Knobless Cylinders . . .

(picture from the Nienhaus website)

I was on the fence for the longest time about buying these - and I even tried selling them once because they didn't get used much back then. But this year - WOW. In the last month, the knobless cylinders have been out so often in the Preschool Area. And they have learned so much from using them.

In fact, this year has been an interesting year for me, Montessori-wise. This is the only year in the past 7 years that I have had more than one child that is doing lots of work in Period 5 (and in Period 4 too) I'm also often seeing one or two children using the knobless cylinders, another using the brown stairs, and another using the block tower, and then they talk about how they each have ten, and how they can all stack up, etc. The Montessori materials never cease to amaze me - I don't even have to open my mouth and they learn the concepts, just from using the materials.

Upcoming Posts . . .

I have got a few posts almost complete -

• Geography for the Homeschoolers
• Geography for Preschoolers
• Language for Preschoolers
• Poetry for Homeschoolers
• Science for Homeschoolers
• Geometry for Preschoolers

Sometimes it is just hard to teach and blog and I'm a mother first, teacher second, and blogger third (or so LOL)

Preschool: A few more what we were up to from Late March . . .

Sweetie working on the Bead Matching Activity.

Wiggles working on the dry erase letter Ss. Sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Wiggles doing a turtle counting activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Wiggles doing another turtle activiy - this time it is the turtle color matching activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Sweetie working on the block tower alone

Sweetie and Super working on the brown stair and the block tower

A trapezoid - our shape of the month

Preschool: What We Were Up To in March

Making a rainbow book - cover is from

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Back Cover by Super

Wiggles working on the Shape Puzzles

Working with Pink Cards with

Moveable Alphabet - Super and

Princess are really enjoying the

Pink Level works that are out right now

Wiggles working on the Rainbow

Color Matching cards - cards from

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Making a small book -

the children like to take a few sheets

of inset paper and staple them together

to make a book.

Spunky working with the Sensory Tub.

Green peas and gold coins were

in the Sensory tub for March

Preschool: What's On The Shelves

Here's some pictures from some of the language activities when we were studying the letter "S".

Itsy Bitsy Spider flannel board story

from KidSoup

Itsy Bitsy Spider sequence cards
from KidSoup

Spelling snowman

from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Dry Erase S

from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Ss Coloring pages - Snowman one from

Confessions of a Homeschooler and

black and white one from KidSoup

Homeschool: What We Were Up To in March

As always, this is just a small sample of what the homeschoolers were working on this month. The poor homeschoolers always end up on the short end of the picture taking too . . . But rest assured, they were busy in March.

We were study P is for Percussion in the M is for Music book, and so the homeschoolers created a kitchen band. The younger homeschoolers also created their own band, but I didn't get pictures. Scooter is playing the beaters, and Flower is playing the spoons against the wavy cutter.

Flower playing the "strings"

Ellie showing her Montessori Grammar Bingo card. This activity was a big hit.

(Here is a link to the Montessori Grammar Bingo game.)

Helper and Flower showing their cards.

Scooter playing Bingo

And the homeschoolers aren't always busy doing schoolwork. Sometimes we are busy with "practical life" work too. Here is Jellybean getting Smiley down for her nap.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I know, I know. I get busy during February and March, and I don't post as regular in those months. The good news is that I usually get back on track in April :)

A picture of most of the girls - making shamrock and gold coin sugar cookies.

Smiley sampling a cookie