Montgomery Academy

Last Pictures of February

2011-04-12T20:30:00.018-05:00

Little Boy

Smiley getting ready to give Little Boy a kiss. She loves to give him kisses.

She wasn't, however, as thrilled about getting one in return.

Cutie Pie #2 playing with a silk

Cutie Pie #2 and #1 doing a puzzle together Smiley and Little Boy playing with the Antartica animals (there are more penguins on the table too) Little Boy and Belle doing pegs together

I love how the children play well together. Most of the time anyway. I mean, they are children. :)

What We Were Up To In February

2011-04-09T03:20:00.007-05:00

Well, we were up to more than what was in these pictures! We started the month of February being closed for two days because of the huge blizzard that came through Illinois. We live in a subdivision with detached garages & alleys and we couldn't get any vehicles in or out! We also celebrated Chinese New Year and Valentines Day. The first few pictures are of Jelly Bean (age 9) and some of the preschoolers. They love her and she loves them. It works out well!

Little Boy (age 2) and Jelly Bean

Smiley (age 3) Jelly Bean

Belle (1) and Jelly Bean

Jelly Bean and All Boy (2)

Smiley, Little Boy, and Cutie Pie #1 (age 1) and Cutie Pie #2 (age 3) wearing the dressing vests.

Jelly Bean's creation out of white Sculpey clay.

What we were up to in January . . .

2011-04-07T13:21:00.006-05:00

Here are some pictures taken in late January. Most of the pictures were taken before we made the switch to a little bit more of a Waldorf feel. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the kids "in action." Just FYI - Montgomery Academy currently has three part-time students and 3 full-time students. There are three 3 year olds, two 2 year olds (one is almost 3, the other just barely turned two) and one 1 year old.

Eating lunch

Playing with Pegs in a non-traditional way (yes, those are pegs on their fingers!)

Being a moose

Doing dot paint

Playdoh - we usually do play-doh daily. These two cuties are part-timers. And sisters!

Wearing the Snap dressing vest

Our littlest student is getting big! She is almost 18 months now!

Making a change around Preschool here . . .

2011-02-22T09:29:00.002-06:00

I've actually been changing things for awhile but I just haven't got around to posting about it. I just don't post here often. I think it is because things are working, yet things don't often change that much.

And the other reason is that I'm doing less with Montessori.

I still love it. I've used the method for YEARS with preschoolers. But I've found that lately, with this latest group, partly because they are mostly younger, mostly under 3s, that it just wasn't working for us.

So I have gone to more of a Waldorf feel for the younger kids here. We still do circle time and we still talk about numbers and shapes and colors during circle time, but much of the time is spent with free play using natural products. And I've put many of the Montessori-specific materials in storage.

I also do less with monthly themes, at least in terms of specific materials out on the shelves. I still do themes with the books I read each week and we do things like make watercolor hearts for Valentine's day. Oh and I still make the play-doh a different color every month. But most of the shelf work is more open-ended, natural materials.

We do more "natural" practical life too. I still have some practical life activities on the shelf, but not much. I have a transfer work, a polish work, a folding work, and the dressing vests right now. But they help me prepare meals and wash and dry and sweep too.

So I think the blog will change a little. It will mostly be pictures of the preschool kids doing whatever they are doing that week, and some specific posts about what the school-aged kids are working on.

I hope you come along for the new journey!

US Geography: The 2nd and 3rd grade Version

2011-01-16T06:00:00.001-06:00

We study the 50 states around here in 2nd and 3rd grade. We usually get through 25 the first year, and 25 the second. Works out well :)

So Jelly Bean did the first 25 last year and is working on the second half this year. We are in the "New" states right now.

I have been using most of the following resources since Flower started homeschooling in 3rd grade in 2008, but I have picked up a couple things new this year. We generally study Geography every day, but it is only for 10-15 minutes a day.

We usually start out the week reading about the state from this book, Children's Illustrated Atlas of the United States. It is pretty good. It was advanced reading for her when she was in 2nd grade but doesn't have any problems reading it this year.

Then we will go to studying the State Quarter. I will usually get a coloring page from this site and information about the quarter from this site.

On another day, she will usually color the state and other state information from this book. (I actually picked up my book from a garage sale for FREE. Woo-hoo! Love little deals like that!)

On the same day that she colors in the Dover book, she also colors the state flag and other state information from this site.

On Thursday, she will usually spend a few minutes looking at the state on the Discovery Map (shown below.) The kids found this map at the thrift store for $1.00. The map has viewholes over each state and you can dial through and see one of six themes: Capital, Scenery, Landmark, Person, Fun Fact 1, and Fun Fact 2. You use the attached magnifier viewer to look at the viewholes. My kids really like it.

She will also usually do an activity or two from the US States Kit from Montessori For Everyone. We are BIG fans of Montessori For Everyone and have many items from them. (The image below is from the Montessori For Everyone website.)

On Fridays, she will take out all the states out of the Montessori US Map Puzzle except for the one that she is working on and then put the puzzle back together. Last year, she would put the pieces in the control map when she took them out. This year, she mixes the pieces up on the table and then puts the pieces back in. After that, she takes out the state that she is working on and traces the state that she is working on on a 5" x 5" (inset) paper. She is compiling a state book.

So that's it. That's how we study US States here at Montgomery Academy!

OK, so my camera was broken . . .

2010-11-12T18:43:00.003-06:00

or I thought it was. It seems to miraculously come back to life recently, and I really don't like to do posts over here without pictures. You just don't get whole "picture" when I just write about it.

And then it has been a whole new thing for me to teach 2 year olds. Not necessarily in a bad way, and while we have a rhythm, it isn't the same at all as having a schedule, and so I just have been trying to adjust to things around here.

But I think that I'm ready to be back here on a more regular basis. I'm going to try and post once a week. I may post more than that, but I may not. But it will be at least once a week. I'll try to hit both age groups too - the school age children and the toddlers. So thank you for being patient with me and I promise to be a better poster in the future.

And I promise - before the new year, I'll get that long promised Geography post up too!

I still owe you all a post about geography but

2010-10-13T21:06:00.002-05:00

until then, I do have to share this site with you (all of you probably know all about it, and I'm just stumbling on it. Oh well, I'm still excited.)

Jelly Bean, my 3rd grader is studying the 2nd half of the 50 states of America this year. We use lots of resources to study each state. One of the things that we do is learn what the state flags look like, and sometimes, I would have Jelly Bean look at the state flag and then try and draw it free hand. I still do that sometimes too, but sometimes I have her color the flag from this free resource:

States Coloring Page

On the Shelves: October 4-8th

2010-10-06T23:25:00.014-05:00

Practical Life Shelf (mostly)

Open/Close, fabric matching, instruments

dressing vests

bead thing, soft fabric cube (both used by infant)

Sensorial Shelf (mostly, with Alphabet Center above) -

Orange cards from the Color Sorting Cards from Montessori for Everyone, Block Tower, Color Tablet 1 and 2,

Knobbed Cylinder A

Brown Stair

Language Center (with Schedule, Weather, Sign Language and Letter Card for the week on blue pocket folder)

Cc Matching cards, Cc book from KidSoup

magnetic lowercase letters

LeapFrog Fridge Letters (with C in it)

My bench (inside the bench are the line mats. Above the bench is the calendar.)

The reading bookshelf
(on the top of the bookshefl) - the basket holds all the preschool read aloud books, a US flag, and the Flower Fairy book
Jelly Bean's books
Preschool Books
Infant pull toys and Cloth books

The Geometry Shelf (mostly) -
The Geometric Shapes Sorting Cards from Montessori for Everyone, the nature box (needs some sprucing up for Fall) and The Pumpkin Life Cycle from Montessori for Everyone
Language Cards, Magnadoodle, Separate/Whole cards,
Shape Puzzles
Sorting Shapes and Geometric Solids

Geography Shelf
World Puzzle Map, World Globe, Land/Water Globe and land, water, air cards and World Cards from Montessori For Everyone
Puzzles
Puzzle Holder with Puzzles

Wood/Classic Toys
Pumpkin Number Card, Stacking Cups, Counting Bears, Bead Sequencing
Cutting Food
Pegboard and Toolbox
Wooden Barn and Wooden Animals

Practical Life - ironing, kitchen, and dolls.

I think I'm finally finding my groove

2010-10-05T17:29:00.003-05:00

This is the first year that I did feel like I needed to do a slight revamp of our curriculum/schedule around this time of year. This year, I made our plan and we have stuck with it.

It certainly makes it easier on the wallet when you aren't having to re-buy things. I think it helps that I am using many of the same type of resources that I've used in years' past, so I already knew that it worked for me and my children. It also makes a difference that I'm used to homeschooling, the kids are used to homeschooling. It also makes a difference that we do all the schooling for everyone in basically one big space and I can come easily come over and help Jelly Bean during her morning seat work. And it makes a difference that the younger children nap in the afternoon and I can do more teacher-intensive subjects with Jelly Bean then (and Super.)

The only very slight tweak is that I had to re-do some of the preschool shelves, especially on the bottom shelves. The infant that I watch is getting increasingly mobile, as well as spending more time awake and out with us, so I had to move some of the things that I didn't want her to put in her mouth, etc.

Weekly Schedules: October 4-8, 2010

2010-10-04T20:14:00.005-05:00

Preschool

Color of the Month: Orange
Number of the Month: 2
Shape of the Month: Square
Nursery Rhyme of the Month: Peter, Peter
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Letter of the Week: Cc
Stories for this Week: Bears (Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?, Corduroy, A Pocket for Corduroy, Bear Party, and We're Going On a Bear Hunt)

Kindergarten

Math: Math U See Primer Lesson 8, 9, 10
Language: Working on Pink Level with "e" in the middle
Science: Bears
Social Studies: Making a Timeline of his life

3rd Grade

Spelling: Spelling tests over lesson 2 and 3 from Spelling book
Writing: Working on a line a day from first poem in Poetry for Young People: William Blake
Language: Run-Together Sentences in Unit 1 of God's Gift of Language A
Math: Math U See Gamma, Lesson 4 and 5
Geography: Michigan
Art: Poster Paint projects from Usborne Complete Book of Art
Science: Lesson 3 in Apologia Land Animals (Bears)
History: Chapter 4 from Story of the World 2

More about how we do the Pink Level

2010-10-01T23:42:00.012-05:00

Here is Super finding the words that match the picture. These labels and picture cards are from part of the Pink Phonetic Series from Montessori Print Shop.

Here he is using the word and picture cards with the moveable alphabet to write words. All the words that he is working on have the "a" in the middle. The word and picture cards are from the same Pink Phonetic Series from Montessori Print Shop.

I have three folder envelopes. Here is the KidSoup Reader folder. In addition to the Scholastic Readers, and Bob books, we also read a book that contains words that start with a certain letter. This week, obviously, is "C" week. The little book and word wall card are from KidSoup. The little book is geared from emergent readers.

There is also a Pink Level Reading folder. The activity on the left is the same activity that Super was using in the first photo. The 2nd activity involves matching up the word and card. The picture card and the words are separate. Both activities are from Montessori Print Shop. Also included in the folder (but are not in the picture) is the Pink Sentence Cards - Set 1 from Montessori Print Shop.

Here are the two writing activities. For the activity on the left, I take the letters needed to spell all the "a" words from the moveable alphabet and I put them and the picture/word cards in an unsealed business size envelope. This way, Super doesn't get frustrated with sorting through the moveable alphabet for a letter. (He does now the order of the letters, and he can find the letters if I ask him, but he does tend to get very frustrated when he has to search the moveable alphabet for letters for several words, and then doesn't want to do it, so I pick out the letters for this activity. The blue board with lines came from Learning Resources, although I got it at a garage sale. There is also a dry erase board with lines on it that is stored in this folder.

The activity on the right is from Pink Beginning Sound Cards from Montessori Print Shop. I laminated the sheet so he could write in dry erase marker on the card.

This is how the folder envelopes, the Scholastic readers and the Bob books are stored. (Holder bought at a thrift store.

Folder envelopes from Office Depot.)

In addition to the items shown here, I also substitute in pink level activities from Practical Homeschooling and Montessori for Everyone.

