Montessori Ponderings

I'm Back-but in a New Place!

2011-10-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

To my followers:
So sorry it has taken me so long to post again. Not too long after my last, I learned that our school staff was going to be shifted around. After 17 years of working with first graders, I found myself facing a teaching assignment for a fourth grade classroom. While, it is not the stuff dreams are made of, I am dealing with it. The move was refreshing in one way-it forced me to streamline quite a bit, so I ditched a lot of things I was holding on to-"just in case". Then, last week my principal resigned so we have an iterim for the remainder of the year.
So upon finding out my new assignment, I re-read Montessori Today paying close attention to elementary parts. I set up my new classroom in a Montessori-ish way. It is sort of a coffee house approach. I have a large meeting rug with some "fun" chairs. I have one tall desk that serves as a table, some small coffee tables for those who prefer to work on the floor. 2 sets of desks joined together for a table, and then some horrid '80 style desks with slanted tops, no pencil tray, and a metal shelf underneath, for those who need a formal setting. Against the walls I have shelved turned sideways to make "centers" for science, social studies, and math. I also have a library center and a language shelf as well as some shelves for student storage.
Shamefully, I have not used as many Montessori lessons and activities as I had hoped. Early on, I did the great lessons "God who has no Hands", "Coming of Man", and Early Language. I have given the presentations of nouns and the snake game and have used the golden beads for dynamic addition and subtraction.
Some of you may be wondering about my use of this material with children of this age, but it is crucial. I'm finding many gaps in their education and am trying to fill them as best I can. We are using Singapore Math as our math adopted curriculum. The 4th grade beginning guide has you start in the 2nd grade book. I have 6 students who have not mastered the dynamic addition and subtraction and act as if they do not have any understanding of this process. So, back to the golden beads for them. If it doesn't click soon, I may have to go back to the introduction to the decimal system for them. Thus, I find myself working backward from abstraction to concrete as I get to concepts not in their understanding.
We are now using MAP assessments and each child must be given opportunities to work within their RIT range. By the end of the year, all students must show at least 1year's growth in their RIT score. It's great for using assessment to measure children as individuals, not a class-but a little scary too! What if...?
Luckily for me, the Montessori approach will work well for providing students opportunities to practice. On Friday I printed, laminated, and assembled a Divisibility Game and Place Value Game from Montessoriforlearning.com. I was able to give presentations to a small group for each game. Now I have to prepare more materials for next week!

Two Reviews: Montessori at Home and Brilliant Minds CD

2011-06-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

I want to give two brief reviews of these products. When I thought I would be keeping the Brilliant Minds Cd (due to the ordering mix-up), I popped it in to look at it. I want to tell you that I was quite impressed with the material on it. Dr. Meredith gives you a sequence of lessons (suggested)-very helpful to those just getting started with Montessori. I also liked the fact that there were varying levels of the activities. So you would do the bead stair (introduction to the numbers 1-9) but there were like 3 different levels of the worksheet activity/lesson. The first one provided lots of support with the beads being outlined in color so that the child knew the correct color to use and the numerals were written in yellow to provide proper formation for the child to write them. This progresses into a worksheet that is in grayscale with no numeral guides for the child to demonstrate independence. I have been reading about the importance of repetition for every child (in the next review) so I loved this approach. One thing that I did not realize when I first looked at the website is that you will eventually need to order 2 CD's. At first I was under the impression that all the lessons were on 1 CD but I confirmed by looking at the one in the Beginning Kit that there is a seperate CD for each level. So if you have a young child just starting to do homeschooling (ages 2-5), I would get the Beginning Math kit. If you have a more advanced child or older child who has good number sense already, get the Advanced kit. If I did not already have lots of other material, I would use the beginning kit for the beginning of school in my first grade class and then move into the advanced level. Since I am getting the advanced kit for my son this summer, I plan to use it after Christmas in my first grade class.

My other review today is a real bargain! I found out about Montessori at Home through the 1+1+1=1 blog. This book is written by John Bowman. How I wish I had found this 3 years ago when I first started this journey! Anyway for $10 you get 2 downloads, a digital copy of the book and a set of "activity sheets"-which are really downloads of templates to make your own materials. I love how this book is an easy read. You can start at any section and zip through it quite easily and then come back later and read another section without any loss of understanding. I really appreciated his explanation of the need for repetition in the brain development of young children. I also found a cool lesson idea for teaching routines at the beginning of the year (or your homeschool journey) where he suggests starting every day by asking the children, "Would you please get out a rug and make a work area?"
I highly recommend this resource for anyone who is starting their Montessori journey or needs resources to tweak their current program!
You can get the book at http://www.montessoriathomebook.com/
Along with the book you get a newsletter delivered monthly to your email box with other ideas!

