Early Learning activities with milk bottle tops

Zari (age 3 and 1 month)

Activity 1....sorting lids into colours.
I placed one lid of each colour in each container (segment). She started off well, and did the task correctly, but her concentration lapsed after a while. Then she started getting confused and putting different colours onto the same dish. So then we started activity 2.

Activity 2....Copying a red and green pattern
Using a hot pink background was not the brightest idea for this pattern. Red in particular does not stand out against this bright pinky-red background.
I have suspected for a while Zari may have some red-green colourblindness. My brother is colour blind, in every single way that a person can be colourblind, so although I am not colourblind it isnt surprising to have a child with red-green differentiation problems. Strangely, I never noticed my son having any colour vision problems and so presumed I was not a carrier for this condition.
We had a lot of difficulties with this pattern. She could not get the red-green-red-green sequence, but more from trouble differentiating between the lids, as to her the colours were too similar. I have tested her on other red and green objects, and she calls green things red, and red things green. Reminds me of my brother all over again. I had to help her a lot with this activity, as she was genuinely confused by my correcting her. From now on, I will chose really contrasting colours- and backgrounds.

Activity 3...All one colour followed by all another colour pattern
This was more successful, although she used the activity to make a balloon picture. Note again, the red/green problem. She really struggles with those colours.

Activity 4...Trying to make the letter "S"  
And not succeeding. I drew out the top half of the 's' shape with the white milk bottle tops, then placed some tops around the bottom half hoping she would fill in the gaps. Not so - although she can draw an 's' from memory on paper, she told me she did not understand what I wanted and didn't know how to do it. I drew the pattern with my finger, but to no avail. And that was the end of that. She left the room and refused to be lured back.

Rori (17.5 months)
After Zari walked out on the activities, Rori came in so I attempted to show her some things to do. Too young. She picked up the lids, piled them up and played with them. The best I could hope for was when I asked her to pack them up, and she copied me by putting some lids into a pillowcase.

Art Show - Art- Art Exhibition

Rori's daycare centre, which is also a kindergarten - she attends there 1 session a week while I madly do all my shopping and appointments- held an Art exhibition to raise funds for the centre. The idea was that the parents would hopefully buy their child's artworks. I wasnt able to take too many photos for privacy reasons, but I was allowed to take these photos as you cant discern who the children are.
The room was well set out, with partitions with artworks on both sides, a gazebo/pavilion with art dangling down from the ceiling, workers offering drinks and hors d'œuvres, a visiting clown and other attractions. It would have taken a long time and a lot of effort to set it all up. I just wasnt able to take pictures with a room full of people.
 

My 15 year old daughter found a sea-sponge on the beach and used it for a pencil case and lovely shelf decoration. Very imaginative I thought!

I took some photos at Zari's current kinder (non-Montessori) of her doing some pasting. I like that there are plenty of art activities to do, and many different work-stations to chose from. I am getting this kinder for a special price currently. When this special deal ends I will put her back into Montessori Pre-school. I like having them attend some days (not every day) pre-school activities, as they get good socialisation at the age when kids have not yet turned bad. That seems to begin about 4 years old. Hence I do not want to put them into school, which begins here at 5 years old (4 and a half to be precise, at the earliest). I have observed this through my experiences with my other children. 4 year old kinder for my son at one centre involved boys bullying him, which he only told me about recently. The other kinder had one child who was nasty to kids and cruel to the kinder pets. I would help out on fruit duty and found it very stressful trying to stop the animal cruelty. It traumatised my son also, as well as other parents and children. And it only gets MORE stressful and traumatising as the children attend school, with a myriad of personalities of students, teachers and parents to interact with. No thanks - not for me.

The ceiling (see pic below), walls and windows are all decorated with artworks. I'm trying to replicate the kindergarten atmosphere at home in my family room (schoolroom). I am studying a Montessori pre-school teachers course at the moment, so it is good for me to observe kindergartens and preschools, both Montessori and non-Montessori.

