One Hook Wonder

Montessori Monday

Last week we did a few more Halloween themed lessons.  Short Pants' absolute favorite was digging through rice for "creepy" objects.  I drew a list for him on a piece of paper so that he knew when he'd found them all.  He loved this one and repeated it a few times.  The only drawback was that now our Montessori area is covered with rice!

 
 
He also did a Halloween tweezing lesson where he had to match up little erasers that I found at Dollar General.  Short Pants is still finding tweezing pretty difficult:

 

I also set out a scooping pasta lesson in Halloween bowls.  Short Pants did about two scoops then put it away.  The last couple of scooping lessons have bombed, so I'm thinking we'll limit scooping to playing in the bean bin from now on:

 
He was initially excited by the squishy writing bag (just put enough tempera paint in a freezer bag to make a thin layer - kids can "write" with their fingertips or a q-tip) but didn't work with it very long.  I've tried several different kinds of writing now, but I guess his interest just isn't there yet:

 
Interestingly enough though, he did pick the moveable alphabet to work with almost right afterwards:

 

In preparation for learning about the food pyramid this week, we cut pictures of food out of grocery store ads and classified them as "growing food" or "junk food."  This was really good cutting practice for Short Pants:

One of the first things he noticed was a lunchable.  He pointed to it and declared firmly, "Junk food!"  I was pretty sure he had no clue what it was, so I asked him what he thought the picture was showing.  In his best sanctimonious voice he answered, "Snacks from the store."  LOL  We've been making a big effort during the last year to eat less pre-packaged foods, and his requests for store snacks like gummies, cookies, etc. are met with the explanation that we can make or have much healthier snacks at home.  I guess Short Pants has really picked up on that lesson!

 
We also did a fun pumpkin art activity.  I've seen this on so many blogs lately that I don't recall where I saw it first - sorry!  Short Pants ripped strips of orange construction paper into strips, glued them to a paper plate, and made a sweet little pumpkin that we hung in our window:

 
  
And before I foget to show you *again* - remember how we did hole punching the other week?  This is what we turned all of those little fall-colored holes into.  And again, I can't remember where I saw this wonderful idea!  I hate that - I usually keep a list of them in my favorites so that I can give proper credit.  Anyway, thanks to someone for this cute craft idea:

Lastly, Short Pants also worked with the number rods:

 Of course, according to him, the best thing about the number rods is that they make a fabulous maze to run your cars through:

 
Tomorrow I'll be announcing a "little" Montessori giveaway, so make sure to check back in!

Montessori Monday

Don't you love it when the popularity of a simple lesson completely surprises you?  I set out a "galosh cleaning" lesson and Short Pants was over the moon.  Very simple - dirty galoshes, spray bottle, and a few rags.  He did this one multiple times last week, and even asked for it another day when I'd taken the galoshes back upstairs:

Another lesson he repeated multiple times was this fun color mixing lesson from itty bitty love.  Though we've done color mixing before, this was a unique way to review it - plus Short Pants loved using the dropper to count out the drops and then a toothpick to stir the colors together:

 
  
I think what he might of liked best of all was blotting the (laminated!) sheets with a paper towel and watching the colors appear on it....almost like magic:

 
Another lessons I found on itty bitty love's blog was a super-cute pumpkin matching lesson.  I made up 6 cards with different faces on them, then Short Pants got to pick cards and make the same face using felt:

 

We incorporated this work into our 5 senses work by using this as our "sight" activity:

  
In keeping with the fall/Halloween vibe, we also learned about the life cycle of an apple by reading a book from the library and using these free cards from Montessori for Everyone.  I think we'll have to do some apple printing as a craft this week.  Excuse the glare on the photos, please:

 
  I also set up a mini pumpkin tweezing lesson, but Short Pants got discouraged and gave up almost right away.  I'll have to find him something a little less difficult to work with next time:

We also played a few games of memory:

And worked with some rhyming cards (NOT a favorite!  He almost always goofs off when we use these - I can't tell if he's just being silly or if he really doesn't *hear* the rhymes yet):

In my continuing effort to woo Short Pants back to working on letter sounds, I created a fishing game for him.  It was very easy - construction paper/laminated fish, each with a letter written on them and a fishing pole made from a stick and twine.  Put paper clips on all of the fish, tie a magnet to the pole, and you've got a fun game!  Short Pants really liked this one; we will probably work with it again next week:

 
 
We also worked on math for the very first time!  The Mister made us a great set of number rods that included little cuts in between each section - they made for very easy painting:

Other lessons included locks and keys (I put matching stickers on the locks and their keys awhile back as Short Pants had trouble matching them - we might try them without the stickers next time):

and hole punching (we'll use the circles for a fall craft this week):

We also looked through the continent boxes (of course!).  The books I'd had on backorder for our boxes finally arrived...yay:

 
Be back next Monday with more montessori!