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Each day, we will do an activity out of each folder. I generally pick the activity, however, if he asks for something, we do that activity instead.

Montgomery Academy Kindergarten - 2010 Version

2010-09-27T19:40:00.005-05:00

Well, this year is a bit of a first for me. Flower was in 3rd grade when she started homeschooling, and Jelly Bean was in 2nd grade when she started homeschooling. I've taught lots of children (including all of my own) here at Montgomery Academy Preschool, but this is the first year that I've homeschooled a Kindergartner. It is also the first year that I've had a child who was doing part of their day at public school, and part of their day at home.

In our school district, Kindergarten is offered as full-day, although they do mention in the handbook that you have the option of sending your child for half day. According to the principal at our local elementary school, it is very uncommon to send your child half days.

I decided that I didn't mind being "uncommon."

So Super goes to school in the morning (he rides the bus with Flower - she is in 5th grade at the public school this year) and he does Circle Time activities, reading, math, and library twice a week, music twice a week and art once a week. I pick him up at noon. He "misses" lunch, naptime, PE, Science, Social Studies, and Math and Language Enrichment activities.

Here is what Super is working on in the afternoons:

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Reading and Writing - I am using some reading and writing activities from the Montessori Pink Level from a variety of sources (mostly from Montessori Print Shop, but I use the Pink Level spelling lists from Montessori For Everyone, and things from a Montessori Language album), as well as working on emergent level reading from a few sources (Bob Books, Scholastic Readers, and the Emergent Reader for the letter we are working on that week from KidSoup.)

For the activities from the Pink Level, we have started with working on words with vowel "a" in the middle, and will then move on to words with the "e" in the middle, etc. until we get through all the middle vowel sounds.

I also read to him. LOTS. :) I have a book list that I choose from, but he also asks me to read other books to him too. Some of the books that appear on Jelly Bean's Literature book list will be also be Read Alouds for Super.

Mathematics - Math U See Primer. We will also be study some Geometry this year (using Montessori Geometric Cabinet, Constructive Triangles, Geometric Solids, and Geometric Sticks with lessons from this Montessori Geometry album.

History - the VERY basic idea of what we are studying in Story of the World 2 that week and lessons from a Montessori History album (this album primarily covers the concept of time with activities about calendars, clocks, and timelines.)

Geography - Continent Study (We use the idea of Continent boxes and study the music, art, animals, plants, and culture of each continent) and Landforms (from a Montessori Geography album)

Science - the VERY basic idea of what we are studying in Apologia Land Animals of the Sixth Day with some 3 part cards for each type of animal from a Montessori Zoology album. We also do lots of nature walks and look at plants and animals (and take pictures/draw in sketchbooks, etc.). He also helps take care of our dog.

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Read Aloud Booklist

-Winnie The Pooh

-The Child's Book of Virtues

-Robin Hood

-The Three Musketeers

-Marco Polo

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It may look like a lot, but when we are doing it, we do it in a couple of different chunks (and he generally goes outside and plays or builds something inside in between), and the the total time that he spends on school in the afternoons is about 45 minutes.

Montgomery Academy 3rd Grade - 2010 version

2010-09-23T14:47:00.006-05:00

Jelly Bean is in 3rd grade this year (time flies!).

3rd Grade

Spelling - Practice Makes Perfect Grade 3. My local teacher store carries several books in this series - math, spelling, writing, etc. This year, I am trying to concentrate more on words that have the same sort of spelling (have "ai" in it, end in "y", etc.) instead of just memorizing words in a list. She should finish with this book by November, and then we will move onto Grade 4 in this series.

Writing - Practice Makes Perfect Cursive Writing, although when she finishes this book, which should be soon, she will be doing Copywork during this time. Copywork will be from Poetry for Young People - William Blake.

Read Aloud - The Little Princess (This is her first read aloud book for the year. The complete read aloud and literature booklist is at the end of the post.)

Literature - The Third Grade Detectives #1 (Her first literature book of the year.)

Math - Math U See Gamma . We are big fans of Math-U-See here. I switched Flower to Saxon last year because I thought it would be better for her learning style, and honestly, because I got it for free, but how I wish I would have stuck with MUS for her too. It is very hands on and the children concentrate on really learning one type of operation at a time, from simple to large. Flower, in fifth grade, still struggles a bit with her time tables, and I know that it if she had done MUS, she probably wouldn't be having that difficulty.

Language - God's Gift of Language A, and Montessori Grammar once a week.

History - Story of the World 2

Science - Apologia Land Animals of the Sixth Day (We will be doing this book the first half of the year.) After we finish Land Animals, we will be doing Apologia Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.

Geography - 2nd half of the 50 states (US). We use a variety of resources for our Geography Study - US Atlas, Don't Know Much About the 50 States book, Dover United States Coloring Book, US Mint 50 States quarter program, US Kit from Montessori For Everyone, books from the library about each state, etc. We will also be studying Landforms this year.

Art - Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas and Artist/Picture study of Durer, Caravaggio, and Delacroix.

Music - Keyboard and and Composer/Music study of Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Chopin. We will also be learning a hymn per month.

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Here is Jelly Bean's complete booklist for the year:

Read Aloud
A Little Princess
The Door In The Wall
The Minstrel In The Tower
The Apprentice
Castle Diary
Twenty-One Balloons
Strawberry Girl
White Stallion of Lipizza

Literature
Third Grade Detectives 1, 2, 4, and 10
Robin Hood
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
The Three Musketeers
Dr. Doolittle
The King’s Equal
Pollyanna
Marco Polo
The Whipping Boy
The Viking Adventure

Don't forget to look for things at the thrift store!

2010-09-16T14:41:00.003-05:00

I don't know how many things I have found for preschool/homeschool while I have been thrifting, but it has to be a lot. I may buy specific Montessori materials new, but everything else, I'm always searching for a cheaper option! Even last year, when we were homeschooling 4 children 2nd through 5th grade, we bought things at the Homeschool Curriculum Sale and borrowed a ton, and ended up having to spend less than $100 total on all of our homeschool materials for the whole year.

Anyway, my son (known on this blog as Super) was in preschool here for the past two years, and was starting to read a few words at the end of last year's school year. I read quite a bit to him over the summer and he did some reading too, but it was pretty relaxed. This school year, he is going to public school Kindergarten, but only half days (it is the norm in our school district to do full days.)

In the afternoons, we do a variety of things, much of unstructred, but he is also working on the Pink Level in Montessori Language (basically 3 letter consonant-vowel-consonant words.). I have a variety of materials (most of them from Montessori For Everyone and Montessori Print Shop) but I didn't have any readers that used these kind of words. I have seen some phonic readers from Scholastic or even some of the Montessori catalogs, but they were all pretty pricey. Over the summer, I looked in the book section at one of our local thrift stores, and look at what I found!

One of the books in the set was missing, but for $1.00 for all of these books, I decided I could overlook it! LOL Here is Super reading from one of the books:

Our Preschool Rhythm - 2010

2010-09-14T12:46:00.003-05:00

We've settled into a rhythm for our days for the preschoolers (all of them are 2 years old. There is a 2.25 boy, a 2.5 boy, and a 2.75 girl.) And while there are some Montessori materials on the shelves, we also have some Waldorf Materials too and our rhythm leans toward a more Waldorf type of rhythm too.

Our Daily Rhythm

Arrival - Free Play - Coloring - Morning Circle - Scheduled Activity (painting, play-doh, making bread, cut and glue activity, or making soup - each child brings a vegetable from home to contribute to our soup) - Morning Snack - Outdoor Play - Lunch - Nap - Free Play - Outdoor Play - Dismissal

The baby is still on her own schedule, although she does tend to play nearby during our circle time, and we include her at the table when we are over there, as well as take her outside if she is awake during those times. She is coming closer and closer to napping at the same time as the 2 year olds too.

Our circle time consists of singing songs/finger plays, and then we talk about the letter of the week, sing our calendar song, and our weather song. Then each child has a "helper" job for the week - one child does our color of the month (this month is red), one child does our number of the month (this month is one) and the third child does our shape of the month (this month is circle). We sing a song for each of the helper jobs, and the helper does a little activity (like find something red, sing a song with the sandpaper shape, do that number of chants/claps/fingers, etc.) After helper jobs, I read a story.

During free play, the children can pick items off the shelves. If the child picks a Montessori material, the first time, I will give the child an individual lesson. It sounds very formal when I write it like that, but it is actually occurring quite naturally, in fact, more naturally this year than in other years.

The children are naturally incorporated in practical life activities instead of having lots of practical life activities to choose from on the shelves, although I do have a couple practical life items out on the shelves. The children help with such things as sweeping, wiping the tables, straightening up, and undressing and dressing themselves. The children also help with the garden during the summer/early fall and late spring.

We do have a dog, and the children help by telling the dog to go outside and to go back to "his" room to lay down as well as giving him water in the afternoon. We are hoping to get a fish soon too.

We went ahead and started School Year 2010/2011 today

2010-08-30T20:42:00.002-05:00

We were going to start the day after Labor Day, but Jelly Bean wanted to start, and I also had ANOTHER new 2 year old (hereafter known as All Boy) today, so there just didn't seem to be any reason to NOT start and it helped us have a little more of a rhythm to our day.

Notice I didn't say structure. LOL

Montgomery Academy now has a 10 month old (crawling/pulling up/super curious/mostly non-sleeping/very cute) little girl (goes by Belle here), a 2 year 9 month old (goes by Giggles here) girl, a 2 year 6 month old (goes by All Boy here) boy, and a 2 year 4 month old (goes by Little Boy here), and Jelly Bean (8 1/2, my daughter). My other children, Super (age 5) and Flower (age 10) are going to public school this year.

(FYI to locals, I am now CLOSED to any new students, daycare or preschool.)

While I have had other 2 year olds at Montgomery Academy, I've never had this MANY of them. And while I've had an infant (either one of my own or one that I was watching), I've never had one THIS active. But that said, today was a really good day.

We had free play until 9 am, and then very short circle time, followed by the children picking things off the shelves until 11 am. Even on the first day, the children were able to put things back on the shelves before getting something else out with only a couple of reminders all morning. I don't have many Montessori materials out, but I gave individual presentations to all of the 2 year olds this morning on knobbed cylinder A, and two children had a presentation on the brown stair and open/close containers.

Then we had lunch and went outside and played for 45 minutes. After outside time, they napped for a couple hours, and then afternoon snack, more outside time, some watercolor paint, and finished the day off with an hour of free play.

And what was Jelly Bean during this time? We started the day with a few pages from her Read Aloud, A Little Princess. Then she did spelling, handwriting, and language arts at the dining room table while the preschoolers were doing shelf work. After lunch, I read from her History book, and then she did Math and Geography at the table, and then went downstairs to the Rec Room to do her free reading (she is currently reading Wizard of Oz. Again. She loves that book.) She went outside with the preschoolers when they went out after nap. We had planned on doing Science after we came in from outside, but it seemed like too much for the first day, so we didn't.

I'll make a separate post about what Jelly Bean is doing this year, but here is the brief version:

Read Alouds: Various titles
Spelling: Using spelling books from the local teacher's store
Handwriting: A handwriting book from the local teacher's store
Copywork: Various sources
Language Arts: God's Gift of Language A
History: Story of the World, Volume 2
Math: Math-U-See Gamma
Geography: Finish the second half of the United States (we studied the first 25 last year)
Science: Apologia Land Animals and Apologia Flying Creatures

Today, I had fun. I really enjoyed being around a bunch of two year olds, and a baby, and an 8 year old. It was good, fun, day.

Preschool Classroom - 2010 Version

2010-08-25T20:32:00.021-05:00

As I stated in my previous post, I moved the preschool classroom from downstairs to upstairs. This area was previously our living room/playroom. This link will take you to pictures of the 2009 living room and dining room as well as other pictures of upstairs rooms. I also reorganized the shelves and put quite a few items in the storage closet because this year, all the preschool students will be 2.5 when we start (our start date is the day after Labor Day.)