Montessori Giveaways! One a day 'til Christmas!

Hey all,
I got my entry in - and now letting you all know about Montessori Print Shop's "12 Days of Christmas" Giveaway competitions.

Every day, between now and the 19th of December 2010, they are giving away ONE prize. Yep, you read right - one prize PER DAY.
You have 2 days to enter each competition.

Click below to enter the Day 1 giveaway. 

http://blog.montessoriprintshop.com/2010/12/08/12-days-of-christmas--montessori-style.aspx

Have a look around their website - they have fantastic resources and are very popular with Montessori education fans worldwide.

Let me know if you win anything!! Good luck!

Also, stay tuned for more releases over the next few days on this blog, and competitions around the Christmas/ New Year period. Hope to be posting some ART today.

Spanish resources - Basho and friends

Basho Mosko has multilingual (French, Spanish, Mandarin and English) educational songs for children. He has allowed me to publish his Youtube clips here. His website is http://www.bashoandfriends.com/ and if you want to you can purchase his Spanish language downloadable CD at www.cdbaby.com/cd/basho ($9.95 for the album of 10 songs, or 99c per each Mp3 download). He will also be donating a couple of cds to a giveaway later on. Stay tuned...
No need to describe his songs - you can watch them right here and judge for yourself. Just remember they are under copyright-no downloading illegally! Some of the songs have words and translations beneath them, and others have words in Spanish on-screen (you could transcribe them yourself).

Days of the Week  &  Months of the Year



Dia por dia (day after day)
Hey hey, como estan?
Qué día is hoy?
Qué? No saben?
Yo les enseño los días de la semana
Ya listos?

Domingo, Lunes, Martes, Miércoles
Jueves, Viernes, Sábado (x6)


Yo canto, Tu cantas
Nosotros cantamos
El canta, Ella canta
Ellos cantan todos juntos
Si quieres aprender los días
Solo ven aquí
Cantemos, cantemos
Cantemos juntos, sí!

Domingo, Lunes, Martes, Miércoles, Jueves, Viernes, Sábado(x4)


Yo canto (etc)


Enero, Febrero
Marzo, Abril
Mayo, Junio, Julio
Agosto, Septiembre
Octubre, Novembre
Diciembre
Doce meses al año!

Enero, Febrero
Marzo, Abril
Mayo, Junio, Julio
Agosto, Septiembre
Octubre, Novembre
Diciembre
El año
2x


Domingo (etc) (x4)

COOL, THE ALPHABET






ORALE, EL ALFABETO
¡Hey, Cosmo! ¿Cómo estás?, ¿Quieres aprender el alfabeto con nosotros? ¡¡Guao, Guao!!"
Orale, será fácil. ¡Sólo canta con nosotros!
A-B-C-D-E-F-G. . . H-I-J-K-L-M-N-ñ-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X. . . Y. . ZETAAAAHHHHH. (x2)
Muy bien Cosmo.
Ahora vamos a aprender, las vocales. Es algo diferente, ¿Estás listo?


A-E-I-O-U
CON M ES. . . .MA-ME-MI-MO-MU
CON P ES. . . .PA-PE-PI-PO-PU
CON L ES. . . .LA-LE-LI-LO-LU


¡Muy Bien! ¡Otra vez!


(Repeat A-E-I-O-U)

¡Sí, Cosmo! Hiciste muy buen trabajo. Y Ahora sabes todo el alfabeto y las vocales también. Si quieres, maňana vamos a cantar otra vez, ¿Sí?.


Translation: COOL, THE ALPHABETHey Cosmo how are you? Would you like to learn the alphabet with us?
"Ruff, Ruff!!!"
Cool, it will be easy. Just sing along with us!
A-B-C-D-E-F-G. . . H-I-J-K-L-M-N-ñ-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X. . . Y. . . ZEEEEEEEEEEEE. (x2)
Good job Cosmo! Now we're going to learn the vowels. It's a little different. Are you ready?