A Much Happier Teacher-Mom!

2011-06-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

After posting yesterday about the response I recieved from Jason @Brilliant Minds Montessori, I went back to the ordering section of the site and attempted the order process again. I selected the Advanced Kit and went into the paypal check-out. Sure enough, on the paypal invoice it stated only Brilliant Minds Math Kit not Advanced Math kit. So, I sent another email. I had previously emailed them that I was unhappy with the decision that I had to pay full price for the disk being as the error was not on my end. I asked about a possible discounted price. Well, the squeaky wheel does get the grease. Jason responded later that he checked the website and confirmed the error in the ordering process! He also stated that they will exchange the entire kit for me and are allowing me to keep the sandpaper numbers (I had expressed interest in purchasing these seperately.) to cover the shipping cost to return the kit!
I am a much happier teacher-mom today! I'm going to get the kit I need with only about aweek wait time!
I have heard horror stories from many teachers and moms regarding customer service from Montessori resellers. So I'm giving Brilliant Minds Montessori a thumbs up!
As I stated earlier, their kits are a great value. I had considered buying the CD only and ordering the materials that I did not have from another Montessori vendor. That was going to cost more than the kit minus the cost of the cd and I would not have had the lesson and extension ideas. The resource CD (a $60 value) include all the directions and worksheet and extension ideas for the materials plus Bonus lessons for money, measuring, telling time and more. Another thing I really like is they offer sample lessons and extensions on their website. So if you are needing math materials or lesson ideas, I encourage you to check out their site!
Now Dr. Meredith McCurdy I wish you would create more kits like these!

Waiting Again!

2011-06-07T05:27:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to be reporting on the Advanced Montessori Kit from Brilliant Minds Montessori but, nope! I am waiting again. Here's what happened...
I went to the website and ordered my kit. At some point, I remember checking to be sure the right kit showed up-it didn't! So I selected the Advanced Kit again. Then, after waiting for it to arrive, what do I receive but the Beginning Kit. So I emailed Jason@Brilliantmindsmontessori and explained the problem with the order (on Friday). I got a reply this morning (Tuesday) and even though the problem occured on their website, this is all they will do: I can return the kit and they will refund my money upon receipt minus the cost of the disk (they say it is non-refundable). I understand the reason for doing this, but the error was on their website not mine! So there is no way that I can reorder the kit until my next payday and I worry what if this happens again! I can't afford another $60 disk that I don't need!

Math Kit has arrived!

2011-06-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

The Brilliant Minds Math kit has arrived at my school! I am chomping at the bit to get my hands on it, but alas I am in the final stages of preparing for Bible School next week. I will get to pick up the kit tomorrow and hopefully will have a few minutes to delve into it.

Brillant Minds Montessori

2011-05-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

I wanted to blog a little more about the Brilliant Minds Montessori Advanced Math kit that I'm ordering for the boys. They offer 2 kits. Originally, I planned to order both. However, after thinking about spending $225 that I really didn't have, I decided to look into a more economical approach.
First, I was going to order just the Cd and then buy the additional items that I didn't have at school. However, when adding up the cost of buying the items seperately, I discovered it was much more economical to order the whole kit. I haven't received it yet, so I'll post a review next week.

Summer Time is Here-Mommy School Time

2011-05-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

I starting packing up the classroom today. We dismissed early due to possible inclement weather coming! This means I had less time than normal for a last student day to get things cleaned up. So tomorrow I have to do final records, draw for next year's class, clean up, and pack up the room. I have a cabinet that I really need to clean and straighten but I'm not sure if it will get done!
So starting Friday, summer break is here! I'm going to be doing some Mommy School for my boys. I thought I would do this last year, but it never really worked out. So instead of leaving it to chance, I'm making a plan. We are going to do a reading and math time each day Monday-Friday. I have ordered the Advanced Math Kit from Brilliant Minds Montessori. I'm hoping the beginning lessons are on Cd for Cady Bug (I already have the materials at school.) and I'll start with the Advanced Lessons with Coll. If he flies through those I'll use some of the lessons at http://www.freemontessori.org/. Coll has had no real Montessori experience so I think the advanced lessons will work for a while. Coll will be continuing the Singapore Math he started last year and so I want to give him a good math foundation this summer.

For reading I have a subscription to Raz-kids for Coll. I love this because he can work independently at his own pace and read books of his interest. I'm going to start sandpaper letter 3 part lessons with Cady Bug. (I have some plastic tactile letters that I will use as a substitute for these.) He knows the name of most letters but needs to learn the sounds. Then I'll move him into the objects. So let Mommy School begin!

March has Blown Away!

