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.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Planning my presentations

This post isn't about planning the children's *work* - it is about planning my presentations.

Mostly for the little ones: infant, toddler, and primary. While I am not showing the infant and toddler portion, it is the same principles.


The general overview of the intervals is at this Montessori Nuggets post on Organizing Primary Presentations. What I have in my notebook is the detailed version which tells me the specific names of exercises to be worked on in each interval. This is available at Garden of Francis or is included free with the Keys of the World Primary Montessori albums online support.


Just a simple three-prong folder. I drew in some lines to separate the areas for me visually. Each interval covers about 6 months if I start with a 2 1/2 year old. Older than that, I still let the children move at their own pace (slower or faster), but I consider the fact they may be in need of something appropriate to their age-interval, while still wanting to get in these preliminary foundation experiences.

At this first interval, as long as I am reading books with the child, providing lots of real life experiences and having lots of conversations, I am looking at 1-2 "new" presentations a week. This number fluctuates between 1-2 up to 5-6 for some intervals (essentially a daily new presentation).

This does NOT dictate the child's work choices. Simply my presentations of new material.

Each week, I look over the list, consider the needs of my children and select which are the most appropriate.

I might note the date I give the presentation, or check it off, or I might write it on a calendar of some sort. Since I have had a wider variety of children in my home other than my own, I have used a calendar to note what plans and outcomes rather than print out this document for each child.


I might make a list of materials for the interval I am focusing on - things I need to check on or purchase or locate. When making purchases, I might look 2-3 intervals ahead to try to save on shipping and time.

See this post for more information and pictures - Planning in the Montessori Homeschool






For those looking for elementary Montessori homeschool planning: 


Friday, June 30, 2017

Financial Learning

Legoboy is now 13 - he has started investing !!!! And I have been fielding many questions about what led to such an occurrence with a 13 year old.

Well, it certainly wasn't planned! It just happened.

Meaning - I laid a foundation, knowing the results should be good, but not knowing the details.

I wrote about some of our history here:
April 2014: Personal Finances and Montessori - Go read this one for our history! So I can just build on it here!

and here:
April 2014 - School Days - this really just notes that we continued playing the Act Your Wage game ;)


We are about to dive into the Middle School edition of Foundations in Personal Finance and with all the investing questions, I thought it is time for some updates!

Your Business Math
- and Day to Day Operations at Home
Legoboy finished up the Your Business Math, using the Pet Store option. LOVED it. Then he went through and did it all again, running different numbers and different mock orders. We honestly could probably do it again and I could add some cards to make it more complex, but we have the FPU course coming up, he is helping with more of our real business operations at home (Garden of Francis and Keys of the Universe) and taking on more involvement in the daily home finances, that I think we're probably good!

Day to Day Operations at Home
I recently pulled out the Dave Ramsey baby steps again. We had been working on them, but got distracted by the fact that when we were finally debt-free, I shifted into savings mode. It came time to teach all the older children in my care some financial skills, and slow down my own spending on them.

I pulled out the Dave Ramsey baby steps and talked through them with the older children.
Each older child (ages 11, 12, 14 at the time) received a prepaid Bluebird card through American Express. They were each given a base allowance of $150. Of this money, a certain amount could go into a savings account I set up for each of them, a certain amount was spending money on whatever, and a certain amount was intended to cover their own toiletries and clothing. Activities we would discuss on a case-by-case basis. This didn't mean I wasn't ever going to provide any clothing or treats or the like, but they were no longer to ask me for money. They had their own; if I so chose to offer a treat, it was on me. The "certain amount" was discussed individually with each child after budgeting for their "needs" and their "wants" and their future needs/wants.

We had a variety of experiences with this, from awesome savings after frivolous spending, to "let's go steal someone else's card and claim it was lost at the Reds game, thus someone else must have spent all that money at all the places I typically spend money at." Um. Yeah. Good learning experiences there too! All the children set some aside each month into savings.

Shortly thereafter, the children were removed from my home, due to lies and DCS covering their own past mistakes and putting them on me - but that is another story. Please pray for the children, their families, for DCS, the judge, the court system, the local prosecuting attorneys and all those who I met during the worst 5 days of my life in May.

