Montessori : Zoology & Botany

Hi guys, I've been a lil hooked up doing up materials to work with my boys as they are learning so fast now. I'm trying to fill up my shelves with interesting stuff for them to work with daily. 

I put together some model animals (plus a few other stuff) and segregated them into different categories, like some of these below...

The boys are learning to appreciate beautiful things in our environment and the lil one can say "far-wers" (ie. he meant to say flowers) ... so I did up a flower basket for them to learn the names of different flowers.

 

 

.... and I put together this birdie collection much to their delight. 

 

 

I made 3-part cards corresponding to all the models that I put up on the shelves too....... but I gotta go now, will show you more later and continue to share more on what the boyz and I have been up to. 

Bed time reading with chubs

I have been working with chubs on the topics, Shapes & Colours. He is finally getting more of the colour names right.  We have this Melissa & Doug colour puzzle for him to work with while waiting for our Montessori Colour Boxes to arrive. Of course, if you guys already know me by now, that's not the only thing I have to work on colours, aye? 

Share with you guys this other great material I bought for chubs to work on his colour sorting practice. I was so pleased that I finally got my hands on the Counting Bears from Learning Resources that I have been eyeing for so long.. 

Just this one material can be used for so many other concepts, like patterning, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, counting in groups/sets, rote counting to 100 (since there are 102 pieces/counters in this set) and so much more!

I secured a good deal over a forum bulk purchase for about $34.20 inclusive of 6 corresponding coloured plates.

The bulk purchase promotion is now expired but if any of you are interested to purchase any of the gazillion fun items from Learning Resources, you can still get them from her... my new-found friend, who shares the same fetish as me when it comes to quality hands-on materials... Starry Mummy, if you have a facebook account. I had the most pleasant shopping experience with her. Highly recommended seller. *Two thumbs up!*

As for when chubs and I am working on shapes/shape recognition, we play fishing together. Yeah, we play fish-the-shapes-game when the lil brother is taking a nap. Why? Cos that lil one is at the phase where he puts everything in his mouth. Besides, dangling interactive games like fishing games help chubs work on keeping quiet while I breastfed his brother to sleep. He'd either nicely wait for me to come out of the room (after putting the baby in the cot) on the sofa, watching the telly or he would play with his trains first. There were some days where I was lacking sleep and breastfeeding the babe was like cuddling a nice warm cuddly pillow... and *gasp*... this bad mommy fell asleep! However, I was pleasantly happy that instead of crying or screaming for me, chubs daintily walked into the room and softly nudged me whispering, "Mommy mommy.. wake up. Don't *sweep..(He meant *sleep*) lol!

Here's our fishing game. 

Got this from Learning Thru Play from IMM, Jurong East during DD1's time. Yes, I keep my materials in pristine condition so they last real good till today.

Two weeks ago, he took a purple triangle (from this shape matching set above) and put it on his daddy's back and he said, "Wook, mommy.. Daddy has perwple pwickles all over his back!" His daddy didn't know what he was talking about unfortunately...  ...but I thought it was clever of him to apply what he read from his Gruffalo story book..

This week, on one of our evening reading time, chubs suddenly quipped... "I will read to you, mommy." He told me to take his current favourite : The Gruffalo and tried to read the pages like he knew how to really read.  

Hear out the *perwple pwickles bit! 

*purple prickles*

This video was taken the following morning with him in proper attire. The night before when he read to me, he was in his *jumamas. He meant *pyjamas, of course.

Montessori Phonics : Word Building

Parents have come to me asking for assistance on how to help them teach their children... how to move on from recognition of single letter sounds to blending the 3-letter words in the Pink Scheme.

This is where many have overlooked, even teachers themselves, yes... even Montessorian ones. I believe in working with word building exercises prior to actual blending lessons. Word building is frankly the key to reading all phonetic words. Children who have done word building do not need to have letters grouped together to be able to read efficiently especially if they have been exposed to a lot of books, either they have parents reading to them regularly or they have been given a lot of encouragement and stimulation to read independently or both.

Word building is the pre-reading stage where children are guided to listen to sounds in words. Any phonetic words. In my Montessori sessions, we have word building games to help children use their listening skills and put them to good use. 

