My Montessori Journey

Easter Egg Suncatchers

Similar in set-up to our Valentine Suncatchers, we are making egg-shaped suncatchers in the classroom this week.  In the photo below from left are:  a blue tray with egg shapes traced on contact paper with a black Sharpie marker; a basket with same-sized blank pieces of contact paper and a pair of scissors; tape; a divided bowl with tissue paper squares in various colors (NOTE:  I bought these pre-cut from Discount School Supply........SO EASY...........CLICK HERE); a basket to hold the "trash"; and a vinyl placemat.

 

To do this work, the child first peels the backing off one of the plain pieces of contact paper.  They place the backing paper in the "trash" basket.  Then they use tape to attach the contact paper sticky-side-up to the vinyl mat.  Next, the child attaches pieces of tissue paper to the contact paper.  When finished, they place a piece of contact paper with the egg on it on top.  The final step is to cut out the egg on the traced line.  Before this project is finished, the "trash" basket is emptied into a garbage can.

(Also, I bought the contact paper used for this project from Discount School Supply.  I like their contact paper because it is not overly sticky and is therefore easy to tape down for this project.  CLICK HERE for a link.)

Below you can see one of my sample eggs taped to our classroom window.

 

Collaborative Rainbow Project

Here is another "late" post of something we worked on during the week of St. Patrick's Day.  Again, I've decided to post it because this concept could easily be adapted for use at any time of the year. 

I took a large piece of poster board and sketched a rainbow onto it.  Then I set up a little "cutting" station where the children could choose one strip of one color and cut it into small pieces.  Then, they glued the cut pieces onto the rainbow in the appropriate arch.

 

Here is the cutting station:  the blue basket is there to catch the small pieces of paper after they are cut.

 

The (very crudely drawn) rainbow...........

 

........close-up of the arches with color names written in.

 

Here is what the rainbow looked like when we first started it.

 

And here is what it looks like now that it's finished.  It's still up in our classroom.  I think we'll do something similar with a large Easter egg during April.  The children enjoyed collaborating on this project, and it was something they could all do successfully!

 

Shamrock Counting (a bit late!!)

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!

 

Heart Tarts Baking Activity

In lieu of a traditional Valentine "party", we celebrated the day of love in our classroom by having a few parent helpers come in and bake "heart tarts" with the children.  I am loving these little seasonal activities so much and feel that the children get so much out of the extra one-on-one time with our adult helpers.  I think the parents have also enjoyed the opportunity to come in and help without having to plan and organize everything (which was how we did holiday parties previously).  I just have everything ready and tell them what to do!! 

Today I had four parent helpers and they took the children in groups of four into an adjacent classroom to make "heart tarts".  I saw this idea in the February issue of Family Fun magazine and thought it would be an easy and fun cooking activity to do for Valentine's Day.  Of course, it would be fun to do at home with your little ones at any time!!  CLICK HERE for the recipe on the Family Fun website.  The photo below is from that website too.  I forgot to take a "finished" photo of our tarts today!  However, I did sneak in to snap several photos to show the process the children used to make their tarts.  Scroll down to see those photos.

First of all, the children rolled out a little section of pie crust.  The recipe called for rolling it a little thinner than it comes in the package.

 

Then they cut out two hearts with a cookie cutter and spooned some strawberry jam onto one heart.

 

Then they wet their index finger and traced the outside of the heart to moisten the edge so the top heart would stick to it.

After adding the top heart, they used a fork to "crimp" the edges. 

 

Then they brushed some melted butter on top with a pastry brush.

 

The final step was to place their tarts onto some parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  We just wrote their names right on the paper with a pencil so each child could eat their own tart after the moms baked them. 

 

This was a really fun experience for the children.  They were about 50-50 on whether or not they liked the tarts.  Nearly everyone took a nibble at least and many had only crumbs left on their plate afterwards!

Hands and Hearts

For some reason I have really been into painting the children's hands and feet for parent gifts this year.  This is actually the first year I've done any of these hands and feet projects.  A while back I had seen this idea for making a valentine card and knew I wanted to do this with the children to give to their parents.  I won't lie.........it takes a lot of time to do these projects and does take me away from being available to the whole group during work time for a good chunk of time.  However, I have found that the children love it and the parents treasure these keepsakes, so I am really glad we've done them. 

These would make a great gift for grandparents or they'd just be great to do with your own young children to keep as a memento of when their hands were so very small.

In case you are planning to do this with a group of children, here is how I did it.  I had a big bowl of warm soapy water on the table along with some towels.  I also had a dish with red tempera paint and a brush.  I painted the children's hands one at a time and washed them in the soapy water in between (i.e. I painted their right hand, washed it, then painted their left hand and washed it).  If you painted both hands at once it could get pretty messy pretty quickly, I'm just sayin'. 

