Art Outdoors

All of you would know our adventures with sand and water play the past few weeks but I was getting a bit tired of finding sand everywhere in the house, in spite of strict rules of a bath as soon as they come inside and before the kids touch anything.  I cant figure out how, but there is sand everywhere! So to change things a bit I decided to add an easel, some finger paints and a few spray bottles with colored water.  M could not squeeze the triggers so she just did some finger painting and wandered off.  So I set up another station at her height where she could just sit on the floor of the deck and do her finger painting, but D had a lot of fun with her materials and mixing colors!  We rounded up the day by cleaning up in our yard sprinklers and drying off in the night breeze!  Here is a picture of D having fun with her easel and art materials!  I definitely like this idea of doing art outside whenever possible, the cleanup is sooooo easy!

Sand plus Water - Childhood fun

I got a big fisher price sandbox for $5 on a garage sale this weekend.  I added a couple of plastic boxes for water play in addition to this sandbox.  D and M are having a blast everyday!  We have tons of beach/sand/water toys that are used frequently in addition to leaves, branches and flowers.

D is at a stage where her imagination runs wild.  She is out there having a picnic or making soup or baking cookies!  Our sandbox is a big attraction and I find our neighborhood kids often crowded in our backyard.  M is just one and she plays for the sensory aspect of mud and water.  She is good most of the times in not putting things in her mouth, but I still watch her like a hawk!  At times I find her imitating her sister often ending up in a battle for using the same thing. Joys of sisterhood!  Here is a peak of both of them having a blast at our back yard!

Our Update

The weather has been beautiful out here and we've been enjoying outside time a lot. Since we are out so much there has been less time in the montessori room. But we did sneak in a few days here and there to keep in touch. 

In math D is working on her unlimited bead materials trying to form complex numbers. She is getting real better at this.

In language I've been taking it real slow in the reading area, but D is has been real curious on a lot of sight words that she sees in the books we read and has mastered some those on her own! Other than this we are still working on completing the 40 sounds based on the Dwyer scheme, we are almost there! There has been a writing explosion lately and letters, cards, stories and what not has been done here! My house is now littered with so much of D's drafts! It is a good thing though!

On the cultural side, after our unit on Matter, we started our unit on Living/Non-living. I will post about this one of these days. We are also working on the continents and I am still collected and sorting and putting together our continent boxes! Since we've been out so much D's natural curiosity about plants in general has peaked. So I am catching that and trying to introduce the botany works. Some of my puzzles from Adena have arrived. The flower and leaf ones are back ordered, I am going to see if I can do without these.

On sensorial, D has mastered the Power of two cube and is now working on the knobless cylinders. I am going to introduce the binomial cube soon.

Practical life is just daily practical life right now. Helping clean up, make her own snacks, general grooming and a lot of grace and courtesy as she is out and about with kids her own age in the backyard is just what is happening in that area.

We've been visiting the library a lot and reading tons as usual. I am trying to sneak in non-fiction books based on the interest of the day and it has been working well. So that is what we've been up to.

With nice days few and far between in our State, we've been trying to maximize our time outside. Kids need to be kids, academics, montessori, all will follow eventually!

Physical Science - Our unit on Matter

One of the great things about Karen Tyler's albums are her cultural manuals.  They are so detailed and simple enough to put together at home.  So we started with the Physical Science album and did the basic flashlight works.  Then it was time for our unit on matter.

The first tray is where you introduce the three states of matter.  Solid holds a rock, liquid some colored water and gas, an empty jar.  Here is closer look at the bottles:

Next we started with liquids.  First is the concrete, with a tray containing liquids in jars/bottles of various shapes and sizes.

Next up is the abstract representation of different kinds of liquids.  I just got some images of google and printed those for D.

An extension to this activity was water pouring into different shapes and sizes of containers so the child understands volume, shape and mass properties of liquids.  D thoroughly enjoyed pouring water!

Next were the concrete and abstract for solids.

Now comes the fun experiment of trying to freeze water in a balloon and then watch it melt back into water again!  For some reason our balloon would not expand when we filled it with water, so we did the experiment by using filling a ziploc bag with water, freezing and melting it.  This showed D how matter from one form can change to another.

Next is the concrete and abstract for Gas.  I included a balloon in our gas tray so D could blow into it and watch the balloon expand!

Two experiments follow this, one is the famous cloud in a jar and the other is the blowing up of a balloon using gas produced by mixing vinegar and baking soda.

All in all it was a pleasure to put together these trays and have D work these!  She has learnt all these concepts well and enjoyed the little experiments that we did!  I cant wait to dig through the rest of her album and have fun with D on those!

Our Sand/Salt Tray for tracing

I was looking at making a salt/sand tray for D.  I read through various blogs and looked at many stores online.  The problem with the ones online were that it was way over my budget.  I liked the idea from here.  I even went and bought a shadow box from target for $10.  It was plastic, did not have a lid and somehow seemed flimsy.  Another thing that I tried using was a simple rectangular casserole/baking dish with a lid from wal-mart.  D was ok using that but it did not look nice in our classroom definitely!  Then I saw the posts here and here and then started my search for a nice wooden box with a lid.  It had to deep enough and not break my budget of less than $5!  Finally I found mine at Salvation Army for $2.  It was a hinged box, but I removed the hinges from the box so that D can place the lid upright and place her sandpaper letter there.  The box was lined with red velvet but I lined the box with a piece of green card-stock cut to size.  For now this tray holds salt and D has been using this a lot.  Her interest in writing has peaked and this salt tray had helped tons!

Good Weather

We've been spending a lot of time outside the past two weeks with the weather getting really warm in this part of the states!  I made a sandbox for D and M and they've been having a blast at our backyard.  So school has been only on rainy days, but a lot of life schooling has been happening lately.

As far as actual montessori work goes, D has been working on Complex Numbers using the golden bead material in math and has been really into the blue series words and blends.  I've also combined some of the Dwyer approach and have so far covered quite a bit of the two letter sounds (th, sh, ch, ar, etc).  D's been loving all the language work and has been trying to read anything she can get her hands on, which includes all signs, bottle wrappers, subtitles on TV, what not!  Also her writing skills have improved tremendously and she has been trying to write a lot.  For example when we do math, she writes down the complex numbers that she builds or when we do reading, writes down the words that we read.  Another thing is that her drawing has shifted from just doing stick figures and scribbling to some dimension in her drawing!

We've been to the library quite a few times and as usual me reading to her has been her favorite.  We recently got this book from the library and D loves it.  It is a sweet book which D relates to nicely.  Her grandma is sending her a package from India next month and this was perfect timing.  Also with her interest in foreign languages at its peak, this book with its different language names for close relatives and gifts that make sense to her was just awesome.

Montessori Print Shop Science CD Rom giveaway

Have you entered?  Check this out - Montessori Print Shop Science CD Rom.  I am late, but hope I win!