The East Wall

1/2 of the South Wall

The other 1/2 of the South Wall

Practical Life Area -

Dressing Vests in the basket, ironing, clothes line, babies and high chair

Practical Life/Language Area -

Lock puzzle, Open/Close

Language Cards, Matching Cards

Magnadoodle, Letter Magnets

Sensorial Area (and Music) -

Red Rods,

Color Tablets 1 and 2, Fabric Squares, Percussion

Block Tower, Knobbed Cylinders A

Brown Stair

Alphabet Area -

LeapFrog Letters

Sandpaper Letters

Sound Bins

Reading/Infant Toy Area -

Preschool Read Aloud Basket, Mother Goose book, Flower Fairies book

Homeschooler Read Aloud/Literature books

Board Books

Infant Toys, Cloth books

Geometry Area -

Insets, Shape Cards

Shape Puzzles

More Shape Puzzles

Shape Sorter, Geometric Solids

Geography/Puzzle/Toddler Toys Area -

Continent Globe, Book about Animals of the World, Sandpaper Globe, Continent Puzzle

Bead Maze, Stacking Cups

Puzzles

Math/Science Area -

Pegs, Counting Bears

Fruit and Vegetable Puzzles

Spindles

Sandpaper Numbers, Number Cards,

Large Dominoes

The West and North Wall

Wood Toys -

Bead Pattern, Gears

Cutting Food, Toolbox

Farm, Wooden Animals

Dollhouse/Infant Toys/Silks -

Dollhouse

Silks (on top of drawer tower)

Puppets (first drawer)

Potato Heads (second drawer)

Infant Toys (third drawer)

There are also some preschool/homeschool items that are in the dining room. The dining room is adjacent to the living room/preschool classroom area.

The Sensory/Practical Life/Block Area is in the dining room.

It is in the southeast corner.

There are shells in the nature box and some castle blocks.

The bottom row of drawers has castle blocks, tree blocks, and wooden blocks.

The upper row of drawers has glasses, bowls, tongs, cloths. You have to lift the top portion to be able to open the upper drawers.

These bins/drawers, etc. contain most of Jelly Bean's homeschool books and materials. It is in the southwest corner. (Sorry about the shelf that is falling. I didn't have the energy to try and fix it before I took the picture LOL)

This is the art cabinet. I no longer have free art available on the preschool shelves. (I'm brave, but not two year olds and an infant in a room with brand new carpet brave LOL)

The art cabinet is the northwest corner.

On the top is collage materials.

Watercolors, prismacolor pencils, pastels, charcoal, contact paper, big construction paper, etc.
Crayons, twistables, scissors

Markers, colored pencils, sketch books, paper.

The play kitchen.

It is in the northeast corner.

A picture of the whole dining room.

Jelly Bean is at the table, working on her spelling, I think.

Tomorrow, I'll post pictures of the "new" rec room. There won't be nearly as many pictures. I'll try and keep it down to 4-5 pictures, I swear.

I might as well dive in -

2010-08-23T19:27:00.002-05:00

I'll try and post the overdue posts someday when I've got more time. The writing is done, but pictures are not, and they are the type of posts that would be kind of confusing without pictures.

Anyway, as I mentioned a few months ago, Montgomery Academy was probably going to be changing quite a bit this year, and it has. My sister did move (sniffle!), and all of the preschool aged kids have moved on to other preschools this year. Super is going to public school this year for Kindy (although he will be back home next year) and Flower is also going to public school for 5th grade. Jelly Bean is still home, and is technically in 3rd grade, although most of the work she is doing would be considered 4th grade work. Little Boy is still here, and at 2.5 is now ready to work on more preschool-type activities. I also still have Belle, the infant, and she will be one in October. We have also added another little girl, who is also 2.5 (who will be hereafter be called Giggles). I've also had several people contact me this month for preschool/daycare, so there is a possibility that there will be more. But anyway, Montgomery has 4 children right now, and it is kind of nice to be a little smaller, especially after being BIG last year.

I've also completely rearranged things. We sold our upstairs living room couches and moved all the preschool/Montessori materials upstairs. Since I am dealing with younger children this year (I had mostly 4-5 year olds last year) I had to rotate lots of materials out and different material that hadn't been out for awhile back in. The room definitely looks more like a Montessori classroom instead of a living room, but it is nice to have all things preschool-related on one floor.

(By the way, pictures will be posted in my next post, probably tomorrow.)

I moved all the art supplies into a cabinet that I moved into the dining room. Also, I put most of Jelly Bean's materials into the organization system that we had in the dining room last year.

Then downstairs, I made the preschool area into more of a "rec" room. I moved the living room bookcase downstairs and filled it with all types of levels of books (including my well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice) a love seat (it was already downstairs, but rarely used where it was previously located), a side table with a lamp, another bookcase with doors on the bottom that I filled with board games and a couple puzzles, and on the shelves, there are geoboards, potholder looms, tanagrams, origami, etc. There is a small table, and a rocker. There is also the the Foosball game that our neighbors gifted to us, and an easel.

We still have the homeschool room downstairs, but it has changed a little. It still holds our geography materials and math materials, and books that will be used in preschool/homeschool that year, but aren't currently being used. But I also have my sewing machine set up in there. It's been awhile since I've been able to access it on a regular basis.

It's only been a few days since I did all of this reorganization, and already I'm REALLY enjoying it. It seems that the house, overall, seems to stay cleaner. Part of it that, I'm sure, is that I also tried to use this opportunity to declutter quite a bit.

We don't officially start schooling until Labor Day, but as soon as I get the Preschool and Elementary Plans, I'll make sure and post them here, as well as update the Preschool and Elementary documents for 2010.

Hard to believe that this January marks my EIGHTH year of teaching preschool out of my home. I love how every year is so different. Different children, different room set-ups, different hours, but yet, I've always used the Montessori Method. It works so well, I see no reason to change.

I really need to blog here!

2010-06-28T14:43:00.002-05:00

I've promised a bunch of posts, and then in other exciting news, we are homeschooling year round! It has been FUN! We are pretty relaxed about it - First a read aloud while we are eating breakfast, then 5-10 minutes on spelling, and 20 minutes or so on Math followed by a break. Then we have lunch with a read aloud (out of a different book), Science (I think this is the kids favorite subject so far! Flower is doing Weather, Jelly Bean is doing things out of The Ben Franklin Book of Easy and Incredible Experiments, and Super and our daycare friend from last year are doing Bugs right now.), Art/Music (Jelly Bean is doing recorder, Flower is doing Keyboard and Guitar, and the little kids are listening to music CDs), and then Individual Reading. We generally do a couple hours of "school" although sometimes it takes longer because they are really into art or music.

Anyway, I want to blog more about it, and I promise that I will soon! And I'll get those past post finished up too. Keep watching here - when I get behind, then I usually do a post every day for a couple of weeks to get caught up! LOL

Thinking about my Learning Areas

2010-06-04T16:24:00.002-05:00

I have an area for learning materials in my dining room and two learning rooms (one homeschool room, and one preschool area) downstairs. I feel blessed to have the space.

But

there are two things on my mind right now, and it would impact my learning areas.

1st - I am really trying to cut down on the amount of STUFF that I have in my home. I am not really someone who holds on to things much, but yet, we still have so much stuff. I have a closet full of fabric and craft materials. I have a closet full of preschool items that are not currently out on the shelves. I have two file cabinets. I have 5 bookcases in the homeschool room alone, and 12 in the house. Every drawer in my dresser is full. I probably have 20 pairs of shoes (wish may not seem like a lot to some people, but really, shouldn't 3 or 4 pairs be enough?)

and

2nd - I will probably only have one homeschooler and 2 or 3 preschoolers next year. The next year after that, I may have 3 homeschoolers, and 3 preschoolers, but I just don't know for sure.

Based on wanting/needing to cut down the amount of things in my home, does it really make sense to have a whole room for homeschooling? Based on the fact that I will only have one homeschooler, do I really need to have a whole room for homeschooling?

I think I know the answer.

BIG changes around here at Montgomery Academy

2010-05-12T10:45:00.002-05:00

This year was busy, busy, busy, and lots of children - 4 preschoolers, 4 homeschoolers, 2 toddlers, and an infant. It took a lot of planning, and a lot of help from my sister/assistant. But as we get to the end of the year, I'm feeling like we did well. The homeschoolers had fun and learned about many things (I'll have a wind-up post soon for both the homeschoolers and the preschoolers) and so did the preschoolers. And the toddlers and the infant just grew and changed so much, so quickly.

But as the school year nears a close, it is with quite a bit of sadness that I think about next year. My sister and her family will be moving. FAR away. States and States away. She is likely going to continue homeschooling, but we won't be doing it together. So I'm sad about that. I'll miss teaching my nephews in the afternoon, and I'll miss my sister's help in the morning, but mostly I'll miss her company.

And after a lot of consideration, Flower's dad and I have decided to have Flower return to public school in the fall. She wants to return and way back when we started homeschooling, it was the plan to have her return for 5th grade. It wouldn't take much to sway ME to continue homeschooling her, but it feels like we made the right decision. I will miss her SO much. And Super will likely be going to Kindergarten at the public school too. I'm strongly considering just doing half days (mornings) but at the very least, he will be at the public school for at least a few hours a day. He will back to homeschool in first grade, but still, I'll miss him TONS. Since we started homeschooling, we always said that we would take homeschooling on a year by year basis, and that we would choose what we felt was best for the child. It may not be the same for each child. And right now, we have decided that Flower and Super at the public school next year. Jelly Bean will still be at home. (Oh, we are both VERY excited, and we already have some great plans for next year!)

Princess will be going to Kindergarten in the fall. Sweetie is going to a different preschool. Spunky may or may not be back.

So Montgomery Academy will be going from 4 preschoolers, 4 homeschoolers, 2 toddlers, and an infant TO 1 preschooler, 1 homeschooler, 1 toddler moving up to a preschooler, and an infant moving up to a toddler. From 11 to 4.

Times and Seasons. I know. And I've learned so much from this season. I'll miss so much from this time. But there will be different experiences I'm sure that I'll gain from teaching at Montgomery Academy this fall too.

-----------------------

PS Any locals, by the way, I would consider taking one 2 or 3 year old for preschool only, or full or part-time daycare for this fall.

Knobless Cylinders . . .

2010-04-22T10:55:00.004-05:00

(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 . . .

2010-04-14T07:33:00.002-05:00

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 . . .

2010-04-05T14:24:00.009-05:00

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

2010-04-03T15:45:00.009-05:00

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

2010-04-03T15:27:00.008-05:00

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

2010-04-03T13:33:00.011-05:00

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!

2010-04-03T13:29:00.003-05:00

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

I love it when they work together . . .

2010-03-30T10:56:00.004-05:00

Overheard today from two preschoolers:

Princess: Mrs. F, how do you write a letter "d"?

Super: I know - I'll get the sandpaper letters for you, Princess.

(He went over and got the sandpaper letters and brought it over to the second table. They spread out the letters.)

Super: Here is the letter "d" Princess. See, it is a circle and a line. The circle is in the front.

Princess: Thanks, Super!

==================

I love it when they work together, and I love it when they spontaneously think to use works.

Made me smile today.

Pictures from early March: Preschool

2010-03-09T07:13:00.013-06:00

Top shelf on the Art Shelf - free art materials, shamrocks, and
Level 1 from Child-Size Masterpieces.

Second shelf on Art shelf - Q coloring sheets and Cat In The Hat coloring sheet

Cutting sheet, paper, and inset paper (the children like to use inset paper for smaller drawings/making books, etc.)

Top shelf of the geeometric shelf - The insets. There is also a geometric plane shapes chart on the wall and geometric plane cards in the bottom right corner - both from Montessori For Everyone.

The Geometric Shelf

Top shelf - stereognostic bag with geometric shapes,
pattern blocks, and a shape game that I got at the thrift store.

Middle shelf - Geometric solids, felt geometric shapes,
shape sorter.
Bottom shelf - My version of the triangle, rectangle, circle,
and square trays of the geometric cabinet, sandpaper shapes,
and a shape puzzle.

Not pictured in this picture - my version of the
geometric cabinet trays 7-10. They will displayed in a future post.

Shamrock number line, shamrock cards and counters

Math U See Stair

Quilt number activity

Quack, Quack flannelboard story from KidsSoup

A picture of some of the things on the wall.

On the South wall, there is a small 12 month calendar, our Montgomery Academy pledge, a little sign about children, and a painting of The Very Hungry Catepillar done for us by Little Boy's mom. We love it!