Another tip is to model with your hand how the child should hold their hand, with fingers together and thumb sticking out.  This can be challenging for the youngest children.  To get a really good "heart" image, you will need to bend the child's thumb down a bit right before pressing their hand to the paper.  I got better at this with practice.  When the two hands are painted and pressed as shown, the white space in the middle resembles a heart shape.  I accentuated this by gluing a little punched out heart in the space.  Of course you could omit that if you prefer.

Since these were parent gifts, I also added a 2X4" shipping label printed with the saying, "Children hold our hearts in the palm of their hands."  If you would like to download and print this label, please click the link below.  It is a document set to print a page of 10 adhesive shipping labels.  If you don't want to print them as labels, you could copy and save the image, print it on a piece of cardstock and print your child's hands directly to that paper.

Download Children hold our hearts labels

Below you can see a finished page.  The pages were actually oriented horizontally and had a name sticker with the child's name in the bottom right corner.  For privacy purposes, I cropped that out in the photo below.

 

"Special Delivery"

I am super-excited to see how the children like this activity as this is the first year I've had it out.  I think it will be really really fun for them.  My inspiration for creating this work was this tutorial over at The Crafting Chicks.  When I saw their adorable felt envelopes I immediately thought, "How cute and fun would it be to make one of these for the classroom so the children could deliver valentines to each other using the special mail bag?"  So.......this past weekend I whipped it together.  I used my sewing machine and sewed white ric-rac right onto the bag at the same time I was sewing the pieces together.  I used a long piece of ric-rac for the should strap too.  The pink heart on the flap was sewn on partly as decoration and partly to cover up the stitching from the Velcro I sewed on to fasten the flap closed.  (NOTE:  If you don't have access to a sewing machine, I am pretty sure this would work equally well using hot glue.  In fact, I think that's how it is shown in the tutorial.)

To do this "special delivery" work, the child takes the "mail tray" from the shelf.  You can see this tray below.  I printed and laminated 2 sets of "love mail" cards (8 cards in all).  The download for these cards is available in the tutorial I linked to above.  I placed these on the tray along with a dry-erase marker and piece of felt (for erasing) and a basket of photo cards of the children.  We use these namecards each day as placecards for snack time.  They have a photo of the child with their first name printed below.  You can see that in the second photo.

 

 

The child chooses who they would like to make a valentine for and writes the name of that child after the "to:" using the dry-erase marker.  Then they sign their own name after the "love:". 

 

Next, they go fetch the "mail bag" which is hanging from a hook near our line area. 

 

They slip their card into the mail bag as shown below.  Finally, they are ready to deliver their mail to the recipient.  They will practice using their grace and courtesy skills as they say, "Happy Valentine's Day" to their friend.  The friend will then reply, "Thank you."  The recipient of the card then returns the card to the "mail tray", first using the felt square to erase the names so the card can be "recycled" for use by another child.  The "mail carrier" returns the mail bag to the hook and the "mail tray" to the shelf.

 

 

Heart Cutting Work

I have probably said it here before, but I think it is worth repeating that very simple activities give young children such joy.  This activity is a perfect example of a simple activity that gives the child such a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.  I have this work set up on my art shelf as shown below.  The basket contains several folded pieces of construction paper in various "valentine" colors, a vinyl mat, and a small basket with a pair of scissors, a marker, and a cardboard heart template.

 

To do this work the child takes the basket to a table and selects the color they would like for their heart.  They place the vinyl mat on the table and carefully align the straight edge of the template with the folded edge of the paper (I gave this lesson to the whole group; however, many children still learned the "hard way" that lining up the edge on the "open" side results in a heart that falls apart!).  Next, they trace the outline of the template using the marker.  Finally, they cut on the traced line and open up the folded paper to reveal their heart!  What a sense of wonder they have when something that doesn't look quite heart-like produces a loving shape nonetheless!  I wish I had snapped a photo of some little hearts that were cut out this way this week.  Many times over a little one came to me with eyes shining with pride, proudly displaying what they had created all on their own!  So precious to witness!  I know that these happily-handmade little tokens of love were carefully stowed in backpacks or hidden behind backs and a smiling face, just waiting to be presented to loved ones who (I am sure) received their simple gifts with gratitude.

 

Christmas Story Bracelets

This week in class we made Christmas story bracelets, which are similar to the Thanksgiving story bracelets  I posted about last month.  Credit for this idea goes ENTIRELY to SAM SIMS, a reader who emailed me last year after the original Thanksgiving bracelet post to share her ideas for making one for the Nativity story.  Thank you so much for sharing your ideas, Sam.  It took me a year to get around to implementing them, but I am so happy with how these turned out.

