2013 - May #5

Here's some photos of Jay's activity with the Pink Tower and Broad Stairs.

He made this himself. - interrupted me half way when I tried to make a presentation.

erm... visual discrimination? He did make a few mistakes, but quickly corrected by himself.

He specifically asked me to take the photo of the 'bridge' and the teeny tiny pink block in the middle. 

Another that he made by himself.

A wall? hi hi

This is a little challenge to him. I showed him a picture of an extension exercise I took while browsing through pinterest - I just showed him the picture from my Note 2 and he built this based on the picture. (I am glad my phone saved me the trouble and cost of printing and laminating) He did quite well, though I had to remind him to refer to the picture a few times in the beginning. Oh... he took this photo himself. I left him to finish while I teach his sister. When he is done, he just took my phone and snapped... :)

The Pink Tower and Broad Stairs were just kept in the boxes they come in. It makes sense as they don't take a lot of space - and most importantly, when they are not out for display - the kids won't take them out without supervision. :) oopppss ... not quite the Montessori way, but this is what works for my family. :)

2013 - May #4

We received our pink tower and broad stairs this week. Jay was excited and wanted to try right away. I even forgot to take photos ( okay, more to I was excited along with him that I did not even want to get up to get my phone).
Today I did manage some photos. Joy and I were alone at home. So we managed to get on to some lessons. She is not showing much interest though she would build the tower when requested (half heartedly).

These are not Montessori perfect lessons, but hopefully with practice and more exposure...

In the end, I decided to leave the Pink Tower and Broad Stairs in the middle of the room while we are doing other things. (secretly hoping that she would pay more attention to them when she wants)

Montessori inspired examples

I have begun collecting montessori presentations from youtube for easier reference in future. Hope this is allowed. If it is not, someone please let me know, and I will remove them as fast as I can. Thank you.

sound blending

Number rods worksheets

2013 - May #2

Joy:

This is occasionally a successful lesson, it depends on her co-operative mood.

We have been doing more sorting. I try to get her to practice flexibility in using her left hand. She would still sometimes get buttons with her right hand, then transfer to left hand.

Jay:

He breezed through the sandpaper alphabets. Mostly because he's doing phonics in school too. But I had to correct him in his sounds. His teachers teach by memorization. For eg, if I were to give him /b/ - he would go '/buh/, /buh/ bear. or for /l/ - he would go /le/, /le/ lamb.... gosh, I foresee more arguments about this in future. 

The above picture is him practicing his phonetic sounds. He got to see the words printed in capital letters, but he had to take the lowercase letters to form the words. - still needs to work on the phonetic sounds. But this is just beginning.... 

A little more updates on Joy's speech:

I did a recording with her doing a session on sandpaper numbers. Actually it's a second session on the same afternoon. The first session was a success, so I figure that perhaps I can try to do  a repetitive second session for recording. Yay! Joy did not protest to seeing herself in my smartphone which I place in front of her. It's a pity I couldn't upload it into this blog for obvious reasons.

Anyway, she is saying the numbers : 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9

Plus, giving the correct numbers to me each time. Her daddy is so proud with her when he sees the video!

2013 - May #1

Here are some new activities we are doing:

Jay:

Match Lowercase to Uppercase letters. 

He sounded the phonics sound before matching them.

We started on addition.

Joy:

I only managed to take this photo. 

The movable alphabets were jumbled up in the box. I would sound the phonics and she will match with proper letter. So far, so good. She even said 'T' (not the phonics).

She is still consistently say the numbers 1 and 2... and we have moved on to 4 and 5. In Chinese. I skipped number 3, since it has 2 sounds in Chinese. As for phonics, we moved on to   /t/ and /s/... she seemed to know them, just that not yet able to sound them. She would form her mouth correctly but no sound yet for /m/...

I am very proud of her this week. She searched for her own pajamas (from a mountain of clean clothes- I am ashamed to admit I did not fold and put them away) and changed her pants. When she cant take off her shirt, she came to ask for my help. - all this without me having to keep reminding her. I just casually called out to her that it's time to change to pajamas and I did not even turn to see if she is listening. 

