Pirate Ships and Sealing Wax...

George Washington: A Narration

2012-01-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

"George Washington liked to ride his horse, maybe because he really liked horses. He saved the people and made them free by fighting in the war. He won the war. He was the first president of the United States. Because of all that hard work they should have taken him to go bowling or something."

--Logan, 5

I love Charlotte Mason's method of narration to prepare children for writing. I got a real kick out of Logan's history narration above. After reading A Picture Book of George Washington by David A. Adler I asked Logan to tell me what he knew about George Washington. I allowed him to flip through the book to remind him of what we had read. I will copy this down onto a nice notebook page to include in his history notebook. Someday I will start a Book of Centuries; a family book that will grow throughout the years, documenting people and history on a timeline. To learn more about narration and the Book of Centuries you might enjoy visiting my favorite Charlotte Mason sites, AmblesideOnline.org and SimplyCharlotteMason.com.

A. A. Milne: Winnie the Pooh

2012-01-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,
"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

Blake-age 3

A. A. Milne is the creator of the beloved tales of Winnie the Pooh and a few collections of children's poetry. Milne's style is definitely unique and my boys are loving it. "Oh bother!" my oldest son mumbled when his paper ripped while completing a math assignment the other day. And Ernest Shepard's delightful illustrations have always inspired me. Accept no substitutes for his originals.

We've been reading chapters of Winnie-the-Pooh for a few days now and today we decided to try out Shepard's illustration technique for ourselves. As with the boys' John James Audubon paintings, I sketched out an image they selected from our reading onto heavy watercolor paper (it really is worth the extra buck or two for paper that doesn't warp). Of course, for other art projects I want my boys to be creative and sketch out their own ideas but for today's lesson I wanted them to focus on the application of the watercolors. We discussed two main concepts of watercolor painting. First we talked about wetting the paper and dabbing on color to watch it spread to create a soft background. Then I showed them how to gently hold the brush to allow for more control as they painted the characters. They noticed that when they pressed harder the bristles spread out and it was harder to keep the colors where they wanted them.


Logan-age 5

My five year old practiced mixing colors on the paper. I should note that we used watercolors from a tube; much better for getting rich colors in a better variety.

I considered having the boys go back over their paintings with thin black ink lines. I really should if I want them to really experience watercolor and ink...we'll see if we brave that or not.

I wanted my boys to have a little background information about Milne's writing and I found just what I was looking for at this site. I read through it and paraphrased the information my boys would be interested in. We learned that Winnie was a real bear at the London Zoo and Christopher fed her condensed milk on a spoon and that she was originally a military mascot. I printed off some pictures, which my boys then pasted to notebooking pages. My oldest copied out a caption and my youngest dictated his to me and I wrote it out for him. You can find some nice free notebooking templates at Notebookingpages.com.

I found these nice pages for copywork at Home School Launch. My 5 year-old is copying a page a day for his writing practice and should end up with a nice little notebook by the time we finish our unit.

We've been sick at our house so we enjoyed reading "Sneezles" from Milne's When We Were Six. This collection of poetry is available for viewing online for free through the Rosetta Project, though I think I may pick up a copy at the bookstore for more convenient reading. Don't forget to read the introduction; it's hilarious. Milne's When We Were Very Young is another great collection of children's poems. To celebrate Milne's poetry, I put cards with various ending blends (-old, -ish, -uch, -oth, etc.) into an old Winnie the Pooh box. The boys draw out a card and create 3 sets of the ending sound with our moveable alphabet. They can then choose beginning sounds to create rhyming words. Or we do as we did today and sit in a circle and take turns drawing out a card and calling out all the words we can think of that end in that sound.

When I was in junior high I was really into Classic Pooh. I pulled a rug, a pillow and a throw I have kept from those days together, along with a stuffed piglet and pooh, to create our own "thoughtful spot" for reading.

We watched this fun video about how honey is made and since then we've been making peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Another favorite treat right now are the Winnie the Pooh animal crackers from Costco. I plan to have a Pooh Party, like the one Christopher Robin gives for Pooh, complete with "those little cake things with pink sugar icing" that Pooh asks for in the book. But more on that as we continue our study.

A Lesson in Laundry

2011-12-20T18:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas came early at my house!! We started new daily task charts with my boys and I've been so pleased to see them continue to follow through a month later. Past attempts haven't worked so well but the oldest is feeling really empowered this time and his younger brother is always ready to follow.

Sorry for the awful pic but I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to get a better one : )

Their charts, which I found here, include very simple things like getting dressed, putting clothes in their laundry basket, brushing teeth, and setting the table. I clip a new chart on a clipboard that hangs on a hook with their aprons and dusters each week. They carry the charts with them as they complete their tasks and hang them back up when they are done. My oldest is feeling so great about his ability to contribute that he surprised me one morning (and several mornings since) by loading and unloading my washing machine and drier without being asked!

Proud Laundry Boys

Being willing to take advantage of a good thing, I decided to give my boys a laundry "lesson" so my son could start the machine on his own (without jamming the machine or overdoing it with the detergent). By moving a step stool into the laundry room and moving my own laundry basket into my closet (thanks for the offer but I think I prefer to wash my own clothes) I was able to accommodate my little laundry workers. I taught them how to sort whites from coloreds and how full to fill the machine. I taught them about the different water temperatures and what the different dials mean (and which ones they shouldn't adjust without asking first). They now know how much detergent to use and when to put it in. They know to check the lint filter and which setting they should use to dry. Believe it or not, they were fascinated by all of this. Might as well teach a child a skill when he displays an interest then argue with him about it when he's a teenager (okay, I'm sure my boys will still groan about laundry when they're older but at least they will know how to do it). Laundry today was a good as a party as far as they were concerned. This won't be added to their list of tasks, but they will sure be welcome to help when they are interested. Now if I could just convince my husband that there's nothing he would rather do in the morning then put clothes away...all my laundry dreams come true! : )

Christmas Buttons

2011-12-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

We're really careful about the amount of goodies we make during the holidays...sugar and my family just don't go together very well. But there are so many wonderful things about creating Christmas treats together to share with neighbors that I we just picked our very favorite...our Christmas Buttons. A sweet little preschooler made some of these for me a few years ago. Let me warn you, they are hard to resist! Think bite sized minty chocolate dipped pretzel; the perfect combination of salty and sweet.

Always the Montessorian, I gathered together all the materials my boys would need to make these themselves: Candy Cane Kisses, square pretzel snaps, and Christmas colored M & M's.

First the boys carefully lined their cookie sheets with pretzels.

Then they unwrapped their kisses. Great practice for little fingers.

I provided an extra dish for the unwrapped kisses and the wrappers: easy cleanup and a chance to practice sorting.

Next they centered their kisses on the pretzels. I put these into a 350 (f) degree oven for about 5 min. You might experiment on the time to see what works best.

While the kisses were still warm we pressed the m&m's into the soft chocolate. The minty smell in the kitchen was amazing and the buttons tasted even better. A fun and simple treat for the boys to place in a little dish and share with their primary teachers.

Bible Videos of the Birth of Christ

2011-12-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

.These beautiful short videos about the birth of Jesus Christ were recently released by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. These simple clips would make a wonderful addition to any Christian celebration. The church has announced that these are the first 6 of many short videos that will shortly be released about the life of Christ. To learn more visit www.lds.org. Merry Christmas!

Mom Bloggers Talk Montessori: A Free E-Book!

2011-12-08T06:56:00.001-08:00

A while back I received an invitation from Deb Chitwood, creator of LivingMontessoriNow, and John Bowman, author of Montessori At Home (both fabulous resources for incorporating Montessori methods in your child's education at any level). They were looking for entries to include in a new FREE e-book, Mom Bloggers Talk Montessori and it has now been published! In it you will find a variety of Montessori inspired learning activities and thoughts from Montessori moms (including myself), as well as links to their blogs. I hope you enjoy it!