Just before the children left, I received our tax return for the year and finally got started on retirement. The program we are using allowed me to set up separate accounts - not necessarily belonging to the children (they can't have investments accounts of their own), but labeled with their name and only using their money. This is what got Legoboy started. He was looking at it, looking at the differences between Aggressive, Conservative, Moderate - what are stocks, what are bonds - no guarantee of higher earnings, but wow the typical difference between that and his regular savings account!!! Yeah, he was interested! The 14-turned-15 year old chose to split her savings money between regular savings and investment savings, but following whatever plan Legoboy chose. The 11-turned-12 year old chose to keep her money in her regular savings.


Act Your Wage
We played this game with our older bonus children. It was frustrating and beneficial all at once. Afterward, the oldest (who complained about it the loudest) wanted to play again. Sadly, that time hasn't yet come, but it did get her thinking about finances in a more healthy manner.


Foundations in Personal Finance
Dave Ramsey now has a middle school edition of his FPU resources and we are about to give a try!

We'll update more soon! 

Update: 7/7/2017 - Lesson 1 talks about teens having $500 in an emergency fund. Legoboy's response: Um. No. If I am being financially wise, I would set myself up as if I have some adult responsibilities so that I can be better prepared when I am 18 and an actual adult. What am I supposed to do? Turn 18 and have to put another $500 in the emergency fund immediately? What about the fully funded? This is my time right now to build that up, while I have no debt already.
(they may cover all this later)

7/8/2017 - BORING! I know all this.
(he does indeed answer all the questions in the workbook before watching the DVD lesson; he talks back to each person with more information. Perhaps he is too well trained ;) We are only on the second unit, so more material to cover yet!)

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Family Gardening in Our Home

Time to move these plants outside! 
My children and I need to get cracking on planning our gardens. It is March already and we should have seedlings going already! OOPS! Flu and public school issues will do that to a family, I suppose.


This year, with 5 children instead of 1, we are going for a modification of square foot gardening. Each child will have their own space to plan within.
(Technically we had 5 children last summer too - but we started the growing season with 1 child and 1 adult and added from there - and our garden FAILED last year. Utter Failure.)


Mama:
  • Pumpkins
  • Tomatoes
  • Rhubarb
  • In the yard: add more lilac bushes, landscaping refreshed, plant some berry bushes for the future

Miss 14:
  • Watermelons
  • Strawberries
  • Purple Trailing Petunias

Mister 13:
  • Pumpkins (more)
  • Cucumbers
  • Watermelon
  • Cantalope

Miss 12:
  • Corn
  • Strawberries
  • Coleus

Miss 4:
  • Carrots
  • Sunflowers

Mister 3:
  • Flower mix
  • Sunflowers

Not as much variety as I would like to see, but we've had a late start in planning. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks!

The children will be responsible for their own area. With the particular needs we have in our mix of children, it is best for them not to share duties with the others, although Legoboy (Mr 13) and I will provide reminders and guidance for the others when needed. Miss 14 has never grown anything, ever. 12, 4 and 3 had a garden in their previous home but didn't get to see everything grow - they were provided some of their vegetable produced as it was harvested, but didn't get to pick it themselves.

This should be an interesting year to say the least ;)



Previous gardening related posts:
Lazy Gardening
Pollinator Week - Planning for our new home and garden
Nature in Montessori Education
Almost on the Farm
Vermi-Composting: WORMS! 
Gardening in an Apartment
KidzHerbs Garden Kit: Review Post
Musings on the Elementary Scientific Classification Material
Herb Love - Review Post of Herb Fairies




Other Posts in the Series: 








Sunday, October 30, 2016

Friday, September 9, 2016

Fractions Videos !!!

The fractions videos are finally being uploaded - I truly thought they were already up!

Here is a teaser!

This is from the fractions chapter in the elementary Montessori mathematics album - for Keys of the Universe that is "chapter 5".

All the others are available at Keys of the Universe!





And hopefully I will get caught up posting all my draft posts from... APRIL !? Ouch. We have had 2 boys come and go (to their permanent home), 2 older girls move in, then 2 little siblings move in. Addressing the needs of traumatized kids in the public school system. Family vacations.

And all the reality of how the Montessori approach is SO suited to the meet the needs of children with special needs and coming from traumatic situations.

I am in love with the Montessori approach more and more every single day. Even more so the days I don't approach things in this respectful, needs-based way - and go the way of the world - and everything literally falls apart.

More to come!



BLOOPERS! 






How many times was that!? 





I'm hungry! 


Cuz we can't be serious ;)