Hands On Equations

The basic premise of the montessori math program is pretty much the montessori approach to everything...quality, aesthetically pleasing concrete materials and free exploration combined with very brief instruction and individualized progression with an interal control of error.



I am always excited to find materials that fufill these criteria, are interesting to my kids, and still remain affordable. It isn't always easy, what with the prices at most montessori shops, but sometimes you get really lucky and find something that flies in under the montessori radar, and fuflills all the critera but doesn't have the expensive label and price.



Hands On Equations is like that.



It is the perfect marrriage of abstract puzzle and concrete materials, of easy computation and difficult thinking. I love it, but more importantly, my Dodo loves it and is not only learning how to solve equations, but to really understand them.




The wheels are turning...

Hmm maybe this number will work?

No.

Hmm, how about this one instead?

It worked!

Yep, it checks!

I'm all for any schoolwork that can bring out this range of emotion.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words...

...then here is my 4,ooo for today.

Chicken Run is at least 10 times her original size (she can no longer even fit into her tunnel!) and she is fully feathered!

Here is a timeline game I made, which we played today for the first time.

This is the sort of thing you would pay a hundred dollars for in a montessori shop! I paid about 20 dollars for the blue booklets (along with some yellow ones not pictured) and made all the other materials myself. I could have made the books as well, since they have the text in a free printable format online , but I bought cheap ink for my ink-guzzling epson CX6400 and now it won't print at all, anyway the ink cartridges for my model would run me about 55 bucks, so this was a bargain.

Here is a close-up of one of the cards. This one shows a trilobite, and some other ancient sea creatures.

Progressing through Pre-History

8

7
6
2
3
1
5
4
Okay, I posted these in correct order, but this is how it came up for some odd reason and I am too tired to fight with it!

It should have been posted in the numbered order, sorry. I didn't post all the pages, but just enough so you can get a good idea of what he's been up to. Dodo and Ugha usually join us for the read-aloud and the hands-on stuff, but I don't require narrations from them. Dodo has a prehistory journal too, since sometimes she wants to narrate or draw a picture about what we are learning.

The above are some of the pages in Scote's Prehistory Journal so far. Writing is still a struggle for him so he only has to write very short narrations. Sitting with him as he writes I am struck by how far my Dodo has come! I remember doing the exact same thing with her in kindergarten, but by the end of first grade she was writing half a page history narrations with no prompting, and now here she is a rising 3rd grader, and she fills pages! Her handwriting is doctor-esqe, but legible and at least not painful anymore.

The progression was so slow and steady I almost missed it, but my little Scote has brought it all back to me. I look forward to watching the same blossoming happen with him.

Everyone is really into the science, I am so glad I took the time to plan this out!

Another new game

I was at the dollar tree the other day and bought two 50-packs of colored thread, thinking they would be great for matching and sorting.
Then we were messing around with them and saw that they were just perfect for exploring gradiations of color.

After I took these pictures I realized exactly what they were...
THESE.

Duh.

Sometimes I swear it's like I reinvent the wheel from scratch. But anyway, two dollars trumps montessori prices any day.

~M

Nevermore

Here's another easy geography game to make. I bought a pack of party flags in a strip from Hobby Lobby on clearance for 2 dollars, cut them apart and made cards with a small picture of the flag on one side and the name of the country on the other.







We are also going to concentrate more on spelling this year, with the help of Spelling Power. If you are looking for a fun, hands on spelling program check it out.









Here are the rest of our spelling games, activities, and manipulatives.






The whole reason we went to Hobby Lobby yestarday was to buy some decent construction paper for our push-pinning, since the cheap stuff tears unevenly and fades super-quickly.

While I was there I noticed they had all their summer craft stuff and most of their furniture on clearance, the small tables, chests and shelves were only five dollars marked down from 35! So I ended up filling my cart with three small pieces of furniture, and tons of craft supplies, all for only 40 dollars.

Among all my treasures I bought a pack of long black feathers which the kids went nuts for.

"Are they raven feathers?"
"Ooh, Are they from The Raven?"

"Well, they've probably been dyed..."

Faces fall.

"Yes, they look real to me, right off the bird."

They were so excited they each took a feather and began chasing eachother all over the house, tickling eachother.

When they tired of that they began sneaking up on me at the computer and leaving their feathers.

Then they would hide and giggle maniacally to eachother, "We left our black plume as a token!"

