My Montessori Journey

Letter Ee stamping work

Sometimes I like to put out a worksheet type of activity on the shelf that allows children to practice a skill in a pencil and paper format.  I always set it up in a hands-on way that allows for as many children as possible to successfully complete the activity if they choose it.  For this work, I printed and copied a paper from Kidssoup.  This particular paper requires the child to visually discriminate between an upper and lowercase "e" and to color each one differently according to whether it is capital or lowercase.  Below you can see how I set this up on the shelf.  I have one tray with the copies of the paper.  Next to that is a little basket with 2 Do-A-Dot markers (1 red, 1 blue), a pencil, and a control card.

 

This is a close-up of the basket.  Unfortunately you cannot really see the control card very well.  I just took a regular index card and folded it in half.  Then I used a black Sharpie marker to draw 2 eggs.  I wrote "E" in one and colored it blue with a colored pencil and wrote "e" in the other and colored it red.

 

To do this work, the child takes one paper and the little basket to a table.  They set it up as shown.  The control card allows them to be able to follow the written directions on the paper without being able to read the directions.  This allows them to complete this work independently.  I presented this work at line time to the whole class.  I modelled writing my name on the paper in pencil.  Then I showed the children an uppercase and lowercase "e" and told them that "Easter" and "egg" both begin with E.  We also talked about our classmates who have names that begin with E.  Then I showed them how to find the uppercase Es first and stamp them blue.  I repeated with the lowercase Es.

 

In the next photo you can see my own 3 year-old doing the activity.

 

And here is what it looks like finished.

 

Hopefully this post has opened your eyes to how you can use worksheets in a developmentally appropriate way using small modifications that will allow children at many different age and skill levels to access the skill being practiced. 

Valentine Card-Making work

I know this post is after the fact; I really wanted to post it last week, but as you probably know by now, I didn't have internet access for a week.  I still wanted to share with you a fun activity that I put out last week.  It could certainly be modified for birthday card work, spring cards, etc. 

To give a little background, we always have birthday card work out on the day we celebrate someone's birthday at school.  The children love making and giving cards to the birthday child.  We had Christmas card work out in December as well.  I decided to set up the Valentine's card work with a few extra "gadgets" that we don't usually put out for our other card work.  That's why I ended up setting it up on my free-standing shelf as shown below instead of on the little floor table I usually use.  The photo below shows the whole set-up.  Up to three students were allowed to work here at a time, each working at a different "station".  The stations are shown and described below. 

 

 

This photo shows the basket with blank cards (construction paper cut in half and then folded in half), a placemat, ink pad, and foam stamp.  The children used the foam stamp (4-sided and purchased from Hobby Lobby) to stamp valentine images on their cards.

 

The next area was set up with a heart punch and pieces of construction paper in valentine colors.  Each child was allowed to use one piece of paper and they could punch out as many little hearts as they wanted to.  They could then glue the hearts onto their card using the glue stick.  The extra white basket was our "garbage" basket; that is where they placed the pieces of paper that had been punched from.

 

The last part of the work area had a bucket of pieces of paper doilies that could be glued to the cards.  It also had a basket with 4 markers.  The children could use the markers to sign their names, write a message, or draw a picture on their card.

 

Just above the last work area, I posted a paper with various words and messages on it so the children could use it to spell some of the words they might want to use on their cards.  There were many proud and happy children this past week who completed special handmade cards to take home to their families.

Meltdown Decoding Game

New on my language shelf this month is the snowman "Meltdown" game from Kelly's Kindergarten.  This is a wonderful game for my second-year students who know most of their sounds and are beginning to decode words.  

   

This photo shows the different types of cards.  Most of the cards have CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words to read.  The special cards are the "snowflake" card and "melting snowman" card.  To begin play, shuffle all the cards and place them facedown in the center of the rug.  A player turns over the top card.  If it's a snowman card, they read the word and keep the card.  If it's a snowflake card, they can steal a snowman card from another player.  If they get the meltdown card, the game ends and all players count their cards.  A fun way to practice decoding skills.

Birthday Card Work

We celebrated the first birthday of the school year in our classroom this week.  As part of the special occasion, I put out birthday card work for the morning.  This was something that was part of my Montessori training as well as something that was used in the school where I interned and taught previously.