On the West wall, starting from the left - Our calendar, the monthly nursery rhyme, geometric plane chart, a bird poster (I got this for 25 cents at our local teacher's store. I have mammal, reptile, fish, and amphibian posters too.), continent chart (from Montessori For Everyone), and our Daily chart. Our Daily Chart holds our schedule, the sign language card for the letter of the week, the weather/season cards for the day, and name cards (the name cards are flipped over).

I got all of the pocket charts shown here (and our red Helper chart, our red folder holder, and our Alphabet Center - not pictured) at our teacher store. They have a big sale in July, so I buy then for the year. Most of these pocket charts I purchased 4 years ago - when we moved the preschool room out of a bedroom into the family room area.

Preschool: What We Were Up To - First Week of March

2010-03-09T06:56:00.003-06:00

Dr. Suess and Being A Great Me!

March 1-5, 2010
Letter of the Week: Qq

Number of the Month: 7

Shape of the Month: Trapezoid

Color of the Month: Green

Nursery Rhyme: Little Boy Blue

· At the sensory/art table, we have green play-doh, salt tray, and nature box.
· At the paint easel, we have green paint and green DOT paint.
· On the practical life shelf, we have lock puzzle, lock and key, tonging, lacing, , sorting pom-poms by color, sorting quilts by size, transferring with a dropper.
· On the art shelf, we have a cat in the hat tracing sheet, quilt cutting sheet, Qq coloring sheet, Quack coloring sheet, shamrock stickers, shamrocks to glue, 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 and 3, the brown stair, block tower, and knobless cylinders, fabric box, and baric tablets.
· On the geometry shelf, we have the circle, triangle, square, and rectangle puzzle, and the constructive triangles. We have geometric shape cards. There is also a geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids, pattern blocks, and a shape game. We are also working on the geometric cabinet trays 8-10.
· On the letter shelf, we have sandpaper letters (lower case and upper case) alphabet cards, and leap frog letters. We also have objects, cards, and books for Pp and Qq.
· On the language shelf, we have CVC cards with middle letter “a”, picture cards with CVC words with middle letter “a” to match, calendar matching, and winter letter words. I also have the Bob books – Set A (easy reader books) on the shelf. There is also a flannelboard story (Quack, Quack) on the shelves and the farm.
· On the writing shelf, we are working on the trapezoid shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, magnadoodle, and CVC cards with middle letter “a” to spell with the moveable alphabet. We also have the number 7, the letter q and q word letter tracing sheets.
· On the science shelf, there is bird puzzle, bird books, bird cards and bird coloring sheets and the flower puzzle, flower books, flower cards and flower coloring sheets. We will be doing the fish and the root soon.
· On the geography shelf, there are the continent globe, sandpaper continent cards, the sand and water globe and the continent map puzzle. We have continent 3 part matching cards, and continent coloring sheets. We started the Asia continent box with Asia cards and Asian animals.
· On the math shelf, we have sandpaper numbers, number puzzle, number rods, number matching, spindles, and shamrock counting activities. We are starting more Montessori math activities this month.
· What we are reading: Cat in the Hat, Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish, Two Fish, A Bad Case of the Stripes, The Mixed Up Chameleon, Quack, Quack, and Chrysanthemum.

What We Were Up To: February

2010-03-06T09:46:00.008-06:00

I didn't take that many photos in February. My camera wasn't working great, and we were just busy and I didn't take the time to get the camera to take photos. Anyway, here are some of the things that we did.

This student is actuallyusing a straberry huller to transfer the roses onto the paint palette. The box was from a small box of chocolates. I got the idea for this activity last year from My Montessori Journey.

Making Art with foam art stickers, heart doilies, glue, crayons, and markers.

Making a bracelet out of beads and pink chenille stems.

Cutting out hearts. The students loved this activity.

Jelly Bean painting flowers with watercolors

Helper painting flowers with watercolors

Valentine's Day Party

2010-03-05T06:34:00.007-06:00

I will be the first one to admit that I don't love celebrating Valentine's Day at Montgomery Academy. It sort of drives me crazy that Valentine's Day now seems to be second in the holidays for amount of candy that my children receive. And it doesn't matter what I seem to decide about passing out valentines, it just always turns into a big free-free-all, and well, it just bothers me. But the children REALLY enjoy it, so I continue to do it. I also knew that having a Valentine's Party was something that the homeschoolers enjoyed about public school, so I wanted to have a party for them. So we had our party on Friday, February 12th. We also celebrated Chinese New Year.

Making Valentine bags

More bag making. A couple of the moms
were able to join us - which is always
fun for us (especially their children!)

Flower helping Little Boy
decorate his bag

We made Chinese lanterns

and did some Valentine coloring sheets

(the homeschoolers did the Valentine mancalas)

and we did an "I love you because . . ." sheet

for all the mommies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Preschool: The Science Shelf

2010-02-25T07:03:00.005-06:00

On the preschool shelf, I usually have something out from botany and something out from zoology. Sometimes, I have a science tray out with something about ecology or earth science or astronomy, etc.

Here is a picture of the Science Shelf -

The wire shelf is from Target (in the laundry section).

Close up of the 1st shelf.

The puzzle is from Montessori N' Such.
The sheet next to it is from Freebies section of
Montessori N' Such. I print them out, color them,
laminate them, and use the as control sheets.

I've had these MNS puzzles (both the botany and
zoology) for many years, and they have
held up very well. (I also use these puzzles with
the early elementary homeschoolers, but on a
more advanced level.)

Next to the puzzle are flower books.
One is from Scholastic (A First Discovery Book),
and the other one is a Dover sticker book.
I have many of these Dover "Learning About"
sticker books. The preschoolers seem to enjoy
the small size of these books.

Close up of the second shelf.
Three part cards about flowers from
Montessori For Everyone.
Types of Flowers from MOE.
More of the Freebie sheets, but these are
printed on regular paper, and used as coloring sheets.

Zoology puzzle from Montessori N Such.
Freebie sheet from Montessori N Such.
Books about birds including an Usborne Spotter's
Guide to Birds of North America,
and a Dover "Learning About" sticker book.

3 part bird cards from MOE, Types of Birds
(I'm not sure where I got these? Anybody know?)
and more Freebie coloring sheets.

Heard from Flower this morning . . . .

2010-02-22T11:03:00.002-06:00

as she was working on Timelines from 1000 - 501 BC.

"You know, this work is much less boring than I thought it was going to be."

I was glad to hear it.

------------------

I'll have a longer detailed post or two about preschool (one about what we do for science for sure, since I've already got that one done, and then probably one about what we have been up to) and one about home school (probably about one about science, and one about poetry maybe) soon. We've been busy and then sick, so my blogging dropped off a bit there.

What We We Were Up To: Homeschool - Late January

2010-02-08T21:19:00.010-06:00

Well, this picture shows a little of everybody -

tots, preschoolers, and homeschoolers

doing Yoga Kids, Vol 2: ABC

Jelly Bean working on the Idaho Quarter

Helper working on a page for his Music Notebook.
We are currently studying Mahler out of
Story of Orchestra.

Flower working on India out of
A Trip Around The World.
The Olders are currently studying
Asia. We use several different
resources for our continent studies.
This book is just one of the things
that we use.

Scooter working on weaving a potholder.
We were studying about N is for Navaho
in our M is for Masterpiece book, and it
discussed how they wove blankets. I decided
we weren't quite up for weaving blankets,
and we had this on hand. All the children
enjoyed this project.

Dissecting Flowers.
This project was a BIG hit.
(Project taken from Apologia Botany)

Creating lava to learn about Venus' surface.
(Project taken from Apologia Astronomy)

Working on Math flashcards with each other

Dying items like the Ancient Phoenicians

(Project taken from Story of the World 1)

What We Are Up To: Preschool - First Week of February

2010-02-07T18:31:00.015-06:00

It isn't uncommon to see a little dancing during work time

And it usually makes me smile to see it

Our masks that we used while reading The Mitten.
I printed these off of Jan Brett's website a few years ago.

Tonging "snowballs"

I got this Snowman Pre-Writing sheet from

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Looking at a Dover Sticker book about

Flowers

Working on Opening/Closing

Even though most of the students are

around 4 years old, this activity is always

popular. I switch the containers occassionally,

but it is generally out on the shelves.

Working with the Nature Box.

I put a collection of shells in at the beginning

of February. We don't live by the beach

and it is still definitely cold and snowy

here, but I thought it would be nice

to have something to remind us of the sun.

Painting with red paint at the easel.

Using hearts instead of spindles

Sorting by Color

It seems that everyone in the Montessori blog world is talking alphabet . . .

2010-02-06T14:52:00.004-06:00

I recently made a change to how I had been doing the letters. I had originally been using the ideas/order that is presented at My Montessori Journey. The problem was that I was ALSO introducing a letter of the week (starting with "a" at the beginning of the year), and it was generally different than the ones we were working on with the Red/Yellow/Blue scheme. It was just getting too confusing.

So I've made a decision - we are going to drop the Red/Yellow/Blue scheme. I understand that presenting the letters to the children in the order that they are in the alphabet probably really isn't the best way to introduce them. But it is the way that is working best for these children this year.

I am, however, using similar resources found at My Montessori Journey (particularly from KidSoup) combined with ideas that were contained in the language album from the Montessori Online Training Course that I am taking - particularly the idea of Sound Boxes, although I keep all the items for the Sound Boxes on my newly named Letter Shelf. (What DID we do all day is taking the course too, so that is why some of our resources look similar.)

Here is my new Letter Shelf:

The top of the Letter Shelf -
number of the month, shape of the month

and letter of the week.

Picture of the whole Letter Shelf

Cards that go with our Alphabet Song.
(on the first shelf) See next photo for more explanation.

We sing our Alphabet Song (not the traditional one. The tune is "Twinkle Twinkle" and it starts with the letter sound, then letter name, and then the object presented. So for A, it is a (as in in appple), A (as in ate), Apple, buh, B, ball. kuh, C, cat, duh, D, dog. )

For the current letter of the week:

We learn the sign language sign for that letter and a sign language word that starts with that letter.

We do the letter of the week with the Leap Frog Fridge Magnets and sing along.

We review our letter of the week poster and letter of the week words from KidsSoup.

These sheets are on the Writing Shelf for the letter of the week.

Find the Letter learning page from KidsSoup

Write/Trace the letter from KidsSoup

Trace words that start with that letter from KidSoup

There is also a letter coloring sheet on the Art Shelf for the letter of the week.

Letter Coloring Sheet from KidsSoup
(3rd sheet on the right on the blue shelf)

There is also a sandpaper letter by the sand tray at the Sensory Table for the letter of the week and there is a cookie cutter out at the play-doh table for letter of the week. I got the letter and number cookie cutters from Michael's. It came in a big container with all the letters and numbers. LOVE IT.

For the rest of these activities, I have two letters out - the letter for current week, and the letter for the previous week. These are held in the Letter Shelf.

Alphabet flashcards that show the capital and lowercase letters together (on the 2nd shelf. The Flashcards came from the dollar section at Target last fall.)

"Objects" from Learning Resources Alphabet Center

(On the 2nd shelf - these objects are in a plastic card file box)

Letter Cards from KidsSoup

(bottom shelf - in right blue container)

Inside of Little Letter Book

Outside of Little Letter Books - Little Letter books from KidsSoup

(on bottom shelf - left blue container)

The pictures in the Letter Cards are the same pictures that appear in the Little Letter Books.

==============================

So far, LOVING the new system. The children are really learning the letter sounds and they enjoy doing many of the activities.

The Homeschool Learning Areas

2010-02-05T16:15:00.000-06:00

The homeschoolers school upstairs in the morning. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out where to store their materials, because our dining room is open to the living room, and the kitchen is not an eat in kitchen. But schooling in the dining room was really the only option, so I tried to find a storage solution that wouldn't take up too much room, and that the toddlers would get into (much, anyway LOL) and that wouldn't look too bad and that wasn't too expensive. I ended up going with the itso storage system from Target. It is in the corner of the dining room. (The homeschoolers do history, reading, writing, spelling, and grammar upstairs.)

