On the Shelves: January

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  Our classroom has been transformed into a 'winter wonderland'  (which is great, considering the general lack of snow around here...)!  ;)  In this post, you will find some features of our January prepared environment:


Practical Life Dry Transferring activities.  Top shelf:  spooning rice, spooning flour, spooning marbles (with my all-time favorite mustard spoon from Montessori Services!!!).  Middle shelf:  sorting small winter-themed objects; tweezing pom-poms; tonging sugar cubes (Sssh!  The kids don't know it's edible... and I plan to keep it that way!) ;)  Bottom shelf:   pouring ice-crystals (saved from last year's science experiment...); pouring blue rice into two vessels; pouring pasta (which has been painted white to look like snowflakes).

 

Practical Life Wet Transferring activities:  Top shelf:  sponging (always a favorite in my class); pouring water; pouring water (identical vessels with handles); Middle shelf:  pouring blue water (no handles); pouring blue water into two vessels; pouring into four vessels;  Bottom shelf:  water transfer with baster (and I see that the baster is not in the photo -oops!); using a dropper to fill suction cups with blue water (another very popular activity in the classroom...).



Bead stringing tray:  The kids will bead these onto pipe cleaners to make 'icicles'.

'Wrapping yarn' materials on the shelf:  clear tray with oak tag paper cut into 4x6 rectangles with small slits around edges;  Ziploc bag full of pre-cut, arm-length yarn pieces; divided tray with tape pencil, tape dispenser, and space for yarn.  To to the lesson, the child takes one piece of oak tag and a few pieces of yarn from the bag and takes the divided tray to a workspace.  After writing their name, they tape a piece of yarn to the back of the oak tag and begin wrapping the yarn around making sure it goes through the slits...  Then, they tape the other yarn end to the back and repeat with another piece of yarn, if desired.  Any unused yarn can go back in the Ziploc bag when they return the materials to the shelf.



This is one example of the activity which I've left on the shelf next to the materials for the lesson.



And because the children have enjoyed weaving with ribbon and have been so successful with it, now we'll try weaving with paper:  Various sized strips of colored paper (weft strips); basket (with pencil) to collect weft strips; tray with paper mats (construction paper with 1in. warp strips).

Weaving with paper.

I've seen this golf-tee and marble activity circulating around the blogosphere lately and knew I had to try in our classroom!  My students love hammering golf-tees into clay, so I am looking forward to watching them with this variation...



...they will have to be oh, so careful as they place each golf-tee and balance the marbles! 

More posts about other lessons will be coming soon.  I'm looking forward to spending time in our classroom's 'winter wonderland!'



I'm linking this post up to What's on the Tray Wednesday at H is for Homeschooling.