Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans

Poetry Baskets: Winter

2012-07-23T14:51:00.001-04:00

I finally got around to finding, typing, and adding pictures to some more poems for the poetry baskets that I would like to incorporate into the curriculum this coming school year! So, here you go:

December

January

February

If you did not see my original post about Poetry Baskets, you can find it here. There are also some helpful links to other blogs with info about making poetry baskets.

I am busily preparing for the coming school year! It will be my second year using a Montessori-based curriculum at my preschool and I am very excited about it! Currently I am working to complete my curriculum calendar for the year, which includes monthly themes (previously I have done weekly themes), holidays we will learn about and celebrate, field trips, and pretend play area changes (I have chosen to keep my pretend play area even though you would not find this area in a traditional Montessori school), and info about school breaks.

In the past I have not planned out field trips or the pretend play area ahead of time. My preschool is a co-op, meaning parents not only help in the classroom, they also take on a job. Planning field trips and changing the pretend play area are both parent jobs. However, I decided that if I have a general plan for field trips and pretend play area changes already made up, it will make things a little more straight forward for the parents in charge of these jobs.

That's it for today! Sorry for not having any pictures again - during the school year it is much easier for me to actually have pictures to post than during the Summer when school is not in session.

I am linking up with Living Montessori Now for Montessori Monday!

Poetry Baskets: Fall

2012-06-26T14:52:00.000-04:00

Last year one of the ideas I found while looking around online was setting up poetry baskets in my classroom - something I have never done before. What is in a poetry basket, you may ask? Well, inside a poetry basket you will find:

1) A poem, typed or neatly written, with pictures/graphics to go along with key ideas in the poem.
2) Objects that match the pictures/graphics on the typed poem.
3) A pointer to point to the words in each poem.

There are several blogs that have pictures and ideas for poetry baskets online:

Living Montessori Now

My Montessori Journey

Chasing Cheerios

Counting Coconuts

So, this is what I have been working on the last couple of days - finding poems, typing poems, and adding pictures to the poems. I decided to do poems by month - so one new poem each month. The September and October poems are the same as those used at the My Montessori Journey blog and found at the CanTeach website. For the November poem, however, I went with a different poem, also found at the CanTeach website. Below are links to all of the poems with pictures that I have made using Microsoft Word:

September

October

November

I have not yet found objects to go with each of the poems. Once I finish finding, typing, and adding pictures to poems for the whole school year (through May), I will post pictures of the poems with the objects that will go with them. Until then, sorry, I do not have any pictures. However, if you visit the blogs listed above, you will find some great pictures of the objects others have used to go along with the poems.

That's it for today! I will post the remainder of the monthly poems as I complete them!

Resale/Yard Sale Finds: Part 2

2012-06-25T14:16:00.001-04:00

I know I said I would post the rest of my yard sale finds last week, but I just didn't have a chance. So, I'll play catch up this week!

Aren't these neat tongs? There are so many things that the kids could use these to pick up for a practical life work!

A simple small metal pitcher. I don't have any metal pitchers yet, so this will be a great addition to my practical life pitcher collection!

Isn't this a neat tray for sorting! I think it will be great for a Fall math, sensorial, or practical life work!

Look at this collection of small vases I found! I thought they would be great for pouring work or even for flower arranging with really small fake flowers!

I bought these specifically to use as smelling jars. I am planning on painting the outside of three of them blue and the other three red, like the kind you buy from a Montessori supply store. Or, I might cover them with blue and red fabric, we'll see...

This is for pouring work. I think the little lid will add another interesting aspect.

I love the natural appeal of these wooden bowls! There were actually a lot more that I could have bought, but I decided I needed to limit how many, so I went with just four. These have so many uses!

I bought these to use as pencil holders. My daughters Montessori school has little glass containers like these at the easel, etc. as pencil holders. I thought this was a great idea, so when I found these, I thought they would work perfectly!

Simple plastic tongs.

A child-size wisk.

Two bags of tiny sea shells. These have so many uses - art, math, practical life, sensorial (sorting), etc.

These are just cheap foam number puzzles. I bought them so that I could use the numbers for numeral and counter math work.

I looked all over for this exact thing last school year around Valentine's Day and couldn't find it.

Great little set for pouring work. There are actually three cups in the set, but I missed one when I took the picture.

A simple ladle spoon.

Well, that's it for my resale/yard sale finds so far this Summer. I plan to do more shopping throughout the Summer! One of my favorite things to do is shop at resale stores and yard sales!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday!

Resale/Yard Sale Finds: Part 1

2012-06-20T14:52:00.000-04:00

I know I have not blogged in a couple weeks. I am amazed at how busy I am over the Summer when I am not working! Between a family vacation and my daughters 3'rd birthday, I just have not had any time to sit down and write for a while.

During my family vacation, I hit some resale stores and some yard sales - and came back home with a LOT more than I left home with! Some stuff is just stuff for my family, like luggage, clothes, dishes, etc. But, most of what I found is for school! So, I thought I'd share some of my awesome school finds with you all!

This is a kaleidoscope that can be changed according to themes, seasons, etc.! I was so excited to find it! I have not looked at it very closely yet, but it looks like you can fill the end with small objects as well as change out the outside of the scope. I thought this would be great for a seasonal basket or table - which I'd like to incorporate into my classroom this coming school year!

Ok, this may not seem so awesome, but for me it is! Every year I do a unit on the 5 senses and this is the book I like to read when we talk about the sense of sight. But, I did not have the book and always found myself looking for it at the library at the very last minute. Now, I have it!

I found this book about the human body. But, I did not buy it for the book, I bought it for the inserts on the inside of the book of the human skeleton and the human organ systems - with all parts labeled.

These are just old calendars I found - I decided to start collecting them so that I can use them for photographs of different subjects, etc. in my classroom.

This is just a Children's Picture Atlas. I thought I could use it when we do geography lessons.

I thought this would make a good work for the beginning of the school year.

These are small fabric flowers that I thought could either be used for art, practical life, or even counting.

Anyone remember this from school? I sure do! Every math teacher I had, had one of these for drawing different size circles & angles on the chalkboard. I am always trying to find the right size circular container, etc. to trace to get the size circle that I need - now I can just use this to make any size circle that I want!

Well, that's it for today! I will post more of my school finds in the next couple days or so.

I am linking up with Montessori Monday via Living Montessori Now!

Band-aides aren't just for boo-boos!

2012-05-28T06:57:00.002-04:00

So, recently my Froggy Boots has been obsessed with putting band-aides on owies (her word for scrapes, cuts, boo-boos). This only came about when she got a blister from her shoe when we went to the Toledo Zoo recently and I put a band-aide on it when we got home. Since then she finds every reason in the book to put on a new band-aide. She has practiced this skill so much, in fact, that she can take the band-aide out of the box, take it out of the wrapper, and put it on all by herself! She has even searched me over for owies and put band-aides on me!

Well, this got me thinking about how much I loved using band-aides when I was a kid. I remember putting them on my mom all the time and when we ran out of band-aides, she'd let me use tape instead - I know, brave mom to let her child put tape all over legs, arms, etc! Then I started thinking about how to turn opening band-aides into a practical life work for school and this is what I came up with...