2011-04-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

It is always amazing to me how the spring semester flies by. March is already gone with the wind. We had lots of rain and some minor road flooding. Luckily, we were not blocked in by flooding! In '97 it was so bad, I had to go an hour out of my way to get to work!
Unfortunately, I have not gotten as far in math as I would have liked. Our elementary has had lots of special programs lately that have interrupted our morning schedule. When that happens, I usually skip our independent work time as I'm afraid it would cause too much frustration to get work out, get started and have to stop or not have time to finish.
I do have one group that has gotten to the numeral parts of the golden bead lessons. They were able to create numbers in the thousands easily using all 4 places. I can't wait to move them into operations with the beads! I also have to get out my 100 and 1000 bead chains and show them how to use them.

Work Time Again!

2011-02-19T04:50:00.000-08:00

Things always get a little crazy in our public traditional school from the end of October until January. We have Red Ribbon week, Halloweeen parties, rehearsals for a Thanksgiving play, and lots of Christmas/holiday activities so we do not get to an independent work time much during this time. I'm always kind of glad when January comes so we can get back to our regular schedule. However this January/first of February was rather wild. We had a lot of bad weather so we only had about three weeks of school altogether. We are finally back in school in back to work time this week!
I found it interesting that the children chose nothing from the math and language shelves. They went back to some of our first "work choices" and chose pin punching, the insets for design, and other non-traditional choices that I had not put away from the beginning of the year like animal models and puppets. We are no where near a three hour work cycle but I do my best. In math I am still giving the golden bead lessons to small groups. Each group is at a different place in the lessons. Some are still working on naming the beads, others are working on counting the beads. In grammar we are ready for our first key experience with adectives. I do not have the wooden grammar symbol yet, but wish I did! The children are at various levels in language/phonics activities. I have gone back to my traditional reading groups during this time. I just can't get to enough children to feel I am doing an adequate time with reading instruction. As a reading specialist I am VERY comfortable with small group reading.
Some other non-Montessori work we are doing is xtramath. This is a free individualized program. You enroll at http://www.xtramath.org/ and children work on bacsic facts. My groups are also using the Reading First Listening Centers from Lakeshore Learning covering phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, context clues, fluency and comprehension. This are a good reinforcement of my lessons I've taught. My highest readers are also doing a read along of the first Junie B. Jones book with the audio CD. I also have a DVD center with custom made DVD's to reinforce math, language, science and social studies content that has been covered.

Golden Beads!

2011-02-01T01:23:00.000-08:00

I have finally ordered enough golden bead material to do the 3-6 lessons for introduction to the decimal system. The items came yesterday and it was like Christmas for me! I'm so excited to complete the lesson series with my kiddos. Last year I did the early lessons, but did not have enough beads to do them all. I also ordered 1 set of large wooden numbers and 1 set of small wooden numbers. I really like the durability of the wooden ones/versus the laminated paper I used last year. Also I did not have a great storage tray for them so it was a struggle to sort them for lessons.
Last night I was looking through sites/blogs for the instructions for the bank game and trying to find the appropriate "when" to use it with regard to lesson sequence. That is when I had an "ah-ha" moment. I discovered that there are 2 bank games. I had only read about the bank game in reference to the golden beads. Last summer when I was ordering new materials for the classroom, I ordered a wooden framed set labeled the bank game. Come to find out this is actually a game for long division (Montessori gurus-please correct me if I am wrong on this.) So now I have the materials for both bank games!
I also discovered something interesting. Su Chen's albums for the decimal system alternate bead and numeral lessons in their sequence. The Montessori World albums (which I really love because they have pictures and I like the way they are written) do all the bead lessons first and then the number lessons. After seeing this (Su Chen's) I had a small "panic" moment wondering if I should have already introduced the number cards to my little ones. So I sent out a desperate email to my internet co-hearts as to which one is correct. The response I received gave me a sigh of relief and made perfect sense-beads before numerals, concrete before abstract. I know it is probably not a big deal but my OCD mind likes order and sequence and I had to know the proper way to do these!
I also wanted to share my research on pricing in case anyone else needs to order some bead material. I comparision shopped 4-5 major online stores for the materials I needed (Adena, Caliber, Montessori Outlet, Ifit) and from what I came up with Caliber had the most bang for the buck. Adena would have come in first but some of the materials were out of stock and would not arrive until February ? and I needed the materials for this week. Ifit was running an close 2nd to Adena until I looked into shipping and Wow! So Caliber had the next best pricing and they said they shipped next day and it took up to 5 days for shipping. I ordered my materials Monday evening and received them on the following Monday afternoon! I spent a little under $100 and ordered Large numbers to 9000, small numbers to 9000, 45 wooden hundred squares, 9 wooden thousand cubes, 45 golden bead tens, 45 bead units, and 1 golden bead hundred chain. I already had the introduction to the decimal system set with the real bead hundred squares and thousand cube so the wooden ones were fine for me for the difference in the price. The only thing I was a little unhappy with and this is a personal thing-not with the company is that the cubes are larger than my bead cube. Overall, I am very happy with my purchase. This is my 3rd order with this company and they have not let me down, yet. So if you need materials consider http://www.calibermontessori.com/.

