Parts of a dicotyledon {Botany}

We are working on seeds this week.  I was really pleased with how hard everyone worked this afternoon on their booklets and sorting. This is a pretty simple set up but has a ton of extensions. 

We used a mini muffin tin and four different varieties of seeds. We bought ours from the thrift store so I was limited with the types. Buy larger seeds (beans, squash) for smaller hands and smaller seeds (carrots, broccoli) for a bigger challenge. The top row contains an example seed and a card with the common and latin names. The middle row is the picture of the seed. It worked well to cover up that hole on the muffin tin. The bottom row is where they placed the matching seeds. 

Nomenclature cards. We did a three part lesson on the parts and ordered them in terms of growth. 

Working on writing. These are almost always a hit.  The younger ones work on tracing the words and coloring the pictures. 

More Resources

Parts of a Seed Cards from The Helpful Garden 

Botany Manual (and cards) from KHT Montessori. pictured

Montessori WorkJobs has a great printable as well

Free Seed and Plant Matching Cards from Montessori Print Shop

Parts of a Plant {Botany}

Care of the environment is an important aspect of a Montessori classroom.  I'm bummed we haven't done a very good job of this yet this year.  This morning we headed over to the store to pick out some plants. Barrett picked out a cactus- he said it was easier because he didn't have to water it (smart kid) and Indie picked the first ones she found that were pink. 

I introduced the Parts of a Plant nomenclature cards.  These include: the whole plant, root, leaves and stem. Montessori Print Shop has a Plant Nomenclature Book  and photo cards for types of Roots.  You can find some Botany friendly cards at The Little List. The cards pictured came from Karen Tyler's Botany Album

 Creating our Parts of the Plant Book.  

These nomenclature books are always a huge hit and such great writing practice. 

Looking for more? Popular Botany Posts from Mixing Playdough:

Flowers

Seeds

Fruit (Apples!!!)

Trees and Plants (link to free printables)

Deb at Living Montessori Now also posted the motherload of Apple Related Activities. 

Apple Printables and Montessori Inspired Apple Activities

Landscape Art {Art Friday}

I had planned to take the kids up to the mountains to sketch this week but after a hectic few days we really needed that extra day at home. I'm sure we will make it up there next week. 

This morning we looked at some landscape art in our Can you Hear it? book along with searching for landscape art in our Usborne Famous Painting Art Cards. We also listened to  The four Seasons: Summer by Vivaldi. 

The selected cards that the kids felt fit a "landscape" description. 

They picked a card that inspired them. Indie picked Apples and Oranges by Paul Cezanne.

Barrett picked The Water Lily Pond by Claude-Oscar Monet. 

Apple Picking {Wordless Wednesday}

Book of Centuries {History}

I'm really excited about incorporating this into our homeschool. A book of Centuries is more or less a timeline that is kept in a notebook or journal. You can find details and even a free printable at Simply Charlotte Mason but we decided to use a large journal for ours that I picked up at the craft store. We are also just doing one as a family but if your kids are older it would be great for them to work on individually. 

Traditionally a book of Centuries would start at 4000 BCE and go through AD 2100 but we started a bit earlier. Because it would be impossible to do every hundred years from the beginning of time we split it into manageable pieces:

The Beginning of Time (everything before the Paleozoic Era)

The Paleozoic Era

The Mesozoic Era

Cenozoic Era

Coming of Humans (Early Man)

This is the start of our century divisions: 4000 BCE- 3901 BCE and so on. 

If you incorporate Montessori into your home this would be easiest to do after The Great Lessons.   These stories go up to the history of writing and mathematics and are a great transition into Ancient History.  

Narrating and sketching the end of the Minoan Civilization. We also compared it to other parts of history we had learned about. 

Placing ourselves in the book. 

We had a TON of pages leftover at the end so Barrett thought they would be great for map work and I agreed.  We'll make sure we can cross reference ancient maps with current ones and maybe tape a few in there as well. 

This is a long term project and it will be invaluable as time goes on. What better way to keep track of what we've been learning?  

