Animal Atlas

Over the past few weeks we have introduced the children to the map of the world. They have learned to differentiate land shapes from oceans and have learned the names of each continent. Each continent is colour coded in a Montessori classroom. This helps the children to remember which is which a lot easier and they now can point at each of them on the map at circle time without any hesitation. The next step was to teach them some characteristics unique to each of the continent.

More writing exercises

Maria Montessori was a big advocate of teaching writing before reading. And this make sense when you think about it. This " makes perfect sense when you consider that the process of writing is encoding, a process much less complicated than decoding, which reading necessitates. The children learn the sounds of the English language and their corresponding symbols, and soon learn that they can put these together to make words. Later on, they have what is often called an "explosion" into reading. They know all the sounds, understand concretely what it means to put letters together to make words, and for this reason are quite well-prepared for reading, and as soon as they realize that they have what it takes, generally take to it quite easily" (Melissa Joanne, Diary of a Montessori Teacher )

Our writing activities extend throughout much of the curriculum as I mentioned it in our previous post on writing. Yet, I am always on the look out for new exercises and new ideas to encourage the children to write.

Therefore, today I showed them how to write their name in the sand. It is a great practice for them. I had presented this exercise earlier on in the year but I soon realised they were not ready for it. They were still  learning to recognise their names among many others and they were not that interested back then. But this time, it was a success.





I had a brainstorming session over the week end and I came up with another "amusing" way for the children to keep practising at writing their names.

I wrote their names down in big letters and pin them down on a cork board.

I wrapped a big sewing needle up with cellor tape so that their little fingers wouldn't slip on it when using it to dot the letters of their names.

This is the final result! I didn't expect them to be so keen on doing this exercise.. but they were actually queuing for it!! Imagine this! They kept asking :"when is it my turn to do my own name?". Which of course prompted a conversation between them as they queued: it takes longer to say my name than your name", or " I like my name, do you like your name?It was so interesting to listen to them. And the pride showing on their face upon completing the exercise was priceless! I am already working on new ideas slightly diverging from this presentation. Just wait and see..

Amazing Africa

We are still studying Africa. It is coming to an end though. So before we close for our mid-term break, I wanted to show you what we have done so far.

We introduced Africa to the children by reading Handa’s surprise.

Handa's surprise

 I had a poster illustrating the story that I got from Scholastic.

 After reading the story to the children, we studied the poster. I explained to them that Handa and her friend Akeyo come from a small village in Kenya, Africa. We talked about the similarities and differences in appearance between the children in the poster and the children around us (skin colour, hairstyle, clothing et..). The book also gave us the opportunity to talk about animals who live in Africa. Which one eats grass & leaves, which one eat meat (carnivore/herbivore). It also showed the children which fruit grow in Africa (I had to explain how they come from Africa onto a big boat to Ireland and then onto a truck that delivers fruit to Tesco!!!!!)

The favourite part of the study for the children is when we pretend we are going on a safari! I have binoculars and I pretend I can see some animals. They have to guess which animals I am talking about. Then we have a break in the African grasslands and we take out snacks from our backpacks : mango, guava, tangerines... Yummy yummy. Let's not forget a drink as it is very very hot in Africa. And we check our map to see which route to take.. The children always ask for more!!!

Valentine's Day preparations

When we started talking about Valentine, I explained to the children that Valentine is about love. And we went over the many different kinds of love there are: family love, love for friend, love for pets etc... It was so sweet when a little boy exclaimed proudly that his girlfriend was his little sister!! A little girl also said shyly that her daddy was her boyfriend! I sang our little valentine tune:

“you are my sunshine, my only Sunshine, You make me happy when skies are grey, You’ll never know dear, How much I love you, Please don’t take my sunshine away”.

 For arts & crafts, we made the following using check peas and cereals cardboard boxes :

Get some chickpeas

The children glue the chick peas onto a red painted heart template. Once dried, they paint over.

Et voila! So easy, so natural, and so effective! I am really pleased with the results. And the kids REALLY enjoyed it.