I used Microsoft Word's "shape" maker to make small red circles in a grid pattern on the paper. I made several different grids for different size band-aides. The objective is to open the band-aide box, take out a band-aide, take the wrapper off the band-aide, put the band-aide neatly over a red circle (boo-boo), and repeat until all circles (boo-boos) are covered with a band-aide. The grid can also be cut into strips instead of using an entire sheet of paper. I have the band-aide grid papers I made available for free download under the "Montessori Downloads" tab on the top of my blog and by clicking here for the small grids or here for the medium grid. I will try to add large grids soon!

As long as I'm writing about band-aides, I might as well add my "How Many Band-aides Counting Book." It is available for free download here under the "Montessori Downloads" tab at the top of my blog. It is exactly what it sounds like - a front cover that says, "How Many Band-aides Counting Book," and pages with numbers 1 through 5. The child simply sticks the correct number of band-aides on each page. I have done this with my 3's class in the past and you could add more pages with higher numbers for kids who are ready for higher numbers.

Well, that's it for today! New Blog Update: I have my header made and am currently trying to get it to fit properly on my new blog - for some reason this has become quite a challenge...

I am linking up with Montessori Monday via Living Montessori Now!

Wrapping Things Up!

2012-05-23T21:33:00.001-04:00

This was our last week of school, as I already have mentioned in previous posts. Every year I plan a special party for the last day of school. In the past we have had camping parties, Hawaiian Luau parties, etc. This year we had a picnic party! The parents brought in finger foods and blankets and we had a picnic together. The 4's class picnic ended up having to be inside because it was really windy and chilly that day. But, the 3's class was able to eat out on the lawn! Here are some pictures of our fun:

4's Class picnic inside.

3's Class picnic outside.

The official last day for my 4's class is also graduation day! It's a day of mixed emotions for everyone - kids, parents, and ME! The kids are excited to move on to Kindergarten! But, I often hear from parents that the kids think I am going to continue to be their teacher in Kindergarten - so sweet! For parents, it's another milestone reached in the lives of their kids. For me, it's knowing that I've done my job as a teacher in preparing each child, the best I can, to enter into the big world that awaits them in Kindergarten and beyond. But, even more than that, it's knowing that I have instilled a love of learning in each child and that this will hopefully continue throughout their lives. And, as I let each child go on his/her way, I always send a little piece of my heart with them - a piece that I can never get back, but that will be filled with fond memories instead. That's something that never gets easier - even after so many years!

Below are a few pictures from graduation. I was not able to take a lot since I was very busy actually "graduating" kids, but there are a few.

Check out this cake that one of my awesome parents made! There is a cake ball topper with a graduation hat for each of the kids and the initials of the school on the front of the cake - YCP (Ypsilanti Cooperative Preschool).

Here is a picture of the inside of the cake - it's a rainbow! Isn't this the most awesome cake ever!?

A piece of the amazing rainbow cake! It tasted even better than it looked - which is hard to do since it looked so amazing!

Here is a picture one of the kids made for me! She wrote the words all by herself!

After the festivities were over and everyone went home, I set to work finishing up putting things away for the Summer. Which basically means I piled everything on the counter so that when the parents move the furniture to have the carpet & floors cleaned, nothing gets lost, damaged, etc.

Here is the counter with all of the materials piled neatly out of the way.

Of course, since it is the end of the year I had a *few* things to take home with me!

My pile of stuff to go home... Notice the beautiful flowers, cards, etc. in the front from my wonderful preschool families!

And, one of my wonderful families had this sign made for me! I am going to find a special place in my classroom to hang it!

I am going to keep it in the wrapper until next school year so that it stays clean, etc. I can't wait to hang it up!

I learned a lot this year - about Montessori, about how to make it work in a co-op setting, about how kids learn best, and about myself. Here are some things I learned this year:

* I learned that there really is no "wrong" way to "do" Montessori - as long as you are following the children.

* I learned that a child's ability to learn lies in the same place as their interests.

* I learned that "Montessori" is not about having certain materials, but about having materials that interest a child and bring about a child's natural drive and ability to learn.

* I learned that working individually with children brings about a greater understanding of each child's abilities and interests - something that is not possible when working with groups of children.

* I learned that children gain much more knowledge when they are given the opportunity to choose the work that interests them.

* I learned that children learn when they are ready to learn, no sooner!

* I learned the names of all of the geometric solids - and so did many of the kids!

* I learned that I have a LOT more to learn!

Well, those are my final thoughts for this school year! I am already starting to prepare for the 2012-2013 school year and will be posting new ideas I have, etc. on my blog throughout the Summer. I have some ideas for new practical life work for next year - inspired by my own Froggy Boots' current obsession with band-aides! And, I want to incorporate the "peace table" into my classroom next year, among other things. So, keep an eye out for my future posts!

I will also continue to keep you all updated on the transition to my new blog. I have decided on a name and am working on the new layout and trying to come up with a new header and button.

I am linking up with Montessori Monday via Living Montessori Now and Teach me Tuesday via Preschool Powol Packets!

A Special Guest!

2012-05-18T14:43:00.000-04:00

This week was our last week of preschool for the school year! I can't believe it went by so fast! For our last week, I was very excited to welcome one of my former preschool parents as a special guest. Her name is Keri Middaugh and, as I previously posted on my blog, she recently wrote her first children's book called My Detroit Garden! Below is a picture of her book:

Keri came to our school, read her new book to the kids, talked a little bit about books, and then did a seed planting activity with the kids! Below are some pictures of our time with Keri:

Reading My Detroit Garden!

Planting seeds!

Choosing seeds to plant!

Planting seeds

We had a great time! And, it was really neat that the kids had the chance to meet a real author!

If you would like to read more about Keri, please visit her blog at http://www.mykitchenmyvice.blogspot.com/. And, her book is available for purchase directly from the publisher at http://bookfieldcreativeminds.com/bookstore/my-detroit-garden/. It is a wonderful book that would make a great addition to any child's or teacher's library!

Today I am linking up with Homeschool Creations - Preschool Corner:

Field Trip to the Farm!

2012-05-16T14:34:00.004-04:00

Last week we took our final field trip of the year - to Domino's Farm! The kids had a blast! Here are some pictures from our trip:

We went on a hay ride!

Froggy Boots did not have school that day, so she came along for the trip too!

We saw cows...

and more cows...

and horses...

ans goats... and more cows!

We learned about many different farm animals, including rabbits...

chickens...

alpaca... and many more!

The kids had lots of questions!

And, they payed close attention to the lesson!

We even got to see a chicken fly! You can barely see the blur up near the rafters of the barn.

We spent some time looking at all or the other animals in the barn and outside the barn!

And fed the goats lots and lots of carrots!

And the bunnies too!

I really like the alpacas - they had sort of a "poodle" hair cut which was quite funny!

There were pigs too!

The kids really like the bunnies!

And the bunnies really like the kids!

There was also an albino peacock!

Check out those feathers!

We had a great time at the farm! And, it was a great end of the year field trip!

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably noticed something different about my photos this time - the addition of a water mark! I was lucky enough to be one of 20 winners in the Living Montessori Now Pearl Mountain Image Converter giveaway! So, I decided to give it a try! And, it worked great! I uploaded all the photos into the software, created the water mark, and the software put it on all of the photos all at once! I have not tried out any of the other features of the software yet, but I will soon!