Vintage Nativity Advent Remake

2011-12-03T04:57:00.001-08:00

Christmas would not feel like Christmas without some of the things we cherished when we were little. One of those things for me is this Nativity Advent Calendar that my mom made when she was first married. There are so many different advent ideas out there but I love that this calendar focuses on the birth of our Savior. I've been anxious to get one made for my own little family for the past few years now and I've finally got one put together.

As you can see I still need to add my animals. Pom poms and felt were more popular a couple of decades ago and easier to find in a variety of colors so I may actually needle felt my camel, if I ever get to it. The wool felt you find in specialty quilt shops is much nicer if you can find it and comes in more varieties then what you can find at a craft store. My little figures are made from scraps left from other projects.

I chose to go with round typewriter key numbers instead of stitching around all of those numbers. You'll notice in the pic that right now my numbers are just printed on paper, cut out sloppily and pinned to the pockets. Works for now, maybe I'll find time to print them on muslin, iron them on with Wonder Under (I've read it works well with felt but haven't tried it yet) and get them stitched in place by next Christmas : ).

I didn't have a pattern so I just traced the figures from my mom's nativity. Perhaps I could figure out a way to scan in the pattern if anyone is interested. Just leave me a comment to let me know you're looking for it.

Notice the little felt ears, mane and tail, and horns on the little animals. I love how nubby these pom poms are.

The panel itself measures 22in x 36in with a 25in dowel rod. Each pocket is about 4 inches high. I cut the pockets of one row and the flaps of the next as one piece, layer the pieces and created the pockets with my stitching.

Each pocket will hold a little strip of paper with a service idea for my boys to perform. Right now they include "dust a shelf," "read to a brother," "write a letter to Kyle (who just completed basic training and is away right now)," "Get ready for church without being reminded." My boys are working to fill the manger under our Christmas tree with enough straw for baby Jesus by Christmas morning. They get to place one piece of "straw" (strips of raffia, I've tried real straw before...it's a mess) in the manger for each kindness we see them perform throughout the season.

Our Manger: the doll cradle I received for Christmas when I was 2

Children's Art Gallery

2011-11-26T06:05:00.001-08:00

I finally got my art gallery hung on the wall and I'm so excited about it! My boys love to create but we can get bogged down in all the paper...and glue, and feathers, and etc, etc, etc. With our art gallery in place we can pick our very favorite pictures for display. When art is rotated I will place the pieces in their notebooks for keeping. They each have a "special things" box as well where they can keep all the "don't through that away!" papers. When their boxes are full they must take something out before they put anything else in.

I went to our local thrift shop and picked up these frames for a couple of dollars a piece and painted them this great mustard color. This frame is my favorite! I was going to attach black binder clips just below the tops of the frames and clip the art in and out but decided I liked the sticky goo better because I can center the pieces. As a side note, you may recognize my son's Starry Night from this previous post. These sunflower pictures were also done as part of our study of Van Gogh, this time of his sunflowers. Another coming together of art and nature study.

Children and Holiday Meal Preparation (And Some Recipes)

2011-11-21T07:01:00.001-08:00

We were always welcome to help my mom in the kitchen when I was younger. My oldest brother was famous for his pies. He was always experimenting with different vinegars in the crust...mmmm. We enjoyed Sunday afternoons when another brother and his friends would have Bunt Cake Bake Offs. Nothing like sitting around the kitchen table with a bunch of teenage boys and a variety of bunt cakes. Even my younger brother and my dad shared their "secret" recipe for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

As the only girl in the family, cooking was something my mother and I loved to do together. So I was devastated one Thanksgiving when I was about 8 years old when we went out of state to celebrate the holiday and I was whisked out of the kitchen by relatives when it was time to prepare the meal. Of course now I can see that there were simply too many hands but it was crushing to me at the time. In Michael Olaf's Child of the World, (A fabulous resource, both for materials and the overview of Montessori principles in their catalogs):

"Think about the difference between how close you feel to your own guests. If all the work is done by you in anticipation for the guest's arrival, that is one relationship. When a friend joins you in your preparation of the meal, that is a closer relationship. The child benefits most from this close relationship with the parent, whether it be in scrubbing or cutting up the vegetables, washing or drying the dishes, setting the table, cleaning out the cupboards or refrigerator, mixing the muffin batter, and so forth."

Our children's memories of family unity through holiday traditions will be so much greater if they are a part of the doing. Child can peel of grate vegetables, chop nuts or veggies with a Zyliss chopper, roll pastry dough and rolls, and place veggies in the pan for roasting. I've included two of our favorite holiday recipes below, both of which can be made almost entirely by a child with adult supervision. May your holiday be full of warm memories with your children!

Roasted Cider Veggies

2 or 3 yams or sweet potatoes peeled and sliced thinly

2 or 3 carrots peeled and sliced thinly

2 C fresh or frozen petite green beans

1/2-3/4 C sparkling cider

4 Tbs. butter, melted

Salt and pepper

Place a sheet of tin foil on 2 baking sheets and spray with oil. Line pan with sweet potatoes and carrots. Spread beans on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle with cider and butter. Roast at 425 for 20-30 minutes until edges are crisp.

Fresh Cranberry Relish

1 bag fresh cranberries

1orange

Seeds from 1 pomegranate

1/2 C pecans

1/2 C sugar (to taste)

Chop cranberries, nuts, and orange (with the peel). Mix in a bowl with pomegranate seeds and sugar.

I've linked up with Montessori Mondays! Check out these ideas from other Montessori Moms.

Plimoth Plantation: Virtual Fieldtrip

2011-11-17T14:49:00.001-08:00

Confession: If I were looking for a career and could have any job I wanted I would choose to role play at a living history museum. Odd, I know, but so it is. When I was younger I thought I was horrible at history and social studies because I have never been good with names and dates. But I loved presentation days when children would bring in reports about different countries or cultures and we would look at pictures and sample foods we had never tried before. I used to check out collections of folk tales from different cultures before I even knew what folklore was and I was always anxious for the bookmobile to return so I could get my hands on more. It wasn't until I was in my junior year of college that I learned what folklore is (in a nut shell, the study of traditions) and that you could actually get a degree studying it, which I did. I am fascinated with the everyday life of people from all different times and places and I have found that most children are too. If you are looking to make the history of the first thanksgiving come alive for your children you must visit Scholastic's Thanksgiving page, where they have collaborated with Plimoth Plantation to present some beautiful virtual fieldtrips. The next best thing to visiting (or role playing) at the museum yourself.

After viewing the virtual field trips, my boys created a ven diagram, comparing and contrasting the pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. I was really impressed with what they were able to pick up on. Tomorrow we plan to go through an interactive portion of the site titled "Daily Life." Children can click on links comparing the food, chores, clothing, schooling, housing and games of pilgrim and Wampanoag children. Even my tiny boys can click on the speaker icon to have the captions read to them and so they will be able to explore for themselves. I will then have them pretend to be either a Wampanoag or pilgrim child and they will dictate a short story to me to record in their in their notebooks.

http://www.eatyourplanet.com/2010/11/22/food-of-the-first-thanksgiving/

To get a little more hands on, I'm sure my boys would love to burn logs to create canoes but they may have to settle for grinding corn. We'll grind our corn in our mortar and pestle, though a flat rock would work as well.

Giving Thanks: Gratitude Pumpkins

2011-11-16T09:40:00.000-08:00

We're well into our month of Thanksgiving and have been enjoying the thanksgiving devotionals I shared in a previous post. It's not too late if you are interested in using any of the lessons I've outlined. This week we've been focusing on gratitude for home. My boys put together new charts outlining their daily tasks and have been trying to do their part to make our home a "house of order." I thought I would also share the gratitude pumpkins we made last week. They're quite simple but lovely.

