Tales from Our Montessori Inspired Learning Lifestyle
We do our best every day to try to walk a little closer to Christ. I can honestly say that each member of our family has grown in faith since we began our homeschooling journey. Like Ana, walking on the tightrope below, being in the world but not of it can be a very difficult [...]
In terms of cosmic learning and self-lead education, Maria Montessori is a huge inspiration in our homeschool. But we also take many cues from other methodologies as they tie into “following the child.” We hope to share our experiences with the many resources we test-drive in our home. I don’t need to teach anything to [...]
We hope to share more of the things we do “just for fun.” Aidan had requested that at his 8th birthday party in October, we bob for apples. He–along with his sister and cousins had a great time. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul.–Maria Montessori
We took a break from blogging over the summer, fall and part of winter as we began a new adventure in gluten-free living. I’m a foody from way back, so learning how to recreate my favorite recipes as either gluten free or grain free has taken up quite a bit of our time. It has [...]
Found this document on Scribd tonight. Very thorough study of Leaves for the Montessori Elementary classroom. Covers leaf shape, leaf margin and leaf venation and includes wall chart & booklets. Make two copies of the booklets and you can use one copy for three-part cards.
Thank you to Kelli Dantin for this work!
Several people have asked me if I have a template for Montessori 3-part cards. Since both of my children are technically in Lower Elementary, we now use the definition cards as well as a “fill in the blank with the word,” definition card. So for every item (card), we also have a definition card and a “who/what Am I card.”
It makes for a lot of laminating and cutting work on my end, but this style of work, works well in our home because it allows my children to work very independently. And isn’t Montessori truly about “following the child.”:)
I hope that you find this useful.
My 8, soon to be 9 year old (wow, does time fly) daughter absolutely loves making pin maps and pin models. The really great thing for me is that I can make a control and she traces the control, colors it, laminates it and mounts it on foam core. She then makes pin flags/labels for it and proudly creates what she calls–and really is–a Montessori work for her younger brother and visiting friends.
Today she used the “Parts of the Eye,” nomenclature from Montessori for Everyone to make a pin model of the parts of the Eye. I can barely keep up with the need for foam core! But it is worth it as creating her own extensions as well as work for her brother is a huge time saver for me. I plan to purchase the Ein-O’s Eye Science Box Kit to add to her created masterpiece!
She also really loves to play the “Who Am I?” or rather, “What Part Am I?” guessing game with the nomenclature. After she studies the work for a while, she will bring me the descriptions and I will read them to her, replacing the name of the part with the word “blank.” She then guesses which part fits the definition/description.
Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock on November 11th, this week, I made a control of the “Parts of the Mayflower,” along with a “What Part Am I?” game. She can do this game by herself, rather than with a partner as the cards in this game only contain the clue and have a separate control with the answers. She can of course still play this with a partner, taking turns reading the clue and guessing the answer.
You can download this work from Scribd. Please note, all images and copy are property of http://www.MayflowerHistory.com, Copyright © 1994-2010. All Rights Reserved. Please be sure to retain this data on the print outs/copies of the materials when printing out this work, as per the terms of the website:)
I am working on some other “Fact Cards,” right now about those who took the voyage on the Mayflower and other Thanksgiving terminology. I hope to have those available yet this week too, but I’m still trying to figure out the best type of work for the information. Any ideas?
I’m working with Aidan on nouns and articles right now. I’m ever so grateful for the science behind the isolation of information in the work we do!
I put this Thanksgiving noun sorting work together for next week. Simply print, laminate and cut. The direct aim for this lesson is to differentiate Thanksgiving nouns that are a person, place or thing. The indirect aims are word recognition and reading. Control of Error is included.
Enjoy!
P.S. Just in case you are working with them, I’ve attached a document with a page of each article as well.
We’re working on Animal Kingdom Taxonomy today. Ana and Aidan were introduced to the concept in pre-school and continue to enjoy exploring this work.
Aidan likes organizing things right now–hard to believe if you look at his work area–but taxonomy is a fit for him. Aidan classified his own species today.
Ana is working on classifying the topic for her writing class: a Sea Wasp. She is very interested in language right now, specifically prefixes, suffixes and root words, so this work with its strong latin focus is right up her alley. She is so interested in language right now, across so many areas that on Sunday when Papa was visiting we made a discovery. She had completed some element sorting work and proclaimed that manganese is magnetic because it begins with ‘mag.’ At least she’s thinking, right? I mean, working on making true leaps to abstraction.
Not quite correctly on this front, but the capacity is there and that in and of itself is an exciting thing.
I made this inverted triangle classification form for the kids to use with their taxonomy work until they have the taxa committed to memory.
Hope it is useful to my homeschooling friends!