Starting from the bottom left cube - Our "mailbox",

and the grammar boxes. (there is a shelf in this cube.)

The upper left cube - the green half drawer has the

grammar solids,the grammar wooden symbols,

and a dictionary. (there is a shelf in this cube.)

The two small green tubs have art supplies in them.

On top of this cube, there is a 3 drawer unit with writing,

handwriting, and reading comprehension books.

The green tub on top of this has craft supplies,

and on the very top is office supplies.

On the bottom right, there are history "notebooks" -

1 inch binders with lined paper and page protector sheets.

In the cube above on the right, there are are language notebooks,

each "notebook" has dividers for spelling, writing, grammar, etc.

Then there is another 3 drawer divider with spelling workbooks,

then copy paper, then envelopes & stamps.

The green tub on top is the "inbox", and there is a

dry erase board on the very top.

Now, we go downstairs to the what we refer to

as "The School Room." The room is 9' x 10'.

We do Afternoon School downstairs. The subjects we

do in the afternoon are Math, Art, Music, Poetry, and Geography.

These are what we call the "Free Time" Shelves -

There are Tangrams, a couple looms, Draw Write Now books,

Dominoes, Origami, Wood Models, Music Cards, Art Cards

Money Cards, Guitar Book

These 3 drawer units are on top of a bookcase

that is to the left of the Free Time Shelves.

These contain the Math Books, and Math flashcards,

protractors, etc.

On top of the these are some tubs with painting supplies

(poster and watercolor)

To the left of that bookcase is the Culture bookcase

(There are also the Math U See blocks in this bookcase.)

On top is Botany information - Botany cards from

Montessori for Everyone, The Handbook of Nature,

a Viewfinder with Astronomy reels, an Usborne Astronomy book,

Astronomy cards from Montessori for Everyone, planet models, etc.

Same bookcase - Math U See blocks,

Base 10 blocks, Math Cards, Asia flag cards,

US Flag cards (from Montessori For Everyone

Continent/US Kits)

Various Atlas books and Asian Animals and Plant Cards

(MOE Asia Continent Kit)

Map Control Sheets from Montessori N Such for

all continents, And wooden maps (I have US,

North America, and World- from Montessori N Such)

Bookcase to the left of Culture Materials -

This bookcase contains reference materials.

On top of the bookcase are the general art materials -

markers, pastel crayons, beeswax crayons, Crayola crayons,

colored pencils, watercolor pencils, charcoal, modeling beeswax,

and modeling clay.

To the left of the reference bookcase is the table -

This is our former dining table. There is our jumbled Inbox

(we did go through and file/toss most of the items), Science notebooks,

and lined paper, copy paper, pencils, a water bottle, etc.

There is an egress window in this room, and we get quite a bit of

natural light. The older homeschoolers generally sit here.

To the left of the table, the Picture Book

bookcase. These books are actually for Preschool

Story Time, but this room is the best place to store them.

I keep Picture Books for the month in the Preschool Area.

On top of the bookcase, there is a CD Player and

a file folder holder. There is a file for each homeschooler

and for Super (my preschool-aged son.)

To the Left of the Picture Book bookcase

is a closet. This closet stores all my

craft and sewing supplies. We also usually keep maps

on the door.

To the left of the storage closet are the two desks.

I got these for free last summer - they were set out for

garbagecollection at a home in my neighborhood.

I got our currentdining table for free at the same place.

Actually, the only furniture I purchased in the room was

the Culture bookcase, which I bought at a garage sale

last summer for 50 cents. Everything else was given to me

or already had in the house.

In fact, many of our curriculum books were also "lent" to

us this year from a couple homeschoolers who weren't using

those books this year or books that I used last year with Flower.

So there is the room.

There are a few things not pictured in this post.

In the Downstairs post, in the homeschool room picture,

you can see a bench. We didn't have anywhere else in the

house for it,and so it ended up in here, and I generally sit there.

I also have a Rubbermaid tub that sits on the floor that

contains the Apologia books, and the Art, Music, and Poetry books.

Next Post - The New Preschool Language Area!

I Heart Montessori For Everyone!

2010-02-03T17:45:00.001-06:00

I remember seeing Lori's materials back on e-bay a number of years ago. I've been teaching preschool using the Montessori Method since Flower was 3 (she is 10 now.) Back then, there was VERY little available on web. There were these on-line manuals, but that was about it. Two or three years later, a few people started selling montessori materials on e-bay. Around that time, I remember seeing Lori's printed materials on e-bay. I think I might have bought a couple of 3 part cards sets back then.

And then I just sort of carried on, learning things from books, and the on-line manuals, and David Gettman's book, and Lillard's Montessori In The Classroom book, and just doing it. A couple years ago, I started a blog for my family, and suddenly I noticed that there were many other people out there who had blogs and used Montessori, and then I stumbed on Lori's blog and her company - Montessori For Everyone (she sells things through her own online store now instead of selling them on e-bay.) I ordered a few things from her - mostly pre-reading activities for the preschoolers. I was starting to think about homeschooling my daughter (who was in 2nd grade at the time) and I e-mailed her to ask her about homeschooling an elementary aged child with Montessori. She graciously e-mailed back and answered all of my questions.

I did start homeschooling the next year, and I ordered a few more things for Flower and a few more for the preschoolers (mostly science related).

But this year, I don't know what I would do without her materials, especially for the homeschoolers. She has truly been a lifesaver! I didn't start the school year with a plan to order much from her - maybe some art cards or maybe some math sets. In November, we decided to teach grammar to all the kids using Montessori grammar and so I ordered most of the Word Study cards. It has made a HUGE difference in their excitement about the subject and their retention. And then I ordered the Continent Kits and US Kit. The homeschoolers LOVE them. I did get some art sets, music sets, and math sets too. And then the Botany Nomenclature Card Set. For the preschoolers, I ordered the farm cards. It has been so a blessing to have reasonably priced materials that are so well done. And Lori has again this year been so wonderful answering any questions that I might have about the materials or homeschooling.

Thank you Lori at Montessori For Everyone!

Pics of Montgomery Academy: Downstairs Version

2010-02-01T16:10:00.013-06:00

Remember this post? It showed the upstairs of most of my home. Much of our home is used by Montgomery Academy during the week. The toddlers use a lot of the upstairs area, as well as the homeschoolers during the morning. The preschoolers do reading time, journal time, and morning snack upstairs, but much of their time is spent downstairs. The homeschoolers also do afternoon school downstairs.

The preschool area/family room is 30' x 15'. The homeschool room is 9' x10'. There is a bathroom and another bedroom downstairs also.

Oh, and try and overlook the mess/clutter. I was going to straighten stuff up, but I just wanted to get these pictures taken and posted. It had already been 5 months since I did the upstairs version. So here you go . . .

The view as you come down the stairs

To the left of the stairs/northeast corner of the preschool area

The southeast corner

The southwest corner of the preschool area.

There are shelves that sit on the backside of the couch.

The family room area. There is a couch and a recliner

(you can see the recliner sticking up - the couch is next to it.)

There is a loveseat on the west wall and a computer desk

on the east wall, and the bookcases and entertainment

center on the north wall.

The preschoolers are not allowed to go on the family room

side during preschool. It took a bit of reminding at the

beginning, but now they never venture over, even

if I am sitting at the computer.

The downstairs hallway. On the other

side of the red folders is the stairway.

The furnace/water heater are

behind the bi-fold doors.

The "Frog" bathroom -

2nd door on the left off the hallway.

There is a bedroom - 3rd door

on the left off the hallway (not pictured)

The homeschool room - first door on the right

off the hallway, across from the bedroom.

Next post - what's in the homeschool room?

What We Were Up To: Preschool - End of January

2010-02-01T15:56:00.015-06:00

There was one day that the homeschoolers helped teach the toddlers and preschoolers down in the preschool area. Here is Scooter helping Little Boy.

Princess and Super working with blocks.

Little Boy and Sweetie Drawing.

Super matching up the lower case and uppercase.

He has finally mastered this puzzle and is SO

proud of himself.

Working on matching the snowmen - small, medium, large

Writing a "k"

Doing Bead Sequencing

Retelling the Snowman story using the felt board

Working on the language objects for "k" and "l"

Drawing - a favorite activity for all the preschoolers

Using The Letter Stamps

Sweeping Up The Corn Out Of The Sensory Table.

She LOVES This Activity.

Working With Dominoes

On The Shelves: January

2010-02-01T15:33:00.013-06:00

Here it is February, and I'm finally getting some pictures of some of the things that were on the shelves for January!

Practical Life Shelf 1: Tonging, Opening/Closing, and Spooning

Practical Life Shelf 2 and 3: Clothespins on a Cup, Dusting, and Sewing; Dressing Vests

Art Shelf 1: Scissors/Glue, Stamping, Foam Snowflakes, Crayons, Markers, Colored Pencils

Art Shelf 2 and 3: Snowman Coloring Sheet, Lady Bug Coloring Sheet, Ll Coloring Sheet, Copy Paper, Inset Paper

Language Shelves: This area has undergone a MAJOR revamp. There will be a whole separate post on these shelves.

Reading Shelves 1 and 2: Bob Books, Puzzle Word

Cards, Snow Cards; Snowman Sequence, Calendar Matching,

Winter Matching, Snow Flake Matching, and Snowman Size.

Close up of Snowman Sequence (of him melting)

From KidsSoup

Close up of Calendar Matching.

From Montessori For Everyone.

Close up of Winter Matching.

From Montessori Print Shop.

This shelf underwent a revamp too and will be

included in the Language post.

Writing Shelf 1 - Chalkboard, Letter Writing Sheets

(from KidsSoup), Letter Stamps.

Writing Shelf 2 - Magnadoodles, Magnetic Letters, Pink Words,

and Moveable Alphabet

Writing Shelf 2 - Dry Erase for Letters and Numbers,

Flannel Board with Snowmen

Sorry, I have some posts started . . .

2010-01-27T10:47:00.002-06:00

but I haven't had time to upload the pics yet. I have a post about preschool and what is on the shelves for January, and I've got a post about Montgomery Academy downstairs version, and I've got a post about the homeschoolers learning spaces, and I've got a post about our new language area for preschool. All of them really need the pictures to be really helpful. I'll try and get at least one post up tonight, I promise!

Otherwise, we are doing fine. A bunch of colds around here, including myself, but that isn't exactly unusual for January. We had snow, and then it thawed, and now we have a couple inches of snow back on the ground. Not exactly unusual for January either.

What Happens When People Are Sick . . .

2010-01-15T21:46:00.002-06:00

This week, my sister was out a couple days because her toddler was ill. Thankfully, we had done a teachers meeting fairly recently, and we both had lesson plans done for the month. My sister came over on Monday night to pick up some books, and then she came back on Wednesday morning to switch with me. As it turned out, each of us got about 90% of the school work done. And it was a fun week too. My girls enjoyed making a seige tower out of legos, grammar flip books, and learning about capacity. Now if I could just find a way to get Flower to finally memorize her times tables . . . . . .

Oh, and a thumbs up on the Swan Lake CD referenced in the homeschooler post for the week of January 11th. It told the story of Swan Lake with the music interspersed, and than another track had information about the composer, but then it had a heavy metal version of Swan Lake, and a sing-along about "Tchaikovsky Made A Great Ballet." All the homeschoolers really enjoyed it.

Oh, and if you use the Lives of the Musicians book for Tchiakovsky, you will probably want to preview it before having your children read it.

Preschool Lesson Plans: Week of 01/11/2010

2010-01-12T17:47:00.004-06:00

Just to review, I have 5 preschool students, including my son Super (who turned 5 last September). I have 1 three year old, 3 four year olds, and 1 five year old. I teach preschool Monday through Friday from 9 am until noon. We read and write/draw in journals, have a morning snack, have cicle time, work time, and then eat lunch. On MWF, all five students are here, and on T/Th, there are four students.