We used 8 1 inch strips of card stock with holes punched on both ends (I couldn't find my hole punch so I poked holes with a screwdriver and it actually held the paper in place better than a large punched hole would have), 2 leaves of various colors (we had some glittery copper leaves as well, very pretty), and a pipe cleaner folded in half and twisted. The boys wrote or traced things they were thankful for and then threaded the pipe cleaner through the holes. I helped to flatten the end on the bottom when they were done. I placed all of the materials in a basket on our shelves and we ended up with enough pumpkins to send some home with Grammy.

Vintage Readers & Sequencing

2011-11-13T08:50:00.001-08:00

Harriette Taylor Treadwell

We love classic literature at our house so I was thrilled when I found a whole collection of out of print literature through The Baldwin Project. It has been especially helpful as I have looked for books to interest my budding reader who sometimes loses interest in bland Mac and Tab type readers. He is currently enjoying the beautiful primers by Harriette Taylor Treadwell, originally printed in the early 1900's.

Harriette Taylor Treadwell

You can find her collections of stories from the Primer through the Third Reader here. Because we wanted to hold the stories in our hands to read them, I have gone through and formatted the stories from her primer for printing. The end result is a half sheet sized book. They aren't perfect, but if you would like to print your own you can click on the titles at the end of this post to access my documents.

Treadwell's beautiful illustrations also lend themselves to simple sequencing activities. For our recent Little Red Hen unit, I printed the images from the Baldwin Project and let the children use the images to tell the story. Paired with a corresponding sensorial bin and objects for counting, these stories might inspire a whole series of literature units!

Chicken Little

Little Spider's First Web

The Gingerbread Man

The Pancake

Little Tuppens

Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Little Red Hen

Harriette Taylor Treadwell

I've linked up with Montessori Monday! Check out other great ideas from Montessori moms!

Beatrix Potter: Squirrels

2011-11-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

I plan to focus a large portion of our studies this year on Beatrix Potter and her stories and I felt it only appropriate in the midst of our autumn festivities to begin with her squirrel tales, specifically "The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes" and "Squirrel Nutkin." In reading these 2 stories we were able to discuss everything from the importance of preparation (food storage) and the destructive power of gossip to hard work and manners. Nutkin is a Red Squirrel and Timmy is a Grey Squirrel so we were able to compare and contrast the species. I found some excellent resources at homeschoolshare.com, which has both a multi-book unit about Beatrix Potter and a unit about squirrels.

I created my own Parts of a Squirrel 3-Part Cards. You are welcome to use them. Simply color the appropriate part of the animal with a colored pencil. I took these cards with us to the canyon and as the boys matched up the cards, we did some corresponding activities I found here. The document is packed with interesting information and several activities to go with the study of each part of a squirrel. My boys made clicking noises to warn each other of predators (just 1 for a quick moving predator, more to warn of something slower)...

...tried to see who could cling to a tree longest...

...and drew a picture of their very own burrow, labeling each chamber with it's specific function.

Of course nut sorting and cracking activities are always great for Montessori shelves this time of year. My boys were given a bowl of mixed nuts, sorted them, and then created bar graphs to illustrate the different varieties. ( We learned that when your can of mixed nuts is labeled "only 50% peanuts" they're talking weight, not the number of nuts. : ) We couldn't fit all of the peanuts on our graphs so we just wrote the number above.)

What a beautiful bushy tail Squirrel Nutkin!

I was really excited when I found a peanut growing kit on clearance at our favorite craft store. Alas, we discovered why it was discounted when we opened it and found the nuts were moldy. We planted them anyway but learned that sometimes experiments don't work the first time you try them, especially when working with sub-par materials. Better luck next time.

I'm linked up with Montessori Mondays! Check out this other posts by Montessori moms!

Weekly Devotionals for a Month of Thanksgiving

2011-11-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

I went to grocery store today and wadded through boxes upon boxes of Christmas goodies piled up between the sad remnants of superfluous Halloween candy. As anxious as I always am to put in my favorite collection of Christmas classics (I will admit I was humming along with Bing this afternoon as I put together my little penguin friends for a party tonight), I always wish we could pause and savor the time set aside for giving thanks.

Detail from "The First Thanksgiving" (1914), by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1850-1936), oil on canvas, Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts.

To help my family start our holiday season off with a spirit of gratitude, I have put together a set of weekly devotionals for the month of November, focusing each week on a specific blessing I am grateful for: For God and Religious Freedom, For Family, For Home, and For the Lord's Bounty. Each devotional includes classic artwork, a song, scriptures, and a story, followed by several activities to choose from to help your family focus on gratitude during the week. You will find a link to the PDF below, as well as links to some of the digital materials and additional links for some of the supplemental activities. Please feel free to share this with others and may the Lord bless you and yours this holiday season.

Download the file free: A Month of Thanksgiving: Weekly Devotionals for a Christ Centered Holiday

For God and Religious Freedom:

Visit my posts Blessings Boards and Family Tree for ideas to help get your family counting their blessings.

Click on the link below to watch the trailer, "Fires of Faith," a masterfully done 3 part series you can find a BYUtv about the coming forth of the Bible.

Marching Penguins

2011-11-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

Male Emperor Penguins huddled against a winter storm....

...or the appetizer I'm taking to a party tonight. These fun little guys make a perfect no sugar treat for the holidays. What child wouldn't be delighted to bring a plate of these to a party?

Slice a large carrot into thin disks and cut out a small wedge.

Slice a large or jumbo olive down one side vertically and fill with cream cheese to create a white belly.

Make a small slit in the middle of a medium olive and insert the carrot wedge to create a beak. Stack olives on top of a carrot slice and run a toothpick through the top to hold it all together.

I laugh every year at how they all seem to have different expressions. A delightful holiday appetizer or snack to celebrate your favorite nature show.

Another fun friend for holiday munching. Find instructions for these cheesy little snowman at Less-Than-Perfect-Life-of-Bliss!

Blessings Boards

2011-11-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

I love that between the fun of Halloween and the celebration of Christmas we have a day set aside to give thanks for our many blessings. There are so many ways to encourage children to give thanks daily for the blessings they have received, particularly during the holiday season. We like to keep a blessings board at our house. This is one that was literally thrown together a few years ago with what we had around the house. I pasted a piece of art paper onto a black piece of foam core and hung it on the wall with a scrap of fabric. We kept a sharpy nearby and added new things everyday. My oldest was only a couple of years old and I love to look back at this chart to remember the things that were dear to his heart: Captain Hook, Peter Pan, swords, his favorite songs.

When I pulled the board out the next year my son found a permanent marker and wrote his name in bold purple letters. I'll admit that at first I was upset, but I'm sure in 20 years his name scrawled across the bottom of the page will be the most endearing part. I plan to find a nice frame and replace the paper inside each year, keeping the pages from years past to remind us of the simple joys and blessings of life.

Other ideas for a blessings board from around the web:

Kirsten at thecraftingchicks.com has a printable to create this blessings board. I love the family photos she has added to the bottom.

One of my new favorite home decorating blogs, lessthanperfectlifeofbliss.blogspot.com, has an erasable blessings board. Simply frame a piece of burlap or decorative fabric and use a wipeable marker to write on the glass.

This chalkboard I created with an old frame, some paint, and a piece of art board would work as well.

Sugardoodle.net has some free printables for children's blessings charts and journal entries.

Kimba at A Soft Place to Land writes about how she duplicated this beautiful table cloth with a drop-cloth and paint. Leave markers on the table and allow guests to write their names and what they are thankful for and pull the cloth out again year after year.

Family Tree

2011-11-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

I love trees, perhaps because the changing of the seasons is so symbolic to me. I came across this idea tagged on Pinterest. The tree was originally created to commemorate guests at a wedding. You can find the site here for a free printout of the tree. I couldn't get it to print for me and I wanted it large without taking it to a print shop so I eyeballed it and painted it on an artist's canvas.

I then had each member of our family take turns placing their thumbprints on the tree, stating something they love about a family member as they did so.

My husband's and my baby's prints are in there as well.

