Shoe lace card - practice shoe tying - there are many printables from here.  You know the drill - print on card stock and laminate.

Montessori "sandpaper" letters using felt - have children put their finger on the hole and trace letters.  They can make easy CVC words or you can call out a letter and they find it.  They can also spread them out on the floor and practice going from A to Z.  Here is the tutorial.  Easy!

Nuts and Bolts - the kids can just screw these on or you can play a game with them.

Alphabet lacing beads - you can get bigger ones for smaller hands.  You can make necklaces or just keep reusing these - make words - go from A-Z or put all the vowels on one.

Foam Magnetic Letter Builders: Cut the shapes from foam and let them make the letters.  I put magnets on the back so you could do it on the refrigerator or the cookie sheet.

Upper case/Lower case match up - use clothes pins, mini clothes pins or paper clips.  Find the printable at Confessions of a Homeschooler and print on card stock and laminate.

Alphabet Pattern Blocks - find the printables at Making Learning Fun.  Print on card stock and laminate.  Use on cookie sheets if you have magnetic pattern blocks.

These are a few of the ones we have.   Right now I keep them in a Zip top bag in a basket in my shelf I got from Ikea.

See the basket things

 I will be posting more soon - alphabet activities and number activities.  Do you have any favorites?


 

Kids Activity - Indoor (or Outdoor) Sandboxes

I don't know if you remember but a while back I had some things I wanted to accomplish during spring break.  One of those things was an indoor sandbox.  I was finally able to finish this.  We have had some cool weather this past week which means we can play outside but we can't play in the water because it is too cold.

So I thought this would be perfect to play with on the deck.  I bought 3 bigger containers at the $1 store.  I also bought a few sand toys there as well.  I bought play sand at Lowe's for $3.46.  I keep everything in this tub and keep it on the deck.  (*Sorry about the quality of the picture)

The kids really had fun.  They put aquarium rocks in there to "mine" for them.  My youngest son played with some cars in his.

Then they decided to make footprints in them too.

This was a great alternative to a big sand box.  We just don't have room for that right now and we don't really like the mess of a big sandbox either.  Check out The Happy Housewife for instructions as to how to make your own.  Don't forget to grab the shower curtain liner at the $1 store to use to play on.  It makes clean up really easy!

 

Free ABC Exercise Cards

We have been doing these ABC exercise cards everyday before school starts (school at home) to get some energy out.  The kids have loved them so I thought I would share them with you.  I actually got them in a busy bag swap but you can print and laminate your own.

Teach Mama blog has some great ideas on how to use them.  We have ours laminated and then on a ring so we can flip through them.

From Teach Mama

How we use them:

I go through each letter and we do the exercise to the count of 10.  We make it all the way through the alphabet all though interest starts waning at "Y".  I do let them choose a different exercise for a certain letter if they want.  For instance, my son likes to do punches for "P" instead of what the exercise is. 

I just thought I would pass this along in case you might be interested. 

How to find them:

Go to The Homeschool Share site, My Body Lapbook, to download this resource.  The cards start on page 54 of the PDF and go to page 60.

 

Weekly School Wrap Up - Spring Break Week 1

We are technically on spring break this week, but I find if we just don't do anything school related we tend to forget lots of things so we did a few things each day. 

Our school week usually starts with me laminating various things on Sunday evening.  I use Sunday evening as my time to prep for the school week. 

One thing we worked on this week was more training with chores.  They have chore charts but I made one with pictures for my 2 1/2 year old so he could see what he needs to do and I made the 2 older kids really work on reading their list and completing it. My older son helps my daughter to read her list and then they check off what they have done.  I will talk more later how we do chores and what ages we start doing what.

She wipes down the little bathroom and my older son wipes down the big bathroom

School Stuff

My daughter is doing a number bug matching busy bag activity.

I made these "sandpaper" letters with felt instead of sandpaper.  My little guy loves them.  He likes to put them into an old yogurt container.  I just cut a good size whole in the top.   His sister helps him call out the correct letter name and sound.  He also likes to trace the letters with his finger.

And we did our Easter sensory bins as well this week.

Fun stuff - we took another busy bag activity but used it for something else - my son stacked the cups and then he used his Bey Blades to knock them over.  I gave him a points system to use so at least some math was done here.

We also have been working on making these adorable alphabet bean bags (I say "we" because I have lots of help from my stepmom and my mamaw).  I am still working on finishing them but the kids have really liked playing with the ones I have completed.  I will share more about this in a post coming soon.  I will include ways to use these to further a child's learning while having fun.

My daughter just put them in a row and then she and I used them to spell and read some simple words.

While I was making these I used popcorn to fill them because we have about 40 lbs. of it and I just wanted to use what I had on hand so I decided to make some quick and fun trays for the kids to play with while I finished sewing.  They loved it.

Also, I signed up for a free trial of Reading Eggs this week.  If you want to read a good review of the program, please visit One Blessed Mama's Blog. 

My 4 1/2 year old daughter loves it.  I do mean LOVES IT!  She has been doing 2-3 lessons a day.  She isn't very tech savvy so using the mouse is a little slow for her but she does pretty well.  

I have also signed up my 1st grader because I wanted to see what they have for older kids.  He likes it but doesn't love it as much as my daughter.  He does about a lesson every two days.

I am seriously considering paying for it at least for my daughter because it seems to really be helping her.  I think it might be worth it and we may just do it a month at a time.  I would encourage you to check out the free trial to see what you think.

We have also been working on some addition flash cards with my 1st grader and we have been playing some nonsense words games.  Other than that we have been taking it easy.

How was learning at your house this week?