Golden Bead Work

When I started looking for materials that I wanted to use this year and I saw the possibilites with the Bead Stair and Golden Bead Work, I knew these were things I had to have. I originally thought I would make them all myself, but after pricing beads, I discovered I could order the bead stair sets cheaper than I could buy all those colored beads and make them. The Golden Bead work however is another story.
This I wanted to purchase one small set and make the rest myself. I started looking into materials and it is so frustrating. Trying to find inexpensive gold beads online was ridiculous! So I headed to Wal-Mart. I live in a small town so Wal-Mart's craft section is no hidiously small-no gold beads. One Wal-Mart did have a large pack of clear beads and gold pipe cleaners so I decided to start with those. I made some 10 bars that I was pretty happy with.
Yesterday, I had the chance to go to Hobby Lobby. They had lots of packs of silver beads, pearl beads but NO GOLD BEADS in large packs. I did find some 6mm gold beads in packs of 20 in the clearance section so I bought all they had as well as some packs of gold and silver pony beads. I really wanted to use round beads instead but for the cost difference I will settle!
Has anyone else had this problem trying to find cheap gold beads?!??

Where to put their work???

My next planning task is deciding where to put the work for them to choose from when I have enough work for work time. I saw that at 1+1+1 she is using the workbox system which is really a cool idea but I have 20 little lovelies so that will not work space wise for me. I found the most adorable little trays at Dollar General and couldn't resist. Will post a picture soon. They are the perfect size for most of the work. I bought every one that I could find at all the area stores and they come in four different colors that almost match my group colors. They have blue, pink, red, and green and my group colors and blue, purple, red and green. My room is organized into activity centers versus subject centers so this is going to be the challenge. I currently have a magnetic center, a drama center, a pocket chart center, a DVD center, and a computer center, all other tasks are done on the carpet or at tables. I am thinking of just placing the work for now on top of my bookcases and changing out between language and math work times for now.

August Planning

Here is what I am planning for my classroom this August with Montessori materials/lessons and my other stuff I love. During work time the first few weeks, I will present a lesson to a small group while the other kids are doing something else. The something else at this time, includes DVD center, computer center, listening center, and then maybe some cut and paste things. I may introduce cutting strips to the whole class. Many of the lessons I will be doing at first are the ones for 4 year olds and I teach first grade. However, since my students have no Montessori experience prior to now and some are developmentally delayed, I think it will work well to get the foundation started.
At first I am going to hold a Language/reading work time in the morning and a Math work time in the afternoon. These may evenually mesh as the tasks get longer and students will need more time to complete activities.
I plan on doing the pink tower presentation as well as presentations on getting work, setting up work, work rules to the entire group as our first lesson and then break up into small groups. This way I can focus on student's individual needs for lessons.

Summer!!!!

I love summer because my mind gets relieved of all the every day stress and starts to get creative again. Of course I leave school every year with a list a mile long of new things I want to make for my kiddos next year.
This coming August I am really going to be implementing more and more Montessori items and activities into the classroom. I will still keep my favorite non-Montessori things that I love too such as the listening center and DVD center. In a very non-Montessori way I am going to mesh my listening center with some of the pink word activities I have planned. I will record myself giving directions to the students and have them practice building words or stamping words with CVC patterns. Because I am still tied to my Reading Series: Reading Street and I do really love it, I am going to introduce the CVC words with the sequence of the stories so that the first week they will only work with short a words, then i, then o, then u, then e, then a review of all.