My Montessori Journey

Garden Playdough Work

I haven't had play dough out for a while although I've had this activity in my mind for a while.  I finally mixed up a batch of chocolate playdough yesterday and put this out in the classroom this morning.  As I predicted, the children really enjoyed this work and it reinforces what we've been learning in our plants unit.

I usually set the playdough up on a table instead of having it set up for children to carry from the shelf.  I have been adding a bottle of hand sanitizer for them to use before handling the dough.  In the photo below from the top and going clockwise are:  a container with the "dirt" dough (I only put about half of the batch of homemade playdough in the container), a box with a rolling pin, flower pots, and a spoon for "digging" the dirt out of the pots, a bucket with carrots to plant, a basket with flowers to plant, and the bottle of hand sanitizer.

The flowers are flower picks which I bought in the floral/wedding section of Michael's.  I know they have these at Hobby Lobby too.  They are perfect for this work because they are very lightweight, but the wire stems are sturdy enough for them to stay upright in the dough without falling over.

I found the teeny terra cotta flower pots in the floral section of Michael's.  HobLob has similar ones.  Today we found that the dough really sticks to the inside so I added a spoon to help scoop out the dough.

I've had these wooden carrots forever and can't tell you a source.  They were originally on a jute rope and I think were part of an Easter swag decoration.  I cut them off the rope for this activity.  You can see the little bumps of rope on the sides.

Here is a flower garden that was planted in our classroom this morning.

   
 

Drip-Drop Tie-Dye

As a follow-up to my Color-Mixing activity (which has been HUGELY popular with my students), I decided to set up a little colored water droppering work.  It is very similar to the color mixing work.......a basket of paper towels (I found that this activity works better with a higher-quality paper towel such as Bounty instead of the generic ones I usually use), bottles of primary colored water, pencil for writing name, sponge for cleaning up afterwards, and a little suction cup soap pad.  (NOTE:  I don't know a source for these.......I've looked and haven't come up with anything.  If you find a source, please email me or leave a comment with a link.  THANKS!)

To do this work, the child places droplets of water onto the suction pad in any pattern they wish as shown below.

Then they carefully place a paper towel on top to create the tie-dyed effect shown below.  The sponge is then used to absorb any remaining bits of water and the paper towel is placed on the drying rack.

 
 

Sorting teeny tiny vegetables

I headed to the dollhouse miniatures section of Hobby Lobby to find some itty bitty teeny tiny vegetables to set up a sorting activity.  These are so tiny that I used a little paint tray to sort them into and picking up the vegetables (and some fruits) will help the children develop their pincer grasp. 

 

Spring Ribbon Weaving

I completely "borrowed" this idea from PreKinders.  I was so happy to see this idea because I had a set of three of these wire shelves in a cupboard gathering dust.  I hadn't even thought about setting one up as a weave frame.  So.........here is how I set this up. 

Plunked the wire shelf on a big white tray............

..........added a basket of spring ribbons............

..........and this lovely little weaving work was created.  Can't wait to see how the children love it.

 
 

Threading flower petals

I used the leftover flower petals from my petal transfer activity to make a threading work.  If you didn't read that post, I purchased the fabric petals from Michael's (in the wedding section) and used a hole punch to make holes in the middle.  (NOTE:  It was kind of hard to punch holes with a hole punch and I had to use scissors to cut the little circle out totally.)  I originally planned to just put straws with the petals but the holes in the petals were too big and so the petals slid over the straws.  So.......I decided to add some green foam beads in with the straws.  Here is the set-up on a tray.

And here is a little string I made...........

 

Practical Life with a garden theme

Two garden-themed practical life activities that are on my shelves right now are miniature flower arranging and transferring flower petals.

I found a cheese shaker at the dollar store which was perfect for a little flower arranging work.  I placed it on a little flowered tray that I found at Goodwill for 59 cents (!) along with a little box of flower picks.  I bought the flower picks at Michael's.  They are pretty inexpensive and come bundled in a bunch.  They have wire stems.