So what could I do but scream, "Leave no black plume as a token, of that lie thy soul has spoken, leave my lonlieness unbroken/quit that bust above my door!"

And their absolute favorite part, "Take thy beaks from out my heart and take thy forms from off my door!"

You can guess what they told me...

"Nevermore".

Hands On Ideas

I just finished making all the cards for our rocks and minerals activities, which will be freely available in the afternoons after the first time I present the materials and explain how to use them.

We just finished the Hadean and are ready to start the Archaean, so we will be drenched in geology for the next few weeks.

The sorting and classification activities I made using the cards are for independant use and are all self-checking. Maria Montessori called that 'control of error'.






Here is one of our montessori puzzle maps.

The activities for these are limitless, but here is a picture showing some I've just finished preparing.










Invertebrate madness is yet to come!

Like the geology stuff above, this basket will join our shelves and be freely available once we reach the appropriate geologic era. It isn't that clear from this picture, but that basket is full of assorted shells for the classification/sorting activities.









Learning about landforms with sculpey, cards, and blue water. I've always thought that Montessori hit on a brilliant way of teaching landforms by showing their opposites, like lake/island, strait/isthmus etc.







Here's yet another use for the puzzle maps.
Push-pinning the countries/continents so they pop out and pasting them on a big blue sheet to make and label your own maps. The kids already tried this out, it was a big hit.

A pre-reading game

Here is an easy and high-interest game to make for your emergent readers.

It is based on those basic pre-school workbook activities where you match the picture to the letter of either the inital or ending sound. I found that using real objects, ala Montessori, holds the child's interest much longer than workbook pages, and can also be used many times and in many different (and more flexible) ways.

I bought a large bag of mixed buttons from our local Hobby Lobby to use for sorting/patterning type activities and I noticed there were all sorts of tiny detailed object buttons in there, like tents, pumpkins, trees, etc., which were just perfect for this activity, but you could just get a basket and gather tiny things from all over your house like coins, toy animals, hot wheels, dollhouse accessories, whatever. If you've got older children I know you have tons of legos, marbles, math counters and the like lying around, and you could use those.

This is not just a pre-reading (phonemic awareness) activity, but also a terrific exercise for speech development.

I never had any trouble with my Dodo, who spoke in clear sentences pretty much out of the womb, but both my Scote and Ugha have trouble with certain sounds, and sometimes say them incorrectly. If you look in the picture above you can see Ugha turning all but blue in the face struggling to say "f-ff-fish". If she doesn't concentrate she is liable to say "wish, www-ish" instead and place it on the W, but she knows this isn't a wish, of course, but a fish, so she usually self-corrects at that point, or at least looks mightily confused until I say fff-fff. Then she easily places it on the f.

Once your child has mastered the initial/ending sounds she's ready for simple words cards to match to objects. Cat, hat, rat, log, tent etc. And then progressing into more difficult words. You could even continue with this game into sentences just by writing out a sentence like "The cat is under the tree." and having the child arrange the objects to match the sentence.

Yet another Pre-History Update

I'd have gotten afraid of boring you guys with all these planning posts and written up a couple of amusing anecdotes ala Reader's Digest or something if my sense of humor wasn't arse deep in to-do lists.

Sorry.

On a happier note, I finally found a wonderful website about teaching the cosmic curriculum strictly from the science perspective, complete with my favorite kind of printables (free!) and lesson plans.

Horray!

It also explained exactly how to introduce and use the Clock of the Eras, which is another of those things I kept reading about but never really understood. I was like, "Yeah, okay it's a pie graph, big whoop.", but turns out it is a fantastic spine all on its own. Who knew?

At 1:30 am last night my Word file of Pre-history lesson plans was at 55 pages, and I still haven't even finished up to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Sigh.

It is always fun to start a big, challenging project, but then it just loses its fun around 1:00 am or page 54, whichever comes first.

Double sigh.

Pre-history Planning Update

Okay, so I mentioned before that I was developing a pre-history curriculum for my rising first grade ds, who I don't feel is quite ready for SOTW 1 yet. (and also I am not quite ready to reteach it so soon) It is supposed to based on a blend of TWTM and montessori's cosmic curriculum, remember?

Since you readers do not really exist except inside my head I won't wait for a response. It was mostly rhetorical, anyway.

I've been toiling away at it and man it is much, much, much more work than I realized it would be.

