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 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!

Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED

So I was going to do a giveaway when I got to 100 followers but I was just too excited and couldn't wait that long!

So here it is.  All you have to do is choose one of these cute little felted creations and if you win I will send it to you!

So you have the choice of

Flopsy Bunny

This cute little penguin that L is holding

or this whole little felted family

There are a few things you can do to enter:

1. Follow Montessori Beginnings-just leave a comment with your choice and let me know you are a follower

2.  Blog/Twitter or Facebook about this giveaway

3.  Let me know what your favorite childrens book is(I saw this on Chasing Marcus and thought it was a great idea)

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

I will ship to anywhere in the world so the giveaway is open to everyone.

The giveaway will close at midnight Friday May 28th and I will announce the winner on Saturday.  The winner will then have 48 hours to contact me with their email address.

Good luck!

And the winner is.....

First of all I would like to say thank you to all of you who posted comments. I found it fascinating to read all of the varying descriptions of the Montessori Method. I'm sorry my brain has turned to mush right now and so I won't be doing an all inspiring "summing up" at the moment but I can see how this method can appeal to a wide variety of people and it seems to me that just by the interest in the blog world it's catching on! Yeah! Power to our children!

And now on with the winner. I counted the number of comments and then put the numbers into L's jack-o-lantern. She had the honor of picking the winner and it was number 7 which corresponds to the 7th comment which happens to be........Aayla do! Montessori.

Now when L picked this number and I figured out who it was I immediately thought Oh no! They're all going to think it was a fix!! but seriously we did it as randomly as we could and she came out the winner. (I also personally have to say that I loved her description. It is the one that I would choose to use if describing Montessori to people who know nothing about it.)
So congratulations to Aayla do! Montessori the Amazing Sticker Book will soon be on it's way and we'll be looking forward to some posts on how you decide to use it.


Thanks again to everyone who left a comment. I had so much fun and learned so much that I'm sure I'll do another one very soon.

Last day before giveaway!

Just a reminder to please leave a comment if you would like to take part in the Amazing Sticker Book giveaway. If you don't feel comfortable describing the Montessori Method just leave a comment about what got you interested in Montessori or this blog!

Happy Birthday Giveaway!!

In honor of both L's and my birthday this month I'm going to do my first giveaway!
The 1000 Stickers book was such a hit with us that I went back to TK Max and amazingly was able to find another one. So one of you lucky readers will soon be able to stick to your hearts delight!

All I ask in return is that you tell me in a few lines how you would describe the Montessori Method to friends, family and anyone else who knows nothing about it. If you read this blog and are just learning about Montessori just tell me what got you interested in it. I will read all of the comments on Friday and either make a decision or try the random number generator if there are too many good ones!