Here is a photo of a little bouquet created by one of my little flower arrangers.  SO sweet, don't you think?

The next activity shown is transferring flower petals.  I bought a box of silk flower petals at Michael's.....they are the kind used for weddings.  There are a TON in the box and I am already planning another activity for the leftover ones.  I picked up these darling little watering cans at the Salvation Army store (can you tell how much I love thrifting?  LOVE It!) for about 50 cents each.  The children use the strawberry huller to transfer the petals from one can to the other.
 

 

Make a Flower

My students have enjoyed making little flowers to take home with this art project that I set up for them.  On the shelf from left are: 2 baskets for carrying materials to a table, a basket of flowers copied onto white cardstock (flower pattern printable was from Kidssoup), a bowl of craft sticks for the stems, 2 mugs of markers with a pencil in each, a basket with scissors, a bowl with small green construction paper rectangles, and a yellow tray with 2 cardboard leaf stencils.

To do this work the child grabs a white basket and places into it a flower shape, craft stick, mug of markers, pair of scissors, 1 or 2 pieces of green paper and 1 leaf stencil.  They carry these materials to their table in the basket.  They construct their flower following these steps:  color flower with markers, cut out flower, color craft stick green for the stem if desired, trace leaf stencil onto green paper using a pencil, cut out leaf, bring stem, flower and leaves to teacher to be stapled together.  Voila!

 

Parts of a Plant

I adapted a worksheet from Kidssoup to make this Parts of a Plant work.  Since my little ones mostly cannot write the labels in the blanks (which is what the original worksheet called for) I made up a little table in Microsoft Word and typed the word labels into it.  Thus a cut and paste Parts of a Plant activity was born.  I set it up as shown below.

Here you can see the papers and the little table of labels that I created.

Below is the sample that my oldest son made.  It is posted on the bulletin board just to the left of the work area.  To do this work the child first cuts apart the labels.  Then they lay them on the paper and have a teacher check.  Once their work is checked they may glue the labels in place and then color their paper.

 
  

Matching Vegetables and Seeds

To go with our study of plants and seeds I put out a seed matching activity that I made a LONG time ago when I previously taught in a Montessori preschool classroom.  To make this work I bought 2 identical packages of several types of seeds.  I used these to make 3-part cards with the seed packet and corresponding seeds.  I cannot remember the type of laminator I used for this.  The one I use at my current school I know would not accommodate seeds going through it.  An alternative would be using a teeny tiny ziploc baggie (like the ones used for jewelry and found in a craft store) to hold the seeds.  I would tape the top shut and then tape it to the card with clear packing tape.

Below you can see the cards in the adorable little vegetable basket that I scored at a Salvation Army store this weekend.  I think the basket was about 79 cents.  Perfect for a Montessori teacher looking for a cute place to store her vegetable cards.

Here you can see the "lettuce" cards.  The large cards are on the bottom of the basket with the "seed packet" and "seed" cards on top.

To do this work the child lays out the large cards then matches the seed packet and seed cards to it as shown below.

 
 

Planting Seeds

This week I have set up a planting seeds activity.  Hopefully we will have enough time before our last day of school (May 21st) for the seeds to start sprouting.  I used sunflower seeds because I thought the children would enjoy taking them home and planting them outdoors when school is out.  I bought little pots that can be planted in the ground without removing the plant itself. 

Below you can see how I set this up.  Although I set it up for the children to be independent, I did have my assistant monitor them to be sure they didn't flood their pots with water.

To identify each child's pot, a teacher wrote their name on the outside with a black Sharpie marker.  You can see the basket of pots, a tub of potting soil and a fun little flower placemat.

Here is a little yellow bucket filled with sunflower seeds.

And a tray with a spoon for scooping the soil into the pots and a pencil for poking a hole in which to plant 2 seeds.  There is a separate tray with a watering can for watering the soil once the seeds are planted.

 
 

We are keeping the plant pots in baskets on our classroom windowsill.  Each day the children will use a misting bottle to give their seeds a drink of water.