Today is a public holiday, when she wakes up this morning, she searched for her day clothes, changed her pants and came to me for help with the shirt. And I did not even asked her to do this.

When hubby brought her back from grandma after lunch, she walked into a dark living room, coz I purposely switched off the lights and pulled the curtains so that we can have a nap. She pulled her daddy towards the switches. When asked why, she said "An"( dark). When hubby asked if she wants to switch on the lights, she answered "shi" (yes). Isn't this great? Another successful conversation. Hooray!

Montessori - sensorial

Montessori Language

Here's a few presentations for language.

Sandpaper letter

sand writing

Using the moveable alphabets

Montessori Maths

Here are a few maths presentations which I find useful.

Number Rods

Spindle box

Early addition

Addition Board

Early Subtraction

9- layout

2013 - April #8

This week : 

Jay requested to do some colouring. He did 2 pages of these geometrical patterns.

Joy still with her book, whenever she is free.

I started with number rods presentation for both. Joy is co-operative up to rod number 5. She even voluntarily pointed (without hand over hand prompting) to the red and blue sections as I counted loudly) ermmm... I think I heard her say 'yi' (one) a few times. Yeah, I used Chinese with her. That will be first step. I will need to expose her to using BM and English too. I do the same with Jay. He can count in Chinese, English and BM quite fluently, but I'm trying to slow him down to count while pointing slowly on each section - not to rush his counting and lose count later...

This is Jay counting the sections when arranging the rods.

When he is done, he labelled with numbers. I try to get him to notice the longest and shortest (while introducing the vocabulary) and that's it. When I try to go on to talk about longer and shorter.... he said it's enough. He wants to go on to the next activity. 

Both of them loved the sandpaper letters. I think Joy is really attracted with the sensory part. She promptly used two fingers to trace, after I presented and taught her a few times. She is left handed, so, though it complicates things a little, I am happy to hear her sound out the phonetic sound for both. Yup.... she did. Hopefully this will continue.... She then matched the moveable alphabets to the sandpaper cards - giving me more opportunity to sound out the phonetic sounds for her.

I began to see the beauty in 3- parts cards in Montessori. Though to prepare these require extra work, I hope to expose them to more vocabulary in a different way - other than using flash cards all the time. They are both still matching. Joy however, will need more practice in matching the words.

Jay learning to put away the mat.

One of Jay's drawing this week - on a packing box. Nice?

Another craft for Daddy's birthday by Jay. He drew the heart and cut it out. Then he coloured and paste it on another piece of paper and decorated it. 

Since he is not totally well yet, I kept him home from school. I think he is too bored at grandma's house that he requested for scissors and papers to do crafts. He cut shirt and pants from papers. I guess his scissors skills is improving. :)

Montessori

After 2 weeks, my first order of materials have arrived. 

I am impressed with the quality. 

I think this buy is quite a mistake. My daughter is not even interested in this. But at least my son is enthusiastic about every fresh things that I showed him.

These are the materials I've made in the past week. There are plenty of free downloads to be found in various Montessori sites. These will be used in the next few weeks. (they are mostly about animals, and I can see that both my children are interested, as they kept coming to see what I am printing and laminating.)

I've found these wooden boxes in 100 Yen shop in town. I thought they would be useful during lessons.

I am reading...

I have been reading and trying to digest all the information I can get on Montessori Primary. There are some bloggers who have generously explained the purposes of each material and presentation and they spelled out step by step the presentations and the extension ideas.
Here is a list (which I have been visiting often) in no particular order :

1. http://montessoricommons.cc/
A collection of essays and methodology

2. http://www.montessorialbum.com/montessori/index.php?title=Main_Page

A wiki dedicated to sharing Montessori lessons

3. http://www.wikisori.org/index.php/Main_Page

Lots of resources

4. http://www.montessorimom.com/
5. http://www.justmontessori.com/index.php/montessori-language-program/

Mommy bloggers

6. http://montessoristory.blogspot.com/

7. http://pinayhomeschooler.blogspot.com/

8. http://www.ourmontessorihome.com/

9. http://oldcreekmontessori.blogspot.com/

I am sure there are many more I have yet to discover.
 Before then, I plan to enrich my experience with all that these have to offer.