 

Here is a list of what the beads represent from the Christmas story:

(From L to R): 

Clear sparkly/iridescent bead:  The angel who appeared to Mary, telling her she was chosen to be the mother of God's son, Jesus

Brown bead (you could also use gray):  The donkey that Mary rode across the desert on her way to
Bethlehem with Joseph

Tan bead:  This represents the long journey across the sandy desert

Wooden bead:  This stands for the stable where Mary and Joseph had to spend the night

Blue bead:  This is for Baby Jesus who was born that first Christmas night in the stable!  (I told the children this was the most important bead of all!)

(2) White faceted beads:  These represent the angels who appeared to the shepherds (You could also use two more of the same beads you used for the first angel.)

(2) White pony beads:  These stand for the sheep the shepherds were watching over

Yellow bead (you could substitute a star-shaped bead if you can find them):  This stands for the Star of Bethlehem which led the wise men to baby Jesus.

Purple, red and green beads:  These stand for the gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus

In addition to their completed bracelets, the children took home a little note to their parents telling what each bead represents since at this age they are quite likely to forget!!

Christmas Tree Art Project

We have a new project out on the art shelf this week.  I like that this project requires the children to align strips of paper of varying lengths to form a Christmas tree.  Perhaps it's a stretch to say so, but this work could be considered an extension of the red rods.

Here is how I have this set up on the art shelf.  From left to right:  baskets for carrying materials to a table, tray of red construction paper (full sheets cut in half), tray with green strips cut into graduated lengths (1 inch wide strips in lengths ranging from 1 to 5 inches), basket of brown "trunks", basket of yellow stars..........

 

........here's a close-up of the divided tray I used for the green strips......

 

.........basket with Tap-n-Glue bottles and a tray with gluing mats.

 

To do this work, the child gathers their supplies and carries them to a table.  They arrange their green strips on the red paper (oriented vertically) and have an adult check before they glue.  A few finished trees are shown below.  I love how they are turning out!

 

Spoiler Alert!! Parent gift post!! Do not read if you are a parent of a child in my classroom!!

Hopefully the parents of children in my classroom will heed the title of this post and not scroll down to see the gifts we have been busy making for them.  I know that a vast majority of my readers do NOT have children in my class and do not even know me in real life.  So........for those of you who fall into that category, I wanted to share the parent gifts we are making because they are turning out SO cute.  In fact, I am thinking about doing these with my own little boys for grandparent gifts this Christmas.  So.......stop reading this Mom and Dad!!

As a mom I truly treasure every craft project that involves my children's hands and feet.  It makes me so wistful and sentimental to see something made when their hands were so very small.  That is why I chose this project as a parent gift.  I am pretty sure most mommies (and daddies) will treasure this gift for years to come.

I started out by having each child (in turn) remove one shoe and sock.  I then painted the bottom of their bare foot with white tempera paint as shown in the following two photos.  This was a wonderfully fun sensory experience for the children.  I had just recently painted their hands for our Thanksgiving cards, but painting their bare feet was a whole other deal.  Surprisingly, not one of them refused to allow me to paint their foot.  I think they were intrigued by the complete novelty of having their teacher paint their foot! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After applying the paint I quickly helped them press their foot onto a piece of snowflake stationary.  I had a tub of warm soapy water right next to me on the floor and after making their footprint, I had them dunk their foot in the tub.  While they "soaked", I quickly sprinkled white glitter onto the footprint while it was still wet.  Have you figured out yet what we are making? 

 

After glittering the footprint, I had one of my little assistants (AKA one of the many children who were standing around watching this whole process) place the paper onto our drying rack.  Then I proceeded to give the child's foot a little "bath" to get all the white paint off.  I had some towels on hand to quickly dry off their foot, then I sent them on their merry way to put their sock and shoe back on while I prepared to paint the next child's foot.  To paint 55 feet took me most of the class period on Monday morning, Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon.

After the footprints dried overnight, the children sat with me one at a time to decorate their.......did you guess?.............SNOWMAN!  We used very small black pom-poms (5 mm size, I think, from Michael's) for the eyes and mouth, orange craft foam for the noses, stiff glitter felt for the hats, and plaid flannel for the scarves.  I just free-hand cut the hats and noses.  I cut very thin pieces of flannel for the scarves and tied them in a knot.  Then I trimmed off the loop so it would look like a knotted scarf on the snowman when it was glued down.  Each child also got to choose two buttons for the snowman's tummy.  These are SO adorable.  I am so happy with how they came out.

 

Our final step was to place the snowman pictures into black document frames that I ordered from Dollar Tree.  Then the children helped wrap them up.  They were so excited and proud to have a special homemade gift to give their parents.  (NOTE:  We attached a name sticker with the child's name to the bottom of the paper.  In the photo below I have covered the name with a Post-It note to maintain confidentiality.  I just didn't want you to think that was part of the project.)