Here is the work set up on a little table which I pushed up against the back of a shelf.  You can see that I used a page protector into which I inserted a paper with the name and age of the birthday girl.  I just stuck it onto the shelf with some of that sticky-tack stuff.  The table holds (from left to right) a basket with pieces of folded construction paper in several colors, a little clear box of birthday stickers, an empty basket to hold the paper from the back of the stickers, and a mug of skinny markers.  There is also a red placemat.

Here is a photo which shows the whole activity better.  I modelled the card-making in front of the class at line time.  I showed them how to choose a card, use ONE sticker strip (with 2 stickers) to place stickers on the card, throw the paper in the basket and draw/write on the card.  I pointed out that if they couldn't write their name on the card, they could go to their cubbies and get one of their name labels to place on the card so our birthday girl would know who the card is from.  When they completed the card, they were to take it to the birthday girl wherever she was in the classroom and wish her "Happy Birthday."  Several children chose this work during our work time today.  I think I should put it out more often than just on birthdays, however, because some students wanted to make a card for someone in their family instead of for our birthday child. 

In my training it was suggested that you provide some matboards with a shape cut out (like the ones you put into a picture frame to frame a photo) for the children to use to trace onto the card and to write the message inside.  I didn't, however, have any so I didn't put any out. 

New work this week..........

I like to put out seasonal activities throughout the year in as many curricular areas as I can.  Due to the TONS of resources available on the world wide web, I am never at a loss for finding new things to make for the classroom.  When I think back to how I made materials in the past when I taught Montessori, I can't believe how many hours I must have spent on them.  At that time (12 years ago), I found black and white pictures in books, copied them, colored them by hand, cut them out, glued them onto a background, then laminated them.  Now, it's as easy as downloading a file, printing it, and laminating it OR doing a "virtual" cut and paste (already in color) on the computer. 

Many of the new things out this week are materials gleaned from web resources.

This is an alphabet matching activity I printed off from Kidssoup.  Doesn't it look great on the red gingham metal tray I found while thrifting this summer??  To do this activity, the child matches the apple with the uppercase letter to the blossom on the tree with the lowercase letter.  I programmed the back of the apple cards with the lowercase letter to allow for independence and cross-checking.  This activity will go on the language shelf.

This is an apple matching game also printed from Kidssoup.  Three children can play this at once.  To play, the matching cards are placed facedown in the center of the rug as shown in the photo.  The children take turns turning over a card and seeing if it matches their board.  If it does, they place it on their board.  If not, they can give it to the person who has the match on their board.  I placed this on the sensorial shelf since it involves visual discrimination skills.

This is a new Practical Life activity that I pulled together to go along with our apples for September.  I found this cute little green pail and the apple pencil toppers among all the goodies in my cupboards.  I added the ice cube tray and the strawberry huller and it was shelf-ready.

And this little basket has three large apples cut from craft foam and a worm cut from brown felt.  This is a little guessing game to play with a friend.  Two children may do this activity together.  One child covers their eyes while the other child hides the worm under one of the apples which have been laid out on a rug.  The other child then uncovers their eyes and guesses which apple is hiding the worm.  I like having these types of simple games out.  They are very helpful for developing friendships between children.  Last week I had a few teary children, which is to be expected the first week.  When I was able to engage the teary child in an activity with a content child, oftentimes the sadness disappeared and the basis for a new friendship was formed. 

Handwriting Without Tears

I am working hard to get my handwriting shelf ready for the children to use.  When I taught in the public schools, my school adopted the Handwriting Without Tears program.  It is one of the best programs around, in my opinion, for teaching proper strokes in a fun, developmentally appropriate way.

For very young children (like the ones I teach) who are just beginning to understand the concept of what a letter is, the program uses wooden pieces that can be manipulated to form the capital letters.  My dad made a bunch of these for me several years ago.  They can also be ordered from the company.  The neat thing is that children learn that all capital letters are made up of big lines, little lines, big curves, or little curves.  For my classroom, I will be using the wooden pieces along with some letter mats (control cards) that I ordered from the company.

On the bottom of this language shelf you can see what I have set up so far.  From the left:  a basket which contains the wooden pieces, a tray with a foam mat and the control cards for all the capital letters, and a tray with a magic slate and magnetic wooden pieces (more on this below).