Montessori Monday

Not a whole lot went on here Montessori-wise last week.  The Mister was still on vacation, and we spent 3 days out of town.  Add to that an entire day spent making and canning applesauce and apple butter, and that only left one day for lessons.  The Mister goes back to work this week, and while we'll miss him dreadfully, it will also be good to get back to our "normal" schedule.

We continued learning about the 5 senses by focusing on smell.  Once again, we read a great book on this sense:

 

Then we had some fun with our new scent bottles.  These were very easy to put together.  I found the plastic bottles with lids at the craft store, then cut construction paper to fit inside of them.  Next I picked four scents (vanilla, lavender, cinnamon, and rosemary) and layered them between a couple of cotton balls.  Stickers were placed on the bottoms of matching pairs so that Short Pants could check himself; I think he liked checking to see if he was right almost as much as the sniffing! 

Next we used our fine motor skills to do some pine cone weaving.  I set out yarn in fall colors, then Short Pants got to cut it into lengths of his choosing and wind them around the pine cone.  I have to be honest; he wasn't all that crazy about this one.  I will probably wait and bring it out again at Christmas time with holiday-colored yarn: 

 

 
Even though he wasn't that thrilled with pinecone weaving, Short Pants was very happy to finally get to explore his Europe continent box.  Almost all of the pictures in this continent box came from the continent kit that I ordered from Montessori For Everyone - much easier than tracking them all down and formatting them myself!  We did happen to also have a postcard from The Mister's friend who recently visited Scotland, which was pretty neat:

 
 

According to my 3-year-old boss, South America is up next.

The definate hit of lesson time was this wonderful leaf floating lesson from The Wonder Years.  Short Pants had SO much fun with this one and repeated it several times.  The object of the lesson is to figure out how many small pebbles can float on a leaf by carefully adding them one at a time.  First he used tongs to gently place the leaf in the bowl, and then came the fun - loading the pebbles on:

 
Once the leaf sank, he used tongs (mostly!) to remove the pebbles from the bowl:

We had so much fun experimenting with different types of leaves, and even walnut shells:

 
 
 

I've been thinking a lot lately about effective lesson planning.  It seems like researching, planning, and making materials takes up most of my free time lately.  I love doing these lessons with Short Pants, but I wouldn't mind some more time to craft too, know what I mean?  How do you handle your lesson planning?  Do you do it in one huge chunk or bits at a time?  I'd love to hear any tips you have.  Thanks!
 

Montessori Monday

We had another great week of lessons here.  As The Mister was on vacation and we were often busy with him, we only did lessons twice last week - but what productive days they were!

First Short Pants worked on his rubber band board.  He wasn't interested in making specific shapes but instead had fun just making random designs (great for hand/finger strength):

However, he *did* notice that he could produce noises by twanging the rubber bands.  This led to a fun discussion about guitar strings and how they work, as well as an experiment to produce different tones:

I also set out a feather tonging activity that was more difficult than it looks - Short Pants had to be careful to use the teeth on the very end of the tongs while transferring a single feather or else the feather just slipped through:

He also had fun seeing how many feathers he could pick up at one time:

We continued working on our 5 senses lessons by introducing the sense of touch.  If you have this series of books in your library I highly recommend them; they are just right for pre-school age kiddos:

I introduced the touch boards for the first time, which I made by gluing four different grades of sandpaper to wooden squares The Mister cut:

Short Pants had a lot of fun matching them up while blindfolded.  I was really pleased that it went so well, especially since not that long ago he refused to have anything to do with a blindfold:

He also asked to work on Walking the Line, so we got out the bell.  It was quite difficult for him to walk smoothly enough that it didn't ring.  I tried to introduce walking while carrying some of the pink tower, but he wasn't interested - maybe another week!

While putting the bell away he noticed a small basket of marbles and asked what we could do with them.  So, we got out the brown rods and put them in order:

Then we built the maze so that he could run the marble through:

Short Pants had great fun with this and did it several times.  He experimented moving the marbles in different ways i.e. tossing, kicking, rolling.