Other $1 Finds

2010-07-15T04:53:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post about my other finds the other day. I stopped in at Michaels. I was looking for dollhouse items for my phonetic object boxes but apparently Michaels does not carry these or at least not at my store. So while browsing, I found their $1 aisle. I could have gone crazy but I restrained myself! Anyway they had these little items called CrazErasers. I had not heard of them but apparently they are very popular as Amazon had the same sets listed at $5.99. There are some gross ones like a toilet with "stuff", but they also have some food items so I picked up ones that had a hot dog, a tray, bread and "jam"-the jam comes off so it will go in my pink box, cereal "box", milk. These are not flimsy little erasers like Oriental Trading sells. They are quite thick, 3d, and have some "weight" to them. Should hold up okay.
I ended up with lots of short a items for my pink boxes and a few items for my blue and greeen boxes between these and my order from miniature marketplace. So I bit the bullet and ordered a pink and blue phonetic object box from Montessori 123. Has anyone ordered from this company? Hope they are worth it!

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

2010-07-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

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!

Calendar Work

2010-07-02T13:52:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in previous posts, I fell in love with the book, "Montessori in the Classroom" and
I'm using it to plan for August. One of the ideas I fell in love with was the monthly calendar making. This is great for life skills, number sequence, number formation, and more. I have created 2 sets of calendars for August-December for my class. One set is completely traceable and the other has the number grid blank. The traceable on can be used as a model for advanced students and students having difficulty can trace them each month. These are available at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Becky-Reid/About-Me for $1 for the Aug-Dec. set. When I finish the spring set, I will post those there too. Please note that I am not doing this to "make lots of money". I receive $.30 from each dollar item I sell. My hope to get a little back for the time I have invested to help me with new materials for my class.

New Sources for Materials!

2010-07-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

I have been a busy beaver-busy at planning for school in August (and my house shows it!). At this time I am rewarding myself with a few minutes at the computer for each household task I complete.
As I mentioned previously, I finally bought and read, "Montessori in the Classroom". If you haven't read it, it is a wonderful source for anyone teaching multiple children in a Montessori way. After reading it I really pondered with the idea of using insets for design with my "firsties".
I wondered if their developmental level would make them useless after a few months, but many people on the Montessori email rings convinced me that they would continue to be used so I took off on a quest to find an inexpensive set. Not as easy as it sounds. Yes, some sights have an inexpensive set or a plastic set but by the time you factor in their shipping costs-they are not that cheap! So I am sharing with you the fruits of my labor...

I discovered that Didax Learning Materials makes a set called, "Montessori shapes". I searched the internet w/0 finding a great price so I went to Amazon.com
One company, Wizard of Math, offers them for $21.96 and factor in the 8.99 shipping=$30.99
Now, I have my insets but I need the tracing tray. Amazon doesn't have them. I checked Adena, Caliber Montessoir, and Ifit. They have them for around $12 but when you factor in their shipping cost, it's not such a great deal. I ended up buying from KidAdvance (I have no previous experience with them, so I'm crossing my fingers!). Their's is $13.99 and shipping for the one item is $8. I went ahead and ordered a few more small items I needed such as replacement smallest cube for pink tower, a clearance priced map of North America, and a few puzzles on clearance. With these additional my shipping only went up to $14 which is not bad for Montessori ordering. (Housework break)
I'm back and will now share another cool find of mine...
I am wanting to build up my phonetic material for the upcoming year. I have toyed for 2 years now with the idea of using the phonetic objects. I know I can use pictures, but those little things are so darn cute! After rereading Paula Polk Lillard this morning, I came across another rationale for them-the small motor skills it builds by the children having to use the pincher grasp (what they need for good penmanship) to pick them up. So that sold me. I had intended to hit Dollar General and Hobby Lobby in my quest for cheap little objects. Then I had the idea to check Amazon.com since I already had an order pending and maybe I could save a little on shipping. While browsing there I came across the goldmine in the sponsered links at the bottom of the page. I found a site, called, Miniature Marketplace and went in search. They have a section called special deals. Here is a copy of what I ordered and the cost for my pink phonetic objects:
IM66250 - WASH TUB1.78
IM65003IM65003 - BEACH TOYS2.10
IM65044IM65044 - FRYING PAN0.85
IM65039 - VANITY SET 1.70
IM65045IM65045 - CLOCK1.05
IM65060IM65060 - COPPER POTS1.45
IM65024IM65024 - BEAGLE1.25
IM65221sIM65221- BROWN CRAFT BAG0.71
B1SANTA HAT - B10.25
SPECKLED BIRD'S EGGS - w250.25
w162 WHITE CUPS - 0.30
KD31BOOK W/ PRINTED COVER - 0.27
DM30OLD-FASHIONED GROCERY CAN - 0.25
DM31OLD-FASHIONED GROCERY BOX - 0.25
PRESENT, ASSORTED - 1.80
G4758LARGE HAY BALE - 0.7510.75
IM65446IM65446 - CAT, GREY TABBY 1.57
RYK4155RYK4155 - MOPS, 2 PCS 1.26
RYN5505RYN5505 - LARGE MUG0.63
Shipping was a mere $5.85 so all these items for a total of $24-most of the sets include more than one item so I also have replacements.

