Montessori Elementary Homeschool Blog - with documentation of our infant Montessori, toddler Montessori, and primary Montessori experiences; as well as preparation for the upcoming adolescent Montessori homeschool years.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

What Montessori Homeschooling Does to Children


First, he did this work to help me locate any remaining typos reported by Keys of the Universe AMI Montessori Album owners: 


Grammar Box 6 (filler box B)
ignore the colors - my printer is out of some of the ink


Then, in pure LegoBoy fashion, he did this:

OOMPA LOOMPA!!!!!!


Only in a homeschool (in an authentic Montessori, my upper elementary should not be working with the grammar boxes anymore at all ;) ). I love it!!!!



Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Small Home Montessori: Impressionistic Charts


I am asked from time to time how we store our charts. This has changed over the years - and the caveat is that I have the FULL-SIZE mat-board charts from AMI elementary training. These are intended for a full classroom and I would not have purchased from specifically for homeschooling; however, for what I purchased, they were much less expensive than any of the options available for purchase anywhere else (even now), they were a complete set that coordinated with the albums I was creating in training - and, well, they were required for training.

Thus I use what I have, though it is not ideal for a homeschool setting.


For a while, I had a Montessori co-op set up in a rented room at our local church school building, stored in a shelf purchased from a closing Joann Fabric. We just brought home the charts we needed. We were in the building enough times during the week to access the charts for follow-up work, but it still wasn't good to have them separate from us.

The shelf up top holds the smaller supplies.
Charts are organized in the two sections (left and right)
with some timelines rolled up in the front (a box on the bottom holds them in place)


Now, I have brought all the charts home. WHAT a relief!!!

Our living room closet looks so innocent:



The right-hand side is normal enough: coats, shoes....

The left-hand side though.... AH!!!!
   The hanging shelf on the left holds many of the supplies needed for the charts; other supplies are now stored with our regular science materials.
   The charts themselves are organized by their subjects with wooden boards - each board is labeled with the subject and the numbering system for the included charts. I didn't end up cutting enough boards and just wanted the project DONE, so I kept the U and GW charts with the first set of Geography charts (that tab is partially covered: it says 1a-28a - then lists the numbers for the U and GW charts); and I grouped geometry and mathematics.
   The blue binder in the lower left contains master copies of various copyable stuff - mostly from primary, but there are a few elementary. I use that less these days since I can print directly from the computer, but it was handy in the school-rented co-op.
    Notice the box? Yep. Straight from an Alison's Montessori order. Perfect!


top-down view
I added tabs for art and music - no impressionistic charts for those, but we can keep some of our poster-prints and the like in here as well; I also have a section in the back for blank posterboard, and I have the pegboards in here for now - that plastic lid in the back is just to hold things more securely in place for the time being.

You can see the geometry corkboard plane to the left in the image above - I made it too big to fit in the box and don't feel like cutting it down ;)

If ever needed, I'll find a narrower box for the rolled timelines, so that they fit in a row towards the front and provide more room for the charts themselves.


I use a similar idea for our Communal Prayer materials in our atrium - much smaller charts, but the same concept - so this file system applies to any size if you have stiffer charts. The available cloth charts would need to be mounted for this system to work; I would love to see storage ideas on those because it seems that rolling them all would take up so much more space. Maybe?



Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Material Making Mistakes - Mathematics


Just sharing one experience we had that I wish I had done differently from the beginning:

I purchased our decimal fraction material after using a cardstock version for a while, with makeshift pieces. The number cards that it came with the purchased material align with the columns perfectly.
I can't find the aligned photo off-hand - but here are the cards it came with. 

I hand-made ALL of our other number card material, including all of primary, the Bank Game (Bank Game is elementary; the "primary bank game" is called Change Game in AMI albums), and others.

Handmade Bank Game cards - with the white card coming from the primary material;
additional categories created to add on

For a portion of the work with the decimal fractions, we show how the whole numbers are flipped over, gain a decimal point, and become decimal fractions.

