Homeschooling May 2013 Part 6

Vacation Time!

Even though K is 3.5 and A is 16 months old, both of them are rear-facing.  We did a lot of research and decided that it is a lot safer for them to travel like that.  I actually wrote about this in another one of my blogs with some links my husband and I looked at when doing research. I'll try to find it and post it here as well.  Below is just one of the docs we found.

We took a trip to the old West! Haha. It was fun (and dusty and hot).

Replica of a schoolhouse.

I bought K his first gun! He loves it!

I LOVE rocks! I felt like I was in a jewelry store! I wanted to buy it all!

At the Children's Museum    We all had a blast!
This mouth actually made the sound "Ahhhh" when you touch it!

    

They even had plastic ocean animals cut in half with velcro at each end and the game was to find the matching front half and back half (see third picture below). It was fun. We also enjoyed reading the names of the animals in the display (see second picture below).

Homeschooling May 2013 Part 5

Montessori Language Arts: Metal Insets

These guys here are not only used to teach about geometric shapes,
but they are actually used to trace for Language Arts (fine motor skills).

                         

                                 

                                              

Free Play

Yes, free play is very important. As brother and sister, they both need to learn to get along with each other and share toys.  Right now, A is still in the exploration alone/parallel play stage and C is in the "mine, everything you touch is mine and I will take it away from you" stage. Sigh. Like I said, this "free play" time is actually a lesson in social interactions and proper social behavior.  Needless to say, it's a work in progress. :)

Spanish: Los Números (The Numbers)

Learn the numbers from 0-10 with a song.
"Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Seis, Siete
Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Seis, Siete
Ocho, Nueve y Diez
Ocho, Nueve y Diez
Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Seis, Siete"

Stand in front of numbers called.
Stand in front of the number that says how old you are.

Activity: Put the correct number of stickers as the numbers in Spanish.
This time, we just did 1-3.

Art: James Pollock Technique on flat canvas

I absolutely LOVE this! Great choice of colors and good technique.

Desk Work

                                           

Montessori Culture (Geography): The Globe

I presented him with several formas of the globe and talked about it.  We found all the continents (and a few select countries) in each of them.

                                  

Montessori Sensorial: Pink Tower

The Pink Tower consists of 10 blocks, starting with the smallest (1cmx1cmx1cm) to the biggest (10cmx10cmx10cm). There are many activities or extensions with this manipulative. We did them all today.

Presentation: Show all pieces and teach how to carry them. Discuss size differences between cubes (blocks).

Put all blocks in order on the floor (see picture above).

Extension 1: Build the tower (biggest to smallest)
with all blocks centered. See picture above.

Extension 2: Build the tower (biggest to smallest), but aligned  on the left.
The smallest block must fit in the space to the right.

Extension 2 (finished) 

Extension 3: Build the tower (centered) and ask child to close his/her eyes.  Remove a block and place it in front of the tower. Ask child to find where the block goes in the tower and let him/her make an educated guess. If the child isn't correct, ask them to explain their reasoning out loud so you can hear when they're thinking. Give correct answer and discuss why (place the block in the right place to show that it really belonged there).
Extension 4: Same as Extension 3, but this time, hide the block that was removed behind you. This time, the child will have to find which block is missing by just looking at the tower. K did ok, but not too well without seeing the block. In Extension 3, it helped a lot to see the block that was taken out of the tower to see if it fell under the "big, medium or small" category. But without the block, he was just guessing. He's not even 3.5 years old, so I am sure there will be plenty of time to practice this important skill.

Montessori Science: Parts of the Plant

& The Plant Book (homemade by me)

These are the nomenclature cards for the parts of the plant (plant, root, stem, branches, leaves).  I have a couple of small plants that we picked outside that show all parts of the plant. These are perfect and easy (and free) visual aids. Also, going outside and finding the parts of a plant on several different plants is great.

This book was made by me. I simply found pictures of different things online and enlarged them to half a page. Then I stapled it and called it a book. Haha. I still have the file somewhere. If you want it, I can email it to you.  All you need is a good color printer.  There are more pages. I only photographed a few.

Play Time

                                 

Montessori Sensorial: Beading

I'm sure this activity is pretty self-explanatory, but I will still say something. This is a great activity for fine motor skills, creativity, patterning, counting, etc. These beads are wooden, painted in different colors and they have different shapes and sizes. They are great for small hands. I bought the Melissa & Doug brand for about $10. They come with extra long and thick shoelaces, which work great.

** An obvious and repetitive word of caution: DO NOT leave child(ren) unattended
with the shoelaces. The beads are way too big to pose a chocking hazard, but the shoelaces are trouble waiting to happen, so please, please, PLEASE don't
leave child(ren) alone with these... ever.