This tree is precious to me.

All Hallows Eve 2011

2011-10-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

Our Favorite Things: A Squid, A pirate, the Man with the Yellow Hat, and a Cheetah

Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Trick or Treating at Grandpa's Work

Dancing Skeletons

2011-10-29T13:52:00.000-07:00

A little last minute Halloween cheer, our little dancing skeletons. Find the instructions for this craft here. I poured some white glue onto a scrap paper and even my little one was able to dip the ends of his Q-tips and paste his skeleton himself. I gave instructions as to how many Q-tips to count out and paste at a time so we counted this as math as well. Anyone for a rousing chorus of "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes?"

Vintage Paper Decorations

2011-10-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

I found these great vintage paper Halloween decorations on Martha Stewart. We made some ourselves the other day and I was actually shocked that my boys did most of it by themselves. It was was an excellent practice in folding and cutting. Our replicas are below. My 3 year-old did the pumpkin.

The lighting and camera are both awful but you get the point. I did help with adding features with a glue gun as if was hard to paste on the uneven surface.

October Shelves

2011-10-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

Halloween ideas are haunting blogs everywhere right about now so I thought I would throw our's into the mix:

I'm not sure where I first saw this but I was reminded of the idea of hammering nails into pumpkins in a recent post on LivingMontessoriNow (always my first stop when I'm looking to find a variety of activities Montessori mom's are posting around the blog-o-sphere). The texture of the pumpkin is perfect for practicing pounding. I knew my boys would love it. They directed me in drawing the faces, one on each side so each boy would have their own space. My oldest started pounding nails in after lunch and didn't stop until we headed to Grandma's house this evening. Even then he took the pumpkin and the nails with him to finish his work.

I can't believe how many nails he got on those lines...there were at least a couple of hundred nails in the package I picked up this morning, which is now empty.

When we got there his cousin grabbed his own pumpkin and joined in the fun. It turned out to be the perfect solution for a boy who was anxious to carve his pumpkin but didn't want it to shrivel before the fun of tricks and treats. My nephew decided he could simply pull the nails out a few days before Halloween and carve on the lines left behind.

Transferring acorns with tongs. My baby, who will soon be 1, liked moving them back and forth between baskets with his fists.


Pattern work I ordered through Scholastic a while back. These manipulatives are really fun and could be used in other work as well.

Transferring water left to right. Include a sponge to clean up spills.


Three shapes of mini erasers from Target. We used them as counters with our sandpaper letters but they'd be great for sorting as well.

Autumn cutting strips. The ones pictured are for Halloween but the file included apples and Thanksgiving themes as well. I picked them up through a link on this great cutting post at Living Montessori Now.

More pumpkin counters from the dollar store. Throw in a set of dice for instant addition problems.

The boys will use tweezers to sort these leaves into this 3 part tray.


Life Cycle of a Pumpkin. Print it free through Montessori For Everyone.

States of Matter

2011-10-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Happy National Chemistry Week!

If you find yourself unprepared for this celebration, do as I did and go snag yourself these States of Matter cards available at Montessori Print Shop. The descriptions on the cards were a bit beyond my boys but they understood the graphics.

My boys loved sorting these lovely pictures (also included in the printable from Montessori Print Shop). There are 10 or so pictures for each category and a chart the boys were able to use to self-correct their work.

We looked at 3 examples of each state of matter: a block, a toy car, a ceramic pumpkin, a balloon, a ball, a bike tire (air filling each shape) and 3 different shaped containers of water. Tomorrow we will place ice cubes in a pan and watch them change states from solid, to liquid, and then to gas as the steam rises. You can find a few simple activities for different age groups here.

Later this week we will be going with our friends to watch a chemistry magic show at a local university. Check your community for similar events, who knows what's out there! : )

I've linked up with Montessori Mondays! Check out these other great ideas from Montessori moms!

The Puzzled Centipede

2011-10-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

A centipede was happy quite,

Until a frog in fun

Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"

This raised her mind to such a pitch

She lay distracted in a ditch.

While lying in this sorry state,

A ray of sunshine caught her sight

And pondering it's beauties long

She burst into a happy song;

Unthinking she began to run

And quite forgot the croaker's fun.

-Anonymous

(Yes, I realize this is really a caterpillar, a big fat fuzzy one that was fun to touch. When we came across him on our walk yesterday I couldn't help but think of this poem, a new favorite of mine. It was not the time to squabble about something like proper insect classification.)

Scarecrows at the Farm

2011-10-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we were treated to a one night vacation at a beautiful and well known mountain resort town nearby. Our unseasonably warm autumn weather came to an abrupt end with a 25 degree drop in temperatures and mountain snow the night we arrived. Despite the cold snap, we were anxious to get out into the crisp air I have waited for all year long. We had no real plans for our time but had noticed a biking trail running close to the road on our drive in and decided to search for a way onto it when we woke up in the morning. We were delighted when we stumbled across the town's "Scarecrows at the Farm." The fences lining the trail for half a mile or so were lined with scarecrows created by school groups, scout troops, and families. A few of our favorites are pictured below. (I'm almost inspired to try to get something like this going along the biking trail in my own little town next year.) The air smelled of falling leaves and fresh snow; the bright autumn leaves were dusted in white. It was a perfect morning.

What's she making? A cauldron full of frozen mice, plastic of course : )

Really?! Who would expect to find a squid at a scarecrow festival of all places. And nothing gives my boys a thrill more then squid. Did they know my boys were coming? This was part of a 3R's scarecrow, (reduce, reuse, recycle) and yes, we will definitely be making these at home.

A Scared Crow

Dominoes: It All Adds Up to Fun!

2011-10-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

The other morning when my oldest woke up and found the dominoes he had left out after our game night he was reluctant to go up stairs to begin school work. So rather then fight him on it, I incorporated the game into our work. I went through and choose all the dominoes with up to 9 dots on each side. (For my younger little man I would only include dominoes with up to 3 or 4.) I placed the dominoes in a little wooden box and included several sheets of lined writing paper.

My son chose a domino and counted the dots on the left side and recorded the number on his paper. Then he counted up the right side and wrote out a simple addition problem. At this point he can add most numerals under 10 in his head but I had him count up the total number of dots on each domino to self-correct his work. (This would also be a very visual introduction to addition for younger children who would simply count the left side, right side, and then the total number of dots on each domino. Children need not even record the problems until they are ready to do so.) By the time my son was done he had filled at least one sheet, front and back, no prompting from me. And he thought he was simply playing a game. Proof again that Montessori inspiration can come from anywhere. : )

"Who Will Help Me Grind the Wheat?"

2011-09-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

The following is a post I've revamped from an old blog of mine that was addressed to parents of my preschoolers. I've reposted it here for inclusion in a new Montessori ebook:

The children in our classroom certainly know how to help. We recently completed our unit on the Little Red Hen. A beautiful version of this story, with vintage illustrations like the one above, can be found through the Baldwin Project found at this link. Traditional rhymes and stories are a wonderful introduction to literature as they familiarize children with rhyme, rhythm, pattern, memorization, and social values. Children will grasp even more when these stories are read not once, but several times in one sitting, and in different ways.

I printed the pictures from the link above and pasted them onto red cardstock. After I told the story the first time, each child was given a picture and, working together, the children were able to place their pictures in sequence to tell the story. This work was then placed on a shelf where children were able choose to complete the exercise again on their own. Children were able check their work by turning the pictures over to see if the numbers, which I had written on the back, were in order. You can encourage your children to think through the stories you read at home by asking questions as you read: "What do you think will happen next?" or "What happened first? Next? Last?"

After discussing the story the children decided they would have liked to help the little red hen. So we gave them a chance. First children enjoyed exploring the feeling of wheat moving through their fingers. You might enjoy the feeling yourself : ). Place a large bowl of wheat kernels on a tray and allow children to explore. You may also wish to include a small hand broom with the work so children can sweep up any spills.