In addition, we sometimes use whole numbers with the decimals to show how it works on the board - most children move through that stage quickly, but even so it is nice to have those whole numbers actually align with the board.

Even most importantly for the first exercise - when we use those whole numbers they know, flip them around to become the decimals, then replace with the actual decimal cards, the numbers should align with the columns.

Mistake made??? - I didn't have any whole numbers that corresponded to the column size on the decimal fraction board.

If I could do it again, I would love to make at least one set of cards that correspond with the decimal fraction board, so that I save myself making a set of cards ;)





Our Bank Game material corresponds with our primary cards, so that I just "added on" rather than created a new set. This should work for most homeschools - but some (with several elementary and several primary might want two entirely separate sets). These cards are larger, but perhaps I could have made them narrower....

Then our wooden hierarchical material - I did ultimately re-create this number card set (for primary we used the number card material I already had, and added on the higher categories - elementary needs commas, so I did create new ones for that in order to keep the primary set comma-free for use with my co-op children). Since these have commas, they don't work for flipping over....

Or perhaps I just need to deal with un-aligned columns or make a new set.

;)



Monday, September 30, 2013

Improving Spelling Skills


An example of using a strength to overcome a weakness: 

Legoboy has just not been a strong speller. I think he would have been fine if he had not been thwarted in his skill development when he was younger (see this previous post)

Once he believed he could read, he has been a very strong reader - we just need to work on pronunciation here and there. Spelling has been a steep uphill battle. I have almost caved at various times into purchasing a spelling curriculum or program - several Montessori bloggers share their successes with a few. But it didn't sit right with our style - we use some curricula for a few things, modified; but I didn't feel right forking out money for a spelling program when we have the necessary tools right here with the Montessori materials and online spelling games (of which he played quite a few for a few months)

But he's not been a good speller, despite the Montessori materials and methods used and even the online spelling games - it just not clicking with him - and he highly detests my method of helping him (I say the word very slowly so he hears all the sounds; and won't give him the actual correct spelling until he gives me an honest attempt at it - which he also doesn't like to do). 

For the record, I feel that Montessori has all the tools necessary when done in its fullness - but some children just don't connect, even with the keys (thus giving them something that is not the keys won't work either). Other programs CAN work and DO work, especially in connection with Montessori, but I don't think they would have meshed well here at all. 


So we've plugged along. 

One day, he figured it out - all on his own. He started doing this: 

trying to spell the words 'when' and 'watch' 

He wrote out the words in various attempts at spelling them, then he read it to himself to see if it looked right. Knowing he has advanced reading skills, he put those skills to work for his deficit in spelling. 

So he wrote "wen" - and it didn't read right. So he wrote "when" (remembering that some w-words have wh) - that one was fine. 

Then he wrote "whath" to come up with "watch" - he immediately realized that the h needed to be dropped; he tested a sound for the vowel-sound in the middle (oa he wrote) and that wasn't right. 
Then he got the wath - before realizing it needed that c in there to change from /th/ to /tch/. 

All this so he could ask me, via a note, "When can I watch Once Upon a Time with you? And can I have a peanut butter cup?"

And I tell you what: he's not mis-spelled those words since! 


A "follow the child, observe, respond, observe" SUCCESS! 




Friday, September 27, 2013

Geography - Work of Air


Legoboy is humoring me in another run-through of the earlier geography work he did ages ago - now that we have new tools, I want new photographs and to test what I hope is our final edits on the albums... Ok, so it's really to get some good solid review in, but shshshsh! don't tell this upper elementary child that! He thinks he is helping me out ;)


The flask is NOT empty! And air can hold up water! 

I love Partylite candles - they burn at a low temp.
Don't use Partylite candles for this demonstration. Guess why!
Use a tealight that burns a bit hotter ;) 

I kept the flame here because the smoke didn't show up well in the photo.
See how the flame is pulled into the tube?
Use the smoke with your children, not the flame.
Can you guess what happened as I took this photo? ;)