My Montessori Journey

Desert Sunset Art Project

Inspired by a trip I took to Tucson, Arizona last October, we are studying the desert in our classroom right now.  In addition to learning about how deserts look different from our landscape here in Iowa, we are learning about desert animals.  I came up with a little desert art project that has been out on our art shelf for about a week.  I love see how each child's interpretation of this is different.

Below you can see how I've set this up on the shelf:  a paper holder holds gray construction paper half sheets and brown newsprint paper cut into 3 inch wide strips.  The child takes one of each papers and the green tray to their work space.

 

The green tray has a vinyl mat, a textured plastic template, a box of crayons and a basket with a glue stick.  The first step is to place the brown paper onto the textured template and rub it with a brown crayon.  This makes the "sandy" desert ground.  Then they tear the textured piece in half to make it look even more realistic.

 

Before gluing the sandy ground in place, the child uses the various colored crayons to make "sunset stripes" across the gray paper.  Then the sandy ground is glued to the bottom.  We also have traced cactus to pin-punch and children who have punched out a cactus may add it to their desert scene.  Many children are also adding their own artwork which reflects their individual tastes and abilities.  So fun!

I tried to get the next photo to post horizontally but Typepad didn't cooperate.  This was taken while a child was working on it.

 

Here is another variation.  They have really loved making this project!

 

 

"Where I Live" books

Each year in the fall we learn the "Planet Earth" song at group time.  We sing it using the necklaces I made and holding the puzzle pieces from our puzzle maps.  CLICK HERE for a post that describes the song and necklaces in detail.

In the past I have always put out little "Where I Live" booklets for the children to color as an extension of our group activity and song.  CLICK HERE to read about how I did this in the past.

I was never completely satisfied with the booklets I had put out because they were basically little coloring books and did not require the children to do anything more than color them.  This year I changed it up a little bit.  I made new masters of my booklet pages, taking off the pictures and just leaving the text.  Then I made a little cut and paste paper using the pictures.  Now the children have to cut apart the pictures and glue them to the correct pages.  I took apart my master booklet and mounted the pages to the back of the shelf for control cards.  My set-up is shown in the photo below:  (L to R on top of the shelf): A basket with "Where I Live" booklets, a tray with the cutting pictures, a jar with pencils for writing names on the booklets, a basket with 2 pair of scissors, 2 gluesticks and 2 gluing mats.  You can see the control cards stuck to the shelf. 

 

Close-up of the first two control cards..........

 

Close-up of the booklets and tray of cut-apart pictures.........

 

I did not snap a picture of the inside of the booklets, but basically they are identical to the control cards shown except they are black and white and have text only, no pictures. 

My students have really done a great job completing these independently.  I hope they are taking them home and singing the song to their families as they "read" the booklets.

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.

 

Winter Olympic Flag Work

Wow!  I am so sorry it's been so long since I've posted.  I've just been busy living life and haven't gotten around to doing a post.  We have been learning a bit about the Olympics in our classroom these past two weeks in honor of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  One activity that has been immensely popular is the flag work.  A discussion of the Olympic games is a natural tie-in with geography.  As I explained that athletes from all over the world come together to compete, I pulled out our North America puzzle to show the children where Canada is in relation to the United States.  I decided to keep it simple and just put out flags for USA, Canada, and the Olympic flag.  I found blackline printables of the American and Canadian flags at Coloring Castle.  I ended up reducing the size of the flags to 75% of the original for this work.  That way they fit much better on a regular size drinking straw.  However, my youngest son has been wanting to make lots of flags at home so I've been printing out a bunch of full-size flags too.  I like how the flags at Coloring Castle can be printed with a coded coloring key.  I found the Olympic flag printable at First School.  The First School site has a bunch of great information and activities for the Olympics so be sure to check it out.

To set up this work I printed out an American and Canadian flag in color on white cardstock and laminated them.  I colored in a copy of the Olympic flag and laminated it.  Then I stuck the three flags to the back of a shelf with the materials on top as shown below.  To do this work two children may sit at the white tables shown so they are facing the control flags.  That way they can see how to color each flag.

On top of the shelf are three baskets/trays with the blank flag copies..........

.........a pencil for writing names on the back, scissors for cutting out the flag, markers for coloring the flag, and straws.  When the child is finished coloring and cutting out their flag, they bring the flag and a straw to a teacher who then helps them tape their flag to the straw.

