My Montessori Journey

Resurrection Rolls

I am so thankful that I teach in a faith-based preschool.  That means I can talk to the children each day about God.  It also means that I can teach them about the REAL reason we celebrate Easter.  My favorite book for teaching this story to young children is The Story of Easter by Patricia Pingry.  Patricia Pingry writes a whole series of simple board books about the holidays.  I own nearly every title.  This book teaches the basic tenets of the Easter story without mentioning the more gruesome aspects which would not be appropriate for young children.  We have listened to this story several times within the past few weeks. 

On Monday and Tuesday this week some moms came into the classroom to help with a baking activity for Easter.  Before the children left the classroom four at a time to bake, I read the book aloud again.

 
The baking project we did was Resurrection Rolls.  I had made these a few years ago with my own sons.  They are super easy to make, super yummy to eat, and symbolize the important part of the Easter story.

To make resurrection rolls you need:  crescent rolls, large marshmallows, melted butter, cinnamon and sugar. 

We found that these work best if you use only half a marshmallow. 

To make these, dip the marshmallow in melted butter, then roll it in the cinnamon and sugar.  Place the marshmallow on a crescent roll and fold in the edges to completely enclose the marshmallow.  It's important to try to seal the seams really well, but know that they will probably still burst open in the baking process.......it will still work out fine though even if they open up.

To emphasize the symbolism, tell your child that the marshmallow represents the body of Jesus once it was removed from the cross.  The crescent roll represents the tomb where Jesus' body was placed.

Following are a few photos of some students preparing their rolls for baking........

 

 

When we do these baking projects, we bake on parchment paper and write each child's name next to their baked item as shown below.  That way each child gets their very own without any confusion.

 

The best part is after the rolls are baked.  During baking the marshmallows melt, but the space they occupied is still there.  This represents the "resurrected" body of Jesus.  When Jesus' friends went to the tomb on the first Easter morning, they received the good news that his body was not there because he was risen!  Good news indeed!  Although some of the children could easily figure out that the marshmallow had melted, others were surprised that the marshmallow had disappeared.  I'm sure the parents of my students heard some interesting explanations of this project.  Hopefully this post will clarify what we did!   Have a blessed Easter!

 

Group Activity for "Way Out in the Desert" Book

Wow!  Sorry I've been absent from the blog for so long.  Life gets busy.  Anyway, I wanted to post a group activity we have done recently to go with the book Way Out in the Desert.  We have used this book as a literature-based way to get to know several desert animals.  In fact, this book prompted me to create a desert animals booklet-making activity that you can read about here. 

For our group activity I used laminated pictures of the ten desert animals from the book and numeral cards 1-10.  I placed these into a cloth bag.  At group time, the children passed the bag around the line and took a card from the bag without peeking.  Each child had either an animal picture or a numeral card.  As they passed the bag I asked each child to name their numeral or animal.  Once everyone had a card, I read the book aloud.  When I read each page the children with the corresponding numeral and animal picture came up and placed them into a pocket chart.  When I finished reading the book, the children and I "read" the pocket chart (i.e. "one horned toad, two hummingbirds".......etc.).  This was a great way to involve the children in the rereading of a familiar text.  It also helped to reinforce the vocabulary of our desert unit.

 

 

A "Special Delivery" Game

I made up a little group game to go with our "special delivery" Valentine mail bag.   We have been playing this game during group time this week and it has been a real hit! 

To play this game we used our mail bag and some laminated name cards, one for each child.  To start the game, I placed all the name cards into the mail bag.  Then I walked around the middle of the group (with a peppy jaunt in my step!) and sang the following song (which I also made up): 

Tune:  I'm a Little Teapot

I'm a little postman short and sweet,

The nicest little postman that you will ever meet.

I deliver valentines on Valentine's Day.

I put one in the middle and you take it away.

I do a little knee bend while singing the "short and sweet" line, and on the third line, I start opening the mail bag.  I remove one name card and "throw" it onto the floor in the middle of the group.  The child whose name is represented then gets up and retrieves their "mail", gives the card to me and they become the next "short and sweet" postman.  We play until everyone has a turn.

I love watching the children during these types of games.  Some are very hesitant to have all the attention on them, but with a bit of coaxing they have all participated in this activity.  Some are not shy at all and "ham it up" when it is their turn to be postman.  This has been a sweet little game for us to enjoy. They LOVE being the postman!! 

Tip:  If you don't have a cute handmade valentine mail bag, don't fret!  Just grab an old ladie's handbag with a shoulder strap.  Your kids will NOT care a bit what the mail bag looks like, I guarantee it!

 

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.

Shakin' Up Some Yum!!

