Halloween Party!

Well, the party wasn't quite as large as we'd hoped because there were quite a few kids out sick (darn that flu!), but we still managed to have a good time. We did some some fun paper plate decorating, coloring, cutting, letter matching, and a Halloween acrostic puzzle. Then we made Halloween spiders out of Ritz crackers, peanut butter and pretzel legs, and then we had pb &j sandwiches in the shape of ghosts. And then a little bit of candy, of course. Happy Halloween everyone! We missed everybody that couldn't come!!

Making Pumpkin faces

Making spiders

Ready for eating!

Eating lunch

Teacher Work Days

Our School District has these days about every other month. It is a day when the kids are off, and the teachers are doing training or lesson planning or . . . I guess I'm not sure what because I've never been a public school teacher in our district. But anyway, last year, I took a couple "teacher work days". I would go somewhere, usually a place that had wi-fi or at least access to computers, and I would work on lesson plans, selecting curriculum, researching, that sort of thing.

Now that my sister and I are co-homeschooling, we decided that it was even more important for us to have Teacher Work Meetings. The plan was that we would plan out our lesson plans for the next month, go over the calendar for the next month, and discuss any problems that we were having or things that we needed to change, and to talk about what was going really well.

Well, we started school around the first of September. So for our September meeting, we just talked at my house about our general impression of how the year was starting and how we thought the schedule was going. By early October, it was obvious that we were going to need to make some changes, and so we had a couple more short meetings at my house, brainstorming about what we could change/what we would change to, what needed to be bought, what we could look at and see if it would work, etc.

And then we planned our monthly meeting for October 24th. And it was a good meeting. We met for 3 hours over at my sister's house after her kids were in bed. But we didn't really get any lesson planning done. We talked about the calendar, we talked about problems and good things, but mostly, we went over all the books that we were planning on using and deciding how we were going to use them, and when. I think we have FINALLY come up with our final plan. Or at least close to it. I don't anticipate making any more major changes anyway. Oh, and we met from 9 pm to midnight.

So we still hadn't had an actual Work Day to do lesson planning for November. So we went to Borders on October 28th. And we worked for about 2.5 hours. We did our lesson planning. And ate some good sandwiches and drank some tasty drinks. And didn't have one interruption from any children. It was great. Our next work is scheduled for mid-November.

Do any of you do monthly "teacher work days" or regular planning time?

Field Trip: The Pumpkin Patch

We took our annual field trip to our pumpkin patch, which isn't REALLY a pumpkin path. It is a field in front of a church where they line up pumpkin in rows and you can pick them out. It is just easier to go to a place like this, especially when I am dealing with 4 or 5 preschoolers, and because it is usually VERY cold, and very windy.

Well, I got up on Friday morning and it was in the upper 50s. Nice, right? It had been raining during the night, but it wan't raining now. It did rain steadily the day before, and it had been raining on and off for a few days. But it wasn't raining when it was time to leave for the field trip. So I thought we would finally have a not so quick trip to the pumpkin patch.

Well, it was still a quick trip, but not because of cold or wind.

Here are some of us & a parent picking out pumpkins

Here is Super holding his pumpkin

And here is Jelly Bean holding her pumpkin. And if you look down, and especially behind her, you will see why it had to be a quick trip.

It was really soggy in the field, and then see that pond behind the children? That "pond" usually isn't there. And the driveway to the church was under about 2 feet of water.

Jelly Bean and Flower

And Super the Scarecrow

Back at the house for apple cider and Krispy Kreme donuts - regular and pumpkin!

Yummy!

