My Montessori Journey

December Practical Life Activities

Hello and Happy December to everyone!  I have had such a hectic fall and it's not slowing down yet!  Sorry I haven't posted here in a while.  Our classroom is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  I thought I'd post some photos of some of our Practical Life activities.  This is a very photo-dense post.

Weaving with Christmasy ribbons..........

 

............the children are loving that they can do this work all by themselves!

 

Festive bead-stringing...........this work invites a candy cane pattern.......

 

Who said thrift store deviled egg trays are just for Easter?  Paired with some sparkly, colorful pom-poms they can be beautiful wreath........

 

........like this!

 

Decorating this little wire tree (I don't know where it came from; it was here when I arrived on the scene) is always a favorite December activity.

 

Many times each day, a little someone or two invites me to "Come see our tree, Miss Laura."  So sweet!

 

Several new transfer activities include this "snowball" transfer with white pom-poms and thrift store red buckets with snowflake cut-outs...........

 

........as well as this one with green snowflake votive holders (garage sale) and marble chips.......

 

......and transferring jingle bells on tree trays.

 

A great deal of fine motor control and concentration are needed to place every little teeny bead on a little tiny suction cup so it looks like..........


 

............a pretty Christmas wreath.  (NOTE:  I would have had more green beads, but I literally only had what you see here.  I could not find any more faceted green beads in my stash.)

 

This little basket holds a small music box that plays, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

 

This box can be found at Montessori Services.  Click on THIS LINK to go right to the item. As I was looking up the link I noticed that they have a "Happy Birthday" one.  That would be a fun one to put out whenever we have a birthday at school.

 

Thanksgiving Festivities at school

This week on Monday and Tuesday we had our special monthly activities in the classroom.  With the help of a few moms, the children made individual pumpkin cream pies.  First, we mixed up the pumpkin cream in the classroom at group time.  The recipe is:  1 cup pureed pumpkin, 2 cups milk, 2 boxes instant vanilla pudding, 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice and 1 cup Cool Whip.  Then the children left the classroom five at a time and made their "crust" with our parent helpers.  To do this, they each got a full size graham cracker and placed it into a quart size ziploc bag.  Then they took a plastic drinking glass and pounded the cracker until it was in crumbs.  They then dumped the crumbs into the bottom of a plastic cup.   You can see one of the students pounding her cracker in the photo below.  It was so funny.......when one group of children returned to the classroom they said, "Hey!  Guess what, Miss Laura?  We just beat up some crackers."  I thought that was such a cute way to express their experience!

After making the crust, they plopped a spoonful of pumpkin cream on top, and another spoonful of extra Cool Whip on top of that.  We refrigerated these and ate them with our snack.  Most of the children really liked the pumpkin cream pie.  It has a light and fluffy texture and a creamier taste than regular pumpkin pie which many children don't like. I love this recipe so much that I'm making it for our family for Thanksgiving.  I'll make a full sized pie with a graham cracker crust made with a little butter and sugar though.  I made up a batch of these to pass out to friends at Halloween and packaged them into half-pint canning jars with a spoon tied on with twine.  You can click HERE to read a post I wrote about that for our local MOPS blog. 

 

Another thing we did is make painted handprint turkeys for the children to take home to their parents as a Thanksgiving memento.  I've never done these before with my class, but I'm so glad we did them.  The parents really seemed to love them and I know they will be treasured mementos of this time when the children are so small.  Below you can see me painting a hand............

 

...........and helping my student press it firmly onto the paper.

 

This shows how it looked right after we painted it.  After it was dry we added legs, a beak and an eye with markers.  I forgot to take a finished photo though!

 

Our final special activity was making special Thanksgiving bracelets to retell the story of the first Thanksgiving.  For a full description of this activity, please CLICK HERE to read the post I wrote about this last year.

Turkey Math Game

I put this little turkey math game out every November and it is always a popular game to play with a friend.  So simple to make too.  I just used turkey stickers and stuck them onto a square of brown paper in a grid pattern.  I added little red triangles to the corners to fancy it up and laminated the two game boards.  To make a die, I used a wooden block and wrote the numbers 1, 2, or 3 on the faces.  With only 9 turkeys I didn't want to go above 3 or the game would end very quickly!  To play each child takes a game board.  They take turns rolling the die and "feeding" the corresponding number of turkeys a kernel of corn.  The first player to cover their turkeys on an exact roll is the "winner".  This would be a quick and easy game to make and take to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving.  Your little one would have a blast playing it with some of the adult relatives they don't get to see very often.