This week we had a bunch of fun making (and tasting) butter in the classroom.  I did this at home with my boys a few summers ago, but had never done it at school until now.  It kind of fits with what we have been learning about life in Pilgrim times, so I thought November would be a great time to try this.  If you have never made your own butter it is SUPER simple. 

You need a clean jar with a tight-fitting lid (I used an old mayonnaise container---it was plastic but glass would work well too) and a small carton of whipping cream. You can find this right in the milk section at the grocery store.  Pour the whipping cream into the container and shake it up until butter forms.  This takes about 10+ minutes.  I will describe it a little more below.

I explained to the children how people long ago did this using a churn.  I didn't have a real churn to show them, but now that I am typing this I realize I should have Googled a photo to show them.  I'll have to do that anyway.  It will still be educational after the fact.  Anywho.....I poured the cream into the jar and we talked about how it looks just like milk.  Then I screwed the lid on tightly and taught them the following little "butter song" while I demonstrated shaking the jar vigorously.  (I don't have a source for this song, but I'm sure I found it on the internet somewhere.)

Butter Boogie

Shake it up,

Shake it down,

Shake it, shake it all around.

Shake it high,

Shake it low,

Shake it, shake it to and fro.

Shake it over,

Shake it under,

Pretty soon we will have butter!

We passed the jar around the line, giving each child a turn to shake.  They could each decide whether we would sing to them or count for them (we counted to 20).  The photo below shows some shaking action.

 

After all the children had a turn I opened the jar so we could see what was happening.  At that point, the jar didn't sound "sloshy" anymore when shaken.  That's because we had transformed the whipping cream into whipped cream.  The photo below shows what it looked like at this point.  If you've never done this before it's important to know that you will reach a stage where it doesn't slosh around and you'll think it's not working.........

 

............but if you carry on and continue to shake it for a bit longer, you'll notice that you can start to see through some spots on the jar again and it starts to sound sloshy again.  Shake a bit longer until most of the cream has come off the sides.  When you open the jar again, you'll see a lump of butter along with the remaining liquid.  Now your butter is done!  It will look like what you see below.

 

Pour off the liquid and spoon the butter into a bowl.  (I wish this photo had turned out better.)  Oh.......I forgot to say that when you start the whole process with pouring the whipping cream into the jar you can add a dash of salt if you want.  We didn't do this and it still tasted delicious.  At snack time we tasted the butter spread on some crackers.  Nearly every child who tried the crackers and butter exclaimed over and over how yummy it tasted.  Maybe we should make butter every week!!!

 

Our Love Lights

This past week I gave one of my favorite group lessons.  It was heartening to hear the excited gasps and exclamations from my second year students when they realized what the lesson was.  One little girl sitting near me said, "I LOVE this lesson."  The concept of "love lights" was introduced to me through the book Honoring the Light of the Child by Sonnie McFarland.  The concept is simple:  that we all possess a center of goodness and light (I am fortunate in my faith-based setting to be able to call this "God") which allows us to share goodness, light and love with those around us.  This concept is illustrated very visually through the lesson I presented using the manipulatives described in Sonnie's book. 

 

During my group lesson I took the tray shown below from the shelf (it was out in the classroom for the first time that day) and brought it to the line.  I held up the blue "person" outline and told the children that this person represents every person living on Earth.  We talked about how God made us and also every human being as well as the Earth and every living thing on it.  I explained that God actually lives within our hearts and fills our heart with love.  This love is called our "love light".  When we are especially excited or happy or proud, our love lights shine brightly.  I illustrated this by shining a lit flashlight behind the person as shown in the second photo.  I told the children that sometimes we can see their love light shining out from their eyes when they feel happy.  Then I used another "shield" (basically a laminated frame with black tissue paper) and slid it behind the person.  I told them that when we feel sad or hurt our love light grows dim.  This can happen when people say unkind things to one another.  The good news is that God is still in our hearts and we can see our love lights still shining, just not as brightly.  When this happens we need to find a friend or a caring grown-up to help us feel better so our love lights can shine brightly again.  At this point I pulled out the "dark" shield so the light shone brightly again.  This lesson gives me a perfect opportunity to illustrate how important it is to treat one another with kindness so we don't make someone's love light get dark.

This is probably one of the most powerful group lessons I teach each year.  It is also the lesson that parents tell me really resonates with their children.  I've already gotten several comments or emails from parents since my lesson last week telling me that their children came home talking about this lesson.  And really, isn't it an important lesson for all of us?  That we try to live each day in ways that brighten the lights of those around us. 

 

 

As an exciting sidebar, I am super-excited that I will be presenting a workshop in February at a Montessori conference where Sonnie McFarland is the keynote speaker.  That should be so inspiring.  I can't wait.  CLICK HERE to find out more about this conference.  Maybe I'll see some of you there?  Hope so!