For example :

Teacher : What do I have here?

Children : A bag!

Teacher : Now... I think I can hear a few sounds in the word 'bag'... Can you hear the sounds in that word too? Let's say that words together real slowly... Now, what sounds can you hear in the word b....a.....g.... (drag the sounds)

In my experience from having taught for many years, my students/children always give the first and last consonant letter before the middle vowel sound.

Children : We can hear the sound /b/.

Teacher : Good. Now what other sounds are there in the word b....a....g....

Children : We can hear the sound /g/.

Teacher : Good. Now we only have the sounds /b/ and /g/... and that is
not enough to form a proper word. I think we need a vowel. Now what
vowel can you hear in the word.... b.....aaaaa....g.... (this time drag the
/a/ sound) to make it seem more obvious. 

Children : /a/!!!

Teacher : Good. Now, let's sort the sounds out. What is the first sound in
the word bag?

Children : (saying to themselves) b... a... g. /b/ should be the first sound 
in the word bag.

Teacher : Good, what do you think comes next?

Children : (repeating the word to themselves again) b... aaaa... g.

(From the teacher's obvious sounding hint, the children will repeat the same sounds to themselves, hence providing indirect reinforcement for the children to grasp it all on their own. It's fine if you sound like a broken record, just make it a happy though broken one) 

If the children are stuck here, you may guide the process by offering... "I think it's a vowel sound next... what do you think...?" 

Most times, children with an already concrete foundation in single letter sounds will get it almost automatically. Cos through the lessons during foundation, children have been reinforced with the sounds regularly. Many fun repetitive activities would have been carried out as well to ensure that while having fun the children retain the essence of the lesson objective, the sounds.

Children : /a/....?

Teacher : Yes, an /a/... now what would the last letter be then?

Children : (repeating the sounds to themselves one last time) b... a... g.

Children : /g/ is the last sound!

Teacher : Well done everyone, now let's build this word and see if we get the word bag. 

Slowly now... /b/.... /a/... (buh.... aaaaaa.....) then... put those two together.... it wud make /ba/ = baaaahh.... and lastly fit in the /g/ in a brief sounding second. Hence making it sound /ba/.... /g/. Bag. Let's try that again.. (repeat)

Note : This word building process goes through 3 steps.

1. Say first letter sound. (/b/)

2. Say second letter sound. (/a/)

3. Combine sounds (/b/ and /a/) and roll in the /g/ sound at the end.

Lastly, read the word as a whole. Don't break it up. 
So, just say it briefly in one breath. 'bag' This; to sum up that built up word. 

Gosh. I do hope this helps give an idea.

I'm trying my best to provide the sounds and techniques just typing words out here.. not an easy task when you can't hear me sounding them out. Sweating now.. Teheeheehee..

Most teachers seem to go right into the 3-letter stage. So children miss out on word building opportunities which is really really really helpful moving on from the single letter sounds stage. The reason why some children may get stuck at blending 3-letter phonetic words can be due to that. Other kids who can grasp the concept of blending word families faster do eventually get it anyhow. 

Word family blending is simply giving them the combi (combination) of sounds for example : /an/... and then get children to read words that comes under that family like...

ban can fan man pan ran tan van 

Though that method works, i just prefer to better layer my children's foundation skills with word building. I prefer to make it concrete. 

Plus you can do word building with 4 or 5 or 6 letter words like a game if you want... just to see if they can indeed hear the sounds in words. Phonetic ones of course. 

For children who are confident learners, you don't have to emphasize the sounds at all. You can just say the word and ask for what sounds they can hear. 

When my kiddies we younger, (during outings or travels) we also played word games like "I Spy" (things in the train beginning with... : for single letter sounds) and "What sounds can i hear in the word...? Like pram or shop.. as and when we are looking out from where we are traveling in. ie. bus or train.

Don't take my word for it, of course. Try it out with your children and see how it works out... and of course please do leave me your happy notes of success. If you are still stuck for any reason at any point while trying to teach your child/children to read... i am just a PM/email away.