Below you can see two flags colored by a student in my classroom.  They are so excited to bring these flags home to wave while watching the Olympic games on TV.

 
 

What we've been singing lately

I am going to link to a few posts from last year that give details about some of the songs we've been singing recently at our group time.  The Planet Earth song is a wonderful song/activity for helping children understand their place in the universe.  In my classroom the children wear necklaces and hold the corresponding puzzle pieces to illustrate their planet, continent, country, state and town (no puzzle piece for the town, however).  See the linked post for details about this song.

Another favorite that I bring out this time of year is the "Five Little Pumpkins" rhyme.  We do this as a group during line time and the children are allowed to get the props off the shelf during work time to do the rhyme on their own or with a friend.  (We have not yet done the other pumpkin activity/song described in the post because (unfortunately) my pumpkin props were (ahem) damaged last year by a critter who rudely invaded my office and demolished some of my materials which then had to be thrown away.)   

We've also been singing the "Fall Tree" song and using the felt leaves from Hobby Lobby to act it out.  They LOVE doing this song and the leaves are available to them during work time to sort by color, size and shape.

United States map work

I am happy to have finally put together my United States map work to add to our geography shelf.  Many of my students have now completed continent maps and taken them home.  What treasures they will be of their Montessori preschool experience!  The one my little boy made is hanging downstairs in our "science lab" room, proudly displayed next to an animal kingdom work my oldest son made in his Montessori elementary classroom this fall. 

It has been my intention all year to set up United States map work similar to how I set up my continent map work on the shelf.  However, for a large chunk of the school year, no one was making US maps and I had plenty else to work on, so it hadn't gotten done.  Recently, several of my second year students have started pin-punching their US maps.  Until I set up the work I'm going to show you here, my assistants and I were having to always trace the various states on scraps of construction paper of the correct color which is very time-consuming and doesn't allow for much independence on the part of the child.  So........this week I got going and prepared this activity for the shelf.  It will now be a permanent activity in the geography area.  And.........I have the perfect basket for this work that I found when thrifting last summer.  It has been waiting patiently for me to get the work ready to add to it.

Below you can see the basket with colored envelopes in it.  The envelopes were made using laminated construction paper folded in half.  They are color-coded to correspond with the colors of the states on my US puzzle map.  When a child wants to punch out a particular state, they find the correct envelope by color and take out the correct paper piece from the envelope.

 

I labelled each envelope on the outside with the names of the states it contains.

 

Inside the envelopes are the outlines of the states.  To make these, I traced around each puzzle piece from my US puzzle map, tracing all pieces of the same color on one sheet.  This created masters which I then copied on the corresponding color of copy paper.  I have found that for map work copy or printer paper punches and perforates better than construction paper.  Below you can see one of the "gray" state papers before it was cut apart and placed into the gray envelope.

 

The two photos below show a map that one of my students has been working on.  We started with Iowa which is a centrally located state.  After he punched it out, I helped him glue it near the center of the white oaktag.  Then, using the US puzzle map as a guide, he selected adjacent states to punch out and glue.  I assisted with correct placement and with writing the name of the state on the front with a black felt tip marker.

 

Here is a close-up of the same map.  Some of the states shown here were punched from construction paper before I had the new set-up ready to go.  However, my new system has already greatly increased the students' independence with this work.  Now they can find the correct paper state to pin-punch without any help from a teacher.

Arctic Iceberg activity

We will be reading about and studying life in the arctic this month.  So I decided to set up an arctic playset for the children.  I think they will love this.  First, I bought an Arctic TOOB at Hobby Lobby.  I think it was a few dollars cheaper at Hobby Lobby than at the Amazon link I've added.  In addition to these figures, I have frozen some "icebergs" in various bowls to add to this work.

   

I have this set up on my stationary shelf.  This means the activity will stay put and the children will stand to play with it.  They won't transport it from another shelf to a table.  I have a little bowl of arctic figures and a large white tray which represents the "arctic".  To do this work, the child will ask the teacher for the iceberg (which will be kept in the freezer until requested).  They can do this work with a friend or alone.  They must keep the iceberg on the tray so it doesn't get the floor wet or break if dropped on the floor.  I am planning to add a small hand towel to dry hands as well as the table surrounding the playset.