You can see I had a little helper (my son) when I was trying to photograph this after class on Friday.  To do this work, the child gets a rug and places the basket of wooden pieces on it along with the tray that has the foam mat and control cards.  The foam mat is placed on the rug.  Next to it they place the white mat for the letter they wish to make.  You can't see it well, but the HWT program uses a little smiley face in the top left corner to show children where to start their letters.  It is referred to as the "starting corner".  That is SO important, because so often children start their letters from the bottom and get into bad habits that are hard to reverse.  And in case you are reading this wondering why it matters where they start the letters, I will give you my two cents.  In the finished product (in this case that would be the finished letter on the page) it doesn't necessarily matter how they form it as long as it's legible.  However, the ultimate goal is being able to write fluently enough to be able to express yourself with handwriting.  Starting at the top and going to the bottom allows for the most efficient way to build such fluency.  If you are starting any old place when you  make any given letter, fluency will be affected or reduced.

Here you can see the control card and the foam mat with the wooden pieces on top to make the capital letter I.  As I look at this, I'm thinking that when I present it to the child, I will put the control card on the left, then the blue foam mat on the right.  This will reinforce the concept of left to right since I will have them make it on the control card first, then on the foam mat.

On the other tray on my shelf is the Stamp and See Screen.  This is similar to a Magnadoodle for those of you who know what that is.  This one is made by the HWT company.  It comes with 4 magnetic wooden pieces (big line, little line, big curve, little curve).

Here is how I have it laid out on the tray.

In the first picture you can see the screen with the wooden pieces forming a capital D.  Once removed (see second photo) they leave an impression on the screen.  This can then be traced with the finger or with the little yellow "chalk" piece that is attached.  The little yellow chalk is angled on the end and short to force little fingers to use a proper tripod grip when holding it.

Other HWT resources that I have and will be using are the preschool workbook and CD. 

While I was working in the classroom yesterday after the children left, my son who attends preschool here was playing with the wooden pieces and made the U and O pictured above.  I think all the children are going to enjoy working with these materials next week. 

To anyone (especially fellow Montessorians reading this) who is wondering if I have abandoned teaching letter formation with the sandpaper letters, the answer is NO!  I will still use the sandpaper letters to introduce the sounds and to practice correct formation of lowercase letters.  However, since I don't have any uppercase sandpaper letters, this will provide a nice balance to what already exists.

Finally, as I wrote a few days ago, we are spelling the name of the snack helper each day on line, then that child hangs up their name on the name clothesline.  In addition, we count the letters in the name, talk about what sound it starts with and who else has a name that starts the same.  I think I will add one step and we will make the first letter of the name using our wooden pieces and foam mat.  We can also write it in the air to practice strokes using gross motor skills.

Eyeball sticks

Is that an attention-grabbing title or what?  I am just sitting here relaxing a little after finishing my first full week of teaching in my Montessori preschool classroom.  It has been a great week, and I feel very happy.  Really. just. amazing.  (and kind of tired)

A while back I wrote some detailed posts about how I go about introducing sounds in my classroom.  Today I wanted to show you an additional activity that I hadn't mentioned before.  To completely understand what I am writing about, please go back and read this post.  And especially if you are the parent of a child in my class, you will want to read that particular post.  It really gives a lot of detailed information about how I approach teaching the children letters and sounds.  AND........several little friends have already started their red sound books this week.  Yippee!!

OK...........after a child has learned a new sound using the sandpaper letter, writing in the sand tray, gluing it into their sound book, etc., they can take an "eyeball stick"  (I don't have a more correct term for them.......sorry!) and try to find their sound somewhere in the room.  Most often they can find the sounds on the nametags of our cubbies OR in the books in our library area.

Here is the table that always stays set up to do sound work.  At the left is the sand tray where we write our sound with our fingers.  Next is a cup with the "eyeball sticks", then a little basket which holds a Sharpie marker for writing their name on the sound book along with a glue stick and gluing mat to glue in their paper letters.  (See this post for a little more info about the paper letters.)

NOTE:  Also in the can with the eyeball sticks are some pipe cleaners which are bent at the end in a circular shape.  There are some curly ribbons tied to the circle part.  These can also be used to find a letter or word. 

Here you can see that I found an "a" with my eyeball stick.  So far I have only just begun to introduce these to the children.  I actually had the can of sticks on another shelf for most of the week until one of the children asked what they were for.  Then I had the brainstorm about using them immediately after their sound lesson to find the letter in the classroom.  So I moved the can over to the sound table for easy access and to remind me to have them do it!

The Name Clothesline

Wow!  It's finally here.  The first day of school with students is tomorrow.  I am very excited and hope it goes well.  Today I was up at school for about 2 hours doing a few last minute things.  One thing I really wanted to have ready but hadn't done yet is the Name Clothesline.  I don't remember where I got this idea, but I'm modifying it a little from what it had been used for in the classroom on the blog I don't remember.

