My Montessori Journey

Christmas Transfer Activities

Here are a few Christmas-oriented transfer activities that I put together this weekend.  The first one is made of a red Christmas tree ice cube tray I found for $1 at my local thrift store.  I didn't have enough green sparkly pom-poms to fill the whole thing so I decided to make it a sorting activity as well by placing 5 sparkly balls and 5 green rubber porcupine balls in the white dish.  All the children who did this work this morning naturally divided the two types of balls by placing them on either side of the tray.

Since I had a bunch of the sparkly pom-poms I took 12 and placed them in the center of a plastic deviled egg tray that I had.  The children use the tweezers to place the balls into the egg compartments.  It kind of looks like a wreath when finished.

 
 
 

"give thanks" pillow

I am cross-referencing a lot between my two blogs this week.  I just wanted to provide a link to a project I just posted on my personal blog.  It isn't something you would necessarily do in a classroom setting, but if any of you are getting together with loved ones for the Thanksgiving holiday it would be a fun project to do using the handprints of everyone who gathered together.  Also a great idea for Christmas.  If you're interested in learning more about the "give thanks" pillow, click here.

Thanksgiving Story Bracelets

Hello, everyone!  I'm back!  I am done with all my conferences and am ready to tackle doing some posts again.  Thanks so much for all your kind and supportive comments and emails.  I truly do appreciate them.  I try my best to answer your questions, but if I haven't answered you and it's been a while, please write again and I'll try harder!

Today I am writing about a story retelling project we did in class today.  I have been reading the book The Pilgrim's First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern and Elroy Freem in sections over the past few weeks.  It's one of the best books I've found for young children about the first Thanksgiving.  You can purchase your own copy here.  It's a must-have for every family, in my opinion.  After hearing and discussing this book, my preschoolers have a pretty good understanding of the sequence of events.

As a culminating activity I decided to have the children make story retelling bracelets.  I can't remember where I first read about this idea.......it was definitely on another teacher's blog.  I did it with my kindergarten and first graders a few years ago when I taught in public school.  Anyway.....today we did this activity as a whole group in my Montessori preschool classroom.  I had thought about setting it up as an individual activity but decided that the children would gain more from it if we did it as a group.  As we sat on our line my assistant passed out a brown pipe cleaner to each child.  Ahead of time we had bent one end up about an inch so the beads wouldn't fall off.  I had also placed the various colors of beads into large cups ahead of time. I explained to the children that they were going to make bracelets to help them go home and tell the story of the first Thanksgiving to their families.  Using the book I went through the sequence of events and explained the purpose of each bead.  After we discussed each part I passed the appropriate cup of beads around the circle and each child took their bead(s) and placed them onto their pipe cleaner.  When everyone had all their beads sequenced in order my assistant and I went around and formed them into bracelets.

Each child took home the note shown below to help their parents understand what we did.  If you are interested you may download a copy of the note here.

Download Thanksgiving Story Bracelet

A little break

I'm just checking in to say that I'll be taking a little blog break for a week or so.  This Friday I have 21 parent-teacher conferences to prepare for and then another 16 each night on the 19th and 20th.  That's 53 in all.  Yep, that's a lot.  So that's what I'll be focusing on.  In the meantime, thanks so much for reading my little postings over here.  I don't obsessively check my stats like I did when I started the blog, but with the new Typepad set-up I can easily check them at a glance every time I sign on.  It's amazing to me that this little blog averages nearly 1000 page views per day.  That's a lot.  So thanks for writing to me and for reading.  I truly do appreciate it.  I'll be back soon!  Until then, take care........

Textured Turkey Art Project

This week I put out a seasonal art project on my art shelf.  I had purchased these texture rubbing plates from Let's Explore over a year ago but had yet to use them in the classroom.  I found a printed turkey that was fairly simple and made several copies of it.  I placed the copies on a tray on the art shelf.  Right next to the tray of turkey papers I placed the tray you see below which holds four of the texture plates and a box of crayons.  To do this project the child takes one turkey paper and the red tray to a table.  They place the texture plate with the textured side up and then place the turkey outline on top.  Using a crayon they fill in an area of the turkey with color.  This work is so good for strengthening the little muscles in the fingers.  Rubbing a crayon across a textured surface creates more resistance or "drag" than just drawing on a piece of paper on a smooth surface.  This makes it an excellent activity for developing fine motor skills.  I have been so pleased with how popular this work has been in the classroom.  It has been chosen by some of my younger children who typically do not choose this type of work.  In addition to improving fine motor skills, this activity requires sustained concentration and attention to detail.

Here is just one of many examples of the turkeys that have been created this week.

 

Salt Shaker Sculptures

This week I've put out a fall variation of an activity that I first saw on Anne's Itty Bitty Love blog last year.  This is very simple to set up and very appealing to young children.  I used a dollar store salt shaker, a glass butter dish with brown pipe cleaners cut in half, and a little glass dish of fall colored faceted beads. 

To do this work the child pokes the pipe cleaners into the salt shaker holes and then slides the beads onto them.  I told the children we could think of the brown pipe cleaners as tree trunks and the beads as fall leaves on the branches.  We've been talking a lot about leaves this past month or so and singing some songs about leaves, so this seemed like a good analogy.  Here is the sculpture my own little boy (almost 4 1/2) put together when we were working in the classroom together on Sunday afternoon.

 

Turkey feather activities

I spent quite a bit of time at school this weekend (as usual!) and have many new activities on the shelves.  However, I keep forgetting to take photos of them.  So.........in this lazy girl post I am going to link back to two turkey materials I made last year that are out on the shelves again this week.  It was fun to hear my second year students say, "Hey!  I remember that!"  It was also reassuring to realize that they are still enthusiastic about materials they worked with last year.  Kind of like seeing an old friend after a long absence I guess!  Here is a link to a felt turkey with removable feathers that I sewed about a year ago.  The children button the feathers onto the turkey's back.  And here is a link to another turkey with feathers that attach with clothespins.  This is great for strengthening little fingers as it takes quite a bit of squeezing to open the clothespins and good coordination to clip them onto the foam turkey body.