sense of smell part 2

how to make a good useful smell: take an orange or a mandarin and some whole cloves. If you are strong enough, just push the cloves through the orange skin, other wise make hole on the skin by using a tooth pick and then insert the cloves in the holes. Your orange will immediatelly take a new lovely smell. It is also a good exercise to strenghen the fingers and as a creative activity

the sense of smell part 1

For this sense I devise a matching game. I collected a few of the same containers over a short period of time (I chose to keep Actimel empty bottles). The important thing is that they are all identical containers. I chose some strong, quite easily recognizable smells, such as mint leaves, coffee, cinamon, cumin, dry herbs. I put the same smell in two containers to form a couple. I asked M. to have a good smell inside the containers and I told her the name of each thing she was smelling. Then I asked her to close her eyes and try and match the smell of the bottle she has in her hand by smelling all the bottles until she would find the right one. As I wanted to keep the smells for her to repeat the exercise when she likes, I covered the containers with cling film, put a rabber bend around the neck of the bottle and made a few holes on the cling film with a tooh-pick

Sense of hearing

For exploring this sense we have listened to some sounds on a tape which M. had to match to some pictures I gave her. Then I planned for two trips to explore the sounds of the city and the sounds of nature. For the sounds of the city we focused on hearing all the noises around us as we were walking to the farm and the woodland area in the park (the two "sounds of the nature" sites)

Sense of sight part 3

This time is all about using our eyes to find small insects. A trip to the local country park provided the right environment and the best excuse to spend the day outside in the sun. What we need is just a magnifying glass and a small transparent container with lid.

letters

I got this idea from a Montessori blog. M. is sorting the objects putting them on the letter their name is starting with. We have done it with animals and make-believe food and kitchen objects. M. is confident in recognizing most of the sounds and letters. Still need some work on the odd V, T, and of course on b,d,p,q... they just look too much alike! She really enjoyed this exercise!

sense of sight part 2

Backgrounds. we explore how the picture changes when we chnage the back ground and leave the same subject. I draw three simple identical houses and coloured in the same colour. I cut out pictures of different types of holidays destinations (woodland, seaside, Australia etc). I then glued each house on a background. I told M. that that was my house and that it was going on holiday. I showed her that my house was first in the woods, than it went to the seaside and then it went to the mountains. I asked her what remained the same throughtout the house journey and what kept on changing.

I then told her it was her turn to make her house go on holiday. She was really enthusiast about the activity. I let her choose the backgrounds she liked best from a few magazines, then I let her cut them out her self and glue her houses where she liked in the picture. She then made up different stories of why and how the house went to the different destinations.

sense of sight part 1

In the next months we will focus on our five senses. I asked her to colour in where the sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell are in a drawing of a little girl. We called her our little explorer. Then in a separate paper, I let her colour in her cloths and then cut them out and glue them on the girl

For the sense of sight we made a cardboard TV which we will use to explore various concepts using our eyes. First of all we looked at visual illusions. She will understand that not always what we see it is what actually we think we see! I showed M some simple examples of hidden figures, then an example of a figure made up of small tiny same figures and she made her own. I did this by using children stamps and stamp pad and colouring in each of the tiny figures. She then made her own, wanted to make a few more: one butterfly, one bee and one snail!

I then showed her some clever visual illusions on the computer on the kids.niehs.nih.gov/games/illusions/index.htm web site. there are many, you should choose the ones more suitable to the age and stage of your child. It was an interesting experience for her and it was fun.

composter bin

For the next months I want M. to get to know and understand how nature works and what must be our contribution to nature. I was waiting for a bit of sunshine after all this rain to get starting with our gardening projects: first of all make a little home made composter bin, to teach M. that nothing in nature goes to waste and how composter is so important for plants and that she can make a contribution to the cycle of nature. We made the composter bin in a small scale just to start off. A small containers with holes, some soil on the bottom of the container and as many vegetarian left over as possible, I covered ours with cardboard.