 

Here's a close-up of the arctic play figures.  These TOOB sets are made by Safari, Ltd., and they are very nicely made, in my opinion.  My boys at home have several different versions of them.

 

Here's a close-up of one of the "icebergs".  I used several different sized bowls so we'll have a variety to choose from.  I can't wait to see how the children respond to this work.

The "Where I Live" book

As an extension of our "Planet Earth" song, I created black and white "Where I Live" books that the children can color and take home.

These materials are on the geography shelf.  In the basket are the blank books for the children to color.  My laminated color copy of the book is displayed in a little stand and there is a bowl of colored pencils.

To do the work, the child takes a blank book, my book and the bowl of pencils to a table.  They can use my colored copy as a model to color their own book.  The pictures in my book are identical to those used on the necklaces for our song.  (See the post link above for more info on that.)  Several children have chosen to do this work.  Some of them are taking their time and coloring very carefully.  On Tuesday morning, one little boy spent about 50 minutes working on his book.  It was an outstanding job.  That same afternoon, another little girl spent about that long working on her book.  Several other children have chosen the work and have rushed through it to get it done.  In these cases, I try to encourage them to go back and take their time.  However, these situations just illustrate the varying attention spans and motor skills of the children.  Since this is a coloring activity and an extension of a song that every child has been exposed to during group time, I won't discourage any child from doing this work.  Even if they have rushed through the coloring part, they will still take the books home and (hopefully) have a positive experience with their families as they share their book and the song.

The "Planet Earth" song

This week at our line time we have started singing about our "place" in the world using one of my favorite songs to introduce geography to children.  I used to sing this with the children in the Montessori school where I taught previously and am excited to introduce it to my new "crop" of students.  This time, my friend, Amber, allowed me to borrow a perfect book which I am using to introduce the song.  It is called Me on the Map.  I am including a photo of it below and will add it to the Amazon link on the sidebar.

I like to involve the children in the songs as actively as possible using props.  When I did this song before, I had made up necklaces to represent each geographical area of the song.  The children wore these during our singing.  Of course I didn't have the foresight to take the necklaces with me, so I had to make new ones from scratch.  Since I have 20 students in each session, give or take, and there are 5 geographical "concepts" in the song (planet, continent, country, state, town), I decided to have a necklace and "prop" for each concept.  That way we could sing the song twice and every child would have a turn to do a special job.  Below you will see photos of the necklaces and props.  I have typed the corresponding song lyrics under each photo.  The tune is "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

The "necklace" is pictured at left.  I took this photo before I punched two holes in the top and tied a piece of yarn through the holes.  Here are the lyrics for this verse.  One child would stand in front of the group wearing the necklace while another child holds the globe.

"I live on the planet, the planet Earth, (repeat twice), I live on the planet Earth."

For this verse, one child wears the necklace and one holds the "North America" piece (it's orange) from our world puzzle map.

"I live on the continent of North America, (repeat twice), I live in North America."

For this verse, one child wears the necklace and the other holds the United States piece from our North America puzzle map.

"I live in the country of the United States, (repeat twice), I live in the United States."

For this verse, one child wears the necklace and the other one holds the puzzle piece for our state, Iowa, from the United States puzzle map.

"I live in the state of Iowa, (repeat twice), I live in Iowa."

For the final verse, the necklace is identical to the one pictured above, however, our town is marked with a dot and labelled.  One child wears the necklace and the other holds a stuffed animal representing our high school mascot (or they yell, "Go Rams!").

"I live in the town of _____________, (repeat twice), I live in ____________."

I took this photo today so you could see one friend wearing the North America necklace while the other friend held the North America puzzle piece.

Of course this song could be adapted to sing about your specific place on the globe.  Even though geography is still an abstract concept for many preschoolers, I love how this activity makes it more concrete and plants the seeds for understanding that will come later.

Continent Map Work

One of the things that I love so much about Montessori education is its emphasis, from a very early age, on geography.  I feel that this was a very neglected area in my education.  And to be perfectly honest, my knowledge of geography increased tremendously when I became a Montessori preschool teacher.  This would probably surprise people who aren't familiar with Montessori education.  After all, most preschool programs do not teach geography. 