A Couple of New Cheap Finds!

2010-06-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to go to Target while in Indianapolis over the weekend. I did not have a mask for the blindfold activities and was wanting to find one as my kids are still in the sensorial period at the beginning of the year. I found one in their Dollar Spot. They had pink, green, and blue and they are kid size! I got the green one. If you need storage ideas, they have lots of neat tubs and things right now.
At Dollar General I picked up a $1 foam puzzle of bones of the body that I am going to try to see if my son is interested in using this summer, then I will take it to school. I also bought a pack of 30 squares of sandpaper for $2 and 2 packs of colored cardstock for $2 each. I am going to use these to make sandpaper letters for my 2 1/2 year old and might make the green digraph letters for school too!

Green Phonetic Material

2010-06-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

If you haven't figured out from my posts yet, I love finding great materials that are cheap or free. Unfortunately, most of the free providers of phonetic material have run out of time or energy before they have gotten to the green level material. I had forgotten about the green materials that I downloaded from My Montessori Journey. I love her idea of using letter stamps for the children to stamp the words if their coordination is not ready to write (I have 4 sets of the traceable letter stamps). I have also have some cool phonics stamps that I am going to use with the phonetic material that I got with a grant from Lakeshore Learning.

Another source that I had forgotten about is The Prepared Environment. I love their dollar store. I have the phonogram 3 part cards and will probably download their phonogram folders because I think it is well worth the $2 to have them already made!

Planning for Next Year's Class

2010-05-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

The kids are gone. My room is not packed up yet because my little one ended up with tonsilitis on the day I was supposed to do it. Right now, I am sitting on a boat in Tn. working on planning for next year. I wanted share some wonderful free links that I plan on using for next year's class.

One area I was very unhappy with was my language center. I want to add word lists and more phonetic reading material so I am going to use the free material from GoldMark Montessori.
Here are links for various material that I am going to use:
Pink word lists including sentences and phrases
Blue word lists including sentences and phrases
pink and blue command cards
farm words for grammar
***I ordered this farm set from Amazon
Grammar Extension Cards

Wonderful Morning!

2010-05-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

The kids came in today so much more settled than they have the past few weeks. They chose a book to read and then copied 2 sentences into their language notebook and labeled the nouns. Most of them have finally gotten the concept of noun!
Then I had a modified contemporary work choice board for them. I had 5 computers up with various programs, 2 DVD centers with reading programs, Leap Pads, and then some workbook work. Not surprisingly, no one chose to work in their workbooks. I was so happy with how "into" their work they were today. They were well focused and worked for much longer periods, not running from activity to activity as they did before. (This is so sad that I finally have them where I want them and now they are leaving my room!) While they worked, I observed from afar and worked on putting away things from the math shelves. I would have liked to left everything out until that last day, but realistically I realized that if I did, I would be spending a week after the children leave packing up the room. They will help me on the last days to clean the room and get it ready for the summer floor waxing.

Where Did the Year Go?

2010-05-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it is almost time to pack up the room! As I reflect back on the year, there are things I am very pleased with and of course, things I wished I'd done differently!
What is it about educators, we are always striving to do it better next time?

One thing I am most pleased with is the fact that my students had very little "busy" work in workbooks and worksheets that was done this year. Mostly, only the few times I had a substitute teacher and I am ashamed to admit it-a little at the end of the year when they have been so restless! According to our grade level benchmarks, my students' calculation skills are equivolent to the children who do mulitple drill sheets each day. I really loved teaching again this year.