Montessori Sorting Activity : Wooden Category Box

I just bought this from an online forum seller and spree organizer/spree enthusiast. It is called The Wooden Category Box. I found it to be super-dee-duper for follow-up sorting activity with chubs. 

  
I love the fact that there are quite a number of categories for chubs to work on. I am sure he is gonna love this material for awhile. This is continuation from our concrete sorting exercises. With this material, we can now move on to the abstract part of category sorting.

I did a 3-period lesson using the picture pieces with chubs first. He seemed to know only some of it, but I was okay for him to continue playing it based on the picture recognition first instead of actually knowing the names to all the items in all the categories. This picture below shows him working on the Vegetables Category.

He then picked one picture piece at a time and matched it from the most extreme left one first... yup... matching the pictures from left to right.

I encouraged him to check the picture piece against the one on the long category board first before he slots in the picture piece.

Place it side by side to check if 

they are indeed the same veggie. 

If they are a match (same), then slowly slot the picture piece into the corresponding slot below the long category board.

By far, I have observed that this Wooden Category Box has been steadily priced between $44 to $48... but I got it from Doris at only $33! What a good deal yeah?

Share with you her contact tomorrow.

Time to snooze now... 

it's 2:10am in Singapore.

Zzzzzzzzzzz.......

Montessori Cultural Explorations

Cultural subjects include history, geography, art, physical science, cosmology, music and physical movement. The aim of studying culture is to allow the child to experience their place in the universe. They begin by exploring similarities between their culture and others, and then have appreciation and respect for differences. They learn how all beings are fundamentally related and discover ways to feel they are significant beings in this world.

In Singapore primary education, there is what parents term the considerable leap of academic challenges from the honey-mooning phase of lower primary education ie. Primary 1 and Primary 2... to the inevitable coming-of-age phase in Primary 3. Many parents lament that their children are either caught off-guard come CA1 or SA1 results or that they are shocked at what the just graduated from P2s hafta swallow whole at P3... especially with THAT one additional subject... yes, I am referring to Science.

Inclusive in the 5 areas of Montessori Education is the Cultural Explorations. It is precisely, because of this area that Montessorian children are often observed to also be ahead in Science, apart from the tested and proven Math and Language areas. Montessori's Cultural curriculum is in-depth and offers plenty of opportunities for extension activities where directress can bring the wide world of Science into the classroom. Montessorian children also enjoy excursions to destinations rich in nature so children can observe and apply what they have worked on in class. This complements the appreciation of nature in real life and not just from books and resources.

For the natural born scientists and the nature lovers, this is surprising, for to them... Science was something they never had to learn at all. Whether or not you want to take the chance to eventually find out if your young ones are adept at this subject, you can expose them to this subject at an early stage where they won't even know they're actually learning Science.

And no.. i'm not talking about just doing the experiments. But yes, you can do that too. Hehee.. 

1. Concrete Introduction Using models (3D)

You can introduce children to a variety of Science concepts by using 3D model animals and objects for concrete learning experiences. To name a few are those animal packs you can easily purchase from your neighbourhood stationery store at less than 5 to 10 dollars a pack depending on the size of the animals in a pack. There are a few packs mainly, farm animals, wild animals, dinosaurs, ocean creatures, creepy crawlies and the likes.

Introduce one animal/object a week/day depending on your schedule and you can see that your children will learn so many names and shape (physical characteristics) of the animals/objects you have shown to them and shared (info) about them. For items can be, things in the bathroom, kitchen utensils, at the garden (etc)... you get to decide your own theme for the month(s).

After which, you can follow up by a trip to the zoo or the bird park or the farm (etc) to reinforce the concept you have introduced. For household items, a trip to the hardware store or even big supermarkets can be a fun educational trip for them. Engage them in discovery and expand their vocabulary by asking them the physical characteristics of all the stuff they've been introduced to.

2. Abstract Follow-up (2D)

After the concrete introduction, you can follow-up the activities with worksheets or craft work. Here's when the concrete moves on with the abstract. There are loads of resources readily available on the web. If you're keen to buy, there are also gazillions of resources off the shelves out in good stores that you can purchase.

You can also get puzzles, start in small pieces a pack for the tots and slowly upgrade to more pieces as they advance in skill or age whichever comes earlier.