I also wanted to give a heads up to all of my regular readers that I am making plans to create a new blog with a new name that is more descriptive of what I write about. In other words, the new blog will have the word Montessori in it somewhere. I may start a secondary blog to write about my family life, but that is not on the top of my list right now. For now I will just be focusing on getting my new Montessori based blog up and running. I am hoping that by making this change I will be able to draw more of an audience from the Montessori community as well as making my blog more attractive to advertisers with products related to Montessori and education. I'll give more details as I come closer to making the switch!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday via Living Montessori Now!

And Teach Me Tuesday via Preschool Powol Packets!

Growing Seeds and Squirmy Worms!

2012-05-09T14:23:00.001-04:00

As I promised last week, I am posting pictures of all of the seeds we have been planting and how they are growing. Most of the seeds we planted are growing, although some did not...

These are the seeds from our seed matching work and all of the different bean seeds I happened to have in the classroom. The 4's class kids were so excited about planting seeds that I had to keep trying to come up with more to plant!

Here are the grass seed characters we made in both classes:

And, here are the basil seeds we planted in the 4's class:

And, the lima bean seeds from both classes - some grew, some did not...

And, although I do not think they are growing, the worms in the worm farm have certainly been making trails... You can see where the dark soil has been "trailed" through the sand - that's where the worms have been traveling along!

That's it for today! Please check out my "Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans" FB page for more ideas for your classroom!

Mother's Day - Something special for mom!

2012-05-08T14:33:00.003-04:00

If you are a current parent of a child in my preschool class, please stop reading here! Below are photos of your Mother's Day gifts, which are supposed to be a surprise. After you have received your gift, feel free to return to my blog and continue reading this post!

Every year my preschool classes make special Mother's Day gifts for their moms! In the past, the 4's class has made a fingerprint flower card with a special poem on the inside. I meant to take a picture of the example I made, but forgot. But, basically you use one finger and a stamp pad to make a flower print on the front of a card with your finger and add a poem on the inside. Check out the poem I used here or in the Poems tab at the top of my blog.

This year, I wanted to try something a little different! A few years ago, when my step-daughter was 10 years old (she's 18 now), she attended a Vacation Bible School near our house (we lived in Westland then). One of the crafts they made was a vase of flowers. The flowers were made from wire and beads and the vase was made by re-using a small water bottle and covering it in fabric. Below is a picture of the vase of flowers my step-daughter made:

This is a close-up of the flowers.

So, this year, I decided to modify this project a little bit and use it as our Mother's Day gift! Instead of wire, we used green pipe cleaners to string the beads on. And, instead of a vase, I bought some pretty ribbon (4 different kinds to choose from) on clearance at Michael's to tie around the "flower." Each of the kids made 3 petals for their flowers. I then twisted the 3 pipe cleaners together and tied a ribbon around them in a bow to keep them together. The kids worked on these yesterday (Monday). Below is a picture of one of the kids stringing the beads on the pipe cleaner:

Here are some pictures of the completed flowers! Aren't they pretty!

I am also going to attach the same poem that I used in previous years for the fingerprint flower cards to the flowers for the kids to give to their moms for Mother's Day.

For the 3's class, we make a special hand print & poem for Mother's Day. I found this great poem (also under the Poems tab on the top of my blog) online many years ago and decided it would be great to use for Mother's Day! The poem is off-set to allow space for each child's hand print next to it. I use a fun patterned paper I found at Staples, print the poem on one of the printed papers for each child, mix up some pastel paint colors that match the colors in the paper, paint each child's hand, and press it onto the paper to leave a hand print. I tried to find the paper I bought at Staples on their website so I could post it here, but could not find it. Amazingly, I bought a package of 100 sheets about 6 years ago, finally used it all up last year, and was able to go there yesterday and find the EXACT same paper as I bought 6 years ago. I was surprised! I thought for sure I would need to pick out a new print...

Here is a picture of one of the hand print poems the kids did today:

I am going to laminate each hand print poem and send them home with the 3's class kids on Thursday. Thursday is field trip day and we are going to Domino's Farm!

I found some new blogs to link up to thanks to Homeschool Mo! So, I am linking up with:

Even More... From seeds to plants

2012-05-07T14:07:00.000-04:00

Before I begin my regular blog post, I wanted to share with you about a new children's book one of my former preschool parents has written about gardening in Detroit. I was lucky enough to get to take a sneak peak at it this morning before she even debuts it to the public! It is a wonderful children's book about a little girl who moves to Detroit and misses her garden at her old home, but finds a way to make a garden right in the city of Detroit! The authors' name is Keri Middaugh and the title of the book is My Detroit Garden. Keri has graciously allowed me to use the photo of her book from her blog, My Kitchen My Vice, so that you may see it here:

If you live in the greater Detroit area (specifically Ann Arbor, or Ypsilanti) and you would like to be one of the first to see her new book - and have a chance to buy it - Keri (and her book) will be at Lunasa Open House Market at the Washtenaw Food Hub on Tuesday, May 8th and the Mix Marketplace in downtown Ypsilanti on Saturday, May 12.

I am also excited that Keri will be visiting my preschool next week to read her new book to both my 3's and 4's class! She will also be sharing about the process of writing a book and doing a seed planting activity with the kids! I think the kids will be very excited to meet a real author!

So, after two weeks of our seeds and plants theme, I am discovering (like I do every year) that I need to start earlier next year so that we can dig deeper (so to speak) into this theme. After two weeks we still have not learned about the parts of a leaf or the parts of a flower - we have only learned about the parts of a seed, parts of a plant, and parts of a root. However, I can say that we have had lots of fun and that the kids have really enjoyed learning about seeds and plants! I guess that is the most important thing!

So, this week for our table project, we made a parts of a plant craft. We glued on the seed and the roots the first day (the seed to show where all the parts are coming from), the stem and branches the next day, and the leaves and flower the last day. Below are pictures of this project:

This is my example - we used a bean seed as our seed, yarn for the roots, tongue depressors for the stem, popsicle sticks for the branches, paper cut-outs for the leaves, and a black-line master shape for the flower.

Gluing on the roots

Gluing on the stem and branches

The kids did a really good job with these projects! Each one looked different, but still had all of the parts of a plant in the correct places!

During the last couple weeks, several of the kids have gone to the art table and drawn or painted pictures of plants. I am truly amazed at how much they have learned about the parts of a plant! Here are some pictures of their art work:

Of course, we also had lots of work on the shelves that was related to a seed/plant theme! Here are some pictures:

Scooping wooden flowers into plastic egg carton. This work actually has a little story behind it. The wooden flowers were on top of wooden stems which also had leaves on them. I bought them from The Scrap Box in Ann Arbor, which sells items from manufacturers, etc. that would normally be thrown away. You can find lots of amazing things there to use for crafts, etc! Anyways, these wooden flowers (with stem, and leaves) along with some purple wooden flowers were going to be used as a flower arranging work, but the flower tops and leaves would not stay connected to the stem. So, I just took the tops and made a scooping work instead!

This work is from the KidsSoup member area. The yellow pieces in the the center of the tray are the centers of flowers. In each other section of the tray are the petals of the flowers. You match the shape on the center piece to the shapes on the petal, put the shapes in order from largest to smallest around the center piece, and you have a flower!

This is also from the KidsSoup member area. The first flower on the page has all it's parts. But, every other flower is missing a part. You use the crayons to add the missing part of each flower.

