We had a slightly shorter work cycle last week. The boys were in a weird mood and we ended up coming upstairs for a snack/break partway through. Then later (of course!) when Short Pants was super focused and working well for an extended period of time Pita Pocket decided he'd had enough and went upstairs to play. Oh well!
As usual, the sensory bin was enjoyed. Last week's was aquarium gravel filled with little fish, etc. The boys had nets, spoons, and scoops to explore with:
I set out the "fishy" sensory bin because last week we learned about fish. We discussed the characteristics of fish and looked through our fish cards from Walk Beside Me:
And then the boys matched up our parts of a fish 3-part cards. Pita matched the pictures together:
And Short Pants matched the labels:
They also worked together on our parts of a fish puzzle:
I love that the boys have the opportunity to learn together like this! I'm also very pleased that Short Pants is emerging more and more as a natural leader, just as he would in a Montessori classroom. He often volunteers to present lessons to Pita Pocket, and Pita seems to really enjoy having his big brother as his teacher. Last week Short Pants worked on some pin punching:
Then he asked to present the work to Pita Pocket:
Continuing our fish theme, Pita Pocket worked with his magnet fishing game:
Short Pants and I worked together with his alphabet fish. I made these a long time ago and we haven't used them in quite awhile. They are just laminated fish with a lowercase letter on one side and the matching uppercase on the other side. The paper clips on each work as "hooks" for fishing with a magnetic fishing pole:
I put some fish out on our blue playsilk pond, and then said a word that ended with one of the letter sounds. Short Pants had to "catch" the correct fish. When I told him we were going to focus on ending sounds he groaned and said it would be too hard. I asked him to try, and to his surprise and delight, identifying ending sounds was much easier for him compared to the last time we did it. I think this was a much-needed confidence boost:
Pita Pocket explored our landforms again last week (Short Pants once again named all of them for him):
He also spent time creating a mosaic from his cutting scraps left over from last week. I love the look of concentration on his face as he uses the brush to spread glue:
Pouring was also on the agenda - last week it was pouring popcorn kernels through a funnel:
Short Pants and I worked on tying for the first time. I found a fun story about a Native American building a teepee on this site (halfway down the page):
He also worked with our globes and United States maps. I was surprised at how many states he's able to identify now just from working with the puzzle map:
Like our weekly sensory bin, I always make sure I have playdough set up for each school session. I think it provides not only a nice experience but a good sensorial "break" from some of the more academic lessons:
As I noted last week, Short Pants has really been drawn to practical life works lately. He not only worked with Pita's pouring lesson but also worked with this pencil sharpening lesson I'd put out on Pita's shelves:
Here's another of Pita's trays - I presented "land, air, and water" to him for the first time:
If you have some Montessori lessons/ideas to share, please link up below. Please also make sure to either place the Montessori Monday button from the sidebar in your post or place a link back to this blog in your post. Oh, and don't forget to visit my co-host Deb over at Living Montessori Now. Thanks for reading and participating!