Counting ladybirds...

Today, I have introduced the children to a new counting game. You need 2 children or more to play. I was delighted to see how excited and interested the children were. They kept saying they love that game and they queued up to have a go. 

The game is simple. Each card is turned face down on the table, showing dots in the pattern of a dice. The kids throw the dice and count the dots on it and then match them to a card. They then turn the card up. On the other side of each card, there is a leaf with 1, 2 or 3 ladybirds on it. Some leaf do not have any bug at all. At the end of the game, when each card has been used, the kids add up all their ladybirds and see who has the most! Simple. Great counting exercise! 

Happy New Year, everyone!

God, I didn't plan to stay away from my blog as long as I have.. I got caught up with the Christmas preparations. Next thing I know and we are just back from our 2 weeks break and I have not written one single line! Shame on me!

So first of all, I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year 2013. I hope you all enjoyed Christmas. I know we did. This was probably the most relaxing and wonderful Christmas I have ever had. And I am a bit sad it is already all behind us!

As I haven't posted anything at all for a long time, I thought I would bring you up to date with what happened in our classroom before our break, by showing you a few photographs.

We made some snow flakes out of lollipop sticks to decorate the Xmas trees.

The children have been progressing steadily with the phonetic sounds.

More art with a twist of maths.. The children had to figure out strips of green paper and arrange them on a page from longer to shorter in order to create a Xmas tree. Tricky for some but so much fun!

 

 

We also made a candy cane. The children used their fingertips to draw the cane. I then punched a hole on both side of it and wrapped a ribbon around it. And voila!

 

 

 

 

I always have the children creating a little something for them to offer their parents on Xmas day. Of course, they usually can’t wait that long but they absolutely love the idea of making a surprise for Mam and Dad. So this year, they painted a MDF frame and decorated it with sprinkle and their fingerprints (again). I added a few wooden ornaments I found in my local craft shop.Then, I took a picture of each child by our Xmas tree in the classroom, printed them and laminated them. The children finally inserted their photo in their own frame. I hope all parents like it. I know the children were very proud of the end result!!!

 

 

And of course, we made our traditional magic reindeer food. Each year, Santa sends us some magic dust by post. The magic dust helps the reindeer to fly throughout the night without getting tired as they work with Santa delivering the presents on Xmas Eve. Rachel and I love this activity and the children take it very seriously. I was however shocked this year, when one mother brought me the smallest jar she could find, complaining that the one I provided last year was too big and that it was too complicated to get rid of the food!!! She never got to explain to me what happened exactly (and maybe there is a valid reason) ; but I must say that her lack of enthusiasm did hurt my feelings! I spend so much time in organising and completing these activities. I do put my heart and soul into them and sometimes, it is thrown back at me, ungratefully… What a pity!! Never mind. Most children and parents DO love the magic these little jars bring to their homes and I guess this is what matter!

 

So this is more of less the highlights of our past 4 weeks. I hope you have enjoyed it. More is now on its way as I am writing new posts. So keep in touch. See you soon. Aude x

Who said the Montessori method had to be rigid??

We use the Brown Stairs and the Pink Tower in our classroom (please click on the links if you are not familiar with the Montessori method of education).  They are fundamental pieces of equipment in our sensorial area. Some Montessorian teachers are very strict with the way the children use these types of material. And I do appreciate why. However, I do not believe in being too rigid and I always leave room for imagination and constructivism in my classroom. So this week, the children did find another way to build the Brown Stairs and the Pink Tower and use them as a stepping stone to pretend play!! Cool...

Using the Brown Stairs with plastic animals..

Using our Pink Tower with little toy cars...

Developmental fine motor skills

This week, I added a new type of activity to our literacy shelves, for the children to practice their handwriting. Some of them still find it very hard to hold their pencil properly and to keep a steady hand when tracing or colouring. So I printed  a collection of activity pages/sheets that can be used for pre-writing practice. I laminated them all and bound them together. The children can now use them with a dry erase pen and use a brush to clean each sheet as they have completed the exercise.    Needless to say that the brush has added a great point of interest to the activity!!

 

 

 

Some preschool teachers will find these useful, and some will not. Montessori advocated the use of the salt/sand box to teach the child how to write. I think that variety is a key element in a classroom and the children really like this new activity. The eye-hand co-ordination required for writing/tracing is a very important developmental physical skill and I have found that requiring a child to trace lines and draw from dot to dots when they are not ready is the fastest road to fight with boredom and frustration. Children who are ready for this work, however, can enjoy a great deal of satisfaction and a sense of order when completing the pages too!! So it works for everybody!