==============

Color of the Month: White
Number of the Month: 5
Shape of the Month: Pentagon

Letter of the Week: Jj
Theme of the Week: Snowflakes

Sensory Table
* Nature Box with evergreen boughs and rocks
* Pouring between two pitchers with ice

Playdoh Table
* White playdoh

Easel
* Watercolor paint

Practical Life Shelf
* Spooning with silver pom poms
* Open/Closing
* Folding
* Tonging with plastic snowballs
* Small clothespins on the top of a glass
* Snowman lacing
* Dressing Vests
* Feather Duster
* Hand Vacuum

Art Shelf
* Free Art Supplies (crayon rocks, crayon twistables, colored pencils, markers, scissors, glue sticks, clear tape, stapler, paper punch)
* Paper (white copy paper, white cardstock, blue construction paper)
* Foam snowflakes
* Snowflake coloring sheet
* Paper prepared to make snowflakes

Sensorial Shelf
* Knobbed Cylinders
* Brown Stair
* Natural Tower
* Color Tablets 1 and 2 and 3
* Sound Cylinders

Geography Shelf
* Insets
* Shape Puzzles
* Shape Game
* Stereognostic Bag with shapes
* Geometric Solids
* Constructive Triangles 1-3

Language Shelf 1
* Sandpaper Letters
* Yellow Language Materials from My Montessori Journey

Language Shelf 2
* Bob Books
* Pattern Matching
* Classified Cards
* Farm with labels

Writing Shelf
* Letter J coloring sheet from Kids Soup
* Letter J tracing set from Kids Soup
* Magnadoodle
* Moveable Alphabet
* Pink Language Cards

Science and Culture
* Flower Puzzle and 3 part cards for flower
* Bird Puzzle and 3 part cards for bird
* Continent Puzzle
* Continent Globe and Sand and Water Globe

Math
* Number Rods
* Spindles
* Snowflake numbers and counters
* Number Cards
* Sandpaper numbers

Stories
The Little Snowflake
Millions of Snowflakes
Ice Is Nice
Snowflakes in Photographs
Snowflake Bentley

Homeschool Lesson Plans: Week of January 11, 2010

2010-01-12T07:43:00.007-06:00

Just to refresh your memory, my sister and I are homeschooling four children - my two girls and her two boys. There is Jelly Bean (mine), age 8 and in 2nd grade, Helper (hers), age 8 and in 3rd grade, Flower (mine), age 10 and in 4th grade, and Scooter (hers), age 10 and in 5th grade.

My sister teaches the homeschoolers in the morning (and watches the toddlers) while I teach preschool (and watch a newborn) , and then I teach the homeschoolers in the afternoon (and watch a newborn, while my sister watches preschool-age daycare kids and the toddlers.

Monday

Reading: Individual selections
History: Ch. 15 of Story of the World I - Dying eggs and dying noodles
Spelling: Olders - Master Skills Series Spelling Grade 6 , Youngers - Jelly Bean 2 pages in Spell and Write Grade 3 and Helper 2 pages in Spell and Write Grade 4.
Grammar: Lesson from Grammar Manual on Articles - Definite and Indefinite
Writing: Flying Horse (a short paragraph on an a pre-selected topic for the week (selected by the local paper. This week's topic was about Best Foods.) Winners are selected and printed in the local paper.)
==============
Science: Astronomy - Introduction to Venus in Apologia Astronomy
Geography: Olders - Books about Asia (borrowed from the library), Youngers - Books about Illinois (borrowed from the library)
Art: M is for Masterpiece - Frida Kahlo
Music: Story of the Orchestra - Tchaikovsky
Math: One Lesson/Unit

Tuesday

Reading: Individual selections
History: Ch. 16 of Story of the World I - The Return of Assyria reading
Spelling: Olders 1 page, Youngers 2 pages
Writing: Finish Flying Horse and put in mail
Reading Comprehension: Reading Comprehension - Amazing Animals
==============
Science: Botany - Angiosperms in Apologia Botany
Geography: Olders - Study about Asia in Atlas, Youngers - Study about Illinois in Atlas
Art: Picture Study - M is for Monster in Museum ABC
Music: Swan Lake CD (borrowed from the library)
Math: One lesson/unit

Wednesday

Reading: Individual selections
History: Ch. 16 of Story of the World I - Write a book for the Assyrian Library
Spelling: Olders 1 page, Youngers 2 pages.
Grammar: MOE Grammar Sentence cards for Article and Noun
Writing: Writing Bubble for History topics
==============
Science: Astronomy - Make Lava from Apologia Astronomy
Geography: Olders - Plant and Animal cards from MOE Asia Continent Kit, Youngers - Illinois Quarter from H.I.P Lesson Plans
Art: Frida Kahlo books (this one, this one, this one, and this one)
Music: Sleeping Beauty cassette (borrowed from the library)
Poetry: R is for Rhyme - Limerick
Math: One lesson/unit

Thursday

Reading: Individual selections
History: Ch. 16 of Story of the World I - Make Assyrian siege tower
Spelling: Olders 1 page, Youngers 2 pages
Writing: Copywork or handwriting practice
=============
Science: Botany - Flower Dissection from Apologia Botany
Geography: Olders - Map and Flag cards from MOE Asia Continent Kit, Youngers - Illinois map and flag
Art: Frido Kahlo art project from Great Artists
Music: Tchaikovsky books (this one, this one, this one, and this one) borrowed from the library
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet from Tales From Shakespeare
Math: One lesson/unit

Friday

Spelling: Spelling tests
Literature: Literature Pockets
================
Math: Math tests (Scooter is in Saxon 65, Flower is in Saxon 54, Helper is in Math U See Beta, and Jelly Bean is in Math U See Beta)
Music: H is for Harmony from M is for Melody

Christmas Party 2009

2009-12-29T23:04:00.007-06:00

We had our holiday party in mid December. Here are some pictures from the day. (We missed you Sweetie!)

Listening to me read a Christmas story

We did a gift exchange.
Super got a slinky.

Wiggles got play-doh

Spunky got a magnadoodle

Lollipop got a bath set

Princess got a book

And here is a video of us singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas"

Montgomery Academy will be closed until the first week of January. Happy Holidays Everyone!

How we got our kids to love grammar . . .

2009-12-16T16:04:00.009-06:00

Well, love might be a little strong. But the homeschoolers certainly enjoy it much more than the grammar programs we used first. I'm sure that they are a lovely curriculums (Abeka God's Gift of Language A and Rod and Staff Beginning Wisely) but they just were not working for our homeschoolers.

I use several of the books/ideas from the Serendipity website, but I had not used their grammar ideas before. My sister and I were struggling to find something that would work for them - something that was enjoyable, but still enabled them to really learn the parts of speech. So I was searching through all my links, and I first looked at what they offered on the Serendipity. It is called Lively Language Language Lessons. The Lively Language Lessons primarily use the Ruth Heller language books to teach the parts of speech, although there are some suggestions for other grammar resources there. So I printed off the Lively Language Lessons, and got the Ruth Heller book for Nouns (Merry Go Round) to start out.

Then I decided to check my Montessori links. I use some Montessori materials with the homeschoolers, but I have always used Montessori materials with the preschoolers, but I had only used the very, very basics of grammar with the preschoolers. I knew that the parts of speech were generally introduced around age 6, and I knew that our children were older than that, but I wanted to look at the materials to see if they might still be workable for 7, 8, and two 10 year olds.

I first went looking for a Montessori manual. I thought about buying one, but many were fairly pricey, and I wanted to be able to really look at the manual to make sure that it would work for us, and so paying for one/having it shipped wasn't my favorite option either. Thankfully, I clicked on my link to Cultivating Dharma, and there is a great language album at this site, and the section on grammar is excellent. And the download is FREE!

Then I ordered the Montessori Grammar solid symbols and the Montessori basic wooden grammar symbols from Kid Advance.

Finally, I downloaded grammar words and sentences from both Montessori (link for words) for Everyone (link for sentences) and the Montessori (link for words) Materials (link for sentences) site. Montessori Materials uses a different color for conjunction and one other part of speech, so I only have the words for those two parts of speech from Montessori for Everyone.

And then I printed, and laminated and cut. And then decided I needed to find a good way to store the grammar materials. So I went off to Target (one of my favorite places to shop) and this is what I found:

A Plano Utility Box

(found in the nails, hooks, etc. section)

holds the grammar words and the

grammar nomenclature cards.

Another Plano utility box holds the grammar

sentence strips from Montessori Materials.

A coupon organizer holds the grammar
sentences from Montessori for Everyone

Here are a picture of the Ruth Heller books,

the solid and wooden grammar symbols,

and a binder that holds the language manual,

and the Lively Language Lessons.

My sister teaches grammar, so I don't know EXACTLY how it all works, but here is how she has explained it in our teacher meetings.

It is a every day but Friday subject. Generally, she does the activity from the manual when introducing a part of speech. Then she will read a couple pages from the Ruth Heller book and look at the Lively Lessons to see if there is anything they want to do on that part of speech. On another day, they will do create a page of their own drawing/writing examples of what they learned in the Heller book. On another day, they will work with the word boxes to create sentences. On different day, they may use the wooden symbols with the sentence strips or with sentences of their own creation.

And we are finally achieving our goal with grammar - they are enjoying it AND they are learning. Our goal is to get through the parts of speech this year. In some future post, I may share our plans for grammar for next year.

Pictures from Week 13: Preschool

2009-12-14T11:18:00.010-06:00

Dusting

Making a bracelet with
pipecleaners and beads

working on objects and letters

Working with the farm -

next week, I am introducing a few labels

I saw this activity on My Montessori Journey

who got it from PreKinders.

It is a great activity.

This little guy loved it!!!!

Locks puzzle

Shape Game

Preschool - What We Were Up To: Week 13

2009-12-14T11:11:00.003-06:00

Happy Holidays
December 7-11, 2009

Letter of the Week: Ii
Number of the Month: 4
Shape of the Month: Rectangle
Color of the Month: Green
Nursery Rhyme: Little Jack Horner

· At the sensory/art table, we have green play-doh, the nature box, and a salt tray.
· At the paint easel, we have green paint, water color paint, and green DOT paint.
· On the practical life shelf, we have opening/closing, putting ornaments on the tree, tonging with marbles, bead work, sorting with holiday pom poms, transferring with green and red pom poms, and dressing vests.
· On the art shelf, we have a Christmas tree coloring sheet, make a wreath, christmas 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 and 3, the brown stair, block tower, and knobbed cylinder A and B and C and D and the red rods.
· On the geometry shelf, we have the circle, triangle, square, and rectangle puzzle. There is also a geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids, pattern blocks, and a shape game.
· 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.) We are working hard on the letters i and g.
· On the language shelf, we have a reindeer letter game, classified cards on rooms in your house, calendar matching, and winter 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 rectangle shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, letter tracing for i, magnadoodle, and moveable alphabet. The older children are working on spelling words with the movable alphabet. We also have i coloring sheets and i tracing sheets
· On the science shelf, there is reptile puzzle – turtle, plant puzzle – leaf, and land and water cards.
· On the geography shelf, there are the continent globe, the continent puzzle, and the sand and water globe and the continent map puzzle.
· On the math shelf, we have sandpaper numbers, number puzzle, number rods, bead matching, spindles, and seasonal counting activities.
· We are reading Mousekin’s Christmas Eve, The 12 Days of Christmas (we are comparing a few different versions), and Bialosky’s Christmas.

A Look At Our Usual Schedule

2009-12-10T10:33:00.005-06:00

It's a busy life here at Montgomery Academy/Simple Life. Well, not necessarily busy exactly, but we've got people coming and going for much of the day, and some wee ones that make sure that our schedules remain "flexible."

5:45 am I get up. If I don't get up by 5:45, then I don't get a shower, and if I don't get a shower, then I have a hard time waking up, and then the whole day is thrown off. I take a shower, unload the dishwasher, do the rest of my morning routine, etc.

6:30 Wiggles (almost 4 year old boy) arrives. He plays while I read or finish up morning chores, etc.

7:15 Little Boy (18 month old) arrives. He eats breakfast, gets a diaper change and plays.
My kids (Flower - 10 year old girl, Jelly Bean - 8 year old girl, and Super - 5 year old boy) wake up around this time.

8:15 Belle (6 week old girl) arrives. She just started on Monday. She usually gets a diaper change, eats, and goes back down for a couple hours.

Sweetie (almost 4 year old girl) usually arrives around this time too.