Next we placed fresh wheat in a hand grinder and each child loved taking a turn grinding the wheat into flour. This work was available to the children throughout the week and the grinding literally did not stop until we ran out of wheat to grind! If you would like to replicate this activity but don't have a hand grinder, simply supply a bowl of wheat flour and let children explore it as they did the kernels, though if you can purchase or borrow a hand grinder it is SO worth it! (I was once hired to spend some time with a sweet little boy who was going through the process of being diagnosed with what was expected to be Austism. We ran our fingers through wheat and then ground it everyday. He could never get enough and was always calm and more communicative after our wheat grinding.) We poured the wheat the children were grinding onto a cookie sheet and children used it instead of sand to form letters and numerals with their fingers.

My oldest boy at age 2. They grow too fast!

After the wheat was ground, children were able to knead bread dough. We used dough I had prepared ahead of time but my boys always help with the bread making at home. How rewarding to make a loaf of bread from wheat you have ground yourself!

This unit would pair wonderfully with this beautiful and free "From Plant to Food" printable from MontessoriForEveryone.com.

We discussed how fun it was to work together as we enjoyed hot homemade bread and jam for snack. The children enjoyed this story so much that they chose to create masks from some suitable printables I found at Janbrett.com and performed the story for their parents at the end of the school year.

Where Are You?

2011-09-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Wondering where we've been for the last couple of weeks? We were recently given a challenge by one of our local church leaders to take a break from social media for 30 days. So in an effort to be obedient and prioritize my use of time I've been keeping my thoughts to myself : ). But come next month I will have a whole flood of ideas waiting for you, from apples and pumpkins, culture studies, home food preservation projects and so much more. I'm dying to get these ideas out to any of you whose lives might be blessed by them so check out any of my older posts you may not have had a chance to look through yet and join me back here in 2 more weeks!

Needle Felted Apples

2011-09-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Each year I anxiously await the coming of autumn. Yesterday there were hints that it really is coming and I opened all of my windows to let in the breeze. When we lived in Washington we enjoyed going to the apple festival and picking fresh apples from the trees. Not having access to an orchard this year I decided to create my own little bushel of apples using wool felt. I'll include one of these little bitty things in our alphabet box and make another bunch for sorting, counting, and pattern work.

I just recently discovered needle felting. I love it because it's quick and not very technical. I whipped out four of these little apples in 15 minutes at the same table my boys were doing their school work at. You'll need a block of needle felting foam, a felting needle, a bit of wool roving and for this project a small bit of brown wool felt about 1 inch wide.

Cut a small piece of your wool felt to make a stem. Pull away (not cut) a small piece of roving and wrap snugly around your stem.

Now start jabbing your needle through the fibers over and over again. Wool fibers are barbed and when you agitate them with your needle, which is also barbed, the fibers begin to hold together. I am careful to turn my apples often so that the fibers don't become stuck in the foam. You also want to make sure you are coming at your wool from many different angles to get a good hold. Depending on the size of your apple, you may want to leave the fibers a little loose in order to attach a second layer of roving.

Wrap your second layer of roving around your apple and go around the whole thing jabbing your needle until all of the felt feels secure.

You will begin to see that you can start scultpting your apple with your needle. I went around the base of my apple a few extra times to narrow it down. I then went at the apple from the top, pushing the fibers down into the stem to shape the top.

Now trim the stem and any fibers sticking out from your apple. Your children will love to hold these little treasures. So much more tactile then the plastic set from scholastic. I plan to make more little treasures from my stash of wool roving: carrots, potatoes, strawberries, pumpkins the possibilities are endless. Of course I'll post them when I get them done in case anyone else out there would like a little inspiration. And when I finish my set of 3 little pigs for my storytelling basket I will post those as well.

I've linked up with Montessori Mondays! Click on the buttons below to view other great Montessori ideas:

Harvest Follow Up

2011-09-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my earlier post, A Family Harvest, I like to follow up any special educational outing by adding relevant work to our shelves. I found a lapbook we want to put together at HomeSchoolShare.com this spring when we were planting our garden but we haven't had a chance to do it yet. At the same link you will find a garden matching game. I chose to cut it up and place the vegetable cards in this little green basket left over from an Easter game. My boys matched them up with beginning sounds from our movable alphabet. The pictures really are quite nice (despite what they look like in this awful photograph, blast the camera phone!) and if you don't happen to have a movable alphabet letter cards are included.

This vegetable pattern matching game from the same site is meant to be a file folder game but we just put it in a basket and set in on our shelves.

You may have spotted this in one of my earlier post when Blake was matching the cards to the veggies after someone read the words to him.

Logan is just really getting into reading so he was really excited to find that he can read the words for himself now.

Of course with all of those delicious fresh veggies in our kitchen, much of our day was spent in chopping and stirring. This is the very best fresh salsa I've ever had and you simply must make it with tomatoes fresh from the garden, at the very least from your local farmer's market. A bottle of this with avocado and olives added and a bag of chips make a lovely gift.

8-10 Romas

6-7 other tomatoes

1/4 of jalapeno or 1 tsp. canned

1 large red onion

fresh cilantro 1/2-1 bunch

1 or 2 cloves garlic

1 can red and 1 can green Herdaz salsa

(these are little cans, found mine at Walmart, the red is spicy so I used half)

salt and pepper to taste

add chopped avocado if eating immediately

Enjoy!

Astronomy: Van Gogh, Mozart & Mother Goose

2011-09-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

Logan's Starry Night

I like to tie art, music, and literature into any of our unit studies for a blend of Montessori and Charlotte Mason methods. Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night was an obvious choice to correspond with our Introduction to Astronomy. We looked again at our photographs of the universe and then spent some time looking at Starry Night.

My five year old liked the colors in this painting. And because Van Gogh's brush strokes are bold it is easy even for a younger child to notice the unique line. Logan liked the way the stars "shine."

We looked at these two different self-portraits and Logan noticed the difference in color and the straight lines of one in contrast to the curvy lines of the other. He felt the portrait on the left was happy while the one on the right seemed sad. I printed Starry Night and these portraits from Costco's new online picture gallery in their photo center for what I felt was a very reasonable price.

I sketched the outlines of the painting onto black card stock, although there are many different coloring pages, such as this one, online you could print out as well. I chose to sketch it on dark paper so he wouldn't have to fill in every single space to have the colors he wanted show through. He then added his lines with pastels, but decided he wanted to add more stars to his picture.

As I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts, my sons are taking Suzuki music lessons. The first months of Logan's viola lessons have been spent learning "Twinkle" variations. The other day he was noticing how many songs can be sung to this melody, Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, the alphabet...He was thrilled when I played Mozart's "Ah vous dirai-ja maman." Click here to listen to it at ClassicsForKids.com, one of my favorite music resources for children. I like to receive their free newsletter as it can be difficult to find their lessons when I revisit the site another time for some reason. The picture above is from a kit we ordered from the Michael Olaf company about famous musicians. It has just enough biographical info on the back.

Some books we've read about Mozart. We used Mozart Finds a Melody with our Bird Unit this summer as well because in the story his Canary helps Mozart to write his music.

My children already know the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" but I wanted them to do a little memorization and copy work today so I thought "Hey Diddle Diddle" could fit in as well. I ordered a PDF file with copy work for nursery rhymes at Lulu.com for about $5. This 300 page plus packet has beautiful vintage illustrations and various activities. It think we will get some good use out of it.

We have several collections with nursery rhymes so Logan went and gathered as many variations of this one as he could find and compared them. He drew his own illustration on the back of his copy page. This one is from a collection beautifully illustrated by Scott Gustafson.

I've linked up with Montessori Monday! Check out these other ideas from Montessori mom's!

A Family Harvest

2011-09-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sampling Great Grandpa's tomatoes, straight from the vine.