Charlotte Mason- Exploring her Philosophies

It is no secret that I have been heavily influence by Maria Montessori. Her view of children and their capabilities is inspiring.  She was a scientist first and by simply observing the children she was in contact with, she figured out how to guide them so that they could succeed. 

There are of course problems with any philosophy or method. Montessori never intended home use of her work. She was very clear about student/directress ratios and age ranges. She made many of her materials herself and was very controlling of her ideas.  Her primary work was accomplished with the 3-6 age crowd mainly because the older ones were in school already. Unfortunately, she never really expanded too much into the older ages. There is a little bit on Early Elementary and pretty much nothing after that. 

In a home environment, I have struggled with how to implement some of her ideas as the kids get older.  Group work is so integral to the Elementary Montessori Classroom that it is almost impossible to mimic it in a home environment. 

So, here I am, exploring more philosophies and ideas and trying to find a good fit for my oldest. One where he is challenged appropriately but is also leading his own learning. I recently saw this quote in an issue of Wild and Free (a free bundle to download): 

"Cherish in your children the love of investigation"

I love this quote and it inspired me to look more into Charlotte Mason and her philosophies. I feel like I have a lot more to learn but I wanted to share a bit about how she compares with Montessori and what specifically we are going to try to incorporate into our work. 

Mason lived from 1842-1923. This seems to be a turning point in a lot of educational philosophies. She is a huge influence in Christian homeschooling circles.  

She believed that "education is an atmosphere."  This is where you will find the greatest disparity between philosophies. She was very much against changing the environment to fit a child. She felt that a child should not be isolated to a "child friendly" environment.  That means no small chairs or tables or kid sized things that you would find from Froebel or Montessori. 

She also believed that "education is a discipline. " That education was stronger than natural inclinations. 

Mason stated that "education is a life" and that because the mind feeds on ideas- children should have access to a large amount of curriculum and resources. 

She agreed with Montessori in the realm of external motivators. Both believed that they have no place in learning and are detrimental. You can find modern research confirming this in the book Nurture Shock.  

In terms of early childhood, Mason believed that kids should be outside exploring their environment and that was more important than any other type of learning. You can see a movement back towards this in some of the Forest Kindergartens popping up.  

I am a huge proponent of getting kids outside but I also know from experience that when given the opportunity- they will surprise you.  Montessori put out materials that appealed to children for a reason. Access to a moveable alphabet may spur on your little one to learn how to spell before she can read.  Numerals and counters will have them reciting addition and subtraction problems before you know it. Montessori believed that young children needed to be in a concrete world able to explore with their senses. Concrete always comes before abstract. 

Montessori wanted to cultivate a spirit of learning more than a mechanical skill or mechanism. Mason believed that under the right conditions "studies serve for delight"  and that "the consciousness of daily progression is exhilarating to both teacher and child"

I am growing to love both of these philosophies and am grateful for the chance to pick and choose from them. 

Here's a list that I would like to incorporate into our home for early elementary:

Notebooks for Nature, Math, Explorations

A Century Book (For history, it is a book with pages marked for every hundred years from 4,000 BCE to current time)

Narration of Literary Works 

Recitation, both secular poetry and biblical 

Living Books 

Resources:

Overview 

http://infed.org/mobi/charlotte-mason-education-atmosphere-habit-and-living-ideas/ 

Curriculum Resources

https://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/curriculum-guide/

Books

Charlotte Mason Education, Levison

More Charlotte Mason Education, Levison

Charlotte Mason's Volumes Online (Ambleside)

For your Homeschool Self

A Recovery Program by Diane Flynn Keith

Can You Hear It? {Art Friday}

This particular book has been on my wish list for a while and I was super excited to add it to our collection this year. It's a book of various artists and a cd with music to go along with it. Each page has questions about the music to inspire little ones. The kids LOVE it. I intended to do a page a week but we went through the whole book the first day and it has a coveted place on our bookshelf. 

I pulled out our instrument three part cards (from Peter and the Wolf) and did a three part lesson on a few of the instruments while we listened to some of the music. 