Now she is aware that potatoes, carrots peels, egg shells, banana skin etc are all good to make compost and she is always remember to fill up the composter bin! Of course she knows that compost is good food for plants, so we must grow a few plants to give the compost to. As last year we got growing veg, but this year I want to add a couple of new friends: we already have quite tall tomatoes plants (4), we have already eaten our spinach and lettuce and already seeded for more of them and iceberger lettuce, we then prepared to have green beans and cucumbers.

first words writing

M is reading any letter she finds everywhere (books, cereal boxes, sign posts, posters etc). She can say the letters but can't put them together to make up a word. Weird how English nurseries/schools teach reading with the phonetic method when English is not a phonetic language... it must be good at something, but I found that for the majority of the words it doesn't work, so doesn't it only create more confusion??? As I had to do it learning to read and write in English, M. will have to memorize how to write English words, that's all. With Italian instead is all too simple. Italian is a phonetic language so that she can read the letters as I taught her through the sand paper letters, once she knows the sound of a letter, that will always be it, no metter which combination of letters.
Useless to try and separate reading from writing, because it is resonable to think that the two go hand in hand!
Previously we have used the magnetic letters and some props to find the first letter of a object. Now we are building the whole world sound by sound, starting from simple and short words.

chicken pox creative week

M. has just recovered from this awuful chicken pox.To make her days more worth while, I took out this wonderful air dry clay and we got down to work on our creations. She loved it so much I couldn't stop her from wanting to do more and more staff. We made a pizza, a cake, a car, a pen holder, a key ring...Then we put them to dry and after 24 hours they were ready to be painted.







We then started with our vegetable garden adventure, preparing for spinach, tomatoes, basil and lattuce for now.

shop-counting game

M. is doing well with her couting but doesn't like to use the Montessori materials these days. I thought to let her doing other things until the interest is coming back, but a couple of months have passed by and she doesn't want to know about them. All well. working on mathematical and language materials, but There is so much more about Montessori, like creativity, the use of senses, contact with nature, all aspect that I see are missing....
I had to come up with some other ways to make M. like counting....
I devise this shop, where in the price tags are as maI Ppny circles as the coins needed to buy the item. M. likes pretend play and she starts following the rules during board games, so this would be a great way to play counting!
I kept it simple, putting the more expensive items at 5 coins. She did very well, and then she also had a change to be the shopping assistence, checking that I was giving her the right number of coins.

Traffic signs

M. is showing great interest in everything around us, she asks me about signs and traffic rules. She knows what the traffic light different colour lights stand for, so I asked her to help me making a traffic light and other simple traffic signals to play around the house.
We created a cardboard bus and there you have it a crative learning journey.
The signals I used are: parking, no entry, left turn only, stop and the traffic light.

paper plates art

PICTURE FRAME

2 paper plates
glue and brush
things to stick on
2 photoes
scissors
a string
sticky tape

Cut a square in the middle of both plates.
put the plates upside down and let your child decorate them with a few bits and pieces.



When they are dry, get your two photoes and position them on the inside of one plate so that the photoes can be seen through the square you have cut out. You can use a bit of sticky tape to stick the photoes to the plate.
Take the other plate and position it over the first plate so to close the photoes inside the two plates.
Use sticky tape or glue to stick the outline border of the plates together.
with some sticky tape position the string on the top of the frame so that the frame can be hanged somewhere.
You know have a rotating frame with two pictures either side!



FLYING SAUCER

2 paper plates
glue
empty transparent yougurt pot
pom-pom
googly eyes

With a brush, spread the glue around the outline of a paper plate. Put the other plate on top so that they stick together.



glue the eyes to the pom-pom




Glue the pom-pom to the centre of the plate. Spread some glue on the outline of the yougurt pot and glue it to the plate so that the pom-pom is inside.

"rubish" and glass art and craft

Collect some empty cardboard boxes, packaging, yougurt pots, lids of plastic bottles, and any other empty container you were about to throw in the bin and make some creative contrustions!

Children will learn that they can make do with any thing, and that DIY works!



Using a empty glass container (for example a vase of maionese or olives)and glass paints, we created this glass container that can be a nice gift to be used as a vase for flowers, or a container for pasta, dried herbs or anyother thing.

The glass paints are from "Berol glass paints". They come with a picture booklet and an acetate where to draw your creations. When the paint is dry you just peel it off the acetate and and press onto a glass surface.

new trays for practical life