8:45 My sister/co-teacher arrives with her kids Scooter (10 year old boy), Helper (8 year old boy) and Smiley (17 month old girl) arrive.

9:00 Princess (4.5 year old girl) arrives. And then on MWF, Spunky (3 year old girl) arrives or on T/Th, Lollipop (3 year old girl arrives)

For those of you who might have lost count, here's a breakdown of who is here by 9 am.

1 six week old girl
2 toddlers - a 17 month old girl and an 18 month old boy
5 preschoolers - three 3 year olds, one 4 year old, and one 5 year old
4 school age kids - two 8 year olds and two 10 year olds.
2 adults

9:00 - 9:15 Preschoolers work on their journals while the homeschoolers work on reading. Toddlers playing.

9:15-9:30 Preschoolers have morning snack. Homeschoolers continue reading.

9:30 - 9:45 Preschoolers read/potty break. Homeschoolers start their table work (history, spelling, writing, grammar. My sister, Lisa, teaches the homeschoolers and watches the toddlers.

9:45 - 11:15 Homeschoolers doing table work and toddlers playing upstairs. Toddler Boy starts napping around 10:45.

9:45 - 11:15 Preschoolers downstairs. We do circle time, then helper jobs, then story time, then work time, then goodbye circle time. Belle is downstairs sleeping, eating, getting changed, etc - newborn baby stuff.

11:15- 12:00 Lunch, and weather permitting, outside time for homeschoolers and preschoolers.

Then at 12:00, we have some preschoolers leave. Monday-Friday, Super leaves for afternoon Pre-K. On MWF, Spunky leaves. On T/Th, Lollipop and Wiggles leave.

12:00 - 1:00 Then other preschoolers usually read or do something quiet for an hour. Homeschoolers do some sort of physical activity.

1:00 - 2:00 Little Boy wakes up at 1:00. Preschoolers lay down or nap. Smiley goes down for a nap. My sister is watching the Little Boy and Belle upstairs. Little Boy is playing. Belle is upstairs sleeping, eating, getting changed, etc - newborn baby stuff.

1:00 - 3:00 I'm teaching the homeschoolers downstairs.

2:00 Preschoolers wake up and play.

Starting at 2:30, people start leaving again.

2:30 Wiggles leaves.

3:00 Super comes home.

3:15 My sister, Scooter, Helper, and Smiley leave.

3:30 Princess and Sweetie leave.

For those of you who might have lost track, by 3:30, there are:

- 1 Adult (me)
- My kids (Super - age 5, Jelly Bean - age 8, and Flower - age 10)
- Little Boy (age 18 months)
- Belle (age 6 weeks)

From 3:30 to 5 pm, we just have general playing and hanging out and I try to fix dinner.

5:00 Little Boy leaves

5:15 Belle leaves.

5:30 We sit down for dinner.

I try and get the kids into bed by 7:30, and I try to get in bed by 10.

And then it starts again . . . .

The Homeschoolers Have Been Busy . . .

2009-12-06T16:58:00.004-06:00

You may get the impression that the homeschoolers don't do anything interesting around here. If you get that impression, it is my fault. It is quicker for me to blog about the preschoolers. I just repost the weekly sheet, and put up pictures from the week. It often doesn't take a lot of explanation.

Also, my sister and I co-homeschool. She teaches the homeschoolers Literature, History, Writing, and Grammar in the mornings while I do Geography, Science, Math, Music, Art, and Poetry in the afternoons. We also have been slacking on taking the pictures of the homeschoolers. Our bad. I should have some pictures up this next week of some of the things they have been doing in the past month or so.

We revamped things a bit around the first of November and I think everybody, teachers and kids, liked the tweaks. We do most subjects more independently now, but we do all subjects every day instead of doing things on a certain day at a somewhat certain time.

For example, here is an example of afternoon schedule:

12:45 Math Minutes (a drill sheet for each of them)

After this, they picked from the following activities - Map Activities (South America for the olders and US for the youngers) from Montessori For Everyone, reading on the books about Beethoven and writing 3 facts about him (We are working our way through The Story of the Orchestra and M is for Melody), watching a DVD about Monet (We are working through M is for Masterpiece), and writing a poem with an iambic meter (We are working our way through R is for Rhyme).

At 1:45, we take a break from "work time" and we do a section from either Apologia Botany or Apologia Astronomy (we alternate days.) Then we go back to work time until 2:30.

The children then work on math from 2:30 - 3:00 pm. The olders are supposed to work on a lesson every day (They are doing Saxon 5/4 and Saxon 6/5), and the youngers work on one sheet from their unit every day (They are both working on Math U See Beta). If they get done before 3 pm, they are done for the day. If they don't get it done, we move on the next day. Before, we were getting bogged down with math because it was taking a day or two or three for the olders to get through a lesson sometimes.

For us, it is a good blend of Montessori and Charlotte Mason. From Montessori, we are using some of the resources that would be used in Montessori, and the idea of freedom within limits. From Charlotte Mason, we are using the types of subjects, using "living books" (Probably the best known of Mason's methods is her use of living books instead of dry, factual textbooks. Living books are usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The size of the book does not matter nearly as much as whether it is "alive" and engaging. Textbooks are allowed if they meet that criterion) and idea of short lessons.

The Homeschoolers Visit The Fire Station

2009-12-03T13:51:00.008-06:00

The homeschoolers went for a field trip at the fire station in November too, but they had their own field trip to learn more about fire safety in the home.

Before the presentation.

They learned about fire safety using the Hazard House.

After the presentation.

Thank you to the fire department

for two great field trips!

Pictures of the Playset in Action

2009-12-02T21:24:00.005-06:00

We purchased a wooden playset at the end of the summer, and it took a little longer than anticipated to get it set up, but ever since it got done, it has seen a lot of action!

There is a rope ladder, a slide, the fort area,

trapeze, and a rock wall in the front,

a tire swing underneath, and two swings on the back side.

Here's a picture of the climber and the playhouse that we have on the other side of the yard. That playhouse has seen HOURS and HOURS of play. One of my best garage sale buys.

Even though we have the wooden playset, I'm still glad that we have the Little Tikes climber. The younger preschoolers prefer the smaller slide, and they like to climb under it.

Here's a picture of playset, playhouse and climber from the edge of the backyard. We do have a smaller yard area on the other side of the sidewalk, but yes, much of the yard is dedicated to outdoor play things. But I don't regret it a bit. The kids LOVE all the stuff, and spend hours playing outside.

Sorry - I got a little behind over here - Pictures of the Thanksgiving Feast

2009-12-01T11:03:00.015-06:00

We had the Montgomery Academy Thanksgiving Feast her on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. We had a VERY full house. Next year, we will probably have to move it to a larger location. But it was still fun to see and talk to everyone and eat LOTS of yummy food.

I also apologize for the photo quality. My camera just isn't taking great pictures lately. They tend to be dark or too bright, and grainy or blurry. My camera is a Kodak EasyShare Z740, and it is only about 3 years old. There isn't any room in the budget for a new camera, so I am hoping that it just starts getting better soon!

Happy Turkey Day!

A picture of the turkey. I provide the turkey and the dressing. I cooked the dressing in the crockpot this year. I just put the ingrediants in, turned it on low, stirred it a few times, and after an hour and a half, it was done. And it was yummy!

The "big" kids eating, and a visiting alum clearing her place.

The preschoolers tables

We had to use the couch and the train table (covered with a table cloth) for some people.

The adults and another visiting alum

One of the toddlers. Isn't she cute?

Happy Thanksgiving

from Montgomery Academy!

2009-11-24T04:15:00.000-06:00

Geese and Martinmas/Veteran's Day
November 9-13, 2009
Letter of the Week: Ff
Number of the Month: 3
Shape of the Month: Square
Color of the Month: Yellow
Nursery Rhyme: Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater

• At the sensory/art table, we have yellow play-doh, leaf sorting, and a salt tray.
• At the paint easel, we have yellow paint, water color paint, and yellow DOT paint.
• On the practical life shelf, we have cutting food, nuts and bolts, flower arranging, sew and sew, beading, opening/closing, and dressing vests.
• On the art shelf, we have build a scarecrow, and a pumpkin coloring sheet, 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 C and D and the red rods.
• On the geometry shelf, we have the circle, triangle and square puzzle. There is also a geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids and a new shape game.
• 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.) We are working hard on the letters f and b.
• 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 square shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, letter tracing for f, magnadoodle, and moveable alphabet. We also have f coloring sheets and f tracing sheets
• On the science shelf, there is reptile puzzle – turtle, plant puzzle – leaf, 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 Boxes for Katje, Gertrude the Goose who Forgot, Geese, One Smart Goose, Honk, Honk, Goose!, Boo to a Goose, and Goose’s Story.

Preschool Week 9: What We Were Up To

2009-11-23T10:36:00.002-06:00

Scarecrows
November 2-6, 2009
Letter of the Week: Ee
Number of the Month: 3
Shape of the Month: Square
Color of the Month: Yellow

Nursery Rhyme of the Month: Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater

• At the sensory/art table, we have yellow play-doh and the nature box.
• At the paint easel, we have yellow paint, water color paint, and yellow DOT paint.
• On the practical life shelf, cutting food, nuts and bolts, flower arranging, bracelet beading, scarecrow building, and leaf sorting.
• On the art shelf, we have lots of scarecrow and leaf coloring sheet, 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 C and the red rods.
• On the geometry shelf, we have the circle, triangle and square puzzle. There is also a geoboard, shape sorter, and geometric solids and a new shape game.
• 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.) We are working hard on the letters f and b.
• 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 square shape with the metal insets. We also have dry erase writing, letter stamping, letter tracing for e, magnadoodle, and moveable alphabet. We also have e coloring sheets and e tracing sheets
• On the science shelf, there is reptile puzzle – turtle, plant puzzle – leaf, 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 Fall Leaves Fall, Black Crow, The Wild Leaf Ride, Lonely Scarecrow, Pig and Crow, and The Little Scarecrow Boy (I love this book).

Pictures from Week 9: Preschool

2009-11-22T21:12:00.014-06:00

Making bead bracelets

doing the leaf puzzle with the control sheet

using the number line with Math U See blocks

exploring the geometric solids

writing a letter "e"

doing a cylinder block

goggly eyes are fun on anything

a brown stair/block tower extension of his own creation

Wiggles and Little Boy (who is now 18 months old!

He started here at 6 weeks!)

Little Boy comes downstairs for Line Time and

sometimes for a little bit of Work Time

doing letter stamping

building a scarecrow

building something with the pattern blocks
without using the pattern cards

drawing with the dry erase markers

We are going on a Leaf Hunt . . .

2009-11-20T10:47:00.008-06:00

We went on a leaf hunt in early November. The students put their coats on and got their bags and we walked around the block. And they put lots of leaves in their bag. Simple, but OH, they enjoyed it SO much.

Sweetie, Lollipop, Wiggles, Super and Princess getting ready to go outside - I love this picture.

It was drizzling, but it has been raining for the longest time, so I took my opportunity when we could. I love this picture too.

Our neighbors put these blow up decorations up for all the major holidays.

Most of the pear trees still had leaves on them when we went on our hunt, although most of the other trees had lost their leaves. Now most of the trees are bare. It definitely LOOKS like November around here. Bare trees, grey skies.

Pictures from our field trip to the Fire Station

2009-11-19T18:10:00.018-06:00

Sweetie sitting in a fire truck with the Public Safety Officer

Looking at the front of a fire engine.

Looking at an ambulance

Sparky came out to meet us.

He was a BIG hit.

Princess, Wiggles, Super, Sweetie, Lollipop, and Spunky

Of course, the silly picture

And then we had an extra special visitor - Pluggie! He came out and talked to us!

Thanks to everyone at the Fire Department. We had a fun day!

Small Hands

2009-11-18T01:03:00.002-06:00

You may notice a new little button in the top right corner that says "Help Us Earn Free Materials! Browse For Small Hands Now."

For Small Hands is a catalog put out by Montessori Services. This catalog contains many hands-on materials that will help young children engage in real life experiences such as pouring, gardening, and painting.

If you place an order for $25 or more, then Montgomery Academy will receive a 10% credit of the total bill to put towards Montessori Materials for our classroom. Please use our classroom number 100641 so that Montgomery Academy will receive the credit. The promotion ends on December 31st, 2009, however, you will want to order your items by November 22nd if you want to ensure that your items will arrive before Christmas.

