New On Our Shelves

 I was walking through Publix and saw the Parmesan shaker and finally got it for Bear to thread beads onto pipecleaners.  She loves this work and adds some beads every morning.

Inspired by Childhood 101, I set up a button sewing work for her.  A bit challenging, but just enough challenge to motivate her to keep trying.  We'd already done the sewing-on-shelf-liner last year and she was thrilled to be able to "really sew".

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More Starfall - a review

Starfall is a terrific free site that I used with Bear and now use with J-jo to teach letter sounds in conjunction with all the other alphabet and phonemic awareness activities we do. 

There is now a paying section of the site called More Starfall.  I contacted them to see if I could have a free trial in return for a review on my blog and they answered yes.  Here are my thoughts on More Starfall.

More Starfall includes everything at Starfall plus songs (lots and lots of songs), colors, numbers, more phonics, and talking books.  As well there are alphabet rhymes to go with every letter and also some historical folk songs.  There's even a teacher's lounge where you can print out worksheets with the worksheet generators.


We have done most of our playing in the math section.  I really like how they have done concept "books" for each number (and each color) like they did with the letters on Starfall.  For example, if you click on the number 1, you will get four or five different pages of examples of 1.  These concept "books" are especially good for the 1 to 2.5 year old crowd (my 3.5 year old still enjoys them even though she knows the concepts).

In the math section, Bear's been playing the addition games, but they also have subtraction, multiplication, and division games.  There aren't too many questions per game, which is good since little ones tend to get tired of repeating things endlessly.



The price is very reasonable - monthly it is less than the price of a Starbucks coffee. However, if your child is already beyond the kindergarten level in math and phonics, then it might not be a necessary purchase.  There really aren't enough multiplication and division games to make it worth the subscription for the older child.  I'd say the bulk of the site is really geared more for J-jo (the 17 month old) than for Bear (because of her academic level - her enjoyment factor of More Starfall is high!), but I do know some three year olds who would benefit from More Starfall's extra enrichment.

The bottom line:

For a parent who wants some enriching computer time for a child, I encourage you to look at More Starfall and see if it is a right for your family.

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Outdoor Play

Every once in a while I start thinking that our backyard needs a swing set, one of those fancy ones with a play house at the top of the slide.  Then Bear and J-jo could climb and slide and swing to their hearts content. When we play outside, we mostly just run around the yard, balance walk on the landscaping bricks, and roll down our hill.  We also play in our "sandbox", an under-the-bed storage box we no longer use for storage.  Even without a play structure, Bear and J-jo happily want to stay outside all day.  Nevertheless, I can't help but daydream about owning one of these swing sets for kids.

What do your children like to do when they play outside?

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Montessori Monday

 Bear loves practical life.

Mopping:

 We love our mop and bucket from Montessori Services.

 This pitcher is so beautiful.  

 Peeling an egg.

 Then slicing it.

 

Some toddler works:

This is actually a transfer exercise but J-jo turned it into an open and close one after finishing the transfer.

 Putting the work away.  He is quite good at picking up after himself (in the Montessori area of our house).

Pouring.  It's still not going so well.

Matching.  He loves to do this one.  As soon as I get more card stock I'll be printing Lori's cards for him.

When it gets really quiet, I can usually find him looking at books.  He can sit like this alone for up to 15 to 20 minutes, but if I come sit next to him, he will leave.

The beauty of having two:

 Working on our Chinese New Year dragon.

  Looking at books.  It's even more wonderful now that Bear can read him many of the books.

linked to Preschool Corner, Tot School and Montessori Mondays.

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Rock Sensory Box

It looks so simple, yet the kids are drawn to play in it for long periods of time.  I have a spoon and containers next to the box and they are often sorting the rocks into sizes as well as texture.  Bear also likes to sort "rocks I like and rocks J-jo can have."  J-jo likes to attempt to pour the small ones.

Note: J-jo is always well supervised when he plays with this box. Please be careful if you have toddlers still in the mouthing stage.

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Artists and Art Week 18 - Matisse Valentines

I am now teaching Artists and Art at Bear's school.  This week we focused on Matisse and his paper cut-outs.  I love Matisse, and Bear and I have done a couple of Matisse projects already.  You can find my Matisse artist cards here.

I found quite a few Matisse books.  My favorite is still the Smart About Art book called Drawing with Scissors.  I changed it up a bit as I read it to target it more to my 2.5 yr old to 6 yr old audience.

I had "saved as" a bunch of images from this site onto my laptop's hard drive and played the images as a slide show for the children using Picasa.  They loved this.  The focus for this lesson was negative shapes and the creation of contrast by using negative and positive space in the artwork.

Since there was a wide age gap, some moms and I did a bit of prep work.  We cut red and pink papers in various sized rectangles, folded them in half and drew a half heart on them.  The children were mostly be able to cut them out on their own. They glued down their hearts to create their valentine.  I didn't get a photo of any of them because I was too busy helping the littlest ones.

Cutting hearts (at home).

Today, after school, she spent 45 minutes "drawing with scissors" working on this

 and this.

If you've done any art with your child this week based on an artist or illustration style, or taught some of the elements and principles of art, or studied a musician or any other type of artist, please join the Linky.  Please remember to link back.  

Comments are appreciated, especially if you link up! 

This post also linked to stART

and to Read.Explore.Learn

and to Kids Get Crafty

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Artists and Art

I will be posting Artists and Art tomorrow afternoon.  In the meanwhile, you can read the cards and counters post I wrote over at Totally Tots.

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Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic Rocks

I found a fantastic way to model how igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks are made to Bear while browsing at Sylvan Dell publishing.