This is from Preschool Creations free garden pack. There are addition problems using pictures of objects. I laminated each sheet, added a dry erase marker, and a rag so that each child can do the work and then erase it for another child to use.

This is Sunflower Ketchup Cup Math from Making Learning Fun.

These are Sunflower One-to-One Correspondence Math cards from Making Learning Fun.

These are word family flowers from the member area of KidsSoup. You put a flower on each stem and then find all of the leaves with pictures that rhyme with the picture on each flower.

These are all of the 3-part cards we have out right now - From left to right - recyclables, parts of a seed, parts of a plant, parts of a root. The parts of a plant and parts of a root cards are free from Montessori Materials. The parts of a seed cards are free from Montessori Workjobs. And, the recyclables cards are free from Living Montessori Now.

Sunflower Seed addition from Making Learning Fun

This is not seed/plant related, obviously! I was so excited to find some of those bath non-skid thingies with the suction cups on the bottom at a Mom 2 Mom sale a while back - for $0.25, I think! I added some marbles and a small scoop to scoop the marbles onto the suction cups!

Here are some pictures of the kids working:

Sunflower Ketchup Cup Math game

Scooping marbles into suction cups

Somebody got out all of the knobless cylinders at the same time... uh oh! Fortunately, a friend came a long to help sort them all back into their proper containers!

Hanging Bead Stair

Reading

Sunflower Seed additon

Garden addition with sandpaper numerals to help with writing numbers

Sunflower One-to-one Correspondence math mats

Mystery number

The kids discovered that in one of the books we read there was a hidden number on each page. Here is a picture of one of the kids (with an assist parent) finding the hidden numbers in the book!

Because of all the seeds we planted last week, we had lots of dirt accidents this week. In other words, there were containers of dirt all over the classroom with seeds planted in them and a few of them got knocked over. Oh, and there was the container of mustard seeds that one of the kids opened in order to smell them - we ended up with mustard seeds all over the place that time! So, I took advantage of the situation and gave a few practical life lessons on sweeping up dirt and seeds with a small broom and dustpan. Below are a couple pictures of the kids cleaning up their messes:

Ooops! Luckily baby food jars must be pretty strong, because we had several get knocked down and not one broke. Of course, this does not help my cause when I am explaining to the kids that when you drop glass in breaks...

Mustard seeds are really difficult to sweep up! And, even more difficult to pick up off the carpet!

Living Montessori Now is having yet another amazing giveaway! This one is for PearlMountian Image Converter Software! Check it out and enter every day to win one of 20 giveaways for this image conversion software!

So, that's it for today! We are winding down at my preschool - our last day of school is May 18th! I am still considering different ideas for what to blog about over the summer months. I will be spending some time at my daughters Montessori school before she is done at the beginning of June, so that is one idea. But, after that, I'm not sure yet. I'd like to stay Montessori-focused. I've thought of blogging about things I am going to add or change for next school year. But, finding pictures to go along with these posts will take a little more doing since I won't be able to take many of my own without the help of my preschool kids. We'll see what happens, I guess! I am open to any ideas that any of my readers have, so leave me a comment if you have ideas about what I can blog about this summer that will be still Montessori-focused!

I am linking up with Living Montessori Now for Montessori Monday!

More...From seeds to plants...

2012-05-01T14:28:00.001-04:00

Carrying on from my post yesterday... We had lots of other new work on the shelves last week. Below are some pictures of each of the works and the kids using them:

Seed sorting with tweezers

"Seed Packet Memory" from Making Learning Fun - can be used as a matching game as well.

April number tracing calendar from the "free printables" section at Child Care Land.

Spindle Boxes with kidney bean seeds for counting - numbers 0-4

Spindle Boxes with kidney bean seeds for counting - numbers 5-9

Counting box - numbers 1-10

Shape dominoes

Matching halves of shapes dominoes

Uppercase letter matching

Letter sound/object matching - Foam letters from alphabet puzzles to match with objects that begin with each letter.

My new pink reading scheme set-up!

Moveable alphabet with pink object boxes - The moveable alphabet is from the members area at Montessori For Learning.

Picture/word matching - These are free from Montessori Materials.

More picture/word matching - I made this and it is available for free download under the "Montessori Downloads" tab on the top of my blog.

Reading lists - I found these online for free a long time ago and can't remember where I found them... if you know where they are from, please let me know so I can give credit to the person who made them!

Spelling words - this is from the members area of Montessori For Learning

Picture/letter/word matching puzzles

Spindle Boxes with bean counters

Spelling words with the moveable alphabet

Reading word lists

Matching words to pictures

Spelling words

Mystery number...letters? The lids thought it was hilarious that I had letters for the mystery number!

Sorting seeds with tweezers

Two cylinder blocks together

Counting Box

Stamps

Well, that's it for this week! We are having so much fun learning about seeds! Come back and check out all of the fun we are having learning about plants this week in my posts next week!

From seeds to plants and everything in between...

2012-04-30T15:47:00.002-04:00

Last week we began our unit on seeds and plants -- my all time favorite unit of the whole school year! I am not yet following the Montessori Botany album, but instead am adapting the way I have taught this unit in the past to a more Montessori style!

I always start this unit off with the study of seeds, since that is where plants come from. Then, I move on to the parts of a plant, etc. So, last week was all about seeds - where seeds come from; the parts of a seed; what seeds need to grow, and how seeds grow. Next week we will begin learning about the parts of a plant.

Books we read this week:

The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons

How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan

First, we learned about where seeds come from. I made up a tray with 6 different fruits & vegetables on it. During circle time, I cut each fruit/veggie open so that the kids could see the seeds inside. We discussed that seeds come from plants and that each of these fruits and veggies grow on some sort of plant. Unfortunately, I missed taking a picture of the tray of fruits & veggies, but I'm sure you get the basic idea!

I also made a sorting/matching work from the free seed and plant matching cards from Montessori Print Shop. I added small plastic containers of each kind of seed depicted on the cards. The child lays out the small containers of seeds in a row at the top of his/her rug, then matches the seed picture cards, and finally matches the corresponding plant picture cards. Below is a picture of this work:

I also added magnifying glasses so the kids could have a closer look at the seeds.

After we learned about where seeds come from, we went on to learn about the parts of a seed. I used the free parts of a seed 3-part cards and "My Parts of a Seed Booklet" from Montessori Workjobs. I also soaked some lima bean seeds in water overnight so that I could open them up the next day to show the kids the parts of a seed. Again, I introduced these things during circle time. Below are pictures of these works:

Parts of a Seed 3-part cards with magnifying glasses and soaked lima beans. The kids could open up the lima beans to discover the parts of the seed inside!

"My Parts of a Seed Booklet"

One of the kids working on the seed booklet!

As we were learning about where seeds come from and the parts of a seed, we were busy doing the funnest part of all - actually planting seeds! We planted lots and lots of seeds! First, we planted grass seed using this fun idea from Mrs. Marcy's Preschool - scroll down her page until you see the silly faces on clear plastic cups. Yup, that's right, we planted grass seed in clear plastic cups, cut out funny faces, and stuck them to the front of the cups. Once the grass grows we will have funny faces with "hair!" Below are pictures of our grass seed projects:

I'll post updated pics once they start growing!