Preschool Week 7: What We Were Up To

Fire Safety

October 19-22
Letter of the Week: Cc

Number of the Month: 2

Shape of the Month: Triangle

Color of the Month: Blue

· At the sensory/art table, we have blue play-doh.
· At the paint easel, we have blue paint, water color paint, and new blue DOT paint.
· On the practical life shelf, cutting food, nuts and bolts, flower arranging, pumpkin tonging, spider sorting, pumpkin pouring and dressing vests.
· On the art shelf, we have a fire safety color page, pumpkin gluing, leaf gluing, Halloween stamping, and then our free art supplies (paper, cardstock, construction paper, scissors, crayons, markers, pencils, tape, glue, stapler, and paper punch.)
· On the sensorial shelf, we have color tablets 1 and 2, the brown stair, block tower, and knobbed cylinder A and B and the red rods.
· On the geometry shelf, we have the circle and the triangle puzzle. There is also a geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids.
· On the letter shelf, we have sandpaper letters (lower case and upper case) alphabet cards, and leap frog letters. I’ve also added the Red Language materials (learning 3 letter words that start with r, a, m, f, b, i, t and g.)
· On the language shelf, classified cards on rooms in your house, calendar matching, and fall letter words. I also have the Bob books – Set A (easy reader books) on the shelf.
· On the writing shelf, we are working on the triangle shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, letter tracing for C, magnadoodle, and moveable alphabet.
· On the science shelf, there is mammal puzzle – horse, plant puzzle – tree, and land and water cards.
· On the geography shelf, there are the continent globe and the sand and water globe and the continent map puzzle.
· On the math shelf, we have sandpaper numbers, number puzzle, number bears, bead matching, fraction puzzles, spindles, and seasonal counting activities.
· We are reading Big Fire Trucks, I Can Be A Fire Fighter, Big Frank’s Fire Truck, Fire Fighter, I’m Going To Be A Fire Fighter, Fighting Fires, and Clifford, The Firehouse Dog.

Pictures from Week 6: Preschool

Working on play-doh on the new Halloween mat

Building a tower

Working on Columbus hats

This little guy is new this week, and he has a couple favorites. One of them is this counters and cards activity that I got from My Montessori Journey.

Playing with the farm. Did I post about how I got this Melissa & Doug's wooden farm at the thrift store this summer for $5???? What a deal!

This is the new boy's other favorite activity. I'm not sure what exactly he is doing, besides just lining the bears up, but he really enjoys it.

Cutting food. One of Super's favorite activities.

A 3 year old, new this semester using the knobbed cylinders. She did, after this picture was taken, realize that something wasn't right, and managed to get all of them in the correct order.

Using Color Box 1

Working with the Block Tower. This student is 4.5 years old, and definitely has mastered this activity, but she still gets it out fairly often. She also enjoys doing extensions with the block tower.

Putting the Brown Stair back on the shelf.

Starting to put the leaves in numerical order. I got this idea from My Montessori Journey also, although I got my leaves at the Target $1 spot instead of Hobby Lobby.

Spider sorting by color. This idea was inspired by the What DID we Do All Day? blog.

Preschool Week 6: What We Were Up To

Leaves are falling all around!
October 12-16, 2009

Letter of the Week: Bb
Number of the Month: 2
Shape of the Month: Triangle
Color of the Month: Blue

• At the sensory/art table, we have blue play-doh.
• At the paint easel, we have blue paint.
• On the practical life shelf, cutting food, sorting spiders, tonging pumpkins, pouring pumpkins.
• On the art shelf, we have a pumpkin color page, and then our free art supplies (paper, cardstock, construction paper, scissors, crayons, markers, pencils, tape, glue, stapler, and paper punch.)
• On the sensorial shelf, we have color tablets 1, the brown stair, block tower, and knobbed cylinder A and B.
• On the geometry shelf, we have the triangle puzzle. There is also pattern blocks, geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids.
• On the letter shelf, we have sandpaper letters (lower case and upper case) alphabet cards, and leap frog letters.
• On the language shelf, we have the Red Language work, fall sequence cards, calendar matching, and fall letter words.
• On the writing shelf, we are working on the triangle shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, letter tracing, magnadoodle, and moveable alphabet.
• On the science shelf, there is mammal puzzle – horse, plant puzzle – tree, and land and water cards.
• On the geography shelf, there are the continent globe and the sand and water globe and the continent map puzzle.
• On the math shelf, we have sandpaper numbers, number puzzle, number bears, bead matching, fraction puzzles, spindles and seasonal counting activities.
• We are reading Leaf Season, Clifford Loves Autumn, Leaf Rubbings, and The Fall Festival.