There are so many extensions. Listen to the music and count the beats. Listen to more from the composer or search for more art work from the artist. You could easily do a lesson on Bees after listening to the flight of the bumblebee. We are excited to get to know these artists and their works in the coming months! 

Have fun appreciating art this week! 

Astronomy, Understanding the Universe {Science}

I introduced astronomy this week to our little guys. It's a fun album and one that we go back to quite a bit with the oldest.  We started with a discussion of the universe and I showed a picture. It's a good time to emphasize that "the universe contains everything starting with you" and how BIG the universe is. Pass around the picture (or look together). 

A fun (and classic) activity is to make a "universe jar." You need: jar, water, small pitcher, glitter, oil, dropper, and liquid watercolor (or food coloring). 

Demonstration:

-put all the materials on a tray

-explain that you are making a model of the universe

-pour a little bit of water into the jar

-take a dropper of oil and add a few drops to the jar

-add a few spoonfuls of glitter

-add a drop of coloring if desired

-screw the lid on and admire

-invite the kids to make one for themselves! 

Other resources:

My First Big Book of Space

Space: A Visual Encyclopedia
Is the Big Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There is? 

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (for older kids) and National Geographic

Printable Astronomy Cards

Ecology {Introduction and Scope}

I started introducing little bits of Ecology to Indie this week. It's one of those subjects where learning seems to occur naturally but it's also nice to work on some nomenclature specific to this science. 

Ecology is the study of how living things interact with each other and the world around them. It's easy to talk about taking care of the earth AND scare the crap out of our kids. We do NOT want to do that! Montessori was very clear that our intent should not be to scare but to equip and empower. 

This week we talked a lot about a clean environment and a dirty environment. Our ongoing project is taking pictures!  

 Our toddler specific activity: 

We reused egg shells by spooning potting soil. The general idea is to water them and place a few seeds in for a beautiful new plant.  All our eggs ended up involved in a sensory experience and were pulverized.... so... fair warning :) 

For the next few weeks or so we will touch on these subjects:

Recycling

The natural world without any impact from humans

Dirty vs Clean environments

Upcycling/Reusing Materials

Erosion

Contour Farming

Resources:

Living and Nonliving Cards from The Homeschool Den

Ecology Manual from KHT Montessori (and corresponding cards)

ETC Montessori Ecology Scope and Sequence (for elementary, free and great!) 

Famous Paintings {Wordless Wednesday}

Stamp Game Addition and Subtraction {Math}

We've been using our homemade golden beads for most of our large number work lately but I decided this week would be a good one to reintroduce the stamp game. This is one of my favorite materials. It's generally introduced after the golden beads. It's still a hands on way to work with large numbers but the "1000" "100" and "10" tiles have their corresponding numbers written on them as opposed to be 100 separate units. We purchased our from amazon and printed some stamp game paper. 

How to Use:

1. Introduction: Take out your golden bead materials and the stamp game materials. For each category, point to the unit and the corresponding stamp to show that they represent the same thing.  Mix them up and do a three period lesson to reinforce the concept. 

2. Addition: Write a simple addition problem on the stamp game paper. Make sure no regrouping is involved initially. Demonstrate how to pull down the stamps for each unit. Use the skittles if necessary to hold places. Place a ruler underneath the units for the first number. Place the second units underneath. Remove the ruler and push up the stamps so that they are all combined. Count up all the units and right in the appropriate place on the paper. Encourage the student to make up their own problems (or write a few on the paper for them). 

3. Regrouping: same as above but demonstrate how 10 "10 units" is the same as a "100" unit. Show how to replace 10 of those units with one of the red 100 units and continue adding. 

4. Three Addends Add three large numbers together. 

5. Check work. Show how you can take away an addend to see if you have the initial number. 

6. Subtraction: Same as addition but instead of adding numbers to the bottom demonstrate how to take them away and than count how many are left. If regrouping is necessary, replace the unit needed. 

You can use this material for multiplication and division as well! When we get there I will post it! This corresponds well with Singapore student work book 2A Exercise 12-24.