We also planted lima bean seeds in clear baby food jars. The kids filled the jars with dirt, stuck a finger down the side of the jar to make a hole for the seed (so we could watch the seed grow through the glass), put the seed in the hole, gave them some water, and put the jars on the windowsill. Below is a really bad picture of the jars by the window. My phone takes really bag pics when there is a lot of direct sun light.

Next, we planted each of the seeds from the seed sorting work I mentioned earlier in this post - in what else but a fish tank! This was an extra project for anyone who wanted to participate - and most of the kids wanted to get in on it! Below is a picture of the fish tank with the seeds planted inside:


From left to right - sunflower seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, pumpkin seed, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, and fennel seeds - I put a label with the same of each seed above where it was planted.

But, we didn't stop there! The kids were so excited about planting seeds in the fish tank that I brought out all of the kinds of bean seeds that I have and we planted each of those as well - on the other side of the fish tank! Below is a picture of the bean seeds planted in the fish tank:

From left to right - lima bean, black eyed pea, kidney bean, black bean, pinto bean, great northern bean - again, I labeled each one.

The last thing we planted were basil seeds. We planted these using peat pots and peat pellets instead of potting soil. The kids liked watching the peat pellets expand with water! Below is a picture of one of the kids planting the basil seeds:

The 3's class kids also did an additional project involving 20 night crawlers - yes, I mean those big worms used for fishing! We made a worm farm using a giant glass jar, potting soil, sand, and gavel. First, I put in a layer of gravel on the bottom of the jar. Then, the kids scooped in soil and sand in alternating layers. I then covered the jar with construction paper to block out the light so the worms would come right to the edge of the jar to make their trails in the dirt. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the worm farm before I covered it with paper to block out the light, but I didn't. I guess it's easy to miss stuff like that when you are in the middle of a bunch of excited kids! Finally, we added all 20 worms to the top of the jar. Below are some pics that I did manage to get during the process:

Picking up the squirmy worms to put in the jar!

Look at that pile of worms!

The finished product!

Waiting for those worms to dig their way down! It actually took them almost 24 hours to all go down into the dirt. And, yes, I was worried when I left school that they might escape and be squirming all over the classroom the next morning! But, they were not!

Well, that's it for today! I will post more later this week about our seeds and plants unit. For more fun ideas for your classroom, please check out my Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans Facebook page!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday via Living Montessori Now!

Earth Day: Part 3

2012-04-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

As usual, at least at my school, there is always work on the shelves that is not related in any way to the theme for the week. And, that is what I am going to post about today!

Pouring water with a funnel. I've also used a larger pitcher than I have in the past - but the kids were able to handle it very well, even the younger ones!

Spooning rice and pouring with a teacup.

Tweezing spring erasers.

Geometric solids sorting cards extension from Chasing Cheerios.

Counting jewels into plastic egg carton.

Earth Counting book using the free printable offered by Living Montessori Now.

Sorting spring erasers.

Here are some pics of the kids at work:

Tongs with plastic Easter eggs.

Mystery Number - - small plastic eggs.

Sorting spring erasers.

Adding book from Karen Tyler's class through World Wide Montessori Online with colored bead stair.

Drawing.

He came up with his own pink tower/brown stair extension!

Check out what one of my 4's class kids wrote all by herself! These are her clues for her show & tell.
It says, "It has pretty shoes. It have pretty clothes." I was totally blown away when her mom told me she had sounded out the words and written them all by herself!

Unfortunately, my supposedly "smart" phone neglected to upload most of my photos from last week automatically through Google + like it is set up to do. So, I only have a fraction of the photos as I normally do - which is why there are not very many photos of the kids at work in this post... oh well, it seems to be working again this week. So, hopefully next week I will have more photos to post again!

If you are interested, please check out my Facebook page - also called Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans. I have started posting links to the ideas I find online on my FB page. If you like what you see, please consider "liking" my page!

Earth Day: Part 1

2012-04-23T13:45:00.002-04:00

With Earth Day this past Sunday, our main focus last week was on tangible ways we can all help take care of our planet every day, not just on Earth Day. So, similar to what I have done in previous years, I brought out my reusable grocery bag containing everyday items we use and more earth-friendly alternatives. I wish I had thought to take a picture of this bag of goodies, but I did not.

Here is a list of what was inside:
* plastic baggie (ziploc type)... reusable plastic container
* paper lunch bag... reusable lunch box
* roll of paper towels... cloth dish towel
* plastic water bottle... reusable water bottle
* plastic grocery bag... reusable grocery bag
* traditional light bulb... florescent light bulb

After I presented each set of items, I reminded the kids about what happens to garbage that we throw away in a garbage can. In other words:
1) throw garbage in the garbage can
2) bring garbage can to the curb
3) garbage truck picks up garbage
4) garbage truck brings garbage to the garbage dump (pointing out that a garbage dump is on the earth)
5) garbage at the dump makes our earth dirty

Of course, the light bulbs were the one exception to all of the other items. In this case I explained to the kids that traditional light bulbs use lots of electricity. That electricity is made mainly from burning coal. And that burning coal puts lots of yucky stuff into the air we breath and makes our earth dirty. On the other hand, the florescent bulb uses much less electricity - which uses less coal and therefore does not make the air we breath and our earth as dirty as the traditional light bulb. And, as an added bonus, since florescent bulbs use less electricity, they also cost less to use!

In addition to our discussions of tangible ways we can help keep our earth clean, we also had some really cool earth-friendly projects! In the 4's class we made earth crayons out of old blue & green crayons. And, in the 3's class we made cookie cutter shapes out of recycled paper from a paper shredder and coffee filter earths.

4's Class: Recycled Earth Crayons:


First, the kids sorted out all of the green and blue crayons from the box of old crayons we had in the classroom. I set this up as a work for whoever wanted to participate.

Then, we soaked the crayons in water and peeled off the paper wrappers. We started this work inside, but the kids were so into it we brought it outside during our play time!

Next, the kids broke the crayons into small pieces and put them into a small muffin tin.

Here are the crayons in the muffin tin.


Then we put the muffin tin in my toaster oven at 250 degrees for about 20 minutes - we do not have access to an oven at our school...

Here are a few of the kids watching the crayons melt in the toaster oven!

Here are some of the finished Recycled Earth Crayons! I think they turned out pretty neat!

3's Class Recycled Paper Cookie Cutter Shapes:

We started with some shredded paper that my mom gave me from her office at work and soaked it in water. I made a flour and water paste, split the paste into four equal parts, added a different color food coloring (because the paper was almost all white) to each bowl of paste, and then mixed the paste with the wet, shredded paper.

The kids chose a cookie cutter shape and a color of the shredded paper and paste mixture. Then they pressed the shredded paper and paste mixture into the cookie cuter shape, removed the cookie cutter, and let the shape dry for a couple days on a piece of wax paper.

Here are some of the finished Recycled Paper Cookie Cutter Shapes! Pretty cute, huh!

Well, that's it for today! Keep an eye out for more posts this week about our Earth Day fun! And, for more great ideas, check out my Facebook page, also called Lesson Pans to Pots and Pans!

I'm linking up with Montessori Monday via Living Montessori Now!

Earth Day: Part 2

2012-04-22T20:04:00.001-04:00

We did so much for our Earth Day theme that I decided to break it up into more than one post! So, today I am going to focus on the new Earth Day related work that we had out this past week.

