next step to writing

Here M. is practicing her pen grip and control of the pen around geometric figures. M. then is colouring in the geometric shapes on the paper, trying to fill in the different shapes with different colours.



Here M. is refining her eye-hand coordination to the smallest detail to create the figure on the tablet by putting the right piece in its exact place without moving all the other pieces.

All the above exercises are preparation to writing.
We started with touching the sandpaper letters in the sense of writing, in this way the child memorizes the letter through seeing, touching, hearing the sound and saying the sound (three part lesson: this is "C", give me "C", what is this letter?"). Then we started doing some signs on the flour, trying to imitate the some signs the finger does on the sandpaper letters. Now we use a stick like a pen and we pass with it on top of the sandpaper letters.
M. is already prepared to use the stick as a pen because her sense of touch has been refined through the exercises of the smooth and raugh gradiation tablets, touching the different fabrics and of course the sandpaper letters and numbers; her coordination of fine movements has been pefected through the practical life exercises, her pen grip is excellent because she has exercited herself with stencils and colouring shapes without going out of the borders.
Every exercise she has been doing all this time was a preparation for writing.

smells and sounds

To develop the sense of smell I always have fun with M. smelling different spieces, herbs, flowers, purfumes we encounter out and about. I tought it would be a nice activity to set out a "smells table" where there could be different and various scentes put out for her to experience. This week the table offers menthol, oregano, salvia, rosmary. Every week I will then change the objects to smell.



These are our sounds containers.Every silver container has a sound equal to an orange container. M needs to shake the containers and find the matches.
The containers are full or part full of different things: rice, sand, pebbles, lentils, pasta.

First writing

M. is doing very well with her letters. She is keen in taking the Montessori sandpaper letters and passing her fingers on the one she knows indipendently. Now there are just a couple of letters left to discover and then she will know the whole alphabet! The most wonderful thing is that I do not force her to learn the letters, she is actually interested in learning them, she actively seek to learn more letters and to memorize better the ones she already knows. When we are out and about she keeps on calling me because she has spotted some letters she recognizes!

This morning I prepare for her a fun way to draw her first letters. Floor and fingers

Montessori time

M. is getting to know her letters, we use the sand paper letters to memorize each letter using eyes and touch, and then she has to say the sound of it.
Now she is proud to show me each and every letter she recognizes on bill boards, shops signs, neswpaper, books and every where.
Since she is very confident in some letters, I started to use the movable alphabet with her. I use a tool box to put in each space a few magnetic letters, and some small toys she has to guess the letter they start with.
With some help she is enjoying doing it. (she is doing it in her mother's toungue)





We are also keep on re-visiting the sand paper numbers, even if now she is quite confident in all the numbers to 10. She is now doing the exercise indipendently.



M. is also doing counting with the spindle box and the other materials




Here is she using the blue rods and put them in order from the longest to the shortest

colour gradation

the first exercise is to match the colours contained in a box. The colours are: pink, red, white, orange, yellow, black, grey, green, blue, purple and brown.








The second exercise is the colour gradiation. This is an exercise in which the child has to put in a series colours from the darkest to the lighest or vice versa. The colours are: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, grey, purple, blue and brown and are contained in separate box from the matching colours box.
In doing this exercise the child will learn the names of the different tonalities of a colour and to identify dark, dull, light and bright colours.

puppets

This is a nice creative activity!

Materials:

a few wooden old style pegs
woobly eyes
pipes cleaners
crepe peper
other creative materials of your choice
glue


stick eyes to a peg and dress it as you like using the materials.
You can then make your own stage and act a play using your human pegs

Montessori materials DIY

This page is dedicated to my uncle and my aut who really help me a great deal making those beautiful materials. Thanks to their ideas, creativity and genious we can now have those expensive materials made spending pennies!

Thanks also to my mum that bear with my creative impulses, my mess and everything else while staying at her home. Thanks also to my dear friend G. who lend me a great deal of books on Montessori method.


SENSORIAL MATERIALS

boards of rough and smooth



rough gradiation tablets






fabric box 1 (different colours fabrics)




fabric box 2 (same colour fabrics)





long rods





geometric solids





LANGUAGE


sandpaper letters low case and upper case





MATH

number rods





numerals and counters

summer fruits

As soon the sun comes out we go for lovely walks in the meadows and woods. We collect blackberries and flowers.
Here some flower-arrangements M. did.







Those are our tomatoes!

pasta necklace

Here is a nice activity to spend the afternoon.

Get a few different pasta shapes the ones you can put through a string (penne, rigatoni, anellini etc)
a couple of strings
paint and brushes
old paper or card board to put the pasta to dry


1.Put an apron on
2. get your paint and brushes out
3. take one pasta shape and paint it any colour you like



4. put it to dry on the paper
5. do the same for all the other shapes



6. once the pasta is dry put it in a container
7. use it as pearls to make a beautiful and colourful necklace
8. you can then put the pasta back in the container and use it again and again as a practical life activity

practical life exercise

POURING WITH A FUNNEL

a small tea pot or container with a handle half full with water
one or two small plastic bottles
a small funnel
a piece of cloth to dry any spilleage

the child has to pour the water through the funnel, half in a bottle, half in the other without spilling a single drop




PICKING UP SMALL OBJECT WITH TONGS

ice tray
a small container with peables/nuts/pearls any thing small and round, their numbers depends on the number of hole of the ice try (usually 12)
small tongs

the child has to use the tongs to lift a nut from the container and then put it in a hole of the ice tray. Repeat the exercise until all the nuts are in ice tray





FOLDING A NAPKIN AND PUT IT IN A NAPKIN HOLDER

a few napkins
a napkin holder

the child has to fold the napkin into a triangular shape and then put it in the napkin holder. The exercise becomes more difficult when there are many napkins in the napkin holder and he has to try and fit them all in.

hanging the laundry on holiday

M. is always asking if she can help. Now, everything must be at her size and of the right proportion so that she can actually not only learn how to do things safely, but also really help me!
M. has now her own line to hang out the laundry.
The important thing is to explain the child exactly how the laundry must be hung, where the pegs must go on the cloth. The most interesting thing for a child isn't just doing the job, but the details in doing the job. I told M. that the pegs must go on the two corners of the cloth, exactly at the edge,so close to the string but yet whole on the cloth.
This is M. at her first attemp: so precise and so proud!

living insects museum

Children are never too small to learn, actually is when they are small that they learn the most thanks to their huge curiosity and their open mind, which absorbs everything they see and experience. A small child is never tired of learning, and learning doesn't require any effort, it is between 2 and 6 years of age that children should be guided to discover any thing about our world...too often this extraordinary ability of learning is under estimated and wasted.
I can see how M. is able to learn and understand many things related to the environment, nature and the world.
Today I guided her curiosity for the natural world to the museum of the living insects. We saw a huge number of insects, from the one we see every day, to the esotic species, we saw reptiles and spiders. We saw insects that look like leaves, sticks, big and small. We saw how ants build their nests underground, and how bees work inside an hive. We saw some fossils and she asked me to explain what they were, I did and she was pleased with my answer.

Ants' nest underground

practical life excercise

CLEANING A TABLE


Water spray
sponge
small table