Montessori Monday

Two things:

1.  Wow!  I'm so excited that 22 of you linked up last week; that is the most link ups we've ever had - woo hoo!!!

2.  I think my giveaways are cursed.  Every single time I've done one the first person picked has never contacted me and I've had to pick a second winner.  So guess what?  Yep - it happened again!  I used a random number generator to pick another winner, so Jessie at The Education of Ours is our new winner!  Jessie, just shoot me an email with your addy - congrats! (I'm thinking that much like you never want to be the person starring in the first ten minutes of Law & Order b/c you get killed, you also never want to be the first person picked in my giveaways...argh!)  (And who are these people that never check back to see if they've won a giveaway?  I must be way more greedy b/c I *always* check when I've entered something!!)


The boys completed another 3-hour work cycle last week, which I'm very happy about.  Short Pants actually worked for 3 1/2 hours; I couldn't get him to leave the basement! 

We learned about reptiles last week.  After talking about the characteristics of reptiles, I read them a story about a box turtle.  Then we looked at some plastic reptiles I had gathered up and went through our reptile cards downloaded from Walk Beside Me:

Pita Pocket worked with the parts of a reptile puzzle:

While Short Pants matched up our parts of a reptile 3-part cards:

I continued Short Pant's geography lessons last week by teaching him how to map a shelf (an idea from Karen Tyler's album).  I set up a few simple objects on one of our shelves, then had Short Pants trace around each object.  We talked about how our map was a "story" of the shelf by telling what items were on it and showing where they were located.  He really loved this lesson:

Short Pants also really enjoyed a lesson from Karen's astronomy album.  First we looked at a picture of the universe and talked about how it contained everything and is very old.  Next I demonstrated how to make a "mini universe" using colored water, star beads, glitter, and a bit of baby oil:

I had an extra jar so that Pita could make one also, but he was busy with a different lesson, so Short Pants happily made both mini universes.  He was actually sad that I didn't have more jars as he wanted to make even more!

While we were involved making mini universes, Pita Pocket had started out pouring colored rice from a wide container to a narrow one like this:

When I checked on him after Short Pants and I were done he was doing this:

He told me that he'd made a demolition derby LOL.

I continued the outer space theme a bit last week by setting out moon sand for the boys to explore:

And making some special playdough:

Besides creating a demolition derby Pita Pocket also worked on recreating bead patterns:

And using a small brush and dustpan to sweep pom poms off the table:

I coaxed Short Pants into doing a small amount of language work by setting out some alphabet stampers paired with simple CVC word cards.  He had fun stamping a few of the words and his own name:

I also showed him how to use the addition strip board to check addition problems.  First he would do the equation mentally and then use the strip board to make sure his answer was correct.  I don't think I've mentioned this, but Short Pants had gone addition crazy lately!  He saw a set of flashcards at Target the other month and begged us for them.  Since then he has taught himself most of his addition facts!  He is able to do them without using fingers to count with and also loves it when we give him math problems to solve mentally:

Here are a few trays that I didn't get photos of the boys working with.  Both of them enjoyed this tweezing activity.  Pita Pocket pretended the beads were ticks!  I suppose tweezers automatically = ticks to him because we do nightly tick checks around here.  One of the joys of living in the woods!

This marble scooping lesson was actually on Pita's shelf, but Short Pants was the one who ended up working with it.  He's been very drawn to simple practical life activities like pouring and spooning lately:

He asked me to get his tea set out so that he could practice:

Short Pants also asked for the balance and spent time trying to balance buckets of "gems":

And worked on a building project that ended up taking lots and lots of our materials!

If you have some Montessori lessons or ideas to share, please link up below.  Please make sure to either place the Montessori Monday button from the sidebar in your post or put a link back to this blog in your post.  Make sure to visit my Montessori Monday co-host Deb over at Living Montessori Now too!  Thanks for reading and participating!