When you are educating your children at home every outing can become an educational outing full of warm memories. We are lucky to have family close by who love my boys and are excited to help us in our efforts to raise boys of character. Over this holiday weekend we were able to drive up for a visit to my husband's parents' home.

We started a small square-foot garden for ourselves this spring as part of our botany unit but that just doesn't quite compare with a visit to Great Grandpa's garden.

We came home with enough tomatoes for several batches of salsa. I know what we will be doing this afternoon. Check back later for our recipe and images of our follow up activites.

Four generations.

Grandpa also took us to visit a friend's farm where my boys were able to gather eggs, feed pigs, and pet the baby cows. Our Hens and Geese activity will have more meaning after this.

Freedom

Every time we visit I'm envious of the peace and beauty of the valley. I wish my boys could have this space and freedom to play everyday. Maybe someday I'll have my own large yard and garden, bees and chickens (okay, maybe I'm not really ready for chickens.) For now we have a wonderful opportunity to practice graciousness and penmanship as we prepare thank you notes this afternoon.

John James Audubon

2011-09-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my earlier post about our bird study that my favorite part was our study of John James Audubon. The pictures above are copies my 5 and 3 year old boys made of his work. (I did the sketching and helped a little, at Logan's request, with the cranes eye.)

I introduced John James Audubon with a beautiful living book titled The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies. This has become one of my very favorite children's books, perhaps because my son relates so well to Audubon in many different ways. The pictures are beautiful and there are fascinating mixed media collages of the things Audubon would have studied. When we went to order this book on Amazon they recommended Dover's Audubon coloring book which was well worth the purchase. I love John James Audubon because he was a blend of naturalist and artist and he was a wonderful example of following through with your curiousity. There is so much scope for the imagination of the child who reads about him.

Audubon was an inspiration in our nature study. We were able to study his watercolors and tried our hands at painting in nature. I felt it only appropriate to take my boys up into the canyon to have an "Audubon experience."

As I mentioned before, I sketched the outlines of the birds onto watercolor paper, replicating the pages in our Dover coloring book. I simplified Blake's a bit. You could easily copy these as well. You would just want to be aware that the ink might bleed with the application of watercolors (we learned this with a project a couple of years ago) and you'd need to be careful about the quality of the paper to avoid wrinkling. Taping the paper to your painting surface also helps with this. I guess I'm a bit of an art supply snob but you never know what might turn out to be a favorite childhood masterpiece. : )

I applied masking fluid (available at art supply stores but a little pricey if your not into watercolor) to the areas of the painting that Logan wanted to remain white. This allowed him to brush right over it to create his sky and background. When these areas were dry he simply rubbed it off like dried rubber cement. This stuff can gum up your brushes so I chose to apply it myself. If he wanted to try it again another time I would make sure he had his own brush that was designated for the fluid.

My nephew joined us for our outing. He's our other little budding artist.

The Boy Who Drew Birds focuses on Audubon's discovery of bird migration. We had some great discussion about questions, experiments, and trusting your own ideas despite dissenting opinion. Our trip to the canyon was hands down my favorite activity of the summer.

Introduction to Astronomy

2011-09-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

One of the subjects we are introducing this month is astronomy. We began by viewing some pictures of the universe. (There were some great ones that we ordered from Costco's new art gallery. You can see some of them in the background of the next pic.) For us this included a discussion about the creation. We followed this up by creating our own tiny universes. The idea for these came from my online course through World Wide Montessori.

First they used a syringe to transfer colored water to an old baby food jar.

This was followed by some vegetable oil and glitter.

Blake really liked shaking his. After we had closed them once they decided to go back and add more glitter. It was really tricky to get the lids back on once they had gotten oil and glitter on them. I'd be careful about this if I were to do it again.

It was interesting how differently they turned out. I think this was because Blake emulsified his with all that shaking. : )

Next I held a little astronaut in my hands and we passed it around. We discussed the sounds in the word and what an astronaut does.

This little book by Anna Milbourne is a great simple introduction to space. I found a some lesson ideas meant for a book called Space Boy at HomeSchoolShare. I thought most of the ideas would work well with this book as well.

We then explored the rest of the contents of our a drawer. Logan pointed out that this is actually a crocodile and he's right. Can't pull anything over on a boy who has been taught how to classify reptiles. We'll have to go back and fix that.

This is our alphabet box. I found the small set of drawers at Target. The size of the drawers is perfect. We only have 3 different letters out at a time. Counting Coconuts has some great posts about creating an alphabet box.

We finished the day off with our rainbow letter a. The boys choose at least five different colors and traced "rainbows" inside their letters. I'm not sure where my mother found these years ago but I have since found similar letters through a google search.

Update: Check out our additional astronomy activities.

Check out other great Montessori teaching ideas at the Montessori Monday Linkup!

New Traditions...Our First Day of School

2011-09-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

As excited as I have been to begin our new school year I will admit I felt...I don't really even know what... when the school bus carrying Logan's friends off to public school drove by last week. I can certainly do without much of what a traditional school year entails but it's hard for me to get past my own found memories of school. I determined that we would fill Logan's first day of "kindergarten" with our own traditions that would help to create fond memories for my children.

To encourage my oldest in his exploration of writing and reading I created a family mailbox. He and his daddy have been exchanging letters all summer. Ryan will leave a messages in the morning, which Logan and Blake are allowed to read when he has left for work. My boys have had a hard time with separation each day and this has a been a great way to include my husband more in our day. Of course, the boys leave messages for their daddy in return. As a special treat for our first day of school I wrote a note for each boy and attached an octopus pencil (it was as close as I could get to a giant squid). They enjoyed doing some of their work today with their new treasures.

My grandmother made us this growth chart and we finally got it up at this house. We measured each of the boys on our first day of school and we will make this a new tradition. I had planned to do this on their birthdays but it turned out to be a great way to mark the new school year.

The highlight of the day was a field-trip to the library. Logan is finally old enough to get his very own library card. He was so excited! He was even more thrilled when he found an adaptation of Moby Dick for children. The librarians thought it a bit odd that he already knew the details of the story. I know this story may not be for every kindergartener but my boys loved it and decided to do some drawings.

They placed their pencils carefully so they would make it into their pictures.

The book was adapted and illustrated by Allan Drummond. We loved it but it may be too graphic for some. He included some great historical information about the whaling trade at the back of the book. My boys were fascinated.

Hens and Geese

2011-08-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

A year ago or so my mother was invited to a craft store closing that offered free materials to teachers. We picked up a bunch of these little hens and geese thinking surely they would come in handy sometime. They are shaped from styrofoam and covered with feathers. I pulled them out today and found a couple of good uses for them.

First Blake combined them with our sandpaper letters. Since he is still learning to identify numerals I combined this with a three period lesson.

Next we created a sorting game. He participated this morning while his brother had a lesson from his Saxon 1 math. (Yes, I know Montessori does provide a very solid understanding of math but my son just eats it up so we opted to add a little more. So far I have found the K and 1 Saxon lessons to be very hands on and they have fit in with our program very nicely. Plus he LOVES the workbook.) The lesson ended with some Left and Right activities. So later I explained to Blake that a farmer wanted to divide his poultry into two pens with the geese on the left and the hens on the right. I used the little fence from our barn and Blake decided the hens needed some eggs as well, also from our barn. One basket of poultry to be used in several different ways.

I've linked up to Monessori Mondays! Click on the buttons below to view ideas from other Montessori moms.

Finger Prints

2011-08-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

My boys decided it would be a great idea to dig trenches in my garden and flood them. It's been a week and I haven't been able to bring myself to wash away the muddy hand prints on the door. Someday there won't be any muddy prints.

A Pirate Party

2011-08-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

Since I posted about our other birthday parties this summer I thought I would go back and post about Blake's party earlier in the summer. We were pirates for a day.

I like to have fun cakes at our parties but I really don't like baking cakes, I enjoy the decorating. So I opted to make this year's "cake" from store bought chocolate and shortcake rolls. Logan helped unwrap all the candies.

