Weekly Wrap Up: Montessori Elementary

Just before the holidays we started reading the second book in the Jennifer Morgan trilogy.  This roughly covers the Second Great Lesson - The Coming of Life.

We started working on the "Clock of Eras" and D is very interested and intrigued by the origins of life. As I was looking through various albums, books and websites I found great explanations and lesson plans for the clock of eras at http://www.fossils-facts-and-finds.com/.  The lessons here provide just enough information, some activities and leaves D with curiosity to learn more.

Here D is creating the "Thinkers" 

Thinkers are multiplying inside the bubbles

We've been doing a lot of Science around here.  Here is a picture of a tiny bug that we found and looked in our microscope.  This was a great review and pretty hands-on review of the parts of an insect.  We also could clearly see the compound eyes and tiny hairs of the insect.

I am encouraging D to write down in her science journal.  This activity is perfect for my writing loving girl!

As you can see we've been working a lot with Magnets!

In case you are interested we own the following two kits.  The Lauri one came highly recommended by MyBoysTeacher and we love the other one too!

As I have mentioned before D is not interested a least bit in using the Subtraction Strip Board.  She works on her Subtraction equations, by figuring out the missing part in the equation.  For example, if the equation is 17-9, she calculates that 9+8 is 17 and figures out that 8 is the difference.  For differences that she is not sure, she uses all kinds of strategies!  For example, if she does not know what 13-4 is she breaks the 13 into 10 and 3, subtracts the 4 from the 10 and adds the 3!  It is so interesting to see how her mind works!

She is writing down her subtraction problems in her math journal.

 We occasionally work on the RightStart workbook, mostly just to change things up.  D never goes in order, she browses the book and works on whatever catches her fancy.  Last week she was working on some money problems and this week she was doing 4-digit addition using the abacus.

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We also are working on memorizing the multiplication facts by skip counting.  We play some of the RightStart games.  Right now she has the 2,3,5,9 and 10 facts down!  We are currently working on the 6 facts!  We alternate between playing games and using the Multiplication bead boards.

She also pulled out the North America puzzle map this week after a long time and enjoyed putting the puzzle together and labeling the countries.

In Language, we've covered all the parts of speech.  I need to work on putting out writing mechanics and words study presentations, but I have been lagging behind.  I should also get started on the grammar boxes as D is so ready for it.  I've been taking it easy and we have just been doing First Language Lessons level 2 and Writing with Ease Level 2.  The lessons are short and easy and perfect to just pull out and go for us.  D completed First Language Lessons Level 1 a couple of months ago.  There is a lot of repetition, so we do 4-5 lessons in one sitting, given that we have covered all the grammar already in the Montessori Sequence.  D enjoys the poetry, stories and summarizing activities that we do as part of the lessons though!

Now that I am looking back, this was a lot of work accomplished for the week, given that we were out on a field trip to a farm on Tuesday and had our weekly Co-op day today!