I spent hours just paging through the science books we already own and trying to coordinate them chronologically.

I never realized what a mish-mash some of those books are. Especially the dinosaur books. They jump back and forth and upside-down and start with Cretaceous, dabble in the Jurassic dinosaurs , then back to Cretaceous...And the only way you'd ever know it is the tiny timeline boxes or charts that usually accompany the illustrations.

Sigh.

Here are the plans, still in early development and missing a few resources, but a bit more fleshed out than last post...

Unit One
The Story of the Universe and Solar System

The basic idea to all the units is this...We use the clock of eras as our spine, and progress through natural history as it evolved. We pull in books (some read by me, some by them) on topics as we encounter them and have a montessori free-work period for doing research and using any materials/experiments that have already been presented.

It all begins with

creation/big bang blend story script with props, pictures and demos ala Mario Montessori (nope, not a typo...It's her son)
from Children of the Universe

Selected resources to give you an idea

What is a Star? Do Stars have points? Life cycles of Stars brainpop and stellar evolution video

Born with a Bang

What's the world Made of?

Solid/liquid/gas experiment &demo

Galileo'ss Drop & who can beat Gravity?

Children of the Universe Script 2-Solar System

Magic School Bus Solar System

3D solar system, inflatable activities

What makes day and night?
Demo/experiment

Moon seems to change, moon cycle chart

What is the moon?

Brainpop movie eclipse
eclipse activity with inflatable SS

Planets
Magic school bus lost in space video

Solar system puzzle

Gid constellations book /stargaze

Field Trip: EPISD Planetarium and Space Exhibits
Memory Work: Planets in order from sun, and in order by size
Distance to the Sun
Distance to the moon
Phases of the Moon
songs from twin sisters Space Cd

Unit Two
The Story of The Earth

Children of the Universe Script 3 presentation with volcano demo
Begin clock of eras: The Hadean

Selected resources
How mountains are made
What is a mountain?
From Here to There

Eyewitness volcano movie
Fire and Ice mountain kit and activities
What is a volcano?
Why volcanoes blow their tops
Layers of the Earth

Rocks and Minerals
I am a rock
Lets go rock collecting
"Geology Field trip in a bag" activities

"Brother Air "--Everything Kids: air experiments
field trip-kite flying

"Sister Water "--
Waterdance
What is a river?
MSB at the Waterworks
Watercycle shower curtain and brainpop movie
What is rain?
What is an ocean?

Field trip-Rio Grande River & Elephant Butte Dam and manmade lake

Magic school bus Rocks and Rolls (if I can find it)
Erosion brainpop

Yahooligans weather brainpop movie

Caves and Caverns
I am a rock
ODYSSEY magazine
Carlsbad Caverns curriculum suggestions & web photos
What are Stalagtites?

Selected montessori-esqe activities to choose from
See here for ideas
Field trip: Carlsbad Caverns
Memory Work: Three types of rocks,
Seven continents by size
10 longest rivers by length
water cycle
Oceans

Unit Three
The Story of Life
part 1
(one-celled organisms up to the extinction of the dinosaurs)

Clock of Eras

From Lava to Life
Children of the Universe script 4
Long Black strip
(30 m of either black yarn or party streamer with 1 cm red to show age of earth/life time ratio)

Eyewitness Life movie
All about Fossils


Guide to Dinosaurs
1st encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life
Dino Detectives

Archeology dig discussion/owl pellets (mimic an archeological dig)

Nature study-fossils with hands on activities (will post later)

"First Life: one celled"--
World in a drop of water
Bacteria farm kit & activities
Bacteria: The Good, the bad and the Ugly

Triops: Dino Shrimp activity/ nature study

Trilobites
Clams

Invertebrates classification chart
Sorting cards
nature study: Worms mix soil

Magic school bus coral reefs
Coral nature study

Scorpions nature study

Squids and Octopi

"Age of Fishes "
Prehistoric fish coloring book and tape set,
Big Creatures of the Past
Amazing World of Plants

Eyewitness Shark
Plants-moss
Making coal

Large insects (big creatures)
First lizard
First encylopedia

moss

Amphibians and reptiles
Classification chart
1st encyclopedia

I can read about prehistory
1st encyclopedia

prehistoric sea life coloring book and tape
plants conifers

dinosaurs cd, tape, coloring book
dinosaurs activity book (dover)

Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs
Dinosaur days step 2
Graveyards of the Dinosaurs

Dinosaur dig
dinosaur skeleton foam (from Mindware-looks just like wood) puzzles
Guide to Dinosaurs
Ch 7 Dinos of land, sea , and air
Did Dinosaurs live in your backyard?

