School days

Let's just say that school has been quite interesting these days with the recent quarantine over the coronavirus.  DJ has been working from home (or shall I say the kitchen table) and it is a bit distracting at times.  He takes calls there and also has his zoom video calls.  It wouldn't be so bad if we were in the classroom, but this teacher is 9 months pregnant and over climbing up down those stairs for school.  I park it in my chair at the table and we have been making do.  It's that time of year when the weather is warming up and we all want to be outside anyway!  Here are a few things we've been up to lately.

Mumbs was shown the spindle rods today (even though she doesn't know all of her numbers.)  I just couldn't resist her when she brought it up from the classroom.  She did really well and is actually capable of working with it.  Ideally, the child has mastered the red rods, number rods and cards, and the number sandpaper letters.  However, following the child usually takes priority!

Bubs worked with fractions.  He was struggling with the concept of adding fractions with unlike denominators.  He persevered though and ended up doing 10 equations by himself.

Ok, I'm not sure if this painting is Mumbs or Belle's or actually a combination.  All I know is that I was on a phone call and then I got word from an older child that they were painting in the classroom by themselves and there was paint on the floor, all over the easel, and on themselves!  #wherewastheteacher

Nito worked on the sensorial decanomial.

T-Man working on the small bead frame.  He was shown dynamic subtraction and has taken off with it.  I tend to underestimate his capability.  He is still little T-Man to me.

Mumbs has been very interested in the sandpaper letters so I am trying to not lose this sensitive period without taking full advantage of it.  I neglected T-Man during this phase and he is not quite where I would like him to be with his reading.  Hopefully, I can keep it up after the baby comes and with summer approaching. 

Nito and T-Man love the new clock I got.  Ok, it's a bit huge and obnoxious, but it has some cool features.  The dial can be turned and the small circles will change to roman numerals, a 24 hr clock, or it will have words like "half past".  

Ok so then this happened!  Our daily walk while we prayed the rosary.  Although I give DJ a hard time sometimes, it has been such a blessing to have him at home during his busy season as a tax accountant.  He is home for all of our meals and we sneak in extra daddy time when he isn't on a call.  Mumbs loves pushing Belle in the stroller.  

The kids are on a home school cross country team through our church, but practice has been cancelled for the spring season.  I decided to take matters into my own hands and try to recreate some of the things they do in their spring conditioning practices.  We happened to have two random tires from the van and some logs from when we lost branches from our tree.  I created different obstacle courses with cones, balls, a soccer goal, wheelbarrow, etc and then timed each of them to make it competitive.  You would be surprised how hard it is to push a tire!

Kui working hard to not let her younger brothers beat her.  She beat Bubs by 6 seconds!

Nito jumping through tires and over logs.  He then had to go kick a ball in the soccer goal and push the wheelbarrow around the blue spruce tree.

In the end, all of the children, even Belle, were doing the obstacle course in their own way.  It was a lot of fun to watch and those boys really need to get their daily dose of jumping and climbing out of their system.  

We will probably take Holy Week off or we may persevere since school will essentially be over for the year once the baby comes in a few weeks.  I will continue to post about our weekly Sunday dinners as I can. China is tomorrow.  Very fitting for our current lockdown situation.  Mumbs picked the country this week.  Stay tuned!

School days

Bubs was working on positioning of lines and types of angles today.

Mumbs took a stab at lacing.

Nito working on the distributive law of multiplication.

 

T-Man working on handwriting with the sand tray.  

Bubs loves these snap circuits!  He has been working on some new engineering/coding material that I should hopefully be posting about soon.  

Mumbs loves the smooth/rough boards!

Nito was presented lines today.  This is a terrible angle, but the blue water represents the horizontal line like what you would see if you are looking out at the horizon while on the beach.  He could easily visualize that since we went to the beach a few months ago.

The follow up to his presentation was the nomenclature booklets.

Sorry this picture is blurry.  He tried his best to match them up.  He still needs some practice on this one.  Thankfully he can check the control booklet because I can't remember all of those things!

