Days of learning - primary

Caring for an animal is always included in a montessori classroom. Usually they start with a fish and take responsibility for feeding it and cleaning it out. We don't have a fish but we do have 2 dogs, 2 rabbits and a hamster in the house. The kids have always been involved in helping to look after them, including feeding, cleaning and loving them! Over the last couple of weeks though, rogue has been so excited about the rabbits. The one he is holding in the picture is called Benjamin Mittens and we have another called Teasel Thumper Cuddles, (all our bunnies have had long names, I really don't know why!). For the last week then it has been his job every morning to give the rabbits their food, check their water and say good morning to them. He is very proud of the responsibility.

Binx was working with grammar boxes this week so rogue decided to get involved by climbing right up on the table to examine the grammar symbols. I gave him the large stencil (binx was using the smaller one for her work), and he spent some time matching the symbols to the correct space in the stencil. He then wanted to draw some of the shapes using the stencil and cut them out. He is a bit young to draw using the stencil so I had to hold it down for him. His cutting out was pretty good. He drew the shape in the middle and then sheared the edges off gradually until he got close to the lines and then rounded the corners. He is doing the circle below.

A favourite work that gets used a lot is matching the small pictures to the large pictures. I am going to add 'old calendar' to my montessori materials hunting list right now because I really need to make him a different set of these while he is still enthusiastic about it.

The box below was actually sold for holding tea bags but it is perfect for sorting. At the moment it just has a colour on a sticker in each compartment and then craft sticks with the colours on for sorting. I will change this often for different sorting tasks. I'm also thinking if I can find another of these boxes they would be perfect for spindle boxes.

I introduced transferring water with a baster this week. A big hit, after he got over the fact that the water was green! Honestly, I thought that would just be a bit of fun, you know, make it a bit more interesting, but while I was trying to show him what to do he just had to keep on (and on) asking, 'why is the water green?', 'what does green water do?', 'does green water taste nice?', 'can the dogs have green water?', you get the picture! Lesson learned, do not introduce new activity and new colour of water at the same time! 

My biggest success of the week was the binomial cube. I think I managed to stumble my way into presenting this at just precisely the right moment in his development. He was so impressed by the sides of the box folding down that he let out a little squeak even though he was trying so hard to be really still and quiet to watch. He paid attention the whole time I was showing him and then proceeded to repeat it himself three times in a row just like the presentation. He didn't even try to build a tower which is what he usually does with everything even remotely block shaped. It seemed to be just the right level of challenge without being frustrating and he was so satisfied with folding the sides of the box back up. Isn't it lovely when things just work.

The orderliness of montessori seems to be occurring at other times too. He was getting his duplo bricks out at the weekend and on auto pilot just went to get a tray to put his 'work' on! Anything that keeps the bricks in one place is fine by me! 

Days of learning - primary

Rogue has been working on loads of practical life exercises this week, as well as some sensorial work. He is still loving the cylinder blocks, I don't blame him actually, I find them really appealing as well! 

I made a button snake for him last weekend and that has been a big hit too. It is basically a ribbon with a button on each end and squares of felt with a slit cut so you can put the button through. I made this because he was getting frustrated and struggling to do up buttons on his jacket so I thought he could do with the practice. I have made three sets with gradually smaller buttons and felt. This is the largest one.

One evening rogue sneaked off to the school area and I came in to find this! 

I tried introducing hole punching for the first time. I drew dots on the paper for him to punch over. He had lots of fun punching holes, but not on the dots.

The pegboard came out again. He loves this activity and I am always intrigued by the very regular patterns he makes, never random.

Of course he had to get involved in his big sisters investigation of solids.

This pegging activity was new this week too and he concentrated for ages on it. Really worked the muscles in those fingers.

Scooping macaroni with a tiny sieve. He did this very slowly, enjoying the sounds of the macaroni hitting the bowl.

Days of learning - primary

Rogue enjoyed using the pegboard for quite a long time. Whenever he uses this he always puts the pegs in lines or blocks, never just a random sprinkling of pegs.

Carrot grating proved a bit difficult so I think we will have to practice grating with something softer. No fingers grated though so that's a bonus!

This was a new activity that I put out, pouring pecans into a bowl and then using the small ladle to put them back into the jug. Simple, but entertaining.

I got out cylinder block 2 this week and as it looks the same when they are all in he was pretty surprised when he picked up the widest one and found that it was really thin! He tried the two blocks together and really enjoyed that, it seemed to be just the right level of challenge for him. 

 These bird pictures were cut out of an old calendar and usually calendars have little thumbnail images on the back of all the pictures so they provide a perfect matching game.

Rogue had fun exploring the 3d shapes. He just held them, tried to build with them and then experimented with rolling them. He discovered that the cube doesn't roll, the sphere rolls a long way, and the ellipsis is really really funny when you roll it!

On the shelves

At the moment we have mostly sensorial and practical life activities out but we have a few language things too. Rogue developed a great interest in letters a month or so ago so I have been showing him a few sandpaper letters, we are taking it slow though.

Here we have sensorial and practical life. On the floor in front is the pink tower on a little stand I made. (I say made...it's a box upside down with a square of pink paper stuck on). The bottom shelf holds the brown stair and a bucket with matching bean bags.

I didn't get a photo of the little bags but they are very simple, all sewn out of the same fabric. There are 8 of them, (4 matching pairs), one pair have dry popping corn inside, another pair have 5 pieces of dry penne (large pasta) in, another pair are stuffed lightly with cotton wool, and the last pair have some nice crinkly (washed!) crisp packet! They are layed out on the rug and matched by feel and sound.

The next shelf up holds these land, air and water cards. 

I couldn't find a place where the light didn't reflect off these but you can still see what they are. At the moment I don't have any storage to keep the title cards and the other cards separate so I have been trying to teach rogue to collect up the pictures in a random order and put them on one side of the basket and then to collect the title cards separately and put them in the other side. Sometimes happens!

Next to those on the middle shelf is cylinder block 1, this is a real favourite and gets taken out at least once a day.

On the top shelf, first on the left is a tiny little tin which serves as our colour box one. It is super simple, just some rectangles of card in the three colours to match.

There are two practical life trays on the shelf next. The first is a little coin purse with matchsticks in which are taken out and 'posted' into an old spice jar with little holes in the lid. The lid then has to be unscrewed and the matchsticks put back in the purse. Lots of fine motor skills there. The second is a classic, using tongs to put the wooden cubes into a paint palette.

Next is a stacking, bear puzzle which rogue loves, he does the puzzle on its own but also brings them out regularly to climb the pink tower! And last are some big beads for lacing.

There are some language things out and a couple of other areas I'd like to show you but this post is long enough so I will do that tomorrow.