Dinosaur World
Toy dinosaurs collection for sorting/playing and name ID and matching and activity cards

finish Did dinosaurs live in your backyard?
finish 1st encyclopedia

finish News about dinos

Eyewitness Dinosaur movie
Walking with Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs before Dark

Field Trip: El Paso Natural History Museum @ UTEP

Memory Work: Animal Classification, songs from twin sisters Dinosaurs and Zoology, common dinosaurs names &ID, Triassic-Jurassic-Cretaceous, carnevore/herbivore/omnivore

That's as far as I've gotten.

When the same book appears multiple times it means Ive had to separate sections by topic, I left the page numbers out for expediency's sake. Even if you imaginary readers really did exist and were interested, odds are you would be using a different set of resources, since many of my dinosaur books were bought second hand and are probably out of print.

I still have two more sections to plan: the Story of Life parts 2 and 3, and The Story of Man.

Children of the Universe

If you haven't heard from me lately that's because I have been trekking all over the internet trying desperately to find out more about the montessori "cosmic" curriculum.

All I could find were vague generalities about it how it was a chronological elementary study cycle which began at Creation/Big Bang, and segued from astronomy to physics to geology, archeology & geography into biology and ultimately history. I kept reading allusions to the "5 great lessons" but I was having a terrible time trying to figure out exactly what the heck those were, and how they were taught.

I finally found a (kooky new-age) website called "We are all made of Stardust" which was some sort of freaky montessori cult run by a catholic priest and a pagan lady (at least that's what they looked like from the photos) who tour the country speaking at "schools and open-minded churches".

It reminded me a little bit of all that scary psudo-religion you see when you scratch the surface of those "Waldorf" schools. The site did had some interesting skit scripts for a small group of children and an adult to act out with interesting topics of the topics like the life cycles of stars or extinct animals (and not the common ones either). It was interesting, but not what I was looking for. I was looking for a lot less "ritual" and a lot more structure (and science).

10,000 websites later and still no luck.

Finally I stumbled upon a review of a book called Children of the Universe , which seemed to be exactly what I needed.

I promptly ordered ordered it direct from parent-child press, and paid full-price. This should tell you just how desperately I wanted to read it. I can't even remember the last time I paid full price for a book. It must have been before I discovered Amazon.com and Booksamillion, and I can't for the life of me remember a time without them.

Anyway...

It much closer to what I was looking for, although not perfect.

After reading I was still left with many lingering questions, but it wasn't a total waste of money, since for each of the "great lessons" the book included a narrative and suggestions for visual aids and demonstrations showing how the montessori teacher might introduce the lesson. These were a nice blend of non-denominational spiritualism and hard science, and even better they tied the whole of what I was trying to accomplish together in a nice psudo-spinal way.

So my curriculum is starting to get some structure at last.

Each unit will begin with the script/demo and end with a local field trip, and in between we will have that same chronological combination of shared reading, independent reading, narrations, memory work, and hands-on activities that I so love about SOTW.

The topics covered in the book are

Cosmic Education: What it is and Why we teach it
Evolution and Cosmic Education
Cosmic Education and the Cultural Curriculum
The Story of the Universe
The Story of the Solar System
The Story of the Earth
The Story of Life
The Story of Humans
The Story of Civilizations
Cosmic Education and the Future
Appendix 1 - Scope and Sequence
Appendix 2 - Classroom Resources
Glossary
References

But I only plan to take it to the end of Story of Humans and then next year begin SOTW 1 with him.

The tail end of the book was a collosal waste of time. The scope and sequence in appendix 1 didn't make much sense to me, it took a nice, logical, linear progression and jumbled it up over haphazardly over several years. And the resources were too few, and too outdated. Like I said, the best part of the book are the scripts.

It also lacked a certain amount of depth of coverage of the curriculum that I have come to hope for (and find lacking) in most curriculum books since reading TWTM. Few resources live up to that standard, unfortunately.

I really wish there was a WTM-style book which covered this, but for now I will have to make it up as I go along.

It seems so hard to me, but really all I am doing is compiling a massivly organized year-long unit study. Or a series of unit-studies. A long series of massively organized unit studies. A really long series of...


~EH