Tuesday, July 13, 2010

New Finds for Montessori Educators (others may like them too!)

I visited my local Dollar Tree yesterday.  I picked up some locker organizers which are perfect for holding/displaying 3 part cards and some of the small locker organizers for holding/displaying smaller card material. 
-(Speaking of small card material, please post how you organize your phonetic material.  I love the little drawer organizers but the ones I've seen the drawers don't come out so I don't know how the children get them from the drawer to their area without spilling.  I found some cool very small containers with pink lids at Hobby Lobby but no blue or green :(
Okay, back to Dollar Tree-in the toy section they have wooden cut out type numbers with math symbols (they are also magnetic-which adds a nice work option).  These are perfect for math work.  I picked up 4 packs of these.

I have just about finished getting all my materials that I've made printed, laminated, cut-out, and stored for easy finding.  I still have to make pink phonetic booklets and blank booklets for phonics work.  I have also created my own blue lined papers for writing work .I will be posting these on teacherspayteachers as a digital download pack for $3.  These include marker paper for teacher/child writing, single lined strips for letter work or individal word/sentence writing, and story paper.  These are based on the papers in the book, Montessori in the Classroom. 

I have recently purchased Montessori Today and am reading it.  I like it but not nearly as much as Montessori in the Classroom.  I wish there was a publication of all Mrs. Polk's diary entries.  I think I could learn so much from her writing about the classroom!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing about your Dollar Tree finds. Think we have a Dollar Tree somewhere in our region...will have to look and see if I can find one.
    As far as organizing our phonetic materials, it is a work in progress...
    I have pink, blue, and green pencil pouches from Target for the pink, blue, and green work...the pencil pouches make them very portable.
    Then, I have a tackle box filled with Words Their Way cards...they are in order by letter sound.
    Then, we use the For Little Ones Pink, blue, and green readers...they have the sight words in a pocket attached to the back flap of the book, but the pink, blue, and green words are already tied in with what I have in the pencil pouches. I have these on a tray and use them with grammar work, too.
    For the Waseca system, which was created by an AMS trained Montessorian and school owner, we have all of their Waseca readers, but then, for the individual words from the program, I have them stored in CD cases...again, makes them super portable.
    Will have to take some photos for you.
    Thanks for sharing about the two books you are reading. I have been contemplating reading them.
    Have a nice day and hope that you will pop by my blog! I am doing a light table items swap:)
    Colleen

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  2. Thanks for posting. I am still restling with storage ideas. I saw a neat idea yesterday on another blog. They used those little slide out pencil boxes. I finally found a good resource for the storage drawer towers (Amazon.com). I've spent sooooo much money at this point, I'm not sure what I want to go with.

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