I put a stripe of black frosting down the side of each ship. We used the chocolate rolls to make our pirate ships and the larger shortcake rolls for the British ships. Our birthday confections are not only fun, they're historically accurate. Pirates preferred smaller ships because they were quicker and out paced the larger British vessels.

We used Smarties for windows and cut Tootsie Rolls in half to make canons. I made the sails from thick watercolor paper I had on-hand. I printed our Jolly Rogers from images I found through a google search and pasted them to bamboo sticks. We placed the pirate ships on one side and the British fleet on the other. I placed a bowl of blue jello filled with jelly sharks in the middle. When it was time to sing to the birthday boy we lit a bunch of sparklers in the middle to start the "battle". Unfortunately my mother's tablecloth didn't make it through unscathed.

We met at a park with a playground designed to resemble a pirate ship. My brother ran home and got his Jolly Roger to post next to our pavilion, a nice tough I thought. I kept this party pretty simple so their was plenty of time to just play.

The only game I prepared was a treasure hunt. I printed a message giving a clue to where the pirate treasure was and cut it into 3 pieces. I taped each clue to a piece of folded cardboard and used a lock to hold it shut.

Blake had a set of keys and had to experiment to see which fit each lock, again, I love it when I can include Montessori work at birthday party :)

The clues led them to a treasure chest filled with bagged of popped corn and chocolate coins.

I let each guest create their own crab sandwiches. I found the idea at the Family Fun website. We substituted chicken salad for the crab salad they had suggested.

Happy Birthday Blake!!

Ornithology...Our Study of Birds

2011-08-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

Baby Birds at the Park

Charlotte Mason suggests that a child of six should be able to identify six varieties of birds. Birds are a wonderful animal to begin a study of Zoology because most children see them often in their daily activities. We decided to do a study of birds this summer. We did really well at the beginning of summer but we ended up being so busy that my boys didn't spend a lot of time with each of these activities. When I went to photograph them this afternoon before I put them away my boys were drawn back into the work so we will leave it on our shelves for another week or so.

Three part cards I created myself with pictures from Google images. I got a really good deal on this tray from Alison's Montessori. I need to go back and order more.

Books We Read

Bird Matching

Bird Memory Game--I believe I printed these last two from Montessori Print Shop for free.

Parts of a Bird Puzzle

My boys loved flipping through this book or just listening to bird calls as they did their work.

I was thrilled when we went to Suzuki camp and found that the movement class was all about birds! I love it when things just seem to fall into place. They were singing songs about birds, dancing like birds, and listening to music from Carnival of the Animals. They pretended to be the Cuckoos in The Syncopated Clock. This is a page from a Classical Music For Kids book, Carnival of the Animals by Saint Sans. It came with a recording and my boys love it.

Parts of a Bird 3-Part Cards-I made these from an online Montessori Training Course I signed up for but you could probably find some at MontessoriForEveryone or Montessori PrintShop.

Parts of Bird Books-These came from the same source.


Painting birdhouses from the dollar store.

Placing them in the garden.

My favorite part of this unit was our study of John James Audubon but I will reserve this for another post.

A Medieval Feast

2011-08-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

My oldest wanted a knight party for his birthday. Last year he had a great time planning his party but friends and organized games ended up being a little too much pressure. So this year we opted for a family dinner...a medieval feast.

On the menu were roast chickens, a ham, turkey legs, some artisan breads (I found a great and super easy recipe here), roast potatoes, and baked pears (I came up with my own variation of this recipe). I found silver paper plates to resemble pewter at a party goods store and we only provided knives and spoons, no forks at this medieval party. Some trays with fruit and herbs from the garden set the tone and we ate outside in my parents' backyard.

Logan was king for the day. He made his own crown complete with pins from my Irish dancing days. We made him Master of the Salt and here he is contemplating whether to grant a request for salt or order a beheading.

Grammy and Grandpa came through as they always do and brought the family appropriately decked out. (Maybe now that he knows I will post his pictures my husband will stop making goofy faces in every picture I take.)

"The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

All on a summers day.

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

And took them clean away.

The King of Hearts, cried for the tarts,

And beat the Knave full sore.

The Knave of Hearts, brought back the tarts,

And vowed he'd steal no more."

Logan had a tart earlier this summer while we visited a farmer's market and really wanted them for his party. He spent a few minutes on his birthday memorizing this nursery rhyme in preparation for his dinner. He had been asking for a bow and arrow all summer and so he was given the one his daddy used when he was little. I purchased these archer figurines when I was planning on making a cake but we decided they could guard tarts just as well.

Happy 5th Birthday Logan!!

A Day at Hogwarts

2011-08-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

The following was a party my mother and I just planned for my nephew's 8th birthday, a big year in our family. Because my son and my nephew have birthday's within a few weeks of one another we counted this as my son's party with friends, even though the guests were friends of my nephew. I will only apologize for the quality of my photos once. I'm taking pictures on my phone until I can save my penny's for a digital SLR. Who knows when that might be. : )

Of course any Harry Potter party would not be complete without an acceptance letter similar to the one Harry receives his first year. Click here for a copy of ours. After children arrived at Platform 9 3/4, they ran through the brick wall (a shower curtain from the dollar store my nephew painted with a sponge) into Diagon Alley. I found most of our printable signs at dirt&sunshine.

Once in Diagon Alley our guests visited Olivander's wand shop, where they were chosen by a wand, (we had a little key chain that made noise and we pushed it to indicate when each child had found the right wand.) I found a whole bundle of bamboo sticks at the dollar and we cut them to size. More then a dozen wands for $2!

They also picked up their parchment for potions class while visiting Diagon Alley. Click here for the file.

Next it was time to be sorted. Our hat was placed on their heads while they chose either Slytherin or Gryffindor from a pumpkin basket. I whispered in their ears and gave them a chance to accept or choose another house, after all, the sorting hat does take your choice into consideration.

Once the children had been divided into their houses it was time for Potions class, the highlight of the day. I had read on several other blogs that this was the favorite activity so I planned accordingly.

We set this up outside so we could just hose the area off once it got messy, which it did. Ever the Montessorian, I used all types of jars and bottles with different lids, different types of grinders, a mortar and pestle, a cutting board for cutting our caterpillar larva (dried prunes my mom had in her pantry). We found all kinds of great things in my mom's food storage. I made these printable labels in word.
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Everything we used for potions was edible in case the children wanted to try them out, which they did to my surprise. We used lots of different colored sports drinks for the liquids. I was glad we kept the leftovers handy because we refilled many liquids 2 or 3 times.

We used a couple of different kinds of vinegar and several jars with colored baking soda and if I were to do it again I would add even more. These were the favorite because they caused a good reaction when mixed. There was a neat potions demonstration on dirt&sunshine, the same link as above, that I did at the beginning to get them thinking.

The children mixed their potions in quart jars we had around the house. We eventually went and got one of our cauldrons for children to dump their mixes into when they were ready to try a new one because they couldn't get enough.

The children gave the potions names, recorded what they were meant to do, and recorded the ingredients on their parchment with real quills my mom uses in her classroom.

After potions it was off to the Quiddich pitch, 2 posts with hula-hoops attached. The boys loved this and had a great time.

My boys made a birthday cake that looked just like the one Hagrid makes for Harry in the first movie, bad spelling and all. Easiest cake I ever made. : ) I didn't get a great picture of the end product but we placed it in a cake box that we got for free at our grocery store and tied it with twine. We told the boys that Hagrid had brought it by while they were out playing Quiddich.

Everyone enjoyed it the cake!

Before we sent our guests home we made a trip to Honeydukes...