Reusing paper grocery bags to make woven paper placemats! I cut one of the long sides off of a paper grocery bag, folded it in half, and cut strips in the paper - stopping about an inch from the edge. I also had some scrap book paper that a previous parent gave me, so I cut that into strips that the kids could use to weave into the paper grocery bag.

This is recyclables sorting using the free 3-part recycle cards from Living Montessori Now!

Here are a couple of my kids sorting out the recyclables! They did it perfectly!

Recycle 3-part card work using the same recycle 3-part cards mentioned before from Living Montessori Now.

This is Paint Your Own Earth work from My Montessori Journey. You can download the earth printable for free! I was amazed at how well the kids did with painting within the lines and painting the land and water appropriately! And, so many of the kids wanted to try this work!

I will post Earth Day: Part 3 later this week! Please check out my Facebook page -- also called Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans -- for more fun ideas! And, if you like what you see, please consider "liking" my page!

Catching Up: Spring is in the Air!

2012-04-17T16:10:00.000-04:00

Last week I posted about the new Montessori inspired spring work we did. But, since I posted mid-week, I was only able to write about some of the things we were doing. Now that I have been able to consistently post at least once a week, I need to get into more of a consistent pattern of posting - in other words, either posting about previous work or future work, not in between. And, since I am not all that great at planning far in advance for my units, I think posting previous work will work best for me at this point in time.

So, this week will be a catch-up week!

"Spring Rain" project - the 3's class kids drew pictures of themselves and then added rain drops using blue paint and their fingertips.

4's Class playing "Duck, Duck, Goose" on the lawn!

4's Class kids sorting out green and blue crayons for an Earth Day project. I will post about this project in my next blog post!

Practicing writing some words (and names)!

Practicing writing letters! I am amazed how much the kids like these letter practice sheets! These are from Making Learning Fun.

Working with the geometric solids extension cards from Maybe Montessori!

That's it for now! Check out my facebook page at Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans for more ideas to use in your classroom!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now.

April Showers Bring May Flowers!

2012-04-11T15:41:00.000-04:00

Well, we are back from Spring break and definitely feeling Spring Fever! All the kids want to do is get outside and play, so I have been really trying to take them outside any day that weather permits.

This weeks theme, appropriately, is "Spring." We are learning about the seasonal changes that tell us it is Spring. I am not adding a lot of new work this week since I just added a bunch before Spring Break. But, here is what is new this week:

"Spring" emergent reader from Making Learning Fun.

"Umbrella Alphabet Match Book" from the free printables section at Child Care Land.

Mystery Number! This is an idea I got from Froggy Boots' school. Inside the change purse is a number of the same object for the kids to count. Once they have counted the objects, they write their name and the numeral on a strip of white paper from the white basket. They then fold the strip of paper and put it into a round basket on the shelf. During the last circle time, I pull out all the strips of paper and we see if everyone counted correctly!

These are 3-part cards for the geometric solids that I found for free at Maybe Montessori. I do not have them set up as 3-part cards since my kids have not really been to interested in those this year. These are in a basket to be used to match to the geometric solids. I am also going to be adding geometric solids sorting cards from Chasing Cheerios later this week.

Color bird/color word matching from the free printables section at Child Care Land. The kids have really been interested in this work!

I am a little behind on switching out the sensory table this month - better late than never! This is all different kinds of pasta along with scoops, shovels, a measuring cup, 3 different sized Easter eggs, plastic Easter bunnies, and egg dying cups.

Here is our bookshelf this week. I always rotate books for each theme - current theme books on top and last theme books on the bottom. You can see the Spring theme books on the top and the color theme books on the bottom.

There is another amazing giveaway going on over at Living Montessori Now! Montessori Print Shop is giving away 2 grand prizes of 1122 Montessori printable materials. That's all the Montessori Print Shop PDF files! There is also a second prize - a $100.00 Montessori Print Shop in-store coupon!

That's it for this week! Only 5 1/2 weeks left of school for us and then Summer break begins! I can't believe the year is almost over already!

I am linking up with Living Montessori Now for Montessori Monday:

Working with Easter

2012-04-02T10:02:00.000-04:00

The week before Easter is Spring break for my preschool, so we are not going to have an official "Easter" theme this year. So, during our last week before Spring break, while we were finishing our unit on colors, I pulled out a bunch of fun Easter themed work as well. Easter is so colorful, I thought it would go right along with our color theme anyways!

Here is what we were busy doing last week:

Montessori color box 3 from Kid Advance Montessori

The 4's class kids made a color book - the pages in the book are the same as the ones I have shown here. Each day we mixed different colors together - the first 3 days we mixed primary colors to make secondary colors and the last 2 days we mixed white with a color and black with a color to see what would happen.

Tonging Easter eggs

Pouring jewels

Easter egg dipper transerring

Spooning small plastic eggs. The challenge with this work is to only pick up one egg at a time.

This is one of those little travel games. I bought 2 sets so that there were enough bunnies to put one in each hole. The kids really like this work!

Tweezing cotton balls

Playdough with small Easter cookie cutters, rollers, and plastic knife.

Playdough with large Easter cookie cutters, rollers, and plastic knife.

Easter basket color word match from Making Learning Fun

Spring-themed gluing work - pastel paper squares, small paper umbrella punch-outs, small yellow pon-poms, star beads, buttons, medium pastel pon-poms.

Object/letter match - each egg has an uppercase/lowercase letter on it -- child matches the object that starts with each letter to the correct egg.

Uppercase/lowercase letter match - one basket has half jelly bean eggs with lowercase letters, the other has half jellybean eggs with uppercase letters. The child must match the two sides of each egg together.

Patterned egg sorting -- these eggs have very intricate patterns on them. This work is a bit more challenging than just sorting colors.

Close-up of the patterned eggs for sorting.

Counting Easter erasers. There are ten small baskets (for coloring eggs), each with a number 1 through 10 on it. The Easter erasers correspond to each basket by color.

I happened to find these Melissa and Doug lacing beads at a thrift store recently, so I decided to make them into a number order work. I pulled out just the number beads and put them with the lacing string. The kids put the numbers on the string from 1 to 10.

Color themed books on the bookshelf.

Here are some pics of the kids at work:

Pink Tower with number extension cards from Montessori Mom.

Happy Easter!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now!

Primarily Colors

2012-03-26T15:09:00.001-04:00

After our Rainbow and St. Patrick's Day themes I decided to move right into a closer look at primary and secondary colors. This also gave me an opportunity to bring out Montessori color boxes 2 and 3 that I recently purchased from Kid Advance Montessori -- where I have ordered all of my traditional materials so far.

We started by learning about the primary colors -- red, yellow, and blue. I pulled out a bunch of craft supplies in those three colors and the kids made primary color collages as their art project for the day. I also introduced color box 2 during circle time -- showing the kids how to match the colors. And, I did a presentation on color box 3 - grading colors from darkest to lightest - with the primary colors only at this point.

Below are a couple pictures of one of the kids working with color box 2. You can see from the pictures that he was very engaged in his work!

After we learned about the primary colors, we moved on to the secondary colors - orange, green, and purple. I deliberately taught them in the order they come in the rainbow. This way I can show the kids that each secondary color is in between the primary colors that make it in the rainbow -- something I had never noticed until I read it somewhere recently!