We also got the geometric solids out and matched them up with objects I had gathered from around the house.  He was *very* enthusiastic about this, which kind of surprised me as he hasn't shown a lot of interest in the solids before.  We're still working on learning the names, so I was careful to have him put them back into their basket after the lesson one at a time, feeling them and repeating the names (He's SO not into a 3-part lesson with these guys!):

Another lesson he enjoyed was learning the parts of a leaf.  We read and looked over the cards, then pointed out the parts on an actual leaf using a toothpick.  I made sure that we did this with three different types of leaves so that he would understand that all leaves have the same parts no matter the species.  What a silly boy I have:

Last but not least, we also used the blindfold (again!) so that Short Pants could do one of the cylinder blocks by touch.  This was the first time in a LONG time he agreed to work with one of the cylinder blocks, and I think it was just because of the blindfold!

I had been kind of lamenting the fact that I bought the cylinder blocks.  Even though *I* love them, they don't really interest Short Pants, even when I try to get him to do several at a time to make it more difficult.  However, a certain someone's trip down to the Montessori area for a painting project (which I'll share with you later in the week) showed me that it wasn't money spent in vain.

Pita Pocket, as you can see, is very interested in the cylinder blocks!  I got them out for him on a whim, and certainly did not try to present a formal lesson.  He took right to them though, which has definately started me thinking on when I should begin working with him.  If anyone has any thoughts on this I would love to hear them:

See you again next week for Montessori Monday!

Montessori Monday

We had a really great time with lessons this week.  I don't know if it was just Short Pants' mood or the fact that the lessons really excited him, but it was just the confidence boost I needed after our last few lackluster weeks.

I don't think this first one is really Montessori, but it's definately a learning tool.  Due to our waldorf-inspired home, Short Pants knows the seasons pretty well.  But lately he's been asking a lot of questions about what day it is, how many days till x, etc.  So, I decided to make him a combination calender and weather chart.  I chose not to include days of the month just yet and will instead add them on once he has a firmer grasp on months and days of the week.  I wanted it to like soft and waldorfy, so I used watercolor pencils for the letters and drawings. 

He LOVES changing the weather chart every morning (he was pretty disappointed when it rained several days in a row!):

Everything except for the weather chart is laminated and attaches with velcro:

In addition to the labels for the season and month, I also drew some trees that Short Pants can switch out as the seasons change:

One of Short Pants' favorite lessons this week was drawing a face on and then cleaning a pumpkin from our garden.  I saw this somewhere on someone's blog archives (sorry, can't remember who!) and knew he'd love it.  Just provide your kiddo with some markers, a rag, and a spray bottle of water:

This occupied him for a looooong time, though he did eventually get crazy enough with the spray bottle that we moved upstairs to wash windows: (I love how you can see him smiling face in the reflection!)

We also worked with (I know this is a huge surprise) the Africa continent box:

I am thisclose to having our Europe continent box done - just need to finish printing out some pictures.

We also played a letter sound bingo game that I found on this great site.  Unfortunately Short Pants wasn't excited about it as I'd hoped he'd be, but that's ok.  I will definately save it back for when he's more interested in letters again:

One lesson he was definately interested in was sifting frogs.  He picked this one multiple times and really loved it.   I filled a large bowl with corn meal and then hid some of his plastic lacing frogs in it.  He had to dig through and find them using only a small sifter spoon, then shake the corn meal off the frog:

 It took a surprising amount of skill for him to be able to shake the spoon hard enough to allow the corn meal to fall through, but not so hard that the frog fell off:

As an extra twist he had to then use the spoon to place the frogs into an ice cube tray.  I taped colored dots into the bottom of each spot, so it was a good color matching game as well:

I also presented the first of the 5 senses lessons.  We read a book on hearing from the library:

Then I had Short Pants close his eyes while I rang a bell in different parts of the room and had him point to where the sound was coming from.  We also used the rhythm sticks to experiment with making loud and soft sounds.  Then we got out the sound eggs and used our sense of hearing to match them up:

We also tried to guess what was in the egg pairs before we opened them up:

See you all next week with more Montessori!

Anyone Interested In A Continent Swap?

Ok, not actually swapping continents...but rather items for Montessori continent boxes!  Please e-mail me at onehookwonder AT hotmail DOT com if you're interested in setting up a swap.  Thanks!  :)

Montessori Monday

Not as much to share this week.  Last week was kind of crazy so our lessons fell by the wayside for the most part. 