A-E-I-O-U
WITH M IT IS .MA-ME-MI-MO-MU
WITH P IT IS. . . .PA-PE-PI-PO-PU
WITH L IT IS. . . .LA-LE-LI-LO-LU


Very good! Again!

(Repeat A-E-I-O-U)

Yay, Cosmo, you did a very good job. And now you know the entire alphabet and the vowels too. If you want, tomorrow we can sing together again, yes?




BUENOS DIAS





BUENOS DIAS (Good Morning)
Buenos días, buenos días
¿Cómo estás? ¿Cómo estás? (x2)
Muy bien, muy bien
Gracias
¿Y usted? (x4)


Translation
Good morning, good morning
How are you? How are you? (a2)
Very well, very well
Thank you
And you? (x4)



hora de jugar





baila con tu cuerpo (dance with your body).






Como te Llamas (audio only)



Catchy, aren't they? And easy to memorise!! Be great to have them all come out on dvds.

Montessori Practical Life activities

For some reason, most Montessori practical life activities seem to take place at the kitchen bench. Zari (3) likes to be at my level and "help" me - she stands on an adult chair to participate. Rori even tries to get to the kitchen sink by pulling over her little toddler chair but is too short to reach even on tippy-toes (so cute!). 

The kitchen isn't a big space - the bench itself and infact, the kitchen in general. There is no room to swing a cat. I've seen kitchens in one-bedroom flats that are larger! And the dining area is so small we gave up on the family meal idea, turned the table sideways and use it as our computer area. This is good for a number of reasons:

1. I can keep an eye on what my kids are doing online from the kitchen and loungeroom. And when I am on one computer right next to them I have my peripheral vision on whilst innocently staring straight ahead at my own screen.

2. I can easily do things online, such as read blogs and forum entries, check emails, ebay, amazon, youtube and do social networking while I'm washing dishes, preparing meals, feeding the baby or whatever. I have a hundred tabs open. Well, not quite...

3. In the very cold or very hot weather, we close the doors and shut ourselves in this area with either the heater or airconditioner blazing. The other parts of the house are not comfortable climate-wise. I couldnt fit a computer in the loungeroom, so the dining room is the only practical place - if they were elsewhere, we wouldnt be able to use them for quite a few months of the year. Infact, for this reason, even though I am setting up a school room in our larger family room (which has a heater), we will still do many activities in the loungeroom. Saves on fuel bills!

HELPING
Both littlies are both insistent about helping. ("No! I do it! I want to do it!" is Zari's favourite phrase I'm sure.) This can be quite frustrating for me when trying to clean up as I REALLY like a tidy house. Despite their neat-freak interests, they sure make an awful lot of mess. Particularly when washing the dishes - they dont want any help, and the dishes just pile up as they complain when I try to do some. The solution was to finally buy a dishwasher (housed in the laundry), so I can squirrel away crockery and cutlery into it when they arent looking and thus keep the dirty dishes in the kitchen to a minimum. Quite a sanity-saving idea. And of course, loading and unloading a dishwasher is a Montessori Practical Life activity in itself!

1. Making Fairy Bread.

I helped her spread the peanut butter on as otherwise she would've broken the bread apart. She chose peanut butter herself over margarine. I bought the sprinkles which come in long skinny packets for ease of pouring.

2. Pouring activity.
This occured while Zari was insisting on washing the dishes (hence dirty dishes everywhere). Basically, she insisted on pouring one drink of cordial (that hadnt been consumed) from one dirty cup to another to another. Thankfully, no spillage! And no drinking! Although when spillage occurs, both littlies get a tea-towel from next to the oven, wipe it up and then throw the tea-towel into the laundry. They cant actually get into the laundry hamper or washing machine to put them there.

3. Peeling vegetables.
Note the concentration on Zari's face. Hilarious expressions! Potatoes where too difficult to manage so she gave up, but carrots were easier to hold.

More activities and corresponding photos coming in parts 2, 3, 4 etc.