Elementary - Week, hmm??

I think we are in week 8. I'm not sure.

We are still schooling. We've even done some cool learning, but I haven't taken many pictures. And we've had doctor's appointments for some, dentist appointment for others, and my "assistant" was out for two days with the flu. So we have been a bit hit and miss, but we are still getting the basics (Reading, Writing, Arithmatic) done every day, so it's all good.

I am also SUPER excited to post about what we are doing for grammar, but it needs to be a post in itself, and I need to take some pictures, which I haven't done yet. Maybe by this weekend . . .

I also really want to get pictures taken of the Elementary school room.

Anyway, I thought I'd let you know what have been doing lately:

History: Story of the Word I - Ancient Babylonians

Grammar: Nouns

Copywork: Daily writing of seasonal quotes in cursive.

Spelling: Jelly Bean - Everyone is on Unit 7 in their Spell and Write book.

Literature: Jelly Bean - Peter Pan, Flower - Little Women, Scooter - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Helper - ?? I'll have to come back and edit this when I look at his book.

Geography: Olders - North American Continent Study. Youngers - California

Science: Astronomy - Apologia Astronomy, Finish up the unit on the Sun and reading library books about Apollo 13. Botony - Apologia Botony, Learning about Moss.

Math: Flower - Saxon 54, Lesson 30, Scooter - Saxon 65, Lessson 35, Jelly Bean and Helper - Math U See, Lesson 8

Picture Study: Museum ABC - F is for Feet

M is for Music: B is for Brass

R is for Rhyme: E is for End Rhyme

M is for Masterpiece: E is for Easter Island

Tweaking the Elementary Curriculum

We've been tweaking The Plan around here. Somethings are going well (LOVING Story of the World and Apologia Botany and Astronomy), but some things were just not working. By the way, here is the run-down of children and their grades: Jelly Bean is in 2nd, Helper is in 3rd, Flower is in 4th, and Scooter is in 5th. Jelly Bean and Flower are mine, and Helper and Scooter are my nephews. My sister teaches History and Language (copywriting, grammar, spelling, writing, etc.) in the mornings. I teach Math, Science, Geography and the "Specials" (Art, Music, Instruments, Poetry and Shakespeare) in the afternoons.
===================
- We are still using Spell and Write for Spelling. Jelly Bean and Helper are using their grade level book, and Scooter and Flower are using Grade 6.

- We were using Rod and Staff Beginning Wisely for the Youngers and God's Gift of Language A for the Olders. The older kids didn't mind their book much, but Beginning Wisely wasn't working for the youngers. So we have recently moved to using the Living Langauge Lessons on Serendipity (it uses the Ruth Heller grammar books), using Montessori Grammar Symbols/Cards, from Montessori Everyone and using the Grammar portion of the Language Manual found at the Cultivating Dharma site. I'll have a whole post soon on our new grammar program.

- We aren't using Writing Strands. They are doing daily copywork with short seasonal quotes and various other writing activities.

- Jelly Bean was using Saxon 2. It was too much review drill for her, so I moved her to Math U See Beta with Helper. I also added Math Minutes (addition/subtraction/multiplication/division as a 10 minute drill) for everyone .

- Flower is using Saxon 54 instead of Everyday Math 4.

- The olders are doing Continent Study for Geography (starting with North America) similar to this study found on Serendipity. The youngers are doing US State History, similar to the program that Flower used last year.

- We are doing Picture Study using Museum ABC. This is going really well.

- We are also doing Music Study using M is for Melody, Poetry Study using R is for Rhyme, Art Study using M is for Masterpiece, for everyone.

- We are alternating Science (Astronomy on MWF and Botany on T/Th) and everyone is learning both.

- We aren't using Workboxes in the traditional way. We use them for supplemental activities. Some contain things like geoboards, tanagrams, origami, dominoes, etc. Other boxes contain 3 part/flashcards for the subjects that we are doing this year.

- We've added Fridays with Shakespeare, again, from Serendipity.