...where they found chocolate frogs, (I found free printables through a google search)

Beartie Botts Every Flavor Beans,

(I wasn't about to cut out the windows and paste on plastic windows so my beans were in a celephane bag),

And jars of Licorice Wands, Warewolf Fangs, Lemon Drops, Chocolate Galleons, and Acid Pops. It was a magical day! And yes, I would do it all over again. :)

Tidy Inspiration

2011-08-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

I had many concerns and questions as we considered educating our boys at home. One very valid and common concern (at least from what I have seen expressed by other moms in the blogosphere) is balancing the responsibilities of teacher and homemaker. A major aspect of the Montessori method is order. All children (and adults) function better in a orderly and attractive environment. I have learned from painful experience that my children, and my husband :), are particularly sensitive to any chaos in our home. I love living in a tidy home and I love design. I admit I wish my home looked like the cover of a cottage living magazine. But my strengths lie in my creativity, a trait that is often at odds with my desire for cleanliness.

I felt like it was a direct answer to prayer when I was introduced to the Fly Lady at a church activity several weeks ago. (Click here to learn more about the Fly Lady.) Though I still haven't made it past her first handful of steps, I already feel like this has been a huge blessing in our lives as we prepare for the rapidly approaching new school year. I'm just taking it one step at a time, striving to remain diligent and to develop the lifelong habits my mother has worked so hard to try to instill in me. :)

As I have been working to improve my own habits, I have also been looking for ways to inspire my still tiny boys to become good stewards of our home and belongings. We created a tradition a while back of a 10 or 20 minute cleanup each evening; responsibility for heading up the cleanup rotating between all family members. We set the timer and often break it down into just 1 or 2 minutes per room. It's surprising what you can get done in just a short amount of time and we have a great time because we treat it as a game. The key is you must ALWAYS respect the timer. As adults it's easy to get into a flow and want to just keep going and finish off a room. There is no quicker way to turn this from a game to manipulation. You can't fool children. It's only fun if everyone sticks to the rules of the game.

As effective as this game is, sometimes we're all just a little too tired or irritable at the end of the day to really get into it. So I truly felt I was inspired a few weeks ago with a new idea. One of the small joys I remember from my childhood was getting blanket rides. My dad would have us hop on a blanket and he would drag us through the house and off to bed. I remembered these rides the other night as I was grasping for some form of distraction to stop the before bed squabbling. I offered my boys a ride but then noticed that they would need to pick up a few of their things from the floor if they wanted a nice long one. Since then all I have to do is let my boys know that in 5 minutes I will be giving blanket rides. The clutter between our bedroom and theirs seems to disappear. They have worked out for themselves that the tidier the rooms are upstairs the longer their rides will be. I love that they are making their own connections between the way they manage their stewardships and their own joy. So thanks for all the blankets rides Dad!

Melting Ice

2011-08-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

I saw the neatest summer idea on Counting Coconuts (click here) for "frozen fun" so when my boys wanted to freeze cereal and make ice pucks (another Curious George inspiration) I decided to combine the ideas. The boys helped me to layer water and freezable items, mostly their sea life models, in a large bucket. I wish I had re-read the Counting Coconuts post about adding colored ice cubes to the mix. Her ice blocks look really neat with the sun shining through all the colors. But when you start a project on a whim, as many of ours are, you make due with what you've got.

The boys made their own smaller blocks of ice using cups, beans, and cereal, an interesting mix but that's what suited their fancy. They were fascinated by the textures of the frozen cereal and the way the beans expanded and shriveled.

They experimented with different methods of retrieving their sea life from the ice, such as the ones suggested on the blog mentioned above (salt, sand, sugar, utensils). They also tried different temperatures of water and methods of applying it to the ice (pouring, different sizes of water squirters).

They noticed all kinds of things in the 2 1/2 hours they spent on this project. They especially liked the tunnels that began to form in the ice.

A Little Mountain Music

2011-08-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

My boys have been taking Suzuki viola and cello lessons for a couple of months now. They find so much joy in playing. The other day Logan asked if he could play his viola in the canyon so we headed up the mountain.

A little furry friend must have enjoyed the music because he came to join us during our picnic.

When the boys came to investigate he scurried away. Undeterred, the boys were determined to coax their friend back into the open but he must have decided to finish his lunch in private because we didn't see him again.

It was such a beautiful overcast day, a rarity in the middle of our hot summers, that we decided to do a little work in Grandpa's garden before we went home.

Donuts

2011-08-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

One of my little guys had a rough day today so when he asked, "Mommy, can we please make donuts?" I said okay, even though I really didn't feel like making the mess. My boys are really into Curious George. They've made gnocchi, led us on a search for the perfect cannoli (the ones we found weren't very good, may have to try again), played hockey with ice cubes, built cantilevers, shoved things down my toilet to check how the plumbing works, sprouted seeds, measured the bones in their bodies, and tried to "ski" through my front room on a pair of metal picture hangers all because of something they've seen George do. So today Blake wanted donuts like the ones in the shop near George's house in the city.

This summer we've also been reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We've read it before and I had promised the boys that this time we would make donuts when we read about the ones Almonzo's mother made. So I'm counting our adventure tonight, even though we did make them in the "new fangled" way, with holes in the middle. Almonzo's mother always made them twisted so they would flip themselves over by themselves. I tried her way once. Didn't really work for me.

We also blared their favorite Celtic drumming music (though their usual dancing was not allowed next to the hot oil) so I'm going to count this as an educational and cultural experience, not an excuse to make junk food because you've had a bad day. BTW, I got the recipe here. I used this recipe because they were super quick and they didn't make a million donuts (I don't want to be eating these things for the rest of the week.)

Mommy-Blake Date

2011-08-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

"In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home."--Dieter F. Uchtdorf

We have recently recommitted to creating one-and-one time with each of our boys. When things begin to get tense or children start to bicker or fuss it is especially important for us to take this time for each other. During our lastest one-on-one time Blake chose to go to the farm while his dad took the other two boys to the dinosaur museum. We have passes to these activities so we go often but it was so fun to enjoy it while focusing on one child.

"Don't come with me mom.
I'm brave enough to go through the cave myself."

Blake loved choosing which way to go, what to look at first and how long to stay in each area of the farm. I can't wait for future one-on-one times with my boys. On Blake's list to do: draw sharks, play in the water, go to the "dinosaur" park (the local park he and his brother have named), watercolor, make cookies

Thunder Cake

2011-08-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

One of my new favorite authors is Patricia Polacco. Her books are beautifully illustrated and are rich with family history and personal relationships. Thunder Cake is a story about the loving way in which Polacco's grandmother helped her to overcome her fear of thunder.

Image from PatriciaPolacco.com

We have fantastic thunder storms at our home during the summer and during one of the latest Logan insisted we read Thunder Cake. At the end of her book Polacco gives a recipe for her cake, which, according to her story, must be made before a storm is in full force to be considered real Thunder Cake. So we raced to the kitchen and began mixing our ingredients.


Sifting

Baking is one of the things my boys and I love to do together. I love it when good literature inspires us to develop our practical life skills. Through the baking of her Thunder Cake, the main character in this story realizes she has more courage than she thought. What a wonderful message for my own brave little boy.


Stirring

I've just discovered Patricia Polacco's website (click here), complete with artwork, teaching ideas and activities to correspond with each of her books. I know we will be returning to her site often.

A Summer's Day in Our School Room

2011-08-01T12:09:00.001-07:00

My mother began teaching children using the Montessori method years ago and our family has been so blessed by this legacy. After teaching in my own small preschool for the last few years and watching our three boys fall in love with learning, we have decided to continue educating them at home using a mix of Montessori and Charlotte Mason methods (with a bit of this and that thrown in for good measure). So far our boys don't have to be prompted to engage in learning activities. This picture was taken early in the morning (as you may have guessed from the boy's attire) when each of the boys found their way into our school room after breakfast. What a joy to see them learning together!

I get many questions from friends and family who wonder about our methods and what exactly it is we do all day. It is my hope that through this blog you can join us in our learning adventures. Let the journey begin!

Tiny Veggies

Time

Sandpaper Numbers

Plant Care

Fish Addition

Working Side by Side