Christmas Tasks

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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.