Days of learning - elementary

Binx has had a pretty full week, these are just what I got pictures of - sentence analysis work, (she loves this and would do it all day, I feel like I have to come up with new sentences every single evening), exploring multiples with the bead chains, commutative and distributive laws, and spelling practice with a homemade small moveable alphabet.

The classification with buttons came about because she was looking at the six kingdoms of living things and was concentrating pretty hard when she suddenly looked up at me and said 'but why?!' 'Why do we put everything in different groups?' For an answer,, I went and got the button box and dumped a load out on the rug then asked her to find me one particular one. Binx tried to just nudge them around to find it at first and then started sorting them into piles of different colours of her own accord. I had a minor fanfare going off in my head, but tried not to let it show! I just sneakily dropped a few ideas in here and there like, 'ooh, I wonder if you could split those white ones up anymore?' And pretty soon she had me writing her labels (still a reluctant writer!) for the classifying you can see in the picture. She ended up answering her own question when she said 'it's much easier to find it once I've sorted them out a bit' "lightbulb moment!"

Last picture is of her experimenting with the thermic tablets, these are small pieces of different materials (wood, stone, metal, glass) which you can match together by feeling the differences in weight and temperature. I find it interested that she is still so interested in the sensorial equipment, she obviously doesn't repeat things over and over like a three year old would but she really seems to get a lot out of it. Maybe it's a sort of downtime activity as it does quite often follow a quite intense bout of learning, maybe it's just fun, or maybe it's a sibling thing (he's doing it so I want to as well?!), whatever the reason it's fine by me. I wonder if students at a montessori school get access to the younger students work? Anyone know?

First language shelf and other areas

In the last post I took you through some of the sensorial and practical life activities we have out and today I'm going to quickly show you another shelving area that is set up for rogue. (I will show you what binx is up to at some point, honest!)

We'll talk about the top shelf first which is language, the box on the back left holds my homemade sandpaper letters (not made of sandpaper - I'll post the process I used soon), at the moment it only holds the four that he is working on a, m, s, and t. Next to that is a white board where I write one of the letters. I usually change it each evening and he comes in each morning and tells me what sound it makes. Just in front of that are some little classification cards. He has to sort which objects belong in which room, (please be nice, I'm not an artist, I'm just trying to help my kids learn!). Next are some 'what-goes-with-what' sorting cards which were a free printable from montessori for everyone. And lastly on that back row are just some precut squares of paper for the 'metal' insets. So...yes...as you can see the front of that shelf holds our 'metal' insets, which I made from card! 

The bottom shelf holds an A3 minisun light pad. The light pad is not a traditional montessori material but we love it loads. Next to it I change out different baskets of manipulatives to experiment with. At the moment we have, coloured perspex 3d shapes, some stain glass window effect shapes that I made from black card and coloured kite paper, red and green glass nuggets and stars and a selection of mirrors and clear prisms. This gets lots and lots of use every day, it's so much fun.

There are a couple of other areas set up for rogue but they are less structured. There is a very small roll top desk that he can use if he wants. This has a few of his favourite puzzles on top plus another whiteboard for letter learning. There is a little draw under the desk which has some coloured pencils in and Inside the rooster box is a basket with another puzzle.

There is a small selection of books available all the time which I swap around frequently and also a basket of instruments which is not available all the time because it quickly descends into chaos! I think that is everything that rogue has going on at the moment but it changes so frequently, in fact I took these pictures last night and this morning I made something new for the language shelf and a simple colour sorting activity so regular updates will be needed. Any thoughts on improving my set up will be much appreciated.

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.

Prepared environment

This is an area I struggle with quite a lot and I am constantly revising and changing our space. The fact is we don't have a big space and I am teaching two kids in totally different stages, meaning that we have quite a lot of stuff. 

At the moment we have taken over the living room. I mean it, totally taken over! We no longer have a living room, we have a sofa in a schoolroom. In the past we have used the kitchen (too many distractions), and a tiny little room which only fit one person in (obvious issues there). The living room is working well in that we can all be together with easier access to the things we need to use.