Montessori education helps children develop an understanding of their place in the universe.  In fact, Montessori education is often called a "cosmic education."  To this end, children are presented with the big picture first.  This can play out in the pre-primary classroom in several ways.  One thing that I like to do early on in the school year is to teach the children the "continents song" at line time.  The version of this song that I have used in the past is as follows.  The tune is "Freres Jacque."

Continents Song:

North America, South America,

Europe, Asia, Africa; Europe, Asia, Africa,

Australia, Australia,

Antarctica, Antartica.

While singing this, I have the continent map in front of me (see photo below) and I point to the various continents as we sing them.

Once children have been introduced to the continents through the continent song, they may choose to make their own continent map.  Using a sheet of white oaktag for the background, they use a plexiglass circle the exact shape of the hemispheres to trace the two hemispheres on blue construction paper.  They then cut these out using scissors (or pin-punching, more on that below) and glue them to the white background piece.  Then they are ready to punch out their first continent.

 

To prepare this work for the shelf, I began by tracing each continent piece on plain white paper.  I tried to get several on my master sheet.  Then I copied the master sheet onto copy paper the same color as the continent piece from the continent map puzzle.  The photo above shows my copies of Europe in red.

Then I pin-punched one of each of the continents out and glued it to the front of a manilla envelope.  I also adhered a sticker with the name of the continent on the front.  Then I laminated the whole envelope and slit open the opening in the back.  The next step was to cut apart the continents on the colored paper (but not cut around them) and place them in their correct envelopes.

Here are some of the completed envelopes.  I apologize for the terrible flash glare.  And don't worry, my Australian friends, I haven't forgotten your continent.  I just need to buy another package of envelopes to finish this work.  I already ruined one whole set of envelopes trying to do this a different way.......a long sad story that I will spare you of!!

Here is the top of my Geography shelf so far.  Just to the right of the shelf is the map stand.  You can see two little baskets for pin-punching and a divided holder for the continent envelopes.

Here is a close-up of the pin-punching baskets.  To do this work, the child takes the whole tray/basket and chooses the continent from the envelope that they want to punch out.  They then take all these materials to a table.  The felt pad is placed flat on the table.  The traced continent is placed on top of the felt.  Then they use the puncher tool to punch holes along the outline of the continent.  This perforates the continent so it can then be "punched" out of the paper surrounding it and ultimately glued onto their map.  I think it is so very, very cool for young children to make their own maps.  What an amazingly hands-on way to learn geography.  I can only imagine how much richer my knowledge of world geography would be now if I had had such experiences as a child.

I want to make a few more points about this work.  First, I realize that some people may think that the child should be allowed to take the actual puzzle piece and trace around it for themselves instead of having it already traced to punch.  And I agree that that would be ideal.  However, realistically, it is VERY difficult for very young children to hold a puzzle piece and simultaneously trace around it.  In fact, when I did it to make the master copies, it was kind of hard.  And I'm almost 40!!  So..........back when I taught Montessori before, I came up with this way to arrange map work so the children could be pretty independent.  They WILL usually need help punching out their perforated continent.  But otherwise, once taught the procedure, they should be pretty independent.

Next, I want to comment on the pin-punching.  Some people may wonder why the children aren't allowed to use scissors to cut out the continents.  I clearly remember children in my previous Montessori classrooms who wanted to cut out the continents with scissors.  Usually, it was because they wanted to get it done faster.  To be honest, if they really wanted to do it that way, I let them.  However, I ENCOURAGED them to do it with the pin puncher. Why?  One reason is that the continents are very "bumpy" along the edges and most very young children would have a really hard time using scissors to cut around all the bumps.  Another reason is that the pin-punching exercise is so good for developing concentration, attention to detail, and the fine motor skills needed for writing.  So........that's my rationale for having them do it that way.  And........the finished product looks so much nicer if they pin-punch.

Finally, a word about the pin-punchers.  The ones pictured above are different from what I used before.  You can purchase punchers like that from Montessori Services (see my sidebar for the link).  However, in my previous Montessori teaching situation, we used the VERY large push pins.   Here is a link to what I'm talking about.  These worked just fine.  However, now that I have the ones I have I think I will like them better.  I like that they are sized similarly to pencils in diameter.  Therefore, the child will have to use a tripod grip to hold them, which is good practice for writing.  I just wanted to point out the giant push pins as another option.