Each day a different student will bring snack and be our "snack helper."  As I've mentioned before, the snack helper will have various leadership opportunities which include leading the pledge, leading the line out to recess and back, passing out snack, etc.  I would also like to use the snack helper's name each day to give everyone a little exposure to the names of the letters of our alphabet.  So........I found these little t-shirt cut-outs at a teacher supply store and rigged up a clothesline on the back of a shelf.  I used screw-in eye hooks and some of the wire I used for my art wire as shown in this post.  I first tried it with yarn between the hooks, but the t-shirts were so heavy they really pulled the yarn down.

My plan is to show the snack helper's name card during our line time.  Together we will spell the snack helper's name out loud, clapping as we say each letter, then saying the name as we raise both arms like a cheer.  Tomorrow, my snack helper will be GRANT.  So we will chant and say, "G-R-A-N-T........Grant!"  I will then lay out the t-shirt letters and we will count the letters in Grant's name.  Then Grant and I will hang up his letters on the line.  For tomorrow, we will just leave the letters up all morning.  However, in the future I will set this up as an activity the children can do independently during their work time.  For example, after we have spelled and hung up the snack helper's name, any child could go over and spell their name or a friend's name during work time.  I plan to take everyone's picture this first week, then I'll make control cards with their photo and first name so they can have something to look at and check. 

NOTE:   I may need to buy more t-shirts to have enough letters.  I bought a package which had 36.  But, I need 16 for capital letters (I counted today and out of my 59 students, there are 16 different "first letters") and I still need to figure out what other lowercase letters I'll need.  My plan is to just make new letters each day as needed to spell the snack helper's name, utilizing the ones I've already made too, of course.  Does that make sense?  I am hoping the task won't be too overwhelming for the children with too many letters to go through.  Now, as I'm writing this, I am thinking I should have made the capital letters all the same color.  The t-shirts came in 4 different colors.  Well, we'll see how it works.  I'll keep you posted here on the blog.  I do think they will enjoy hanging up their name as a work.

3 hours.........3 dollars.............

..........and a whole pile of letters. 

OOPS!  I guess this photo doesn't show the letters very well.  Anyway, Wednesday was my oldest son's first day of school at the Montessori elementary school he is attending.  So my husband and I both went to drop him off, of course.  Usually, my husband will take him and pick him up as the school is in the metro area where my husband works.  We had a parent meeting later in the day, so I just stayed in the "city" until the meeting.  During that time, I went to a scrapbook store and paid $3 to use their letter die-cuts.  It took me about 3 hours total, but I was able to punch out all the lowercase letters of the alphabet (red consonants, blue vowels to match the Montessori moveable alphabet) as well as numbers 1-9 (not shown in the photo).  I am planning to have the children use these in their sound books instead of using the letters I had from before.  When a child learns a new sound using the sandpaper letters, they will then glue the letter into their sound book. 

Here are the pouches I made to hold the letters.  As I described in the post I linked to above, in my language system, the letters are divided into three groups by color.  To make the pouches, I just printed labels on the computer, cut a piece of construction paper in half, stuck the label on, laminated it, folded it, and stapled it on the sides.  Now it will be easy to pull out the needed letter when a child is ready.

I know this isn't the most exciting or original post I've ever written, but I did want people to know that most scrapbook stores do allow people to bring in their own paper and punch out letters, numbers and shapes for a small fee.  It's great to take advantage of this if you have a scrapbook store in your area.

The Pancake Game

I haven't gotten to work at school much this week; however, I did get up there for a little while last night.  While I was there I snapped a photo of a game I used last year.  I call it the "pancake game".  I don't think I made it up, but I also don't remember where I originally saw it.  Basically, I just cut out (with my scrapbooking tools) a bunch of circles from cardstock.  On one side I stuck printer labels with basic sight words.  To play, the child places all the pancakes face down on the table or rug.  Using a pancake flipper, they flip the pancake over and read the word.  If they read it correctly, they keep the pancake.  If not, they flip it back over. 

If I remember correctly, I made these in a hurry.  To make them cuter (and to look more like pancakes) you could use a more pancake-colored piece of cardstock, and maybe even add a pat of butter or some drizzled "syrup" on the backs of some.  This game could be used for review of many other concepts such as math facts, geography terms, counting sets of numbers, etc.