My Montessori Journey

Spoiler Alert!!! Info on Mother's Day gifts to follow.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are the parent of a child currently in my classroom and you DO NOT want to know what we are making for Mother's Day gifts, please do not continue reading.  I wanted to write this post now because I know the majority of my readers are not parents of children in my class.  From the comments you leave it appears that you appreciate it when I post things a bit ahead instead of in "real time" so that you could incorporate these projects in your setting right now instead of waiting until the next year rolls around.  If you fall into that category, READ ON!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we have been studying plants, it seemed perfect to plant seeds and grow flowers to give as Mother's Day gifts.  About two weeks ago each child planted two marigold seeds into little seed starter pots.  This week we were all thrilled to see that our seeds have sprouted.  While they will probably not be flowering by Mother's Day, they should at least have a good start.

 

Before giving these as Mother's Day gifts, we will transplant them into some pots that we are currently in the process of decorating.  I order THESE POTS from Discount School Supply.  They are bigger than I imagined, but not too big.  Using a foam brush and watered down glue, we are decoupaging THESE pre-cut tissue paper squares onto the pots.  I will bring them home and give them a good coat of acrylic spray to make them shiny and waterproof on the outside.  They are NOT waterproof on the inside, nor do they have drainage holes.  We will line them with sandwich baggies before transplanting the marigolds into them.  My thought is that the mommies can eventually transplant the marigold again, then keep the pot as a keepsake.  I think they are turning out so cute.  I love the patchwork look.

 

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!

 

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!

"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.

 

 

Some Valentine-related work

Here are a few things that are out on my Practical Life shelves right now.  First up is a "heart punching".  The basket holds small (3X6 inch) pieces of construction paper, two sizes of heart punches and a basket of little teeny ziploc bags (found at HobLob in the jewelry section).  To do this work, the child uses the punches to punch out little hearts.  The baggies are used to transport the little hearts home.  They usually choose to keep the "negative" space of the paper with the heart "holes" in it too.  I told them their moms or dads would love to use it as a bookmark!

 

It's hard to see in the photo, but this is a marble transfer work with white marbles and a pink starfish suction pad.

 

A water transfer activity using two halves of a thrifted heart-shaped glass box, one side filled with red water.  They use the eye dropper to transfer water from one heart to the other.  A sponge is included for wiping up spills.   They love the challenge of this work.

 

I have posted this before, but I love to put out red and white feathers in these awesome purple metal footed bowls each February.  They use a clothespin to grasp the feathers and move them from one bowl to the other.

 

Snowflake Bracelets

I set up this little bracelet-making activity so my students could make some snowflake bracelets.  I did something similar last year for Valentine's Day.  Sometimes paper punches are pretty hard for young children to use because of the pressure that must be applied to the punch.  One of my parents gave me a paper punch holder that she bought at a garage sale and I thought it would be perfect for this work.  Here is something similar.

 

For this work, I set up a basket with a paper punch and punching pad...........

 

.........a tray with 2 inch strips of white construction paper......

 

,,,,,,,,a bucket of pipe-cleaners.......

............a snowflake punch......... 

.......and the punch holder.  As shown below, you can see how the punch is set up in the holder..... 

 

.........and then pressure is applied to the large lever as shown here.

 

Once the child punches out several snowflakes, the punching tool is used to prick a hole in the center of each snowflake as shown here.

Then the snowflakes can be carefully threaded onto a pipe-cleaner to make a bracelet. 

 

New Practical Life for January

Here are a few photos showing some of the many new activities on the shelves in my classroom this week.  I hope to have much more to show you soon. 

First up is a spooning activity using clear glass marble chips and a small paint tray.  The marbles remind me of "ice" which is something we typically see lots of in the Midwest in January.

 

 

This activity requires the child to place clothespins around the rim of a small glass ramekin dish.  I told the children that many adults have made a New Year's resolution to exercise their bodies and that this work will help them to exercise and strengthen their finger muscles which will help them become better at drawing and writing.

 

 

This is a transfer activity with tongs using the new snowflake mat and pom-poms I acquired through Jamie's suction pad swap.  I am so excited to have this out and on the shelves!

 

 

This is a wintry variation of the bead bouquet activity.  I forgot to take a photo of what it looks like after the child does the work, but basically they place the pipe cleaners into the holes of the (dollar stoer) salt shake and then thread beads onto the pipe cleaners to make a pretty "sculpture."  This is a great activity for building both concentration and fine motor skills.

 

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.)

 

Gift Wrapping "Work"

As most of you know, in Montessori classrooms the activities that are placed on the shelves for the children to choose are referred to as their "work."  However, we all also know that children learn best through play.  When Maria Montessori chose the word "work" to refer to a child's activities, she did so because at that time in history, people tended to undervalue children in general and to underestimate what children are capable of learning and doing.  By calling children's "play" "work", Montessori hoped to emphasize the value of what children can accomplish through self-directed activities.

This week in our classroom a new activity is gift wrapping work.  I have not put this out in the classroom prior to this year.  I got the idea from a preschool teacher who attended a class I recently taught about the Iowa Early Learning Standards.  This teacher always brings in wrapping paper during December and lets her children wrap up their wooden blocks.  I thought this sounded like a great idea.

So......I rounded up the materials you see below.  A wooden box with some wooden blocks and pieces of wrapping paper cut into pieces just large enough to wrap the biggest blocks, a pair of scissors in case any paper needed trimming, a basket of little pieces of paper for gift tags, a tape dispenser and a mug of markers.  (NOTE:  After having this out for a few days I removed the "square" blocks and just left out the "rectangle" block because I noticed the children were only choosing the rectangle ones to wrap and these are the ones that better fit the paper that was cut.)

 

I taped this little sign on the wall so the children can use it as a reference when writing their tags. 

 

To do this work the child chooses a block and a piece of paper.  They wrap the block in the paper.  I modelled how to wrap a gift at group time.  I demonstrated pulling the tape out slowly and how long the pieces of tape should be.  I have been really pleased with how well they have handled using the tape after this initial demonstration.  I modelled using three pieces of tape to wrap and two to add a gift tag, telling them they can use five pieces of tape in all.  After wrapping the gift they can add a gift tag if they choose.  Then comes the really fun part.  They choose a friend in the classroom to receive the gift.  I also modelled this during my group lesson, giving my gift to my assistant teacher.  The gift recipient then expresses their thanks for the gift and opens it.  They pretend that it is something they wanted for Christmas.  (For example, Miss Melissa pretended I gave her diamond earrings and was VERY excited to receive such an extravagant gift.  Of course this was just pretend because who could afford diamond earrings on a preschool teacher's salary, right?)  Then, the gift recipient throws away the paper and returns the block to the gift wrapping station.  One important ground rule is that a child may only receive one gift per class session.  If someone tries to give them a second gift, they are to politely thank the person, but let them know they have already opened a gift that day.  So far this is working out fine and we have not had any hurt feelings.  It is SO cute to watch them give and receive the gifts.  I love this work!

The motor skills required for gift wrapping are somewhat complex for young children.  What I have seen happen on several occasions is the children helping one another with the gift wrapping.  I love it when they do that happily and spontaneously.  Below you can see two little sets of hands working together to wrap a gift.

 

And here they are preparing to attach the tag.  This will definitely be a keeper activity to add to my shelves each December!!

 

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.