Short Pants did have his first tweezer lesson.  This was his first time ever using tweezers, and he did surprisingly well at transferring pom poms.  I guess all of our tonging lessons have paid off:

He also did a bit of scooping.  The glass "gems" plinking into the jar made such a pleasant sound.  He experimented a bit by scooping different quanitites so he could hear the difference in the tones:

I also managed to fit in two letter lessons.  For the first we took the animals from our Africa continent box and placed them on their appropriate beginning sound:

For the second I just had him move the sounds I called out from one rug to another:

Last but not least, Short Pants also worked with Color Box #3 (for those not familiar with this material, the child arranges shades of colors from darkest to lightest - some of them are tricky!):

I will be busy this week preparing several new materials for him.  The Mister suggested that Short Pants might just be bored with some of the lessons, and after reflecting I have to say that I agree.  I think he's more than ready to move on from some of the simple materials and lessons to more challenging ones.  We will be starting math soon, so The Mister has made us a beautiful set of number rods that I need to get painted.  I also have plans to make some landform trays, and started putting together a calender/weather chart last night.  Oh, and since he seems to enjoy lessons with movement so much, I'm planning to put together a simple letter sounds game as well. 

Montessori Monday

Total honesty moment - Short Pants has been strangely reluctant to do lessons lately.  Some days it's like pulling teeth to get him to participate.  He's also been VERY focused on the continent boxes and the continent map and globe.  Someone in a Montessori group I participate in mentioned that her daughter is Short Pants' age and has a similar geography obsession going on, so perhaps he's just in a sensitive period.  At any rate, I'm going to put together another continent box for him this week (he's requested Europe) and try to come up with some more geography/cultural-based lessons.  Wish me luck!

One of the biggest hits this last week was something that I actually hadn't planned as a formal lesson.  I bought a little dust buster to deal with our creepy crawlies easily (we are working in an unfinished basement, after all!) and Short Pants decided it was the best thing EVER.  So, me sweeping up with the dust buster quickly turned into an enjoyable practical life lesson for him:

This was also the week that Short Pants reached the Holy Mecca of Pouring aka pouring water.  Oh, he was excited!  He requested green water and happily poured for a good bit:

And wiped up too:

I also put water and milk in little pitchers in the fridge so that he can always pour his own drinks now.  He was thrilled about this:

We also worked with sequence cards.  These cards are actually in sets of 8, but we currently only use 3-4 of the cards per set so it's not so overwhelming.  I think he'll be ready for more cards very soon:

Practicing opening and closing a set of matryoshka dolls helped us work also on big to little:

 

A Russian paper tucked inside of the set led to a discussion of where the dolls were from and just how they got to us all the way in North America:

We also got back out our Africa continent box (several times!).  I printed off a coloring sheet from this site of African folktales which he worked on while I read him "Spider and the Honey Tree" aloud:

Oh, and here's one good thing about taking your kids to eat at Chick-fil-A to eat - they have really good "toys" in their kids meals!  A few weeks (months?) ago they were giving out books about children's lives on different continents, and I made sure we collected and traded for all of the ones that they offered.  Short Pants is fascinated by this little book, which I put in our Africa continent box.  He loves seeing where the children live and go to school.  It's also helped him learn about countries versus continents as each child featured is from a different country and we find them on the globe:

 

I know that there are several Montessori suppliers that have wonderful books about each continent - hopefully we'll be purchasing some of those soon as well.

Short Pants also worked on this little clothespin lessson that I put together.  I've seen on some blogs how they have children clip clothespins on the edge of a bucket, so I just took it a step further and included some one-to-one correspondance as well.  He had to work very intently to use the clothespin *and* get it in the correct spot indicated by star stickers inside the bucket's rim:

He enjoyed working with his new screwdriver lesson as well.  The Mister made this for me after I saw the one over at Adventures of a Rainbow Mama:

  

We also matched up cards to the corresponding geometric cabinet shapes.  The one was *very* easy for him, so I guess we'll be moving to the more difficult cards right away:

Last but not least, we learned about possums.  This was most definately a case of following the child!  For some reason Short Pants has become very interested in possums.  One of his favorite games is pretending to be a possum and then having you scare him so that he can play dead with his tongue hanging out and his teeth showing (just like a real possum, Mom!).  So....we looked at pictures of possums on the net and learned some possum facts (did you know that possum babies are the size of honey bees when they're born?!).  It also gave me the opportunity to talk very briefly about the definitions of marsupial and warm blooded.  Oh, and don't forget the chance to learn possum anatomy:

