During the Last Full Week in May...

...this is what was happening during our Montessori work sessions:



Extension work with the Solid Cylinders:  This material aids in developing discrimination of size while promoting the pincer grasp used in writing.  While you can't see it from this photo, the children working on this decided to try to complete the exercise blindfolded.  You can see the child's left thumb "feeling" the edge of the hole to find out if the cylinder he placed there fits...



Constructive Triangles:  Triangular Box.  You can learn more about this activity here.



Learning about the phonogram -ch with the Small Moveable Alphabet.



Adjective lesson with the Farm Animals and Grammar Symbols.



Exploration with the Pink Tower and Brown Stair.




Art Appreciation with Child Size Masterpieces.



Yes, more Constructive Triangles!  This is the Large Hexagonal Box.





The children cannot get enough of these Golden Beads!  Here, each child (total three) chose a number from each category themselves and used Dynamic Addition to find the sum.

Geography:  Labeling the continents.  For this lesson, I write the name of the continent, the child reads it, then places it on the corresponding continent.  I love this simple activity because not only are the children reinforcing their geography and reading skills, but it also provides the child an opportunity to watch the process of writing.





Practical Life:  Folding Cloths




Having fun with words using the Logical Adjective Game



Recycling cut and paste activity (read about it here).

More Golden Bead work - This time the children wanted to "start with the big number and make it smaller," so we had a Static Subtraction lesson....



...followed by a Dynamic Subtraction lesson.




Labeling the states on the Puzzle Map.



So many of the youngest members of our class want to use the Farm!  Most of the young ones are not quite ready for the grammar lessons for which the Farm and animals are used.  For this reason, I adapted the material to meet the needs of this particular child.  I wrote one letter on a small piece of paper and the child and I made its sound.  Then, the child found an animal with the corresponding beginning sound.  After six or seven letters, I mixed the objects and the letters and had the child match them up again.  What fun for a little one learning letter sounds!

 


Learning about the power of words and symbolizing phrases.  Here, the children have completed a lesson about conjunctions.  The phrase in the photo reads, 'the pink pencil and the blue pencil and the green pencil and the red pencil,' which have been tied together with the pink ribbon.  The tying of the ribbon demonstrates the action of the conjunction 'and.'



A full table of activity!  What a joy it was to see this group of children so attentive in their lessons!