Montessori - Homeschooling Day 1

We had an awesome time on the 1st day of homeschooling. 

This was supposed to be lil' dragon_boi's first official lesson with Budsy, however chubs thought it'd be fun to join in.

We focused on letter shape & sound recognition today. We did /c/, taken from the first four sounds; in the first set of letter sounds in accordance to the Montessori Phonics curriculum.

(1) /c/
(2) /f/
(3) /i/
(4) /m/

You can choose to plan your lessons briefly like this, so you can set goals on what to teach your children within a day, a week or even a month.

In this post, Budsy will first share a sample of a lesson plan for a day's work.

Out of the many objects in our Alphabet Objects Box /c/... Budsy used 6 objects first, for today's lesson.

(1) cockatoo

(2) crown

(3) caterpillar

(4) corn

(5) cupcake

(6) castanet

After showing the boys a real corn, we peeled off the skin (no mean feat for little boys!) and Budsy helped them to cut the top portion for a printing activity. The boys peeled off some kernels off the cob to make their own feely cards (tactile cards). When the corn dries up, tracing this letter card will give a nice sensorial impression when traced.  This activity further reinforces the correct way of tracing or writing the letter c. From top to bottom.

Using a soft foam cut-out of a crown, Budsy invited the boys to decorate their crown. Told them to make their crowns fit for a King! 😎

You can purchase soft foam boards at your neighbourhood Popular Bookstore - comes in specific colours in a pack and also a few different colours in a pack. You can easily use a scissors or cutter to cut out a crown shape you fancy. Otherwise you should also be able to buy pre-cut templates at the Art Friend, Takashimaya Shopping Centre that come together with a nice band to fit round a child's head.

You can purchase scrapbook pieces to paste onto your crown or make your own. Available at good craft stores. Budsy got the fairy theme ones at popular, which consists of flower petals and butterflies.

These were the finished tactile cards and their crowns; waiting to dry.

Budsy squeezed out the 3 primary colours - red, yellow and green, for today's printing activity.

The boys used the top portion of the corn to print its cross-section on a worksheet of a hollow letter c.

This activity reinforces the correct stroke of how the letter c is written. The boys print from the top of the /c/, moving down the the letter, until it ends at the bottom curve; at the same time going /c/... /c/... /c/...

You can also come up with your own tune or mimic the tune from the Ants on the Apple songbook and perhaps chant a liner like this :- corn on the cob, /c/... /c/... /c/... (repeat 3X), /c/ is the sound, of cee / I hear.

Official homeschool activity wouldn't be complete without some actual tracing would it?  Lil' dragon_boi is still too young for pencil work, so Budsy printed the /c/ worksheet for the boys to trace rainbow letters using fat crayons instead.

You are welcome to print off this worksheet for your homeschooling efforts, if you wish to. You can print wirelessly via AirPrint if you have a wireless printer at home. If not, you can download and save into your pc to print a later time. 

Budsy's Rainbow Writer worksheet for you to carry out rainbow tracing with your child, just like what Budsy's tiger_chubs is currently doing.

This is one of Budsy's prized resource for interactive learning with young children. Awesome play board featuring a Very Hungry Caterpillar scene. The boys took turns to pick out the magic colour felt pieces to stick onto the play board as the story progressed.

If you're practising Shichida at home, this activity helps with memory training too - in an even more interactive learning through play!

Budsy read The Very Hungry Caterpillar board book, while the boys took turns to fill up the play board with the sequential pieces of the color felt pieces.

This is one of lil' dragon_boi's favourite stories. He memorized the story almost in its entirety!

 If you have not already owned a DVD collection of the 5 Eric Carle stories (available at Kiddy Palace), you can also view the short animation episode of The Very Hungry Caterpillar at this link.

Click the link below to watch :-

The Very Hungry Caterpillar VIDEO

There's no better way to end today's lesson, other than to snack on juicy corn. Budsy used some kernels for tonight's dessert (DD2's favourite!) of bubor cha cha as well. Now, who likes this dessert? Hands up now..