Wow! I am sincerely sorry that I haven't posted in so long. Parent-teacher conferences and two fundraising events are now behind me. (Not to mention plenty of events involving my family.) I vow to get back to doing regular posts. To be honest, sometimes I am just too tired at night to feel motivated to write blog posts. Or I'm folding laundry, straightening up the house, surfing the internet and reading OTHER people's blogs (!), reading, etc. You know, just living life and relaxing. BUT.......I do enjoy blogging, so here I am, back at it again!
I know I'm posting this activity late since we did it for St. Patrick's Day. However, the idea of this work could be easily adapted to any season or holiday, or just used any old time to reinforce number concepts. That's why I decided to go ahead and post it even though it's late.
Below you can see how I had this work set up on the shelf. I kept it out on the math shelf for a few weeks. The left basket held "grid" papers and my punching tool. The right basket held pieces of green construction paper along with a little basket with a glue stick and a teeny shamrock punch. There was also a little gluing mat (just a vinyl placemat cut into a small piece) tucked in there.
The photo below shows a close-up of the grid papers. I don't have a source for this. I found the grid in a file cabinet in my office. It actually went to 10, but I adapted it to just go to 5.
This whole activity was inspired by my discovery of the small shamrock punch when I was looking in a cupboard in my storage area. So fun to find new materials to inspire new activities!
To do this activity the child punched out shamrocks and glued them in place according to the number at the beginning of each row.
This photo shows a completed grid. Even my youngest students were able to independently complete this activity using the Punch Aid. (NOTE: A parent bought my punch-aid at a garage sale. THIS LINK has something very similar. I don't think the one I have is manufactured anymore.) This would be easy to adapt using any seasonal punches you have on hand. I am thinking of making something similar for Easter using a little chick or duck punch. Flowers for spring would be fun too!
Hi Laura
I just tried this activity in my maths group rotations today (4 and 5 year olds). Some of the children really worked hard to get the work done. For those that found the work engaging, the rewards were great. Thanks for a great post.
Posted by: Lin | April 06, 2011 at 05:04 AM
Im so glad your "back". I have been secretly admiring your blog. I run a home daycare and love, love the montessori idea about teaching children. Your ideas are a great hit with the children in my care and also thier parents.
Thanks a bunch!
Stacey
Posted by: Stacey | April 06, 2011 at 04:44 AM
WOW! What a great idea. thank you for sharing!
Posted by: Krystal | April 03, 2011 at 11:45 AM
Love it! I have already made up a similar activity for my Prep class of 4 and 5 year old children. Although it isn't a Montessori school, I am using the activity during our rotation groups (3 in a group) and I have made up the same activity in 3 baskets using 3 different punches.
Posted by: Linny | March 30, 2011 at 05:11 AM
This is a great activity! We do something very similar using chart stickers. It's sometimes difficult to find the really small ones, but I have a couple of sources on line & change them out seasonally also.
For our really young students, we have a sheet that has only one box after 1, two boxes after 2, three after 3, etc. It's more of a 1:1 correspondence activity then, but still very beneficial.
Thanks for sharing!!
Posted by: Melissa Brubaker | March 29, 2011 at 07:37 AM