Inspired by Montessori. Rooted in Nature. Real Stories for real children.
So many discoveries can be found on a Primary Montessori Math shelf.
It all starts with concrete experiences of numbers 1 through 10.
The Golden Beads further introduces the Decimal System. She said "Miss Rhonda the 100 is really golden!"
With the Stamp Game, it is finally time for paper and pencil.
The beauty and simplicity of the Practical Life shelves invite children of all ages to take care of their classroom.
Two three year old children work together to fold the class polishing cloths. We are enjoying our new polar fleece cloths.
Notice the intense concentration of this child as she sweeps away the Begonia blossoms.
Repeating and refining his hand in preparation for future work with a pencil.
Even the youngest students in the Montessori classroom enjoy Miss Rhonda's latest SOUND GAME CARDS. One of the most important prereading skills is identifying beginning sounds. These beautiful cards featuring nature themes engage children in active discovery.
I have been delighted to see even my youngest children enjoy receiving and giving this lesson. An added benefit is vocabulary enrichment and letter recognition.
It is such a joyful time for the older children in the classroom when they begin to write about subjects they are interested in. The combination of emerging handwriting and spelling only add to the charm of their work. The illustrations are of course the final ingredient. I have included some examples. They include research about disease causing insects, birds and spiders. Notice the bee captured in the spiders web and the comment about the boy cardinal has stick up hair.
The moveable alphabet has always been my favorite piece of material in the Montessori classroom. Each child approaches the material in their own way. Some not liking the opportunity for being not "right " and others joyfully going to "budrfli" or "pengwen". The personality of the child is always evident in each word, thought and story. I plan on sharing some of these musings with you on a monthly basis. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
We are all excited but the variety and quantity of birds visiting our bird feeder. Everyone is working hard to learn their names and special song. We all celebrated Spring by painting our favorite bird on a small drop cloth pillow with stick legs. The Cardinal seems to be the favorite.
Last January our class received a new student…a dog. Latte is a Standard Poodle destined to be a service dog for a blind person. She was just an 12 week old puppy but she was at school to work just like the rest of us. She started out barking and jumping but soon we all knew that when she had her yellow vest on she was "on the job". As the year progressed Latte became a wonderful part of our class. We will miss her but know someone is getting a wonderful companion.
The tradition of making and glazing snowmen continued this year as did cookie decorating. St. Nicholas visited as well, filling little shoes with big oranges and chocolates. One new thing that we love…stitching buttons and fabric onto burlap frames for simple trees. Holiday cheer deployed!
The week before the Thanksgiving holiday is one of my favorites weeks. This week the practical life shelf contained a lesson on how to set a table. Healthy food was much discussed at lunch time. The children discussed protein, grains, fruits and vegetables and the new "new food plate" which replaces the old food pyramid.
At the end of the week the children all worked together to make applesauce and vegetable soup. The older children as the pilgrims all set the table as the younger children had an extra play period. When the feast was ready the "Pilgrims" went to collect the "Native Americans" and invite them to the feast.
It was decided no one wanted to reach their hand in the pumpkin so everyone used a big spoon.
We all voted on a happy face.
The afternoon students dried the seeds to plant in the Spring and some wrote stories about the pumpkin.