 

 

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for the overwhelming response to the ABC Twiggles giveaway post!  It is good to be back blogging here, especially after such a warm welcome.  Since so many of you have recently left comments, I am not going to be able to reply to each comment individually.  Please know how much I appreciate hearing from you.  If I have neglected to reply to a comment you sent me this summer and you are still waiting to hear, please email me again.  While I try to carefully respond to those of you with specific questions, I do occasionally (but unintentionally) forget to reply due to the volume of emails I get.  It's a nice problem to have in a way, but I do want to make a personal connection with people as my time allows.  Which reminds me.........if you have invited me to be a friend on one of the social networks such as Facebook, Jhoos, Twitter, etc., please do not be offended that I have not accepted your invitation.  As of this moment, I am not a member of any social network.  It is just a personal decision.  That's where I'm at for now.  I have had lots of encouragement (and grief!) from friends who know me in real life to join, but for now I'm not "out there."  I know enough to never say never.  (I thought I'd never switch from film to digital photographs.  I also thought I'd never switch to digital scrapbooking, and I haven't totally made that switch, but I can see it coming.)  I will be SURE to let you all know if my social network status ever changes.  Then y'all have to be my friend, okay?  (Just kidding.)

In other news..........

I am so excited about the new school year.  I love fall and all the great aspects of that season here in the midwest of the United States.  I also love thinking of new activities and materials and routines and organizational systems to add to my classroom.  AND I love sharing those ideas here.

Today I am sharing something I made this summer that I think will be very useful to me this year.  It is a little ring with cards that have seasonal songs, poems and fingerplays printed on them.  I am sure that most of you who work with young children have a stash of favorite songs and poems that you use each year.  I do as well, but I must admit that I haven't always been very organized with them so sometimes I forget from year to year which songs I like.  I also find things online and print them out to bring to school, but it's cumbersome to have to shuffle through a bunch of papers when teaching a new song. So....this summer I took the time to make a bunch of files of my favorites and to format them so they could be cut apart into little cards.  I then laminated these cards, hole-punched the corner, and now I have a little "ring of songs" for each season: fall, winter and spring.  I stuck one of those little removable hooks right by my calendar area and my fall ring of songs is hanging on it right now, waiting for the first day of school!

And just in case you were reading this thinking...........gee, that looks great, I sure wish Laura would make it available as a download.......HERE YOU GO!  Let me know what you think.

Download Apples Download Apples Leaves Pumpkins Download Pumpkins

Download Pumpkins Trick or Treat Download Pumpkins Trick or Treat Turkeys

Download Turkeys God's love

These are each single page files.  I printed mine on white cardstock.  After printing I cut them out (into fourths), laminated them, trimmed them, hole-punched them and put them on a ring.  You can't see it in the photo but to cutesify them I tied some seasonal ribbons onto the ring.  Hope you enjoy!

Easter-themed activities

Here are a few Easter-themed activities that are out on my classroom shelves right now.

I found some white plastic eggs at Hobby Lobby and filled them with some little yellow pom-pom chicks.  Taking these eggs apart and putting them back together is great for working on fine motor control.  And.........finding little chicks inside is a major point of interest.

 

These little "bunny" tongs are usually easily found around Easter time....they are often next to the egg dye kits.  They are perfect for transferring small plastic eggs into the depressions on a deviled egg tray.

This is a color sorting activity.  I spring-colored pom-poms (4 different colors) in the white dish.  The children use the tongs to transfer and sort the pom-poms into the divided wooden tray.

This adorable bunny basket (thrifted at a garage sale last summer) is filled with "bunny" beads for bead stringing.

  

 

Sifting "Leprechaun" treasure

A fun St. Patrick's Day activity that I've had out recently is sifting "leprechaun treasure" out of a bowl of cornmeal.  I originally wanted to use a true strainer, but the cornmeal wouldn't sift through it.  Fortunately I had one of THESE sifters from Montessori Services.  It has much larger holes and was perfect for sifting treasure.  I put some shamrock erasers and some green and gold beads into the cornmeal for the children to scoop out.

Here is how I set this up on our stationary work station.  The child uses the strainer to scoop out treasure.  When demonstrating this work I showed them how to gently shake the strainer over the bowl to allow all the cornmeal to fall through.  Then they pour the treausre into the green bucket.  When all the treasure is removed from the bowl, they may pour it back into the bowl and use the strainer to "hide" it again.  One suggestion I have after putting this out in my classroom is to add a small broom and dustpan for sweeping up spills. Even though my students were asked NOT to put their hands into the cornmeal, we still had lots of spilled cornmeal that I or my assistants cleaned up at the end of each session.  In hindsight the addition of a set like THIS ONE from Montessori Services would have been perfect!

Here is a close-up of the strainer.  LOVE IT!  I am thinking it will be fun with lots of other straining activities.

Close-up of the treasure.

 

 

Pot of Gold Game

A little game that has been getting a lot of play time in my classroom is the "Pot of Gold" game.  I posted about it last year and you can CLICK HERE to read that post.  This is a really fun game for two friends to play.  It promotes turn-taking and counting concepts.  It would be very easy to make for your little ones in the classroom or at home.........just in time for St. Patrick's Day next week.

Valentine Bracelets

Since my students really enjoyed the snowflake punching activity I put out in January, I wanted to put another punching activity out for February but with a twist.  So.......I decided to put together a bracelet-making activity.  The photo below shows how I set the materials up on the tray.  From top:  a basket of red and pink pipe-cleaners, a box with a heart punch, a pin-punching tool (a push pin would be a fine substitution), and a teeny tiny punching pad (this one is actually a piece of carpet pad.........you know, the kind that goes under your carpet when it's installed) and a basket with strips of glittered cardstock. 