T-Man was finally shown watercolors.  He was so excited to be able to use the materials that he always sees his brother doing.  

 

Of course it didn't take Bubs long to get out his version of painting after he saw T-Man.

Nito started working on homophones.  He was able to name quite a few not on this list.  I think he got this pretty easy and we can move on.

I introduced the idea of magnetism to Bubs.  The first lesson was just the idea of the magnetic force and then he went around the room with his clipboard trying to stick magnets to everything.  He recorded his answers on his table.  It was super cute.  He looked all official!  All he needed was a pencil behind the ear to pull off the look!

Nito was shown addition of fractions.  Oh my goodness, for anyone who knows how animated Nito is, they would appreciate this.  We did 1/4 + 1/4.  He came up with the answer of 2/4.  Then as part of the presentation he is supposed to see if any larger fractions fit within the space on the inset (which teaches reduction of a fraction).  So he checked thirds, no.  He checked halves, YES!!  He jumped out of his chair and starting laughing, "Ha Ha Ha Ha".  He was so excited that it fit.  You can only guess his enthusiasm when he reduced 1/4 + 3/4.  Yes, it equals 1 whole!!  

Mumbs working on the binomial cube.  Does it ever surprise anyone else when you come to see your child working "next to" the work rug instead of actually on it?!  I mean, I guess I have to give her credit for getting one out.  Now, I just need her to actually use it.

Because this guy is perfectly chill not using a work rug at all.  I got this crazy, wild, colorful rug to add some fun and color to the classroom, but I don't see how they can actually see their work without a work rug, especially something like color tablets!

T-Man working on the addition strip board.  Man......I didn't have the heart to tell him that his strips were not going to fit at that particular desk.  He is so stubborn sometimes and has to learn the hard way.  Well.....he did when they all started falling off.  He threw himself on the ground and started crying.  It was actually quite comical and we all started laughing.  Then he busted out laughing and we moved him to a work rug with much more room to spread out.  

School Days

The last few days have been pretty productive in our classroom.  I have to admit that it is probably because I finally got my boys a planner to write down their work each day.  It is a bit non-traditional in Montessori to write down what the kids are expected to do in one day, but it has really helped build my boys work ethic and I think I will stick with it for a few months and slowly wean them off of it.  For whatever reason, they just haven't built that inner discipline to be able to choose something off of the shelf correctly.  Ok, there really isn't a right or wrong way to choose something off of the shelf, but when they are constantly choosing snap circuits or reading a book, I had to drawn the line, or at least come to a happy compromise, for the moment!  Record keeping in Montessori is something on my list to blog about in the near future.

Nito working on the decanomial square (sensorial decanomial) again.  He has such a sense of order and this material really speaks to him.  The main purpose of this material is to help the child discriminate size, shape, and color.  It is also a preparation for math and squaring.  I also think that it pulls Nito in because of the visual harmony that is established and he can see when he gets off of the pattern.

T-Man was presented the short chains earlier this week and has taken them off of the bead cabinet everyday since!  It is a great early work for multiples.

Nito working on Grammar Box II.  He loves finding the patterns of the different plurals for nouns.  For instance, to add "ies", almost every word ends in the letter "y".  

Mumbs "built" the pink tower. However, when I started asking her to find me the largest one, the next largest one, and so on.....she built the tower easy peasy.

This was her building it onto the stand to put it away after about the 5th time.

Nito started the suffix chart today.  As soon as I started showing him the materials, Bubs interrupted and said, "Oh, that is not fun Nito!"  I quickly told him to hush and get back to his work!  He's tainting the fresh perspective of his brother.  Now, this isn't the first time this has happened in the classroom.  Kui was notorious for tainting Bubs' view on fractions and it is quite difficult to undo something like that, no matter how fun you try to make fractions!

After the presentation, Nito DID happen to say that it was fun.  I was happy to hear that.  As for the picture above, the child chooses a word from the chart.  The base (root) word is put in black and then the suffix is added with the red moveable alphabet.  The same will apply when he works with the prefix chart.

