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Anyone interested in a preschool montessori group/check in?


Runningmom80
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I am as well. I just bought montessori at home for ideas for my K'er and I am using some activities from montessori from the start with the baby (obviously it isn't school but just stimulating him with sensory activities and fun stuff).

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http://pinterest.com/walkingiris/ I have montessori inspired activities posted throughout my Pin boards.

 

Also I just found and printed and now need to laminate some activities from here

 

I also have the Practical Life Album from here. http://khtmontessori.com/shop/ I don't do a lot of the Sensorial activities unless I can make them myself. So I just use nesting eeboo blocks rather than an expensive Pink Tower and I don't have any knobbed or knobless cylinders. But a lot of the other sensory stuff I adapt.

 

Since I have older kids as well I made some bead bars from wire and pony beads and a friend quilted a multiplication checkerboard for me. http://keithgeorgefamily.blogspot.com/2011/12/montessori-checkerboard-multiplication.html

 

I'm trying to sew a Black Strip but running out of fabric and now I'm thinking it would be just as easy to just buy it. :glare: I really want to do The Great Lesson stories. This also looks like a ton of fun. http://www.thegreatstory.org/great_story_beads.html

 

I'm trying to find some inexpensive science related timelines. Basically in a home environment I find I have to sort of pick and choose what Mont elements work for us. My kids love rolling out the placemats to do their manipulatives work. And I'm trying to figure out how to use a Montessori inspired daily routine without it regressing into unschooling....still working that one out.

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I'm in! For those doing it now, what are you up to?

 

Math: The wee'un (3yo) is interested in numbers/value right now but has moved through his spindle box. He's currently rotating through the brown stair, pink tower, MUS blocks, and c-rods. We don't keep beads in the house because he's my take-aparter. My next manipulative to make is the tens/teens boards, as he becomes more familiar with the names, i.e. two-tens-one = 21. It's amazing how much my language has changed between the oldest and the wee'un. With the oldest, I would say "this is..." With the 3yo, I now say "this counts..." to help him make sense of the different numbers.

 

Language arts: not much on the front here. He was interested in letters until he knew all the sounds, but the logic isn't developed enough to put them together and so he has quit for a while. I did find him matching a 3part card of 'cat' to the tactile letters we have, sort of. 'atc' LOL He's getting there, but I think it'll be quite a while before he gets interested in letters again like he was before.

 

Motor skills: I've tried to have a rotating set of activities for him to go through: playdough, bubbles, large and small nuts and bolts, paint....he likes the tools the most. This weekend I'm going downtown for some never-dry clay to fill up an old box. That way he can pound golf tees in with his little hammer.

 

Science - this month has been all about the bugs! We turned over stones to watch ants, he went to a butterfly house, we watch the birds picking at the grass every morning. We go camping in a week and I'm going to bet he'll have a blast.

 

Practical life: along with bugs comes plants, and the plants mean gardening! A small rake and shovel is perfect for little jobs, and his dump truck has become a wee wheelbarrow. My neighbor made a watering can for him out of a Downy bottle, too. We're also working on getting dressed all by ourselves. Some days are a yes, some days are still a no, but everything in his wardrobe this year is made for little fingers to do easily. He's also been learning little tricks, like laying his jacket on the ground upside-down so he could put his arms in and flip it over his head. I painted smiley faces on all his shoes - one eye and half a mouth on the instep of each one - so that he can see if they're on right or correct if they're not.

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For math we integrate some Mont elements into our regular math curriculum. My oldest has been doing some multiplication activities with the bead bars and checkerboard. My Kinder and dd count the beads and set up bead stairs, They also play with c-rods. My little ones also do the early maths activities with the number rods. (I handmade these from strong cardstock and painted the red/blue pattern). My dd is learning to count while manipulating the c-rods, number rods, and bead bars. She's not quite at the place to identify numerals yet. My Kinder can use these for adding, subtracting and place value. I want to make a type of geometry cabinet soon. And I would love any ideas how to make a racks and tubes for division!

 

For language arts my dd uses the sandpaper letters and also the HWT wooden letters. My Kinder is beyond that level. I haven't really decided if I want to do Montessori grammar or reading elements. There are other things I like better. I use OPGTR but thinking of switching to WRTR. For a "moveable" alphabet we use phonics tiles and a Banagrams game ;) I want some magnetic letters similar to AAS but I don't have a good place for a magnetic white board in my home.

 

Practical Life and Sensorial--I do all the self care activities with our regular home routine and environment. I don't set up a activity for handwashing or tooth brushing etc. We just work on it in the context of being at home. I do set up practical life style busy bags or baskets for her. Using tongs with pom poms, and stringing beads and sorting colors and I've used free paint samples to set up a color matching activity. We have a board with different grains of sandpaper. and I've recycled vitamin bottles and covered in pretty paper to fill with beans and small pebbles etc for sound matching. I've recycled glass jars from the kitchen for practice putting on tops. She has a tub full of mixed beans and rice that she plays with to pour and scoop etc. She also practices sweeping up any spills and putting them back in the tub. She loves to roll out the placemat before she starts and then put it away. :)

 

Science is just nature study and playing with loupes and reading and watching some docs for my little ones. My dd doe slike to put together a layered human body puzzle. I plan to add more science hands on from the Montessori For Everyone website. She also does activities from Mudpies to Magnets. She also plays the games using Childsized Masterpieces art cards.

 

My dh built 6 cubby open bookshelf for her. It's her "school" and I rotate activities on it every two weeks or so. So most of the time she's pulling down things I have on the trays or sitting on the shelf and doing the activity on her own. I've noticed that about 2 weeks is the max time that things on the shelf start to get ignored.

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I will be checking out all resources named here with interest. My son Jr. will be born in the Summer/Fall and I am interested in giving him a good Montessori start. His aunt runs a Montessori day-care program in her home and she is also helping me establish a Montessori program for him at home. It will be about a year or two before he's ready for the Toddler things, but I really think Jr. will benefit from the infant and baby program.

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For those of you using the Montessori At Home book. Can you describe how you break down the activities in your day? I also have the Montessori Print Shop print outs that I plan on laminating. Can you tell how you organize them and the sequence? I need to just print the book for easier reading. And how do you utilize all the links to other websites in it?

 

Yesterday was a good day with my dd. She did our version of the Pink Tower. We use a set of eeboo nesting blocks. She usually just randomly plays with them, but yesterday she set them out horizontally and made steps and then set them up as a tower and then nested them back together. She had some intense concentration. I could tell she was working and not just playing with them as she has before. Then she got out her shape lacing cards with insets and carefully placed them together and said to herself "a red octagon, a blue circle," and so on while running her finger over the labels that say the color and shape name.

 

My older boys did these same activities, but the major difference is how I present them. Having materials displayed for her to self select seems to make the difference in her use of them vs the way my boys used them. My Kinder got out the shape cards and worked on sewing lacing.

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