L Update

Poor L has been totally neglected on this blog since Little J came along.  I felt it was high time for an update!  Now that she is home for the summer we are making up for lost time and doing tons of activities together.

I really miss her while she is at school and am so thankful for the summers.

 

L has finished her primary Montessori programme and in September is going to be starting the Montessori elementary programme.  This took some serious soul searching for my husband and I as the school is a 45 minute drive away as well as a continued expense.  In the end we had no choice she is a Montessori child through and through.  She has such a joy and thirst for learning and knowledge that we want to encourage and foster.  The Montessori elementary programme is the obvious choice and we are so lucky that there is a programme available for her to attend.

  

I can really see an obvious transition from the 3-6 plane of development to the 6-9.  L is becoming so much more aware of her environment and the world in general.  She is full of questions such as " How did the first person get here?"  Yup she is so ready for elementary.

 

I am constantly amazed at what she has learned at school.  She knows all of her triangles and angles and is always pointing them out in every day life.  The other day she was naming the types of triangles and their angles of the pieces of cantaloupe she was eating for dessert.
Another thing she has accomplished that has blown my mind has been learning every single country on the map!!!  That's right.  At her school they learn the continents and countries by using puzzle maps.  Once they can identify all of the countries of a continent they get to paint it and then label them.  She managed to complete all of them.  I have taken pictures of all of the maps and am going to make a photo book atlas for her as a keepsake.

Her school has a set of bells which she has worked with since day one.  She has progressed passed matching and grading them onto to composition and her ear is amazing.  She can pick out songs on different instruments and play them by ear.

L has always loved words and began speaking and reading at an early age.  She is now confidently reading chapter books on her own.

Something that always seems to take me aback for some reason is her total support and genuine joy of her classmates accomplishments.  She is not competitive and all of the children in her school are so supportive of each other.  The teachers have really done a wonderful job of creating a peaceful, loving and genuine environment.

In many ways L is a pretty average 5 year old who is excitable, full of energy, challenging, sometimes whiny and can be supremely messy and unorganised.  However it is unmistakable when you meet her that she has a spark and something special about her.  Part of this spark has been fostered by Montessori and I can't say enough about how much of an amazing influence the Montessori method has had on L and on our family.

A couple examples of things that make her stand out as a Montessori child are:

When her Granny came back from Hawaii and gave her a bag of shells with a shell book the first thing she did was take them all out and classify them.

She loves to demonstrate works to her brother, rolls out a mat for him and when he tries to reach for them she says "hands in your lap"

Here she has turned Little J's dressing activity into a folding work.

While making cupcakes for Little J's birthday she says hey this one looks like Djibouti! Of course I said Ja what?  Her response: You know mommy the country in Africa. 

She seems so much older than she really is and sometimes I realise because of this we expect a lot of her.  I am constantly reminded when I see other non Montessori children just how much we expect of her and how much she does around the house and for herself.

At the beginning of the summer we made a list of things we would both like to do together.  We have already accomplished many of them which I am excited to share.

Of course this description is just the tip of the iceberg of our special girl.  As I look back on those first posts I realise how far she has come.  It has taken a bit for me to get over the fact that she is changing from a little girl into a big girl and I am excited to see what her next phase of development holds!



Me on the Map

L got the book Me On The Map by Joan Sweeney last year for her birthday.  We have both enjoyed reading it together as well as doing activities to go along with it.  L has mapped out her bedroom and pointed out our province on the map of Canada as well as our continent on the globe.

 When I saw this fantastic idea on Counting Coconuts a while back I knew we had to make one for ourselves.

I started off making six circles out of craft foam using a compass.

 I found almost all of the images on Google Images.  L colored this picture of the Earth and then stuck the stars on for space.

 I traced the continent onto orange paper and L pin punched it out.

 For my province we talked about different things we see and do here.  I printed off the images and L colored them.

We also did circles for my town and my house.  I took pictures of L by different places and then printed them out.

Once all the circles were completed I punched a hole in the top of them and put a ring through them.