Montgomery Academy Toddler Version: Painting

Last week, the toddlers were busy drawing and playing with salt dough. This week, they painted and drew, although I only have pictures of Little Boy.

Painting a leaf

Concentrating

Where's your tongue? There it is!!!

The finished leaves

Pictures from Week 5: Preschool

Calendar work - new work on the shelf. One of the 4s is trying it for the first time.

The insets

Sticks in the shaker. This was the last week for this activity. It is a good introduction activity early in the year, and the 3s really enjoy it, but it is time for another activity.

Collage work - using fabric

Collage work - using fabric and tissue paper

Preschool Week 5: What We Were Up To

Bears!
October 5-9, 2009
Letter of the Week: Bb
Number of the Month: 2
Shape of the Month: Triangle
Color of the Month: Blue

• At the sensory/art table, we have blue play-doh.
• At the paint easel, we have blue paint.
• On the practical life shelf, cutting food, locks puzzle, nuts and bolts, sticks in a shaker, pouring, tonging, and zip dressing vests.
• On the art shelf, we have a Bb color page, and then our free art supplies (paper, cardstock, construction paper, scissors, crayons, markers, pencils, tape, glue, stapler, and paper punch.)
• On the sensorial shelf, we have color tablets 1 and 2, the brown stair, block tower, and knobbed cylinder A and B and the red rods.
• On the geometry shelf, we have the circle and the triangle puzzle. There is also a geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids.
• On the letter shelf, we have sandpaper letters (lower case and upper case) alphabet cards, and leap frog letters. I’ve also added the Red Language materials (learning 3 letter words that start with r, a, m, f, b, i, t and g.)
• On the language shelf, there is classified cards on rooms in your house, calendar matching, and fall letter words. I also have the Bob books – Set A (easy reader books) on the shelf.
• On the writing shelf, we are working on the circle shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, letter tracing for B, magnadoodle, and moveable alphabet.
• On the science shelf, there is mammal puzzle – horse, plant puzzle – tree, and land and water cards.
• On the geography shelf, there are the continent globe and the sand and water globe and the continent map puzzle.
• On the math shelf, we have sandpaper numbers, number puzzle, number bears, bead matching, fraction puzzles, spindles, and seasonal counting activities.
• We are reading Corduroy and His Pocket, The Bear Party, The Little Fur Family, Blueberries for Sal, and Go Ask Mr. Bear.

Pictures from Week 5: Elementary

Making salt dough to create Sumarian tablets

Using a magnifying glass to burn a hole in the leaf. It worked!!!

Working on Math Minutes. We do some math drill early in the afternoon to help review math facts.

And somebody lost a tooth too!

Pictures from Week 4: Preschool

Apples for counting - found at a discount store and originally threaded together as a garland.

Putting Mr. Potato Head together in a bit of a silly way.

Playing Dominoes

Someone drawing, someone watching . . .

Montgomery Academy Toddler Version

I watch a Little Boy who has come here since he was a bitty six week old babe. Now, he is a 16 month old toddler. My sister has 4 children - Scooter (10) Helper (8) Princess (5, who goes to Kindy at a local elementary school) and Smiley, who is 15 months.

Little Boy and Smiley mostly like each other. There is still the occassional hitting, and the slightly more than occassional biting, but generally, they get along. They mostly play while we are doing "school" with the other children, but I try to focus on having "toys" like shape puzzles, pull toys, pegboards, etc.

But the other day, they had a marathon session of playing with salt dough and coloring. They loved doing both, and would protest LOUDLY when we tried to take things away from them.

Here are some pictures of the toddlers in action:

Apples! Apples! It's Apple Day!

On Monday, September 28th, in honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday on September 26th, we decided to have an Apple day, so we did all sorts of activities related to Apples. We ate lots of apple food, learned about the parts of an apple, did some apple vocabulary, some apple counting, etc. Oh and doing some apple printing.

Doing an apple wordsearch

Not anything to do with apples, but today the babies were spinning the birds on the Activity Garden. It was very cute how they would take turns spinning the birds.