Montessori Monday

It was a busy busy week in our little corner of the Montessori world!  First up was another new continent box - North America.  Once again I used the continent downloads from Montessori for Everyone.  Short Pants really enjoyed his new box, and was very impressed by the difference in climate throughout North America.  I overheard him explaining to The Mister and Bean this weekend that polar bears lived in the upper part because it was cold.  It's always so nice to hear that things really do sink in!

 
  

I can't wait till we get through all of the continents so that I can make him a big felt continent "map" for sorting animals on - learning about the animals is always his favorite part of each continent box.

He also spent quite a bit of time exploring our new phonics drawers.  Each drawer holds between 3-5 miniatures beginning with the letter sound.  We didn't do any formal lessons with this as I wanted him to just have fun looking through everything first.  We *did* end up doing some phonics sorting though when he decided to get a lot of the animals out of different drawers, which I'm happy to say that he enjoyed.  I think these drawers are going to be very useful and a lot of fun:

 

 The empty drawers will be filled eventually when we get to the red, yellow, and blue series.  

Short Pants also worked on some mazes, which he also really enjoyed.  I saw the tip to put the workbook pages in sheet protectors *somewhere* on the web - just have your kiddo use dry erase markers and then the lines wipe right off so that the pages can be used multiple times:

 
We also used the free download from Montessori for Everyone to learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin:

 Short Pants then used his "magifying glass" to examine the outside and inside of our pumpkin:

 
 
Then he helped rinse and roast the seeds...YUM!

 
 
Short Pants also put together his alphabet train puzzle, which was a good review of letter sounds and a nice introduction to uppercase letters:

 
We also grabbed his basket of animals and he placed them onto the appropriate letter car:

 
Using the knobless cylinder extension cards *finally* touched off enough interest so that Short Pants used all 4 boxes to build towers:

 
  
Of course, then he said that they looked like lighthouses and asked to play for a bit.  What's a mom to do?  I had him sort his vehicle minis collection by type and then gave him a few minutes for fun.  I normally discourage any type of playing during lesson time, but every once in awhile I'll give him a few minutes - always at the END of lesson time!

 
 
We also did a short lesson on the food pyramid and sorted food into the correct groups:

Short Pants used a make-up brush to dust the moveable alphabet, which in theory was a great practical life exercise, but in reality only lasted through about 4 letters:

Lastly, I introduced the sandpaper numerals for the first time.  Since we began working with the number rods a few weeks ago I've caught Short Pants carefully counting items up to 5 several times...yay!

 
All in all it was a great week.  It was one of those weeks that's just wonderfully fulfilling and you KNOW you're doing the right thing for your child.  We all need those weeks, don't we? 

Oh, excuse all the clutter in many of the photos - I've been going through trying to rearrange all of my storage drawers.  Have a great week!

Comments

[Mari-Ann]

What a great week! I'm drooling over your Montessori materials!!

[One hook wonder]

I haven't forgotten that I still owe you an e-mail - hopefully tomorrow! :)

[Kylie]

I'll say what a great week.....sounds awesome. :)

[Karen]

I Enjoy so much!! watching your posts...I love all the great activities that your kids doing!!!! LOVELY!! Thanks for Sharing with us!! Congratulations.!!

[One hook wonder]

If only every week were as great! ;)

[One hook wonder]

Thanks, Karen! I look forward to checking out your blog as well. :)