I really love this activity.  It's a great way for children to narrow down their place on the map and also a wonderful keepsake.  Thanks again Counting Coconuts for the great idea!

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.

Australia

Okay the continent box is taking ages to complete so in the mean time I thought I'd post about some of the activities we have been doing.

I have to say it's been soooo fun learning all about Australia and I have learned just as many new things as L. I also wanted to start off by saying that the reason I picked Australia to start with instead of North America is because even before we began our activities it was constantly a topic of conversation.  We've been Skyping with some wonderful friends there and my dad just got back from a holiday there.  So to me it seemed like a natural progression to start with this continent.  I also decided to just keep our studies concentrated on  Australia for now.  When L gets older and we revisit it we will talk about the other countries in this area.

So here we go....

I found this wonderful site that has a page with tons of Aboriginal symbols.  L and I talked about rock paintings and the different symbols and their meanings.  We then made up stories with our painted symbols.

L's is in the middle.  The cool thing was that L could tell my stories by the symbols I painted. 

Here is the link to that fantastic printout.

Next we talked about Didgeridoos and listened to and watched lots of examples of people playing on Youtube.  We talked about how they are made and that they were originally invented by the Aboriginal peoples of Northern Australia.

We also talked about dot art and looked at many examples.

Here are our own versions out of wrapping paper tubes.
We painted them brown first and then added our dot art decorations.  I painted on the animals on L's and she added the dots.

L really wanted to play like a real Aboriginal person so we painted her with white paint with some Aboriginal symbols.  L was VERY serious about the whole thing and put on a little concert for us. (I hope this doesn't offend anyone.  We have being studying all types of Australian culture with the utmost respect)

I found this amazing song on Youtube call True Blue Wonders which uses the didgeridoo to make the sounds of different Australian animals.  This is what L is playing to in the picture.

You can also download this song and it comes along with lots of great teaching materials.

Today we listened to it in my music class, tapped along with rhythm sticks and made didgeridoos.  They were such a hit that we're doing it again next week!

The most amazing bit is about four days ago a small import store in our area had a going out of business sale and unbelievably they had an actual didgeridoo on sale for only $35!!!  So of course I had to get it and we've been learning to play it ever since.  The kids in the music class went crazy for it and couldn't get enough!

Pics to follow in another post.

Continent Boxes-Swap and Upcoming Giveaway

When I was first learning about Montessori I thought one of the coolest things was the Continent Boxes.  I still do! Of course I figured that L would be doing them at her school but when I asked her teacher about it she didn't know what I was talking about.  They only have Continent Folders left over from another teacher from a different school.

I was pretty happy actually because after seeing so many fantastic ideas in the blogworld I secretly wanted to make my own.  So now I plan to make them first for L and when she has covered them I will donate them to her school.

This is where you come in.  I'm almost finished Australia(thanks to some great Aussie friends) and once I completely finish the printables I will be putting all of them up for a giveaway.

Also I'm looking for people who would like to do a Continent Swap.  I've seen some very successful ones done in the last little while.

I am looking for people who would like to swap things from South America, Africa, Asia and Antarctica for things from North America(mainly Canada) plus any of my printables I have made from all of the Continents.

If you are interested please leave me a comment with your email address or just email me at montessoribeginnings@yahoo.ca

Stay tuned for the upcoming Australia printout giveaway.

Animal Sounds and a few other bits

I haven't been able to do much lately but was able to set this activity up mostly from the couch. It's my own version of animal sounds. So simple to make and free! I found this Youtube video of animal sounds, found pictures of all of the animals and printed them out on a piece of paper. L covers the animal who makes the sound with a penny. It was a great hit and we did it about six times today.

L started wanting to pull the golf tees out of her ladybug activity so I changed it for this one where she presses the colored toothpick into the dots of the correct colored shape.

I saw this super cute counting activity on The Adventures of Bear and just had to make one up for L. Not surprisingly she was more interested in having the polar bear eat the fish than the counting.

