And the winners are.....

Thank you to everyone who entered the Australia classified cards giveaway.
The three lucky winners (picked very randomly by my husband) are

Natasha from Leptir, Sandra and Homeschool @sg.  Congratulations and I will try and contact you or you can email me at montessoribeginnings@yahoo.ca to get your classified cards.

To the rest of you who entered don't worry as I will be doing similar giveaways for all of my Continent Boxes as they are finished.  Next up is Antarctica.  Can't say exactly when I have it finished but hopefully sometime soon!

Australia Activites Part Two

Although we did these Australia activities ages ago I am only now getting around to posting about them.  You can see my first post with more Australia activities here and my Australia Continent Box post here.

I found these wonderful books at the library.  The first Sun Mother Wakes the World is a retelling of an Aboriginal creation myth with gorgeous artwork.  The second book Are we there yet? by Alison Lester was a huge hit and a must in my opinion for anyone studying Australia.  It is about a family who sets out in their camper and travels the whole way around Australia.  L was super excited to see the same pictures as her landmark cards and we looked up some others on google images to see the exact same picture.   

This is a picture of the materials I used to present the didgeridoo, Australian music and Aboriginal artwork to my music class.  To read more about it and for the link to True Blue Wonders see this post.

We also made our own boomerangs.  Your can find the template here.  I traced the template onto a cereal box and cut it out and then L used it to trace her boomerang and cut it out.  We decorated them and then tried them out.

These were a super fun outside activity and I would recommend trying different thicknesses of cardboard.

Included in the continent box are a few recipes.  One is for Lamingtons which is basically a few day old cake covered in chocolate and then dipped in coconut.  We tried out a bit more of a healthy option with bananas on a skewer and dark chocolate.  We LOVED them!  Warning this is a messy project but very tasty!

If you are working on your Continent Boxes and would like to win my classified cards you can enter to win here.

Australia Continent Box and Giveaway (Finally!!)

Okay the Australia Continent Box is pretty much done and I thought it was high time I posted about it since L and I finished covering it months ago.

So here we go.  This is the simple box which I found at a craft store and painted brown.  Eventually I will put a sand paper cut out of the continent on the top as well.

Inside we have four fabric folders of classified cards.  These are landmarks, plants, animals, and people.  The cards also have short definitions on the back.  I was debating on how to put the names of each category on the front of the fabric folders but luckily I learned in my Assistants course that the best thing to do is to have a card at the front with a few pictures of whatever the folder is about.  This way the folders can be used for readers and non-readers.  Since these Continent Boxes are ultimately intended for the classroom I am going to add them in.

Here is a picture of more of the contents.  At the top we have a tea towel with Aboriginal artwork and an Australian flag sticker.

Below we have some postcards of Aboriginal artwork, animal magnets, Australian coins, a wood carving of an Aboriginal boy, animal stickers, two magnets of Australian scenes in the shape of Australia, and an embarrassingly upside down felt cut out of Australia.

Here we have a map of the different states, some recipes, a tiny pewter koala with baby, Vegemite, a toy koala with boomerang, a real boomerang and the boomerang template.  I'm also still working on a CD with all of our Australian music.  We have the wonderful books from the Rebecca Johnson Australia series.

It's amazing how life works sometimes.  At the exact time we were doing our Australia unit I went to a small import shop that was going out of business.  To my delight they had this didgeridoo on for a ridiculously cheap price and I couldn't resist.  It was perfect timing to bring into my music class and have them all try it out.  At home we've all been learning through Youtube videos!

I've also pictured the learning materials that came with the True Blue Wonders package.

Wow looking at these pictures I'm amazed at how much I was able to fit into that tiny box!!  A huge thank you to our wonderful bloggy friends from Australia (you know who you are!) for sending us some of the cool things in the above pictures.

So now for the giveaway.   I've decided to share all of my files (via email) for my classified cards, definitions, pictures and recipes with three lucky winners.  All you need to do is leave a comment below.  You will get three extra entries if you blog or Facebook about this giveaway and leave a separate comment.  The giveaway will be open until Monday August 8th.  Good luck!

Land and Water Forms at the Beach

It's finally been nice enough to go to the beach!  L did the land and water forms at school this year so she was excited when I suggested we do some at the beach.

strait

bay

This was first a lake and then we added an island.

We did some others but my hands were getting way to sandy to keep taking pictures.  This was super fun and L loved running to the ocean to get the water to fill them up.

Cloud Gazing

We've been learning about clouds.  I had this wonderful vision of L and I lying on our backs in a grassy field gazing at the clouds with the sun on our faces.