Here are some pictures of a couple more "color" works that I added last week. I didn't add a lot of new work last week because some many of the rainbow works were also relevant to color. And, the kids were still working their way through what I added the previous week.

These are "Mouse's Color Word Puzzles" from Making Learning Fun.

Sorting spools of thread by color. The spools of thread have varying grades of each color so that it is a little bit more challenging than just sorting spools that are all exactly the same colors.

Last week we also started the geometric solids -- the kids are especially intrigued with the names of the solids! Remembering all those names is definitely a challenge!

Here are some pictures of the kids working with the solids:

I was so excited to see that this weeks Montessori Monday link up post was about the geometric solids! Check it out for some great extension ideas!

Along with the geometric solids, we are also beginning to learn the names of the shapes in the geometric cabinet -- three shapes at a time. I also found some great shape matching cards tucked away in one of my cabinets that work really nicely as another shape work to have out in addition to the geometric cabinet shapes.

Here are some pictures of the kids using the shape matching cards. The really neat thing about these cards is that after you match the two sides of each shape, you can flip it over and there is colorful picture on the other side! Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the cards once they are flipped over. But, suffice it to say that the kids really like the pictures on the flip side of the cards!

Here are some additional pictures of the kids working with some other materials that are not new to the shelves this week:

Addition with golden beads!

Wooden letter/picture matching puzzles.

Teen bead hanger.

Bead stair hanger.

Red Knobless cylinders.

Last week was such an unusually warm spring week for Michigan -- so I took advantage and brought the kids outside almost every day! Here are some pictures of our time outside:

Conspiring by one of the trees!

We had a dad assisting in the classroom on this particular day -- he got all the boys riled up and they were all wrestling him to the ground!

These boys gave him a run for his money! Well, assist parents don't get paid, but you get the idea...

If you have noticed that most of the pictures I take are of boys, please do not think that I am favoring boys over girls! I have an unusually high ratio of boys to girls -- especially in my 4's class. There are 13 boys and only 4 girls in that class -- so it is very difficult to have an even number of pictures of boys and girls.

I would also like to share an awesome giveaway opportunity offered by Living Montessori Now and sponsored by Montessori Compass. Montessori Compass is giving away one free iPad 2! Click on the Living Montessori Now link above to find out the MANY ways to enter this giveaway!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now:

At the End of the Rainbow

2012-03-21T16:06:00.000-04:00

Last week was a crazy week for me, so I did not get to post about the Rainbow and St. Patrick's Day work we did at school. My daughter, Froggy Boots, was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia on Monday afternoon and was not released until late Wednesday morning. I ended up having to cancel school on Tuesday and Wednesday so that I could stay with Froggy Boots in the hospital.

Despite canceling school one day for each class, we still managed to fit in lots of rainbow and St. Patrick's Day themed work. Below are some pictures of the new work on the shelves last week:

Leprechaun hundred board extension from Lil' Country Kindergarten

Roll, Count, and Color Shamrocks to find the pot of gold from www.kidssoup.com in the members area.

Lucky Charms graphing from 2 Teaching Mommies

Make a rainbow book from "The Learning Center, Inc. Preschool/Kindergarten"

Inside the rainbow book - color one color of the rainbow on each page.

Inside the rainbow book - on the last page, color the whole rainbow!

Mini Do-A-Dot rainbow marker page from Making Learning Fun

Fruit Loop rainbow from Making Learning Fun

Spooning plastic clovers from Michael's

Tweezing rainbow erasers from Target dollar section

Rainbow color discover bottles - if put on top of the light box, the colors shine!

For our art project this week we made Jello Scented Rainbows from Making Learning Fun. This is a project I only do with my 4-year-old class because it requires a lot of following directions and fine motor skills.

Below are some other non rainbow or St. Patrick's Day related works that were new on the shelves last week:

Using a tiny screwdriver to put screws into a piece of wood. One of my preschool Dad's made this for me! Isn't is neat!

Pouring water into three small cups.

On the school day before St. Patrick's Day the leprechauns came and made a mess in our classroom. But, in return they left us a note and a special golden treat at the end of the rainbow - we had to clean up the mess they made and then go on a hunt for each color of the rainbow - at the end there were golden chocolate kisses for each of the kids! It was a fun time!

Rainbow Blog Hop

I am linking up with Living Montessori Now for Montessori Monday:

Embracing Tradition: Traditional Montessori Work

2012-03-19T14:31:00.000-04:00

I have posted a lot lately about some of the more progressive work we have been up to in my classroom -- in other words, work made from non-traditional Montessori materials. I have been wanting to post about our work with the traditional Montessori materials for a while now, but just have not had a chance. So, here goes...

Sensorial Work:

It has been interesting to see the kids interests change in this area of the classroom. There are some days when very few sensorial materials are used and yet others when there is not enough room on the area rug by the sensorial shelf for all of the kids who want to work in this area. Here are just a few of my most recent pictures of the kids work with the traditional Montessori sensorial materials:

Pink Tower & Brown Stair extension work.

Cylinder Blocks - using all 4 together!

Geometric Solids - exploration after first presentation.

Knobless Cylinder blocks with extension cards from Montessori Print Shop

Geometric Cabinet - circles

Math Work:

Not unlike most Montessori classrooms, I have kids working are varying levels with math materials. Some kids are still mastering counting and numbers 0-10, some are working with teens, some are working with tens, some are working on addition, some are working with the hundred board, and a couple are even working with the golden bead material (thousands). These are my most recent photos of what the kids have been up to - not all levels of ability are shown in these photos.


Addition with bead stairs, addition booklets from Karen Tyler's albums, and sandpaper numbers (to help with numeral formation).

Teen Bead Boards

Teen Beads with extension from Montessori Print Shop

Bead Stair extension from Montessori Print Shop

Language/Writing Work:

Other than kids reading and looking at books, there has not been a whole lot of activity in the language/writing area of the classroom lately -- most of the kids have been focusing on other areas of the classroom. I recently ordered two of the inset tracing trays as well as the proper size paper and paper tray. Here is a picture of one of the kids using the insets for design with one of the new tracing trays and proper size paper:

Insets for Design

I am linking up with Living Montessori Now for Montessori Monday:

Seuss, Seuss, and more Seuss

2012-03-09T15:30:00.000-05:00

I was a little behind with my Dr. Seuss unit this year... Last week our theme was "Night Time," which I did not realize was during the same week as Dr. Seuss' birthday. So, I decided to play a little catch-up and do a Dr. Seuss theme this week. Better late than never!

Here are pictures of the new Dr. Seuss work I put on the shelves this week:

Cat in the Hat picture/letter match from Making Learning Fun. Find the hat with the picture that begins with the same letter as is on each cat card.

1 Fish, 2 Fish counting with goldfish crackers from obSEUSSed. Count the correct number of goldfish into each bowl.

1 Fish, 2 Fish addition with goldfish crackers from Dual Kinder Teacher. Check out Living Montessori Now for ideas on how to use these printables.

Goldfish color graph from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas. Using the "color" goldfish, sort on the graph by color and then color in the graph.

Finish drawing The Cat in the Hat from Making Learning Fun.

The Cat in the Hat shape match from Making Learning Fun. Match the shape on each oval to the shape on each cat's hat.