For those things I wish I'd done differently:
*new materials-I used my classroom school funds to order materials that I really thought I needed when school started. Unfortunately, by the time they arrived (after January) my students had "outgrown" them. I was very upset but after reading Paula Lillard Polk's book, Montessori in the Classroom, I believe I can glean some multiple purposes from them. She talks about how her students use of the map puzzles, labeling, and map making helped them build and refine their fine motor skills for writing and learn to read through writing. She also disusses how she used materials Maria designed for much younger children for remedial purposes and for those children who are restless or emotionally drained because they "drop" a developmental level. Even though my students are a year older than the ones she discusses in her book, I often have children who are developmentally delayed or who have "missed" developmental experiences and are lacking in fine motor and/or language development.
So...
those biology and anatomy puzzles will have some life in my classroom after all. I plan to demonstrate tracing and labeling in those first few days, so the children can get started using the puzzles right away.

*reading, Montessori in the classroom before this school year had started. I had several people recommend this book. However, in my undergraduate studies I had purchased a book in which she had written or written the forward. I never got "into" the book, so I resisted purchasing this one. What a difference it could have made, if I had read this over the summer! I plan to post a much more indepth discussion of the book in the next few weeks.

Winter Work

2009-12-31T13:35:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas. I know I certainly did. Loved having that family time.
I wanted to write about the work I am planning for the month of January, in case anyone wants to take advantage of the after-Christmas sales as I did. Here is the work that I am planning on putting out for January:

Last Snowman Standing Math Game-I am using these snowmen from Oriental Trading. Get the gameboards and directions from mathwire.com.

Snowflake Patterning-I found these stamps on clearance from Oriental.

Penguin and Polar Bear Patterns-Using these stamps, I couldn't pass these up at this price.

Animal Track 3 part cards-My dear friend Danielle from KinderPrintables.com made these for me. I don't know if she will offer them for sale or not, I'm trying to talk her into an instant download.

Snowman Adding and Subtracting-using these cute guys.

Snowball Addition and Subtraction-using these gameboards and these poms. Poms are not on sale but my Wal-mart is so horrible about carrying craft items, I wasn't sure if I would find any. You can use cotton balls, but I like the glitter.

Winter words letter tiles cards made by Stephanie in the LearningCenters@yahoogroups.com

Hope for the Holidays-Hope for American Education

2009-12-24T04:15:00.000-08:00

I found out about an unique opportunity to write about an event or experience that gave me hope for the future of American Education so here goes:
I had the opportunity to visit the Ron Clark Academy in November (not Montessori) but please keep reading. This is one of the latest "buzzes" in education right now. I was very hyped up, told I would be amazed and so on. So when I got there and saw it, I was actually a little "let down" and kept thinking "What am I going to take back to my school from this experience?".
Finally, I decided that the one thing that I could take back was the "team work" and "family experience".
Now for the amazing part, I was so impressed to see how each one of the educators who went, whether greatly inspired or not by the experience, put into practice some kind of change in their classroom. This got me thinking to a more global standpoint of how ed bloggers and webringers work together every day to try to help other educators and make things a little better for their kids. I know that I have received advice and resources from many wonderful educators as I have tried to implement a "Montessori approach" in my classroom.
So my hope for the future of American education is the inspiration I get daily from my "web friends" who gain nothing financially but continue to log on, upload, download, share, share, share and help each other like a big cyber family. Teachers who walk into their classroom daily and are willing to make changes to help kids are my hope for the future of American education. So let's continue to inspire one another and be willing to make changes when we find that change could help our kids. A big cyber hug to all my webfriends out there and Merry Christmas!

This post is part of the MAT@USC Hope for the holidays event. Did you have an experience or witness something in 2009 which gave you hope for the future of American education? If so, please see this post for more information on how to share it.

Christmas Tasks

2009-12-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted. I always do a Thanksgiving play in November so it was a crazy month!

Here are a few descriptions of the work I've put out for December. A little late for some of you, but you can file it away for next year, if you like them.

Trim a Tree Subtraction: My kids are always so excited about the Christmas tree and I wanted to make it something that went along with what we are learning. So I created this task. The students choose any number of ornaments they want to work with. They put some on the tree, take some off, and see how many are left. I have slips of paper for them to record their equations on.

Star Equations: I have 4 sets of these out for my kids. I found these cool trays as well as the stars which were garland at Dollar General after Christmas for 90% off so I paid $.10 each. The kids use the I put stars in the bottom 2 points for them to use. They use the top three for addition or subtraction and record their equations on a slip of paper.

Life cycle of a Pumpkin

2009-10-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

This is a task that I got from www.Montessoriforeveryone. It is in their cultural files as a free download. I love free and needed some language/thematic things so I put these 3 part cards out in the language center.