Hahaha.  So far we've had two days that didn't involve the oppressive blanket of stratus clouds!

We really are hoping that our summer will start soon!

For our cloud study we first used some classified cards on the four main types of clouds, Cumulus, Cirrus, Stratus and Nimbostratus.  I have to say a huge thank you to my bloggy friend Aude over at My Montessori Preschool.  She did a wonderful unit on clouds earlier in the year which you can read about here.  She was generous enough to send me the file for these great classified cards. (Also a huge thanks for the wonderful things she sent for my Europe continent box, gotta love the people you meet in the blogsphere!).

Here are the cards.  There are two pictures of every type of cloud.  On the one with no label I put the definition on the back.

L made up a cloud book using cotton balls.  I printed up the labels and she cut them out and stuck them on.  She had a blast making this book.

Rain cloud experiment.  We also got this from My Montessori Preschool.  The purpose is to slowly add drops of water to the cotton ball 'cloud' and see how much it will hold before it starts to rain.  L did this three times in a row.

 We also tried making a cloud in a bottle which we both agreed was a fail.  I found some instructions on the Internet but we weren't impressed with the results.

Although we know stratus clouds really well now I'm looking forward to the days when we can name the other clouds and predict the weather.  

Summer of Science

This summer we've been all about science experiments.  As I mentioned in this Dental Health post we've been watching Sid the Science Kid and the show has really inspired us to do the experiments and also add in some of our own.

Flowers

L cut two white tulips from the garden.  We added about ten drops of blue food coloring to a glass and put the tulip into it.  After a couple hours we could already see blue dots along the edges of the petals.  This picture is after one day.  We also tried different colors but the blue was the most effective.

Exercise

We saw this one on Sid the Science Kid.  Learning about how exercise is important and how you can feel your heart beat faster once you've done some exercise.  First L and I thought about different ways you can exercise your body and then we tried them.  Below she has drawn her observations in her science journal.  We tried out biking, hula hooping, running, soccer and dancing.

Does it Dissolve?

I saw this experiment over at The Picky Apple .   We first talked about the definition of dissolve.  We got five different substances, coffee, sugar, lentils, flour and oats.  L poured water into the glasses and then made  predictions on what she thought would dissolve and what wouldn't.

She then poured the substances into the water glasses one by one and stirred them up.  She was able to easily see if they dissolved or not.  I made up labels for Dissolved and Didn't Dissolve and she put the substance labels under the correct headings.

Here are her observations in her science journal.  Sometimes she will write things as well or ask me to write if there are too many words.

Heat

This one was also from Sid the Science Kid and it was really cool.  L learned about how heat changes things.  We demonstrated this by cutting up some apples and putting them in a pot with some cinnamon.  L tried to mash them up but they were way too hard.  We added some water and put them on the stove for about 20 minutes, stirring them constantly. 

L tried to mash them again and they were super soft.  We enjoyed some yummy apple sauce and talked about how this was an irreversible change.  We also talked about what other food gets softer when we cook it such as spaghetti and potatoes and what foods get harder such as pancakes and eggs.

Here are her observations.

We have many more experiments lined up for the following weeks.  I really love the idea of keeping a record in her science journal that we can look back in to remember all of the different experiments.  Thanks Sid the Science Kid!

How many 'light bulb' moments can one person have!!??

I'm back from my course and my husband and L are back from their European jaunt.  It's amazing how quickly time flies.  My husband is exhausted but I think they had a great time over all.  What a brave man to take a 3 1/2 year old on 6 plane rides and to two different countries in another continent! I'm so proud of them both.

As for me, well it's taken me a while to post because I just don't know how to really describe my Montessori Assistants course and the affect it's had on me.  I wish I was more eloquent and the perfect words would just come.  I feel anything I say will not do it justice.  I guess I'll start with saying that my instructor Eduardo J. Cuevas who is an AMI trainer was outstanding.  The way he presented the material and just his general manner gave me so many 'aha' moments it was incredible.  I really feel like my life and outlook have completely changed in just two weeks.

Before I was passionate about Montessori and Montessori education but I didn't realise that I'd only just scratched the surface.  I now realise how in depth and what a real science the Montessori Method really is and would love one day to take the full training.  I hope to try and collect my thoughts a bit and write some more posts about different topics we discussed and what we did over the two weeks.
I guess to sum it up it really just impressed on me that I am going in the right direction and that this is what I want to do and pursue in the next phase of my life!

I'm also so happy to have my little girl home and all to myself during the day.  We have been busy and there will be posts coming very soon!  Looking forward to catching up on my favourite blogs and exploring some new ones as well.