Here are some pictures of the kids using the new work. (I figured out that if I take pictures of the kids from behind, their faces are not showing, so I don't have to worry about blocking them out!)

Goldfish color graph.

1 Fish, 2 Fish goldfish counting.

The Cat in the Hat shape match.

1 Fish, 2 Fish addition.

I wasn't able to get pictures of the kids doing all of the new work, but at least I got a few! They all really liked the work that involved real goldfish crackers since they got to take them home after they did the work! It's funny, I really feel like I am getting to know what kind of work the kids will be interested in now!

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now.

Going to school!

2012-02-21T14:54:00.000-05:00

After months of searching for a Montessori school for Froggy Boots to attend, (that was able to work within our budget) I finally found Doughty Montessori School! The school is in an old train station near downtown Ann Arbor -- complete with a real red caboose on the playground for the kids to play in! I wish I had a picture of the caboose to share, but I don't. Maybe in the future I will think to take a picture and post it.

The school accepts children from age 2 1/2 to 6 years old within traditional Montessori multi-age classrooms. And, yes, this means that the 2 1/2 year old's are in the the same classrooms as the 6 year old's! But, many of you probably already know that.

So, Froggy Boots turned 2 1/2 in December and was able to start at Doughty at the beginning of January, after the winter break. She has been doing really well, except for the actual getting ready and going to school part. After she gets in the door at school, she is fine. The separation from Dad (who drops her off) is a little rough still -- but getting better.

This week my school is closed for mid-winter break, so I decided to spend the week with Froggy Boots at her school! Parents are always welcome at Doughty, unlike some other Montessori schools. Today was my first day at school with her! Yesterday the school was closed for Presidents Day. Needless to say, since Froggy Boots knew I was going to school with her, she had no separation issues this morning.

My husband dropped us off at the school so that I did not have to deal with trying to park in downtown Ann Arbor. Thank goodness for that, because when we got there at 9am, there was no parking left close to the school.

Froggy Boots was so excited to be there with me! And, I was really excited to be there as well! Surprisingly, though, I was actually a little nervous at first. I guess I was surprised that I was nervous because I teach at my own school every day already. But, I guess it was just because it was a different school that I am not used to yet.

I couldn't wait to see what kind of work Froggy Boots was going to do! However, today the teachers decided to take the kids outside first because the snow was going to be turning to rain later in the day and they wanted to make sure the kids got outside. So, I had to wait a little bit to see her working. But, we did have fun out on the playground! We even ventured into the caboose!

Once we got back inside, we got right to work! Here are some pictures of the work Froggy Boots did today:

She started out in the Math area doing several counting works:

Numbers and jewel counters. The control of error was the color of each number and matching jewel counters. So, for example, there were 5 pink jewels for the pink number 5.

The bead stair hanger. We worked on this one together. But, she seemed to get the idea!

These are egg shaped number puzzles. The control of error is in the different way each egg is cut apart. The numeral is on the bottom half of each egg and there is a corresponding number of dots on the top portion.

Froggy Boots took a break from the math work to try out some animal matching puzzles. They were to easy for her, so she stopped after the first three matches and moved on to something else. She did have fun making animal noises for the pig and the cow, though!

And then she moved on to some Sensorial work:


She did the pink tower (cubes) first.

And then added the brown stairs!

For her final work, she did some wet pouring:

As you can see from the wet table, there was a little over pouring that happened before she got the hang of it. But, after the initial spill, she really did an amazing job pouring the water!

Not only did I get to see Froggy Boots do lots of wonderful work today, I also learned that she can put her coat on all by herself! Recently she had been coming home, taking off her coat, hanging it up, and then taking off her boots all by herself. But, I had no idea she could put her coat on all by herself! She's not zipping it up yet, but she can zip other things, so that will not be to far off I don't think.

It was a great morning at school! And, I get to go again tomorrow!

On Valentine's, a special day...

2012-02-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

Despite many efforts to update my blog weekly, I have not succeeded. I would love to one day do daily posts, but I need to conquer the weekly updates first! Enough about that!

The month of February has very few actual school days for my preschool classroom. Between parent/teacher conferences and a week long mid-winter break, we really only have just over 2 weeks of school. So, that makes my job easier as far as coming up with themes. For the month of February we focus mainly on Valentine's Day -- with the addition of a short theme on pets after Valentine's Day and ending the month with a theme about night time.

Below are photos of Valentine's Day related work:

Practical Life Work:


Heart lacing

I found this awesome Valentine's Day tree and heart ornaments at Target in the dollar section! The kids hang the heart ornaments on the tree. This has been a big hit with the boys and the girls!

Valentine's Day flower arranging.

Putting pennies into a piggy bank. I found the Valentine's Day piggy bank at Kroger grocery store!

Spooning plastic hearts into an ice cube tray with heart shaped ice molds.

Tweezing plastic hearts into a Valentine's candy box.

Sensorial Work:

Sensory table with rice. For Valentine's Day I added fake rose petals from the Dollar Store, plastic hearts from the Target Dollar section, plastic X's and O's from the Target dollar section, heart shaped pasta from World Market, and strips of soft red fabric I just happened to have saved from something else. The kids love the sensory table!

Here is a close-up of the inside of the sensory table.

This is a pattern block heart from Making Learning Fun.

This is a heart shape puzzle from Making Learning Fun.


This is a light box (for looking at x-rays at a doctors office) with clear colored magna tiles -- not Valentine's Day related, but the kids love it! The picture looks like it was taken in the dark, but it wasn't...

Art Work:

Homemade heart stamps. I used foam hearts and glued them to film canisters and these other clear plastic containers I had in my cupboard.

Heart shaped pasta

Cut-out paper hearts

Sticky-back foam hearts left over from another project

Valentine's Day stickers

All of these items are out on the shelf as free art materials to be used as the children wish.

Math Work:

Counting hearts into a Valentine's candy box. There is a different number in each space -- the numbers are not in order. The child counts the correct number of hearts into each space.

Number order puzzle (numbers 1-10) from 2 Teaching Mommies

Number order puzzle (numbers 11-20) from 2 Teaching Mommies

Hundred Board Heart extension activity from Lil Country Kindergarten

Sweethearts graphing from 2 Teaching Mommies (of course, this was a hit because the kids could bring the candy home after they graphed it)

Heart number matching cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler with plastic heart counters from the Target dollar section.

Adding Kisses addition cards from Making Learning Fun. I took the cards out so that you could see them. But, they are normally inside the heart basket.

Conversation Heart count cards from Making Learning Fun. Again, the cards are normally kept inside the heart basket.

Language Work:

Heart alphabet matching (upper to lower case) from www.prekinders.com

Valentine's beginning sound clip cards. Unfortunately, I do not remember where I found these. If you happen to know where these are from, please let me know so that I can give credit to the person who made them.

"Hearts Everywhere" interactive book from Chepel Hill Snippets

Valentine's Songs:

H-E-A-R-T
(to the tune of BINGO)

On Valentine's, a special day, I give each friend a heart.
H-E-A-R-T
H-E-A-R-T
H-E-A-R-T
I give each friend a heart!

Love Somebody

Love somebody, yes we do.
Love somebody, yes we do.
Love somebody, yes we do.
We love ______________. (fill in child's name)

I am linking up with Montessori Monday through Living Montessori Now: