My Montessori Journey

Color Mixing

Color mixing is an activity that you would find in most Montessori classrooms.  I had not yet put it out this school year, however.  Recently I came across this great little color wheel activity on Mama Jenn's blog and thought it would be awesome for setting up as an independent activity.  First I copied the color wheel from Mama Jenn on white cardstock and laminated it.  Then I added 3 eye dropper jars with red, yellow, and blue colored water, a jar of toothpicks, a sponge and sponge holder, a basket of paper towels, and a jar with a pencil.  This work is set up on a table as shown below.

 

To do this work, the child first takes a paper towel and uses the pencil to write their name at the bottom.  They then replace the paper towel in the basket to use later.  Next, they use the eye droppers to transfer droplets of water onto the corresponding colored dots on the color wheel template as shown in the photo below.

After the water droplets are transferred, they use a toothpick to stir the drops together to mix the colors as shown below.  Instead of using a new toothpick for each circle, I just showed them to wipe the toothpick on the sponge after each mixing.

Once all the colors have been stirred they carefully place the paper towel on top.

The result is a color wheel that they have created and that they may take home.  How cool is that?  I love this work and the children do too.  A final step is to use the sponge to wipe all remaining water droplets off the template.

  
   
 
 

Paint Your Own Earth

In honor of Earth Day (week in our classroom since not everyone will attend on Thursday) I put out a little painting project.  I found a great Earth template on Kidssoup (a member-only website.........click on the Earth Day link on the left sidebar..........the template is the one used for the Earth sun-catchers).  You could probably find a similar template via a Google search or just freehand your own.  I used the template to copy "earths" onto white cardstock.  Then I set up an independent painting activity as shown below.

 

Here is what the project looks like after painting.

 

Earth Week: Recycling Cut and Paste Activity

One thing we have talked about this week is how to take good care of our Earth.  I brought in examples of items that can be recycled and explained to the children that recycling means taking something used and turning it into something new.  A quick Google search on Sunday afternoon led me to a set of worksheets that I was able to adapt for use in my classroom as a cut and paste project.  As is often the case, I didn't like the layout of these worksheets, especially for preschoolers.  However, a few minutes of copying, cutting, and pasting resulted in an activity that I feel is appropriate for preschool-aged children.  Keep in mind that in a Montessori setting, children would only do this work if THEY choose to do it.

HERE is a link to where I found the pages I adapted.  I used pages 4 and 5 from this link.  The photo below shows the worksheets as they looked when I printed them.  They are too busy and cluttered for my liking.  So...........I chopped off the parts I didn't like and combined the two pages to set up an independent cut and paste activity.

Here you can see how I changed the pages.  I simply cut off the extra words from the "sorting" paper and copied it.  Lots of white space on a page makes it easier for children to visually process what they need to do.  On the left side you can see that I just cut and pasted 4 sets of cutting pictures onto one "master" sheet to conserve paper.  I then cut these apart to place in a basket as you will see further down.

Here is how the activity is set up.  As with many of my science activities, the children will sit at the two white tables to complete this work.  The needed materials are on the shelf above and on the top of the tables.

This tray holds the "sorting" paper.

And the basket holds the cutting pictures.

 

  
To do this work the child takes a sorting paper and a page of cutting pictures.  They use the scissors to cut apart the pictures and sort them onto the sorting page.  Once a teacher has checked their sorting they use their glue sticks and gluing mats to adhere the pictures to the page.  I forgot to take a photo of a completed paper, but I'm sure you get the idea.