So, here goes...

(No, that's not a paint effect! This house has some pretty serious damp issues that we are working on but are as yet unresolved. We work with what we have and try really hard to ignore how horrible the wall looks.)

I discovered that I can't get far enough away to take a picture of the whole room, so here I am just outside the door! On the right outside the door is our entry and you can see our coats and bags hanging up there.  Inside the room is the sofa on the left (with dog head just visible!), the green shelves and orange cupboard have rogues things on, the clear draws are for binx's work (she uses the workbox system), and just in the shot you can see the back of a white chair which is where her desk is. Over in the corner is the printer, and a cupboard where we keep office supplies, pens, paper, laminator and other things like that. The paper plates hanging up are a craft binx did when she was looking at the layers of the atmosphere.

This picture is taken from the other end of the sofa. You can just see that green shelf and orange cupboard in front of me, and you can also see how mini the room is! The shelving unit on the right goes: top shelf - mostly maths equipment that binx uses occasionally and rogue won't need for a long time, second shelf - my notes, folders of ideas, some curriculum that binx uses and a box of spare glue, tape, pencils etc, third shelf - some botany puzzles and cards and a bird puzzle, fourth shelf - for rogue, language things, insets and a few sandpaper letters, fifth shelf - light pad and manipulatives.

I will go into more detail as to what is on the shelves soon but for now I wanted to give a general overview. My main concerns are that it is crowded, not much floor space, and that the fire is so near to rogues shelves. The last time I rearranged this room was in the late spring so it wasn't an issue but as we get closer to winter it will be a problem that needs to be addressed. Before I have a complete rearrange though I'm going to wait for my course to start, see what advice I can get there and also wait and see if I get any responses here. 

Where to start...

Original title for a first post I know, but that really was the only thought creeping slowly through my mind as I stared at the blank page, so I figured if that was all my brain could come up with, we'd go with that.

The idea for this blog is to document the homeschooling that we do here. I home educate a nine year old girl (binx), and an almost 3 year old boy (rogue). Those are the nicknames we actually use for them at home but I thought I would look up the actual definition of rogue just in case and we definitely use it in the 'playfully mischievous/scamp' way, not the 'unprincipled/deceitful' way!

I came across montessori about 2 1/2 years ago and dabbled around in it with my eldest for that time, reading here and there, purchasing/making materials that I thought could be useful but that I didn't really know how to use, or in what order. Poor girl! The phrase, 'practice child' springs to mind! I am implementing more and more montessori into her work as I learn more, and using more traditional methods plus anything else I like the look of as well. With my youngest I have tried to put together a montessori inspired home environment for him so he can be independent, develop his concentration, follow his interests etc, and I have somewhat managed to curb my tendency to explain, instruct and praise too much...mostly... I'm learning remember.

Now that rogue is close to turning three I would like to really give him a montessori education and to that end I have enrolled on the kht montessori one-year course. I have heard good things about this course and I think it's pretty good value for all that you get. The course starts in a couple of weeks time so I will update as I go. I'm planning for my next posts to be of our set up at home, then of the activities (is that what I call them?) that I already have out for him, and by then, hopefully, the course will have started and we'll see where that takes us.

Of course binx will be continuing with her slightly mish-mashed education (which suits us both pretty well), and I will be updating on what she is up to for my own record keeping and just in case its useful to anyone. I will be trying to add more and more Montessori activities in to her learning as I learn more and hopefully I can meet her where she is on that. Any advice on how to start Montessori with a 9 yr old will be appreciated.

I think it is relevant to add that we live in the UK and as my children have never been registered in a school there are no criteria for me to adhere to or tests to take.

One last thing...the name. One of my favourite educational quotes is this one by W. B. Yeats -

'education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.'

Well, I don't think I know enough to light any fires yet but the sparks are there.