November poem

Since several of you have asked, here is the poem we are using in our classroom for November.  I am including a link to a file where you can download the poem and the pictures I am using.

"Thanksgiving"

The year has turned its circle.

The seasons come and go.

The harvest is all gathered in,

And chilly north winds blow.

Orchards have shared their treasures,

The fields, their yellow grain.

So open wide the doorway,

Thanksgiving comes again!

When we have the pocket chart up and poetry basket out, I'll post photos of those.  Using this poem has allowed us to discuss the concept of the earth's revloution around the sun and how that causes the seasons.  Luckily, we do the traditional Montessori birthday celebration in our classroom so the children have a frame of reference for the idea of the earth rotating around the sun.  We have also talked about what "harvest" means, what a "cornucopia" is, and what types of "treasures" are found in orchards and fields.

Guess what?  Your reward for reading to the end of this post is that I've also included the poems and pictures for September, October and December!!  Yay for you!!

Download September            Download September pictures only

Download October                Download October pictures only

Download Thanksgiving        Download Thanksgiving pictures only

Download Christmas Wreaths    Download Christmas Wreath pictures only

Our November song list

This month we are having so much fun singing several songs about turkeys and Thanksgiving.  I am posting the lyrics here in case you would like to sing them with your own little ones.

"Turkey Pokey"

(Tune:  Hokey Pokey)

You put your right wing in,

You take your right wing out,

You put your right wing in

And you shake it all about.

You do the turkey pokey and you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about.  Gobble gobble!

(Repeat with the following "parts": left wing, drumsticks, stuffing, wattle, tail feathers, turkey body)

NOTE:  I always have a big smile on my face as I watch the children sing this song.  They are so joyful and it is so much fun to sing. 

"The Turkey Ran Away"

(Tune:  The Farmer in the Dell)

The turkey ran away, before Thanksgiving Day.

He said, "They'll make a roast of me if I decide to stay.

The pumpkin ran away, before Thanksgiving Day.

He said, "They'll make a pie of me if I decide to stay.

The cranberry ran away, before Thanksgiving Day.

She said, "They'll make a sauce of me if I decide to stay.

NOTE:  We have a lot of fun giggling about a pumpkin and cranberry running away when we sing this silly song.

 

"All God's Love"

(Tune:  Up on the Housetop)

God made my eyes, my ears, my nose.

God made my knees, my legs, my toes.

God made my arms, my fingers, my hands.

God made me to sit and stand.

See my hands go clap, clap, clap.

See my toes go tap, tap, tap.

With my two arms I can squeeze and hug.

That's how I'll give you all God's love.

NOTE:  While this song is not as peppy or silly as the other two, I love it for it's message and it's sweetness.  The children seem to enjoy it too.

Our October poem

I know I have only recently shared with you about our monthly poetry baskets.  However, I wanted to write a quick post about our October basket for the benefit of any parents of my children who may read the blog (even though they don't tell me! haha) and want the words to the poem.  The photo below shows the pocket chart with the poem in it.  As before, we practiced the poem without print the first week, then added the print the second week (last week), and the poetry basket with objects this week.  Next week we'll practice reciting the poem from memory at group time.  My favorite part!

 

A reader had asked me after my first poetry post where I have my pocket chart located.  You can see below that it is right next to my calendar area.  I like having it here because it is readily available for me when I want to model reading and pointing at group time.  During our work period the children come up and use the pointer (on the floor in the photo) to read the poem on their own.  I love it when they do that!

 

Below are the contents of the basket:  a laminated copy of the poem with pictures, a basket of silk leaves (from Dollar General), three little pumpkins (they are real; they grew out of my compost bin at home after I threw out last year's jack-o-lanterns; I don't know why they are small instead of big though!) and a miniature "bonfire" from my oldest son's frontier play set.

 

 

 

When I demonstrated this basket during group time I had my assistant read the poem and point to the words (on the little laminated copy) while I "acted out" the poem with the objects.  I showed how to start with a few leaves on my open palm and then to blow them off when she said, "....the smallest breeze gives us a shower of autumn leaves."  Then I pointed to the bonfire and pumpkins at the appropriate time and picked up some leaves and let them fall when she said, "Leaves sailing down."  When she read, "October is red and golden and brown" I held up a red, yellow, then brown leaf. 

I just have to say how adorable it is to watch pairs of friends read and enact these poems.  It is truly so heart-warming. 

Oh, precious words...........

This post has been in my head for quite a few weeks now.  I don't know why it's taken me so long to write it.  You know how sometimes something can be so precious and sacred that it seems hard to describe it in words?  That is kind of how I've felt about sharing this.  Still, it's so worth sharing and I hope I'll do it justice here. 