And lastly L got this totally cool map for Christmas with animals, people and place names to Velcro on to it. So much fun and will be a challenge for many years to come!

New Activities from Santa

That sneaky old Santa managed to stuff a lot of new activities into L's stocking this year.

Walking the line

No not L but these adorable little lady bugs. I'd gotten these ages ago for L's stocking and then was lucky enough to find this great activity over at Making of a Montessori Mum!

I think for the moment these have taken over from our beloved frogs. In this one L balances them on golf tees or "trees" and then flies them back to their dish.

I've been wanting to start L on using tongs for ages but haven't been able to find ones small enough. Finally while looking on the Ikea web page I saw a tiny baking set with these small tongs. They are perfect for her hands and she has a great time transferring these bugs into their pool for a dip.

This next activity definitely wins the prize for the best find. It is a foam Continents puzzle from the dollar store. That's right folks it only cost a dollar!! L and I can't get enough of it and I actually went out after Christmas and bought another one just in case this one gets worn out.

My mom and I were talking about how L knows some of the continents but really has no context to learn them in. To her at the moment they are just colored blobs so I decided to have her place one animal on each continent. Now I can ask "where does the Koala bear live?" and she will point to and say Australia. This is such a fun way of learning the continents. (I'm hoping to get better animals for South America and Antarctica soon)

I also thought I'd outdone myself with brilliance by taping colored circles on the bottom of the animals so she could self check. Ha ha I should have quit while I was ahead as first of all some continents are the same color and all she wanted to do is pick them off!

Some new activities for L

Here are some of the things that L has been doing.

This is one of her favorite games. I think almost every animal she possesses is on it's home continent here! I tell her where they go and she puts them on, although she knows quite a few of them herself. Especially the koala bear. He has the honor of being the first animal on every time. L knows Australia and North America (because that's where Canada is) and is becoming more familiar with the other continents but still doesn't 100% know them. You can see she's also put some of her dolls on. Her two favorites always live in Canada and the Cuba dolly from her uncle obviously lives in South America.

I also made up this hammering activity

which lasted for three golf tees and then she just gave up on the hammer and put them in with her hands. Fair enough. She brings this one out quite a bit and sorts them differently every time.

L has shown a real interest in numbers and counting lately so I've been slowly introducing the written numbers to her. I've been too lazy to make sand paper numbers so have used these ones from a card game we have. Here she is sorting them into piles and is supposed to be saying them as she sorts them. She still gets confused some times and I find it really interesting that she is having a much harder time remembering the numbers than she did with her phonics. Maybe it's because the numbers aren't in any context whilst every time I introduce a new phonic sound it comes with three pictures with the same sound for her to latch onto.

OK I have to admit I've formed quite an attachment to these little tropical frogs. Expect to be seeing them pop up in many future posts. Here is a counting activity where she puts the frogs on the dots on the lillypads and counts them. I sit with her for this and make sure she is on the right track as counting objects is still really new to her.

Europe, Africa....

About a month ago I was reading a post on Chasing Cheerios about her daughter learning the continents and singing the Continents Song. My first mistake was listening to the song on YouTube with L right there. She loved it and asked for it again and again. Now any time I'm on the computer she asks for the Continents Song. We've played it so much that we all know it by heart. She also watches the graphics on the screen and any time she she's a map or globe she starts to sing Europe, Africa...

Last week when I went to the boot fair I found this for only 50p!

What a find! It's like a continents Twister game. At the moment she just loves to dance all over it while singing the song but I'm sure she'll soon learn where all of the continents are. I know it's plastic and doesn't have Antarctica on it but for now it's just for fun. Once we really start to learn about continents and maps etc. I'll paint Antarctica on or something! We also put all of her stuffed animals onto their home continents and although she didn't really understand we had a blast doing it.
I fished out a little Koala bear that I''ve had for ages, because we didn't have any Australian animals. It has a hat and a boomerang. She was very interested and so we went to the computer to look at pictures of real Koala bears. L looked at me and said, "those ones having no hats"!