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf

2009-10-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you follow Montessori Journey, you will find that this is similar to her leaf post. Purely, coincidental we both added leaf rubbings to our classrooms yesterday!

A few weeks ago at a festival in our area, I found these glass leaf bowls at an antique store for 50 cents each. I bought 4 of them. 2 have dividers and 2 are open. The divided bowl is for sorting the leaves into attributes of their choosing. I read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf to the class yesterday as an enticement for this work. The leaf book is teacher made for identifying the type of leaf. I have a sample leaf rubbing with a label for the type of leaf. In the pumpkin are crayons for the rubbings.

Math Struggles

2009-09-24T04:26:00.000-07:00

I have asked my principal for permission to not use the math workbooks and to just try using the Montessori materials and lessons. I was granted permission with the condition that if I saw it wasn't working to go back to the traditional material. So I am giving the chapter tests and trying to use my Montessori materials to teach the material covered in each chapter in addition to the sequence of Montessori lessons and individual work time.
I gave a pre-test of chapter 2 hoping I could move on but many children did not understand the concepts. So I have been doing partner work and lessons on making quanities.
I have one group (maybe half) that "get it". The others I am a little frustrated with as they are still having to count the 3 bead units and don't "see" that 1 bead and 2 beads make 3. Even though we have been writing number sentences with sets, they still don't get that their first number has to be how much is in their first set. Am I just expecting too much? I know they didn't have Montessori preschool or Kindergarten but I really thought that being 6 and 7 this would come much faster for them. Any thoughts?

We are Working!

2009-09-24T04:13:00.000-07:00

I finally have work time going for all my class now. I started it slowly by having the ones who finished their traditional classwork choosing work to do from the shelves. I have run out of shelf room (I ordered the teen and tens board set from Sue at Montessori Steps). Really nice sets that came with cards you can use as 3 part cards. I'm going to have to figure out how to rearrange some things to get more room. I am in the process of making my traditional tasks from the past two years more Montesssori-ish by adding control cards. For these items I am using my drawers from last year as I am out of space. It works pretty well. Each child has a colored folder and the folder corresponds to a drawer. In their folder are the response sheets for tasks I want them to do. They match the sheet to a miniature version of it on the manipulative/hands-on material it goes with. For example, for pink series word work I put the pink word work book in the child's folder. They go to their drawer and in it, they will find a pink book attached to a ziplock bag that contain the picture and word cards, a control chart, and photographed instructions for what to do. They take the ziplock bag and word book to their choice of work space and do the activity.
I am using a folder system right now, to ensure that all students are working on something on their level. I have a checklist of their "have to's" that I check off when they complete. I use a 3 "have to's" and then choices system. This also keeps the children from fighting over the most popular choices as they finish at different rates.
I would love to eventually go to an all choice work system, but as this is all new for me, I feel the need to take baby steps.

Getting Started and Materials

2009-08-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

We have been in school for 3 full weeks and 2 days so far. I have been very pleased with my start. I am chomping at the bit to get into "work time", but I know I MUST get work routines and classroom expectations down before I let them go or I will be crazy! So far I have done the pink tower presentation and everyone had a chance to build it once, the geometric solid presentation, intro to the decimal system parts 1,2, and 3 with beads only (teaching ones, tens, hundreds, thousands), the bead stair (in small groups), and pink/blue words with moveable alphabet (with 2 students). I realized this evening (while in the car on my way to pick up dinner) that I need to develop a checklist that I can keep on a clipboard with the tasks I am using a place to date when I observe the introduction, practice, and mastery. I think this will keep me up to date on everyone's needs. So if anyone is interested I will be happy to share when I get this finished.
The materials I ordered from Caliber Montessori and Alison's. I was very happy with the prices and quality from Caliber. I am not as thrilled wih Alison's. I have written to them and will post their response when I receive it.

***I did receive a reply from Alison's. They offered to allow me to return the bead stair for a refund. I didn't. I wanted them to send me the holder for the bead stair instead of me returning it and reordering. I felt this would be the fair thing since they misrepresented the product by showing it in the picture and not indicating that it was NOT included in the description. Oh, well I only ordered from them to get the introduction to the decimal system set that was on clearance. I won't be using them anymore.

Tasks I've Created So Far

2009-08-14T03:55:00.000-07:00

I've printed, laminated, cut, gathered, ordered new things and these are the tasks I have so far for my work time. I finally thought to take pictures so I could post them.

We have had 5 days of school so far. We are finishing our first week today!

I am loving using these Montessori lesson presentations.

I started with the pink tower presentation. I did it to the large group and let them come up one at a time and practice making the tower. Next I did a geometric solid lesson whole group and passed around the solids so they could see them and touch them.