Cute little owls

We are now finishing our study on hibernation and I had planned to make a little hedgehog to conclude our study. Yet, at circle time, as we were going over the names of the animals that go to sleep in winter, one little boy mentioned owls. I reminded him that owls do not hibernate. "I know that", he said. " But they keep an eye on all the animals that are asleep!! That's why owls don't sleep at night! They make sure the others are ok!". I thought it was so sweet. I made sure to use this opportunity  and introduced the term of "nocturnal". I took the example of our story "The Kissing Hand" at the beginning of the year when little Chester the Racoon was going to school at night time. Kids started toalking about hmasters and gerbils (some of them have some at home and knew that these little creatures only come to life really at night time!). It was a great teaching moment and it got the children talking a lot about their own exeriences and about what they knew.  Even though we use themes in our classroom to manoeuvre along our Montessori curriculum, I like the Reggio Emilia approach which leaves a lot of room for improvisation and constructivism. I really like the idea of project approach: sometimes a project is based on what I’ve observed the children doing, sometimes it’s based on things I hear the children talking about or questions they ask (just like happened today). This is why I thought of a little craft for them to do and this is what we ended up with:

 

I got some fabric I had saved up and cut it up into little squares. I made templates of owls using cereal boxes. The children spread the PVA glue onto the template and covered it up with the fabric.

 

 

Then the children added the eyes and beaks made out of felt and finally they glued on buttons to make the eyes look bigger!

 

So cute!!!

Another pre-reading activity

Here is a little activity we have done these past 2 days. Some children can already recognise their names on their name tags without even referring to the picture attached to it. Some need a bit more practice. This exercise proved to be perfect: the children had to glue the chick peas or split red lentils onto the traced letters of their names. They really had to concentrate hard! Great way to develop their visual memory! (I am sorry if all the photos are crooked! I don't know how to fix this problem. The pictures are perfect in my folder on the computer but for some reason, they come up the wrong way sometimes when I use them on my blog!!)

 

 

Making progress in writing

The children have started learning to recognise their names since the beginning of the year. We use a very simple method: their name tags on top of their coat hangers ...

....  and the ones they use on our roll call board.

They also do work in their work copies and when asked to do so, they have to retrieve their copy, recognising their names written on the front cover (sorry,I don't have any picture).

 

The next step is to help them write their names down, which can be very tricky for some. But this is what preschool is all about!! Learning, practising, trying ... I wrote a post right here in the past, explaining how we proceed. Some of the children have very poor penmanship and we let them practise their skills using worksheets, joining dots at first. 

I also find that tracing over words does help them a lot too. In the photo below, you can see a child tracing over words related to Autumn time. Though he cannot read yet, he is able to associate the written symbols to a meaning, thanks to the picture placed beside the written word. 

Once the children are much more confident at holding their pen and tracing carefully, we move on to the tracing of their names and finally, we completely get rid of the dots. Read the post I mentioned above and you will fully understand what I am talking about.

 

This year, I have added another step: I have created little booklets for the children to help them practise the letters in their names. (I cut a work copy into 2 to make the little booklets).

Let's take JESSICA for instance. 

Jessica will have to start tracing the letter J, using dots ; then she will reproduce the letter all on her own.

The procedure will be repeated for each letter of her name until she is ready to reproduce them all together independently.

The booklet is actually a great way to record how the children are progressing and how much they have achieved so far. The booklet will also be a nice little keepsake at the end of the year.

Of course, everytime we introduce a letter to the child, we will use  the sand paper letters and the salt/sand box to teach him the right way to trace the letter.

In a Montessori classroom, the sand/salt box is always used as a stepping stone to many other writing and reading activities. In our preschool, we also use a dry erase board in conjunction with the salt box. It is a very effective way to practise and the children like the idea of using the brush to clean the board. Some people use chalk boards. I personally think that chalk is a bit too messy in a classroom and this is why we use dry erase boards instead.

So, over the weeks to come, this is what we wil be all at in our classroom. And by next June, all the children moving to Primary School should be able to write their names all on their own!!I will of course present the children with several other types of activity to diversify and vary the learning process and make it more interesting. So keep in touch!