If you've read this blog for long, you know that I like to vary my activities according to the seasons. This provides continuing points of interest for the children and can help them be drawn into "visiting" some favorite activities that they may not have worked with for a while.
This is my winter variation of the bead bouquet activity that I wrote about in November. I changed out the pipecleaners to white and blue and added white, blue and clear beads.
This photo shows a bead structure made by my oldest son. NOTE: The fluted blue glass bowl holding the beads was changed to the silver bowl shown in the previous photo because when my son went to put the work away, the blue bowl easily tipped and spilled all the beads. If that happened when my careful 7-year-old did this work, I could only imagine the many times it would happen with 3-year-olds, so I switched out the bowl for a shorter and more stable one.
My students LOVE all the variations of bead-stringing that I put out. For my "winter" variation, I used the same tray I had out in December. However, for December I used red and white beads, and for January I'm only using white. I also switched to a blue speckled metal bowl to hold the beads and changed the string from red to blue.
Wow! I love this winter theme! I need to take your ideas to my classroom!
Posted by: Valerie | December 31, 2008 at 11:53 PM
I am making baby steps toward incorporating some Montessori into our homeschool (particularly for my 5-year-old). I am loving these ideas! Thank you.
Posted by: Miranda | December 30, 2008 at 01:28 PM