Botany - Pressing flowers (Montessori Science activity)



I found these 2 flower presses (one small and one large) cheaply at an opshop. Just a few dollars. As I studied Botany at University and had to flatten myriad Australian flora without a press, I was thrilled to find ones ready-made for my kids. I used to have to place flowers between pages of a phone book and put thick text books on top. Friends even used rocks. Anything that would weigh it down evenly.

Small press

large press

I took them both apart and found they had dried flowers within their pages. The small press was actually more effective as it exerted more pressure on the contents because the corner screws werent too far apart. And it had heavy material (mdf?) to separate each layer. The larger press (which tends to lift more in the middle) used corrugated cardboard to separate the layers, and newspaper directly around the flowers.
It's always good to date the pages as the previous owner did.

Large press when taken apart

previous owners pressings from 2007

dried and pressed rose with date

My older children go walking and have been picking flowers to dry.
We went walking in a national park recently and werent able to pick anything as they had a picture of a flower inside a circle with a red line diagonally through the middle. That was disappointing!



Flowers dried before pressing




previously pressed flowers

 Dont press moist flowers. Let them dry first or they get mouldly and stick to the pages, wood or cardboard they are resting between. Flatten the flower as much as possible first - remove centre bits first.
If there is a particularly thick specimen that is too thick for a press - park your car on it. That should work!



Pressing a rose in little press




putting large press back together with flower inside


Uses for pressed flowers:  Cards.  Art.  Potpourri.

Money-saving tip for Art, Craft, Handwriting, Mathematics, Science.

I chanced upon a pile of patterns and templates from Creative Crafts weekly collectible magazines at an op-shop (charity shop/thrift shop). I always go and scrounge for homeschooling supplies in these places. I got the set for $1, and the next day went back and purchased another set I hadn't noticed the day before complete with folder for $1. So now I have duplicates of everything. See the photo examples below:

Then I noticed that certain craft magazines also had patterns and templates. So, for 50c each I purchased some quilting, patchwork, embroidery and stitching magazines. The quilting books have the BEST templates in the middle...dont bother with card-making and scrapbooking magazines as they dont have anything at all. Before Christmas the op-shop is having a sale of  3 for $1. I'll be there with bells on!! Here's some pics of what I scored...

Dressmaking patterns could also be useful, but the paper is a lot thinner and tears easily. You can also find these in op-shops.


These templates are useful for the following activities:

1. Cutting out shapes and pictures using scissors, or even a stanley (box-cutter) knife for older kids.

2. Colouring in pictures. (Using pencils, felt-tip pens (textas), paint, crayons).

3. Tracing along a line (cheaper than buying a Kumon book) - fine motor skills activity.

4. Drawing between 2 lines (similar to a doing a maze).

5. Pasting onto the template cut pieces of paper/material scraps/buttons/sequins etc.

6. Tracing over large handwriting of differing scripts (eg. print, cursive).

7. Craft: Older kids can actually use these magazines and templates for quilting, cross-stitch, embroidery etc.

8. Copying pictures freehand on to blank paper (trying to replicate the original as closely as possible).

9. Folding: Some templates have dotted lines with "fold here" written on them.

10. Geometry: The templates often have basic shapes such as triangles, squares, circles and hexagons because the layouts of quilts are usually symmetrical and organised in a manner I learned in Year 7 math is called "tessellations." These are patterns of repeating interlocking shapes, as if you were tiling a room. So, if your child quilts a symmetrical blanket, they are doing mathematics. Here's some links on the subject:
http://www.mathcats.com/explore/tessellationtown.html  has free relevant information.
http://library.thinkquest.org/16661/escher/tessellations.1.html for many free tessellations to print out.
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/tesspag1.html 

11. Science: There are a variety of subjects/themes covered by these templates, including flowers, animals, seasons and farms. Great for lapbooking and Science assignments.

If any of these ideas has given you some new ideas, please leave a comment. And if you do some activities using these ideas on your own blog, please link back to me!