I have broken my children up into small groups so I could do a bead stair presentation (numbers 1-9) to each group and better get a grasp on their needs. In a very unMontessori like fashion, I put 6-7 children at the DVD center to watch Chrysanthemum (a story we had read) and then a sight word DVD, 4-5 at the computer center, and then I did a quick presentation of a play doh name task to 3-4 students, so I was able to pull 4 for bead stair. I have 19 children and do not have an assistant at any time so this was the best I can do for small group work. When I get children working, I hope to be able to work individually with them.

On my math shelf I have the pink tower ( I ordered), geometric solids (I had these just had to make the cards), 2 pocket charts for hundred boards and number cards 1-100 and 101-200, introduction to the decimal system set x2 (I ordered these), number cards and counters (made the cards, I had the counters), bead stair and number cards to 9, seguin board and tens board (Imade these), extra bead stairs (I ordered), and put back for later bead cubes that I ordered. Overall I spent around $100 for these materials.

My language shelf seems a little lacking to me and I did realize that I don't have any 3 part cards for word study or sentence/picture match cards. So back to the laminator I go. On the shelf I have the play doh names task, pink and blue series short a magnetic cards with magnetic letters, 2 magnetic short a word family tasks, some other pictures of short a words for building with magnetic letters, and 2 trays with different levels of yes/no question cards (from sparklebox.com they are like pink and blue series levels) that they can use in the pocket charts if they wish to sort by yes or no.

My little divided trays are childrens trays I picked up a few at a time at Dollar General this summer, the tiny baskets are at Dollar General now, the larger basket trays I ordered from Oriental Trading.

Golden Bead Work

2009-06-24T04:40:00.000-07:00

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???

2009-06-18T04:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2009-06-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Eye Droppers

2009-03-02T04:29:00.000-08:00

I found some eye droppers that I had in my cabinet so my first graders got a new center last week: practical living. Even though they are 6-8 year olds some still need fine motor work so, they had a transfer task. I colored the water blue to make it more fun. I presented the center to them showing them how to transfer the water. The first few days went pretty well. However, on Friday, I let two students work together and one kept getting blue water on the other's sleeve. I was not a happy teacher. I had even reviewed the presentation with them after the first time this happened.

I did get a kick out them "discovering" that the water dried up over the weekend.

This week we are going to use the droppers again (with clear water). But I am going to do science explorations with them.

Bucket Games or You could call them Basket Games!

2009-02-25T04:25:00.000-08:00

One area where my first graders need work is on nonsense word fluency as well as fluency in other areas according to the Aimsweb testing we do. So, I have created what I call "Bucket Games". I found some little Valentine buckets at Big Lots right before Valentine's Day. I printed and laminated the pink, blue, and green word cards (will add link later). These are not nonsense words but most are words my students are not familiar with so they will work! I cut the words apart and put one sheet of words into each bucket. To play the game, I divide my students into groups of three/four at the most but 3 is best! The child in the middle holds the bucket of words at his/her level. The other children are the checkers. They sort the words into correct/incorrect as the bucket child lays them down. I start the timer for one minute and say "Go". The bucket child pulls word cards from the bucket and reads them and drops them on the floor. The checkers sort the cards. If a word is unknown, the child should put it back in the bucket and keep going. At the end of the minute, the child counts his/her correct words. I stress that we are competing against themselves, trying to get more words each time and not to worry how many someone else got.
Now, I need to find some Easter buckets or baskets and make cards for missing numbers, addition, subtraction, quanitative differences
I am not sure how Montessorish this is, but my kids really enjoy it. It could be an individual game by putting the bucket and timer on a tray for the child to use in his/her own area. Will post pictures as soon as possible.

The Beginning

2009-02-07T14:39:00.001-08:00

The other day I gave Collier my first presentation: The Addition Strip Board. It went pretty well. However, as typical Collierish behavior, he was not happy just making 2 digit equations. First he wanted to see how many ways he could get to make 18. Then he arranged the strips as shown in the photo.

I downloaded the materials from Montessori Materials. You can get them here.

My Beginning

2009-02-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

I am starting this blog for other moms and teachers who want to ponder into Montessori methods with their children and students.
I am a teacher with a specialist degree in reading. In college I discovered Montessori and fell in love with it. I did a lot of self study and wanted to open my own school upon finishing college. However, my dreams soon became sqashed with the need for employment that included benefits such as health insurance.
I fell in love with the school where I did my student teaching and became employed there.
I have been very happy with my classroom teaching and methods until I started searching for ways to challenge my son who is in kindergarten and stimulate my one year old who was a preemie. During my internet search, I have rediscovered Montessori and my love of it.