T-Man working on his letters on the chalkboard.  He's a lefty like his mama (and Gigi)!

Mumbs and I worked on the action cards.  These are great for her age because she loves looking at the pictures.  We can easily do a three period lesson.  For example, show me "licking".  Hand me "hugging".

Bubs worked diligently for quite some time with the geometric form of multiplication.  He was excited to have a new presentation and it involved colored pencils!!  He does really well in math and picked it up quickly.

T-Man is still working on his beginning sounds using the movable alphabet.  He is struggling a bit with the transition of how the sandpaper letters look versus the movable alphabet letters.  There is a bit of a difference, which is overcome fairly easily with a little bit of practice.  The older children worked through it fine.  Unfortunately, It's the downfall of not buying the expensive Neinhuis materials.  :(

Bubs working on the names of the oceans and seas of the world.  

School Days

School Days

Mumbs starting sandpaper letters and she is doing so well!  I don't think I have ever managed to start a child at 3 yr. old when you are supposed to!  I can see a huge difference with her interest and attention to detail when she traces each letter.  She started with 3 vowels and after a week, she knows all three short sounds that the vowel makes.  

She has also been dabbling with the red rods.  As you can see in the background, the toddler is very excited to help her.

Progress has been made now that the toddler has left the room!

Yay for Mumbs!  After some diligence, she got the red rods in order.

Brotherly love.  Nito reinforces his knowledge of the bow frame while he shows his brother T-Man.  

Nito also spent some time working on his multiplication with the multiplication board.  He's definitely ready to move on to the next presentation.

After the bow frame was brought out by her brother, Mumbs felt compelled to do the zipper frame.  Although she mastered that awhile ago!  

T-Man did some work with the cards and counters.  He's got this down and will be ready to move to the next presentation.  

Hmm.....some may ask where Bubs and Kui are.  Where was Bubs today????  That is a great question.  I believe he was working diligently on his spelling and vocabulary along with writing a story about construction workers.  Kui has officially moved on to a different homeschooling curriculum now that she is in 7th grade.  Unfortunately, we do not have a farm school close enough for her to attend.  

We are BACK!

So....it has been quite some time since I have posted.  Another baby has joined our family and we are still in a waiting game with our classroom.  It is under construction AGAIN!  This time, we are putting tile down to avoid any more delays in our schooling if our cool pipe wants to burst again.  I have to admit that it is quite frustrating and a huge disruption to our school year.  However, I am trying to stay patient and joyful in the meantime.  So, for awhile, the pictures that I post will be from my main living area, not the classroom.  Once we are back in business, I will post a new tour of the classroom. 

Just to keep you up to date, here is a run down of the ages of children we have:
Kui - Upper Elementary
Bubs - Lower Elementary
Nito - Primary/Transitioning into Lower Elementary
T-Man - Primary
Mumbs - Toddler
The baby - Infant

Let me first tell you that homeschooling Montessori is quite the challenge, but it absolutely can be done.  I have met my fair share of challenges, but the connection with the materials and the children always bring me back to why I do this in the first place.  For example, I was in sort of a slump with the classroom situation, but I was able to present T-Man the spindle rods, Nito the stamp game, Bubs the number base board, etc. and I instantly had my joy back!  My husband even commented on how joyful I was that day when he was working from home. 

I hope to break down some new presentations this year, especially for Elementary.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the week.

T-Man is working on the cards and counters.  

Mumbs is doing what every other toddler does.  Destroys the environment!  Who doesn't love a good game of matching up the color tablets after they have been dumped upside down?  Actually T-Man saw these later and sorted them all out.  So, maybe there is some good that comes out of the chaos?!?!

Kui is doing some good ole review on the decimal board.  

Bubs is working on an outline using our writing program, IEW.  See that post here.

T-Man's work with the number rods and cards.  I think he had some help from Bubs (who was trying to get out of his own schoolwork!).