(Parents of Montgomery Academy students, we will be placing a group order. Please do not place an individual order. Instead, please turn in your order form to me by November 23rd and I will place the group order on-line that evening so that the items will be here before Christmas. However, feel free to tell your friends and relatives to place an individual order. )

A busy couple of weeks around here . . .

2009-11-10T15:50:00.002-06:00

This week, we are:

gathering coats and warm things, food, and items for Operation Santa (in celebration of Martinmas and Veterans day on November 11th.)
preschoolers are going on a field trip to the fire station
having parent teacher conferences.

Next week, we are having:

our Thanksgiving Feast on the 19th. Parents, students, siblings, and alumni and their families are invited. We will probably end up with at least 20 people. I provide the turkey, stuffing, and plates/utensils, etc., and the parents provide the rest of the meal. It is SO yummy, and one of my favorite parties of the year.

Pictures from Week 8: Preschool

2009-11-06T12:00:00.000-06:00

This is what we were up to during the week BEFORE the Halloween party, so my posts are a bit out of order. Anyway, it was a fun week in preschool, as always. LOL

Putting the bears in circle, with a pattern.

Playing with the nature box

Doing the lock puzzle

Spooning spiders - this activity was inspired by a similar activity at What DID we do all day?

Drawing. As always, a very popular activity.

Here there are three friends drawing at the same table.

Creating a free art project using construction paper, scissors, stapler, and markers.

One of the students did this activity and completed it. He was SO proud of himself.

(This activity is inspired from My Montessori Journey.)

I have about 6 post that are still just rolling around in my head

2009-11-04T16:00:00.000-06:00

that I want to write about, but I either need to take some pictures before I post about it, I need to finish part of it, I need to finish reading something, or the thoughts are still bouncing around in my head, and aren't quite coherent thoughts to anyone but me yet.

But here are some of the things that I'd like to post about in the next week or so

* Our "new" grammar curriculum
* Organizing the learning areas
* Making some Montessori materials
* Changes to the Art, Music, and Poetry lessons
* Geography for preschool and elementary - What we are doing
* What's new on the shelves for November. I never even got a picture of what's new on the shelves for October. Sorry!

Halloween Party!

2009-10-31T20:48:00.008-05:00

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

2009-10-30T20:29:00.004-05:00

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

2009-10-25T12:35:00.014-05:00

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

2009-10-25T12:30:00.002-05:00

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

2009-10-23T15:53:00.016-05:00

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

2009-10-23T15:47:00.004-05:00

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??

2009-10-21T16:09:00.004-05:00

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

2009-10-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-11T21:22:00.007-05:00

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

2009-10-11T19:09:00.008-05:00

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

2009-10-10T00:50:00.004-05:00

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

2009-10-05T23:49:00.009-05:00

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

2009-10-05T23:36:00.008-05:00

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

2009-10-05T23:21:00.007-05:00

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!

2009-10-05T02:09:00.007-05:00

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.

September Field Trip to the Apple Orchard

2009-10-05T01:15:00.014-05:00

On Friday, September 25th, we went to a local apple orchard. It was lightly raining, but we still managed to have fun!

Here are most of us eating our snack of apple cider and apple donuts. YUMMY!

Walking through the maze

Doing the zip line

With one of the Orchard cats

A Jelly Bean bee

Looking for apples in the orchard

The apple orchard has a Wizard of Oz theme. They have a dress up area inside. Here is Dorothy.

And Glenda

And the Scarecrow

And a cute Wicked Witch!

Thanks Curtis Orchard. We had a fun time!

Pictures of Week 3: Preschool

2009-10-04T23:47:00.008-05:00

There was a lot of art done in Week 3 around MA Preschool. And what a bunch of great artists we have!

One of the artists washing his hands after working with paint. The bathroom is right next to the preschool area which works out well. When the bathroom isn't being used by the preschool, it is the bathroom that Jelly Bean and Flower usually use.

Here are 3 students working on art at the same time.

A student working on cutting.

Working on painting with the red tempera paint.

Preschool Week 3 : What We Were Up To

2009-10-04T23:43:00.002-05:00

Apples All Around!
September 21 -25th, 2009
Letter of the Week: A
Number of the Month: 1
Shape of the Month: Circle
Color of the Month: Red

• At the sensory/art table, we have red play-doh.
• At the paint easel, we have red paint.
• On the practical life shelf, cutting food, locks puzzle, nuts and bolts, sticks in a shaker, pouring, tonging, and button dressing vests.
• On the art shelf, we have a apple 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.
• On the geometry shelf, we have the circle 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.
• On the language shelf, there is calendar matching, and fall letter words.
• 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, 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, and spindles.
• We are reading Big Red Barn, A Day at the Apple Orchard, Ten Red Apples, One Little, Two Little, Three Little Apples, and Apples.

Pictures from Week 3: Elementary

2009-10-01T21:58:00.011-05:00

Building pyramids and The Sphinx out of Legos

creating Hieroglyphics out of Sculpey clay, before baking

We use Museum ABC to do Picture Study (First day, look at the picture briefly and narrate about it. 2nd day, look at picture briefly and sketch with pencil. 3rd day, look at picture briefly and sketch with colored pencils. 4th day, look at picture and recreate with any medium) . On the 4th day, they can recreate the painting using any medium they choose. This is a modeling clay recreation of a boat painting.

Working on one of the Alabama State Quarter

Labeling North America

Doing Draw Write Now

Pictures from Week 2: Preschool

2009-09-19T20:38:00.012-05:00

Painting with watercolor paint

Super doing Play-doh. Probably his favorite activity.

Tonging with apples.

Pouring. I got this cute set at the thrift store for 59 cents. It takes so little to thrill me. LOL

Drawing with markers. One of her favorite activities.

The sandpaper shape, sandpaper letter, and sandpaper number we are working on. These are right in front of the modeling clay and sand tray.

This pocket chart also holds our helper jobs. There is a job on a seasonal paper (this month is apples) with a name card at the bottom. Each week, the name is rotated to the next job.

The sand tray. This student is doing more sensory work than writing, but that's o.k. too.

Knobbed Cylinder A.

I invested in these the first year I taught preschool, and I've never regretted it. The new 3s always love them, and the 4s love to do them all at once or put all the pegs in a bag and pull them out, etc.

Preschool Week 2: What We Are Up To

2009-09-17T23:37:00.004-05:00

Theme of the Week: Letters and Colors
Letter of the Week: A
Number of the Month: 1
Shape of the Month: Circle
Color of the Month: Red

• At the art table, we have red play-doh.
• At the sensory table, we have the sand tray and modeling clay.
• At the paint easel, we have watercolor paint and red paint.
• On the practical life shelf, cutting food, locks puzzle, nuts and bolts, sticks in a shaker, pouring, tonging, and button dressing vests.
• On the art shelf, we have a Letter A color page, cutting strips, rubbing cards, 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, red rods, the brown stair, block tower, and knobbed cylinder A.
• On the geometry shelf, we have the circle puzzle. There are also the insets, 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.
• On the language shelf, there is calendar matching, fall letter words, and the farm.
• On the writing shelf, there are dry erase letter pages, a letter A page, moveable alphabet, and the red level language materials.
• 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, and spindles.
• We are reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, White Rabbit’s Color Book, One Fish, Two Fish, Do You Know Your Colors?, Dr. Suess’ ABC, and The Crayon Box That Talked.

Elementary Week 3: What We Were Up To

2009-09-17T23:15:00.006-05:00

Literature: Scooter - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Flower - The Little Princess, Helper - Charlotte's Web, Jelly Bean - The Wizard of Oz.

History: Story of the World 1 -

Spelling: Scooter and Flower - Spell and Write Grade 6, Unit. Helper - Spell and Write Grade 3, Unit. Jelly Bean - Spell and Write Grade 2, Unit.

Grammar: Scooter and Flower - God's Gift Of Language, Unit 1. Helper and Jelly Bean - Beginning Wisely, Unit 1.

Writing:
--------------------

Math: Scooter - Saxon 6/5 Lesson , Flower - Saxon 5/4 Lessons , Helper and Jelly Bean - Math U See Beta - Lesson 3

Botany: Apologia Botany. Lesson 1 - Vascular and Non Vascular Plants
Astronomy: Apologia Astronomy, Lesson 2 - The Sun

Geography: Olders - North America Continent Study - Draw and label North American Countries. Youngers - Alabama. Study in Atlas and color Alabama quarter from H.I.P Quarter Lesson Plans.

Picture Study: Museum ABC - B is for Boat

Poetry: R is for Rhyme - B is for Ballad

Art Study: M is for Masterpiece - B is for Brush

Music Study: The Story of the Orchestra - Bach

Instruments: Olders - Keyboard (Learning the location of the notes on the keyboard and on the staff) Youngers - Recorder (Learning location of notes on the staff and playing the letter B)

Shakespeare: Biography about Shakespeare

Montgomery Academy Preschool - Our Schedule

2009-09-17T15:51:00.003-05:00

9:00 AM Preschool Starts.

9:00 - 9:15 AM We do "quiet reading" (the children pick a book off the shelf and look at it, or I do have one emerging reader, so she does some actual reading.)

9:15-9:30 Journal Time. The students draw pictures in sketch books. We use the top spiral Pacon sketch books from Target. I've learned the hard way that doodle pads do not hold up. The students are encouraged to write their names on the page. I date stamp each page, and I label the picture.

9:30 - 9:40 Snack. Usually something like raisins, grapes, oyster crackers, etc. and a 3 oz. Dixie cup of water.

9:40 - 9:50 Potty Break. (I have two newly trained preschoolers, so we have a formal potty break as well as letting the children go when they need to.)

9:55 - 10:20 Line Time. (The students sit on a "line mat" - a cloth placemats that they place on a line.

9:55 - 10:05 Sing our "Hello" song. Then each student gets to pick a song to sing. At the end, we go over our nursery rhyme for the month.
10:05 - 10:15 We do our "helper" jobs. Every one has a job - we have a number helper, a shape helper, a letter helper, a flag helper, a weather helper, and a calendar helper.
10:15- 10:20 I read a story that goes along with our weekly theme. (This week is Letters and Colors.)

10:20- 11:10 Work Time.

11:10 - 11:20 Have our Good-bye Time. We sit on line mats again, I read another story, and we sing our goodbye song.

11:30 - 11:45 Lunch.

11:45 - 12:00 Outside Time.

12:00 Preschool ends.

Preschool Month 1: What's On The Shelves

2009-09-16T15:54:00.028-05:00

Pocket Chart for our schedule and weather pictures. The children's names are listed below the weather symbol (not shown in the picture though.)

The Alphabet Center. I really like this. It was a bit pricey, but I've used it daily for the past 4 years.

A pocket chart with our monthly nursery rhyme. We "read" it every day.

The calendar

The art easel. There is a chalkboard/dry erase, and we clip paper on it for painting too.

Playdoh center. I always make my playdoh and color the color of the month. The color this month is Red.

A couple of the practical life shelves - cutting food, locking puzzle, duster. Nuts and bolts, sticks in shaker, sorting by color.

Floor rugs and dressing vests.

Top shelf of the art shelves - glue, jars with other supplies, magnadoodles, and papers.

Copy paper, card stock, and inset paper.

Top shelf of the sensorial shelf - color box 1, Color sorting, and color cards.

2nd shelf - Block tower, knobbed cylinder A

3rd shelf - Brown stair

Top shelf of Geometry shelf - Insets

Rest of the Geometry shelf

Alphabet Shelf

Language Shelf - 3 part card, language cards, season cards

Top shelf of Writing Shelf - Dry erase with alphabet

2nd shelf - moveable alphabet

3rd shelf of writing shelf - Felt and magnetic letters

Science Shelf (Sorry it is all shadowy!)

Mammal Puzzle, Tree Puzzle and control cards and 3 part cards.

Math Shelf - Short Bead Stair, Fraction Puzzles, Bead Sequencing.

Spindles.

Counting Bears, number cards, Counting Apples.

Sandpaper Numbers, magnetic numbers, and number puzzle.