 

To do this work the child chooses a piece of cardstock and uses the heart punch to punch out some tiny heart shapes.  Then they use the puncher and pad to poke a hole in the center of each heart.  Finally, they string the hearts onto a pipe cleaner, have a teacher help twist the ends, and DONE!

Here is a photo of one of the finished bracelets.  I often wish I was a better photographer......but you get the idea.  This has been a VERY popular work so far.

 
 

Valentine Sun-Catchers

I am so excited about a new art project that I put out this week.  It was in my head, but I didn't know how to set it up so the children could complete it independently.  While it does require a little more teacher assistance than what I would like, I am pretty happy with how much of this the children can do on their own.  And the finished sun-catchers are beautiful. 

I realize now that I should have taken a few more photos to illustrate this.  However, I'll try to explain thoroughly how I set it up and the steps of the project. Below you can see how I set up the materials on my stationary work table.  From left:  a basket of small pieces of "Valentine-colored" tissue paper, a basket with plain 6-inch squares of clear contact paper, a basket of 6-inch squares of clear contact paper with a heart drawn on them with a Sharpie marker, a little bucket with a pair of scissors, and an empty basket for garbage. 

To start this project, a teacher peels off the backing of a plain contact paper square and tapes the corners down on the purple placemat, sticky-side up.  Miss Carla discovered that if you peel the paper off two corners a little way and tape those corners down then the child can pull the rest of the paper backing off independently. This also prevents the corners from curling up............I tried to make the squares lie flat by placing them under heavy books over night but they still curl up.  (The paper backing is placed in the garbage basket.) Once the contact paper is taped down the child covers it with the little tissue paper squares.   

This photo shows a student placing the tissue paper onto the contact paper square.  Once they have the square covered with tissue paper a teacher then takes one of the contact paper squares with a heart on it and places it on top, sandwiching the tissue paper in the middle.  Again, we've found that it works best to start at the top corners, then have the child pull the backing off while the teacher smooths it down.  (Again, the paper backing is placed in the garbage basket.)  I didn't get a good photo of the next step, but now the child pulls the "sandwich" off the placemat and uses the scissors to cut out the heart shape, following the traced line.  The cut-off part is then placed in the garbage basket and the child carries it to the trash can to throw away.

The final step is to punch a hole in the top and add a loop of yarn for hanging.  Don't they look lovely? 

 

Spoiler Alert! Parent Gifts

NOTE:  If you are the parent of a child in my classroom and you haven't opened your gift yet, you may want to skip reading this post or read it when your child isn't looking or read it later!!

Last week we were busy in the classroom making gifts to give parents for Christmas.  I wanted to find something for the children to make that fit the following criteria:  easy enough for preschoolers to complete pretty independently and something that the parents can bring out every year during the holidays.  Additionally, I wanted it to be something useful.  After quite a bit of Googling I stumbled across this idea and loved it.  Since I had to do gifts with 60 children my next task was to find a place to buy 60 globe shaped candle holders.  I ordered this kind from Dollar Tree.  They were available in smaller quantities at my close-by Dollar Tree, but I had to order them online to get the number I needed.  I had them shipped to the store which saved me the shipping costs.  I was really pleased with these.  They were all in great condition, packed well, and are a nice quality candle holder.

These candle holders were so quick to make and turned out really beautiful.   In case you would like to attempt this with many children I will tell you how I did it.  I set up a table in our classroom with 4 chairs.  I placed a vinyl gluing mat at three places and had three children at a time work on their candle holders.  I wrote each child's name on the bottom of their candle holder along with the year using a black Sharpie marker.  I gave each child a thick paintbrush (like the kind preschoolers would use on a paint easel) covered with white Elmer's glue.  I learned it was easiest to plop the glue-covered paintbrush into their candle holder instead of letting them dip the glue out of a bowl.  A large glob of glue was plenty for the project and when they dipped themselves the glue dripped all over the table and onto the sides and top of the candle holder.  After giving them the brush with glue they spread the glue all over the bottom and halfway up the sides of the candle holder.  Then they were able to choose what color glitter they wanted.........we had many colors to choose from.  This was super exciting since we don't use the glitter very often and young children LOVE glitter.  We dumped a fair amount of glitter into the bottom of the candle holder and then I showed them how to roll it around to get the glitter to cover the glue.  We dumped the extra glitter out onto a paper plate and that was it!!  Once they had dried a little bit the children chose tissue paper to wrap them, then we placed them into some brown lunch bags that they had stamped with Christmas stamps.  They added a tealight candle to the bag.  Then we folded over the top, punched two holes and tied a ribbon through.  They were SO excited to take these home to their parents.  By my best guess most of them could not wait until Christmas to have their parents open their gifts.  Even though my little boy is a student in my class and sat with ME to make MY gift, as soon as we got home that day he wanted me to open it right away! 

Here are some photos to illustrate what we did.  The first two photos show the candle holder my son made.  He used silver glitter and it turned out so pretty.

This photo shows our little gift bags all lined up and ready to go home.