Igneous Rocks:

These rocks are formed when hot magma or lava is cooled into a solid.  Different igneous rocks form whether it is the magma or the lava that cools.  This model shows this effect.

Melt some chocolate chips in a double boiler.  (Do not get water in the chocolate chips as that will ruin the chocolate.) Pour some of the melted chocolate (the magma) down the cookie sheet "volcano side" to simulate the cooling lava.  This lava cools quickly and would form rocks like obsidian and pumice.  Let the rest of the chocolate cool in the double boiler.  This takes longer and it cools into a different looking chocolate.  This simulates the magma cooling below the ground (which usually results in rocks like granite).

Sedimentary Rocks:

Particles of sand, minerals, mud, shells and decaying matter built up in layers over the years.  The pressure of the layers over time presses the sediment into rock like sandstone and limestone.

To create your sedimentary rock, layer different things into a sandwich.  We had whole wheat bread, Muenster cheese, turkey, cheddar cheese, and whole grain bread.  Notice how some layers are thick and some layers are thin?  The same thing is seen in the layers of sedimentary rock - there are different thicknesses.

Metamorphic Rocks:

Metamorphic means "to change".  Metamorphic rocks are ones that have been changed by heat and/or pressure.

Add heat and pressure to your sedimentary sandwich...

...and now you have a metamorphic sandwich:)

Bear enjoyed her lunch of grilled cheese and chocolate for dessert.  We added carrots and pear to balance it out.

Linked to Science Sundays at Adventures in Mommydom.

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Tot School

 Sensorial:

 J-jo will not leave the brown stair alone, even though he can't do it without some scaffolding from me.  All he wants is his "stair" to walk on.  If I were a Montessori purist, he would not be allowed to do this (especially the walking on it part); however, I have to follow my child's interest when it occurs.  I've noticed in many instances with Bear and the Montessori materials that they need to be introduced younger than stated in the manuals otherwise I miss the sensitive stage when they are most interested in it (the knobbed cylinders are one such example with Bear).  If I were to wait until he is 2 and a half to introduce the brown stair as recommended in all the manuals, he might not be interested, yet his interest is high now. I've shown him what to do and helped him a few times with it this week.  Next week I will let him try on his own and see how he manages.  I figure he will notice if it is wrong when he tries to walk up the stair.

 I colored water in small water bottles to do more matching work with our rainbow arches and peg people.

 

 Practical Life:

We're working a lot on pouring.  Bear helps a lot with this teaching. 

J-jo loves to cut pear.  I am also starting to show him how to cut with a knife after rereading

Montessori from the Start: The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three by Paula Lillard.  He cut the strawberries on the right with my help.

 Discoveries/Language:

He loves to line up his wooden cars at the top of the slide and watch them race down.

 The farm captivates his interest a lot.  I photographed all our farm animals and made him cards with the photo and name under it for him to match to the animals.  He loves to do this.  He loves the car ramps I mentioned before and is getting better at putting the cars so they don't get stuck.  Bear's rabbit puzzle is good to teach him different emotions like sad, happy, scared.  He likes to find the sad face and make the sign for sad/cry.

 We have a bunch of plastic bugs in a little drawstring bag and he is always pulling them out and looking at them.  He can match the ones that go together.

Linked up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1

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Rock Books

We started off geology by reading different books about rocks.

If You Find a Rock, which Bear asked for frequently.  We liked how they described various rocks by texture, size, appearance, uses.... It was neat and we could relate from our rock collecting days in Costa Rica.

I have a favorite from my childhood called Everybody Needs a Rock, but I couldn't find it at our library.

Next we looked at Let's Go Rock Collecting by Anne Rockwell.  It has been our favorite, with just the right amount of information for Bear's level and attention.

We did read a couple other ones but found them just a little too detailed for this year.

and

I'm considering buying Rocks, Rocks, Rocks by Elizabeth Wallace since we have loved every single one of her books, but of course, the library doesn't have this particular title.

Linked to What My Child is Reading.

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Rocks, Rocks, Rocks

Here is what is and will be on the shelves for geology.  There are several presentations and these will be posted over time.

First, the different kinds of rocks.  I took the rocks from our rock kit and photographed the ones I wanted to make three part cards for each type of rock. 

Igneous:

 I have yet to find out why Blogger keeps flipping photos on me every now and then.  For every set of cards, the four rock samples are kept in an empty baby food rectangular container.  I love these containers in the school room and sometimes buy the fruit purees on sale and with coupons just to have more of them.  I put the fruit puree in plain yogurt for the kids.  I made pouches for each set of cards using construction paper and glue.

Since igneous rocks come from volcanoes, I included the parts of a volcano cards on the shelves, along with blank ones for her to fill in.  These are from Montessori Print Shop.

Sedimentary:

 

 Metamorphic:

Minerals:

 
Mineral to Gemstone cards:

I wanted her to understand that beautiful jewelry didn't start out like that, that it was first an unpolished mineral from the ground or in a rock.  These cards have four sets of three cards to sequence.

 Practical Life:

 Spooning rocks.

 Sorting rocks.

(This is more for J-jo, though it is looking like he will follow in Bear's footsteps and not be fond of sorting activities.)

 Pouring rocks.

Both kids love the sound of the rocks in the jam jars as they pour.

Rock pendants.

 We hung them on our branch.

We needed to put a bit of glue in the back.  I have to say that I ended up doing this one mostly by myself, but Bear kept asking me to make her more.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to twirl the wire around such small rocks.

I have lots of cool hands-on activities planned that I can't keep on the shelves.  I will post them as we do them.

Linked to Preschool Corner

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