Montessori at home with love

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Continent Mobile

Christian is tracing all 7 continents using the Montessori Maps we purchased at Alison Montessori.
https://www.alisonsmontessori.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=montessori+map

We are going to color them in, label them and then laminate them.
Then we are going to construct a hanging mobile.

We will continue working on this all week! I'll post pictures of the mobiles when we have completed them! :)

Dinosaur Dig

We received this dinosaur dig activity for Christmas. This is the coolest activity for kids. Christian and Joshua have been digging for dinosaur bones for months now. Thank you Aunt Heidi and Uncle Paul.

With this work, the boys get safety goggles and real excavation tools. You chip away at the minni pebbles looking for signs of dinosaur bones. Then you must brush away the pebbles.

We have found all of the bones except for one facial bone.

Christian is constructing the dinosaur.

Experiment with colors

Today Joshus wanted to work withthe color tablets and test tubes.
Joshua first placed the individual test tubes into the test tube rack. Then he fills up each test tube with water. Next, Joshua places 1 color tablet in each test tube. As you can see in the next picture, the color tablets fizz into the water. This is a great way to learn colors and to also learn what happens when we combine certain colors.

The test tubes, the test tube rack and the color tablets, I bought from Steve Spangler Science -http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1618

Steve Spangler science is a wonderful company. Steve was formally a science teacher. He left teaching science due to the obstacles the educational system puts on teachers. Out of his passion for teaching science to children ,he created a company that sells all sorts of cool, kid oriented science experiments. I have bought a lot from Steve Spangler Science and never have been disappointed!

In a previous post, Christian used a color mixing pitcher from Steve Spangler Science. Christian learned a great deal about combining colors with this pitcher.
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1805

In this photo you can see the color tablets at the bottom of the test tubes. We love Steve Spangler Science!!! http://http//www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1156

More Fun with salt and water

Christian decided to make under water volcano's with salt. This summer we did a volcano lapbook. In our lapbook we put together a page of different types of volcanoes. Underwater volcano's were one of the volcano's we studied. I'll have to post pictures of our volcano lapbook. If you are interested in learning about lapbooking for children here is a great website. http://www.lapbooklessons.com/

Christian added a crater to the top of the volcano.

Rocks around the perimeter and color tablets to resemble lava flowing out onto the ground.

Salt & Water Experiments

In this experiment the boys observed that the salt in small amounts absorbs the water on the plate right away. The salt was neat to look at under the magnifying glass.

We also measured water in measuring cups and added specific amount of salt in a 2 different containers. This time we used a lot of water .We put one container in a very warm area and one container in a colder area. We are going to see how long it takes the salt to absorb the water or maybe the salt won't absorb the water at all.??????

The boys love science. We do a lot of science projects. After we complete the science project the boys are free to explore in any way they would like to. This often leads to a fun research project or even another science experiment.

The best part of all of this is - the boys are learning to love and enjoy learning. This love of learning is nurtured because most of the time we are learning about things that interest them. When learning is motivated by there individual interest we are able to go into greater depths.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The amazing power of a Montessori education

Hi,

I was reading one of my blogs and came across this article about the power of a Montessori education and I wanted everyone to see it! This women's son did this work at home after watching a child receive a lesson on it at Montessori school. First thought that comes to mind, is the power of modeling. Second, the Montessori classroom is such a inspiring place for a child. Every child is doing something different, they are not all doing the same thing.

Great article!

http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/my_montessori_journey/2009/01/the-amazing-power-of-a-montessori-education.html

Some of you may be wondering What is Montessori anyway? I'll answer that question tommorrow!

Peace be with you and make your days great!

Teresa

What is Montessori -

Here is a great article about the Montessori philosphy. It is a long article.

http://www.montessori.org/sitefiles/Montessori_101_nonprintable.pdf

February 2 2009

Today we played, did our "lessons" and visited Cousin Michael and Marissa!

Here we are visting cousin Marissa and cousinn Michael.

Joshua likes to spin the earth slowly on the table. As the earth spins, christian is reading a book!

Christian is painting!

Joshua is looking at the pictures in the North America minni book.

Joshua has learned where North America is on the globe. He likes to show me and say "I live here".

Christian is doing some cleaning work!

Joshua is working on his pattern boards. He made a butterfly.

Today we did an experiment with cornstarch and water. We are learning that certain types of matter can be a liquid and a solid at diffrent times. Cornstarch gets very hard and sticky as you add water.