Montessori Monday

I decided to start doing a review of our Montessori lessons from the previous week every Monday.  Last week we were out of the house many days during lesson time, so we didn't do as many lessons as normal.  I did buy another set of shelving, so I'm able to set out more lessons at a time plus keep our "standards" such as the knobbed cylinders, pink tower, etc. out all of the time as well.  I've tried to divide them into shelves for practical life, sensorial, etc.  We didn't get to all of these last week, so some of them you'll see in use next week as well:

 

 

Short Pants LOVED the new Africa continent box.  We spent loads of time looking at the pictures and talking about Africa.  (he was very worried that the huts didn't look sturdy enough; he was afraid that "camels will come and blow them down." heehee):

 

 

One of the first things he said was, "Penguins don't live in Africa!"  He was very shocked to learn that they do, indeed.  We had a great time talking about the different eco-systems in Africa, and even divided the African animals into the appropriate environments.  Many thanks to Katie for sending us a picture of a meerkat; Short Pants was so excited!   We also watched several tribal dancing videos on You-Tube.  Short Pants was quite taken with these, and we actually spent time on two different afternoons watching them.  I love that he is so fascinated and open to other cultures.  We'll be doing some more lessons on Africa in the coming week as well.

Oh, and if you haven't seen this wonderful children's atlas book from Usborne, do check it out.  I had bought it earlier in the summer and stashed it away to save back for Christmas.   Well, my resolve broke, and Short Pants spent literally hours looking through this wonderful book last week.

Short Pants was also very happy to begin working with the knobless cylinders last week.  We got out the yellow box, which he was able to do quite easily, so looks like we might be moving through these pretty soon!  The knobless cylinders are good for size discrimination (the different colored sets compare different things) and fine motor skills:

  

 

He also worked for a short time drawing letters in cornmeal:

A surprise hit was bead patterning.  I know I saw the idea on someone's blog, but now I can't remember which one!  I strung beads on pipecleaners in different patterns then encouraged him to make matching ones.  He really liked this lesson and worked for quite awhile at it:

 

 

Short Pants also had fun spooning colored rice through a funnel:

 

And pouring it back into the bowl:

 

See you next Monday with more Montessori lessons!

Bedhead Montessori

Judging from some of these pictures, I'd say it's a bad idea to let Short Pants go to bed with wet hair! 

As this was our first Montessori work for awhile, I wanted to ease us both back in to it by including some old favorites as well as some fun sensorial lessons.  Short Pants was so happy to go back to his lessons; it's always such a thrill to see him relish learning and exploring so. 

One old favorite brought back this week was the hammering kit - great for fine motor skills:

Short Pants was also very excited to do some simple cutting work.  He'd been asking to get his scissors out:

 

I just let him cut on straight and slanted lines that I had marked on construction paper strips.  He's got that down pretty well now, so we'll be moving on to zig zags and double cuts soon:

 

And what kid doesn't love using tape?  He was *thrilled* to see this tape dispenser and learn how to make paper chains:

 

On another day he added to his chain and also taped paper together to make "dinosaurs."  How adorable is he here, legs all asprawl in the bean bag?

 

Another fun new activity was color mixing.  I liked the way that it was done on The Wonder Years blog, so I copied her idea of using little cards to show Short Pants what colors to mix together.  He loved this activity and did it several times.  He has just recently started to deliberately mix his tempera paints at his easel (we only use the primary colors) so the timing was perfect for this lesson:

 

We also looked at some insect identification cards that I made and used our insect rubbing cards from Let's Explore:

  

 

We also matched up the geometric solids to printed cards.  Short Pants emphatically refused to do this lesson, but as soon as I sat down by myself to do it he took it over.  I've found that starting a lesson by myself that he's reluctant to do is the sure way to garner his interest:

 

Short Pants also spent time working with his perennial favorites, the globe and continent puzzle:

 

He was very disappointed that I hadn't put together a continent box for Africa yet, so the other night I put together a *very* simple one for him to discover next week - just pictures and animals.  We'll be doing some fun activities to go along with it which I think he'll enjoy as well.  Though in a Montessori school he would have the opportunity to work with a puzzle of every individual continent, our budget doesn't allow for that, so I've decided to only purchase the obviously pertinent puzzles of North America and The United States.  We will be looking at maps of Africa though so that he can understand that it is made up of different countries.  The only continent we've studied previously was Antartica, so obviously we haven't dealt with that issue yet!

*Suggestions needed!!  We have only SIX more letter sounds to do before Short Pants knows the entire alphabet.  However, he's gone from wanting to do letter sounds all the time to never wanting to do them.  Any ideas to get him interested again?