This year I decided to try something new in the classroom.  Over the summer I selected a poem for each month of the school year.  My goal is to teach a new poem to the children each month. I knew they could learn to say a poem because they so easily pick up and learn the songs we sing.  However, I wanted to reinforce literacy and reading concepts within our poetry work which is something new for me to try with this age level. I wanted to incorporate the use of manipulative items with the poem too, so I came up with the concept of poetry baskets.  I'll describe our September basket here, along with the amazing outcomes I've seen in the children.

All the poems I am using I found on the website CanTeach.  It took me a while to find the ones I liked.......they  have a really large selection.  When choosing poems I wanted them to be fairly short, talk about nature if possible, and use some good vocabulary or metaphorical language that I could discuss with the children.

When introducing the poem to the children, I first presented it orally.  I told them I had a poem to teach them and I wanted them to close their eyes and listen while I read it out loud.  I read the poem slowly, and with good expression.  We then talked about what pictures they had in their minds as I read the poem.  Then I read it again, showing them the pictures I made to go with the poem.  (I just used images I found in Microsoft Word clip-art or through a Google image search.)  For our September poem, we talked a bit about how a brown dirt road can look like a brown ribbon.  We also talked about the fact that asters are a type of flower and that they are purple.  We talked about that "a forest of green" means that the forest is green because of all the trees.  Then we tried saying the poem together a few times while I held up the pictures to go with each part.  We continued to practice our poem verbally with the picture clues for the first week.

The second week, I added the print to our poetry practice.  I wrote each line of the poem on a sentence strip and placed these in my pocket chart, leaving room for the picture cards as shown.  When introducing this, I told them that the words were the same ones we had been saying when we "recited" our poem.  Then I modeled reading the poem and pointing under each word with my pointer.  I had added a sticker dot beneath each word to help facilitate their pointing to each word while reading.  After reading our poem together a few times with the pointer as a group, I told them that they could try reading the poem themselves during our work time.  Many times during that week my assistants and I witnessed children alone or in small groups using the pointer to read the poem.  They did a great job tracking the print and saying the poem.  I felt a catch in my throat while watching them be so independent.  There are so many wonderful print concepts that they are practicing when doing this: one-to-one correspondence, tracking from left to right, the "return sweep" when you get to the end of a line of print and realize that you have to start again on the left side of the line below. 

Below you can see two photos showing our pocket chart for the September poem, "September."

 

 

I wish you could see the "far away" version of this photo with one four-year-old pointing and reading while three little friends gathered 'round to watch and read with her.  It was precious.

 

During the third week, I introduced the poetry basket.  I had intentionally held off introducing the basket with the manipulatives until I knew the children had internalized the poem. That way I was pretty sure that they would use the items in the basket in the intended way (to act out the poem) instead of just playing or messing with them. 

Below you can see our September poetry basket.  Its contents are show in detail below.

 

It has a laminated copy of the poem with little "dots" below the words to facilitate tracking.  There is an "eyeball stick" that the children use to point to the words as they "read."  When introducing the basket I told them that this was a work to do with a friend.  One friend would read and point to the poem while the other friend set up the materials.  Then they would trade jobs.

 

Here you can see the materials for this basket:   A long brown ribbon for the "road like brown ribbon", a laminated photo of the sky for "a sky that is blue", some little wooden trees from Hobby Lobby with a grooved wooden stand I borrowed from another activity for the "forest of green" (the sky picture is placed behind the trees to show the "sky peeping through"), a vase with purple asters for "asters, deep purple", and a grasshopper for the "grasshopper's call". 

 

Here are close-ups of each material in the basket..........

 

 

 

 

The most amazing and heart-warming and magical and precious and wonderful aspect of our study of this poem occurred during the last week of September when I invited children to stand and recite the poem out loud for their friends at group time.  I did not force anyone to do this, but allowed every child the opportunity. I was so proud when these little people (who really haven't even been able to speak in sentences for very long when you think about it) got up in front of about 19 other children and said the poem from memory.  What a wonderful oral language opportunity and confidence-booster!  We clapped for each child when they were done.  My assistants and I had tears in our eyes each day that week because children who we would not have expected to try, were getting up and saying the poem.  It was phenomenal!  I will post soon with the words to our October poem.  If you are a parent of a child in my class who is reading this, show this post to your child. I would bet my bottom dollar that they will be able to tell you the poem.  Like I told the children, "This poem is a treasure in your heart.  Now that you know it, it will always be part of who you are.  Someday when you are maybe a mommy or a daddy, you may hear this poem again, and your heart will recognize it as your very own poem."  It's so true.