This is one for early learners. I got a few boxes in different themes for my girls when they were tots. Still in pristine condition till today.

As your child pieces the puzzle, just name the part. No need to go into functions of each part. Just one word. Especially for the younger learners. They will absorb the vocab real quick. By the next play time, you'd be surprised they already know the parts to the whole fish.

For the above picture, just say "head" when you place the 1st piece, say "body" when fixing the 2nd piece and "tail" when the final piece is fixed.

Flashcards can be introduced regardless if you're a flashing-cards-advocate or just using flash cards as a revision tool in support of what has been shared earlier with the 3D lessons.

3. 4D (Yes, 4D...)

4D refers to whole puzzles that are able to be stripped down to pieces part by part, to learn more about body parts or bones within an animal. Very very fun for the older or the more advanced learners.

Here's one that i have from a purchase sometime back. Extremely interesting..

4. Music/Rhymes

Yes, early learners are attracted to rhythm and rhyme and can easily grasp simple concept songs from numbers to alphabets to animals (etc). One such rhyme for learning say... about the introduction to vegetables.

"One little pea in a pea pod pressed.."

" One grew two grew and so did all the rest..."

"They grew and they grew and did not stop..."

"Until one day, the pod went pop!"

What better way too than having a nice colourful book with hand-gesture suggestions to accompany those chant-like rhymes? Here's one i managed to pick up from Borders for buds_chubs on one of our town trips.

  

5. Fun Extension Activities

Extension activities are what children love most. They usually never realize that they are learning for such activity extensions aim to be very fun, allows them to be very involved learners and exposes them to experimentation.

Try cooking for example. It does not have to be something you have to do over stove and fire. It can be something very simple for tots to do... like if we were to go back to the vegetable theme for the month, children can have a hand at preparing a vegetable salad. Simple preps and on your ingredient list ito get is very few. Children can start off with play-cutting with wooden knife and fruits like this ones.

Prefer plastic ones so it'd be easier to clean? No sweat! There are plenty in the market... as in, the shops lar! LOL! I have a huge ziploc bag full of them for my girls to work with when they were younger and they are all still in fabulous condition! :)

Allow children to experiment with plastic or butter knives to cut the veggies or if you're doing a dessert fruit salad, they can also chop soft fruit like bananas for instance. What nice way to include a lesson or two on kitchen safety, aye? Get the little brats to add whip cream or ice-cream to fruity desserts, sprinkle hundreds and thousands (etc). Now what better way than to have your cake and eat it? Literally..

6. Decide/Plan on a theme

Themes make early introduction to Science systematic so you can further up to make the learning fun. If you're introducing different types of flowers... buy a few roses and baby's breath and carnations, dry them up and add one or two dashes of lovely aromatherapy oil and viola, you get potpourri. A trip to the Botanical Gardens will be fruitful for this theme. Why should children only know the response to changes of a plant eg. a mimosa plant only when they are in P3... when they can jolly well touch plenty of them outside and have them tell you that it was their touch that did it? What better way to blow those dandelions and ask your child to tell you how you think more dandelions can grow?

If your child is a photography enthusiast, allow them to take snapshots of the flowers... print them out to make their own flash cards / matching cards. No better way to identify flowers than having the real picture isn't it? Because they made the cards themselves it will be all the better to remember those flower names too! Just like these ones..

I have these few on animals i think cut-out from old magazines. So don't throw those beautiful National Geographic magazines, peeps!

I used them to make matching animal cards suitable for a reading and non-reading child. How cool is that?

I made a separate set for teaching animal body parts. You can do this too for all the different types of animals and non-living things too! You can even catogorize your animals into mammal sets, amphibian sets.. (etc). The possibilities are endless!

*The animal cards are available in Montessori classrooms for children to work with.* 

7. Conclusion

Now, learning won't really be complete without a definite conclusion would it? You see... the early introduction of concepts/activities should have objectives lest they would just pass on by like regular play-time. Well, technically it IS play-time... but in this case it is learning-through-play-time. *wink* But they don't know that yet. Hah! So, you can ensure this finale by perhaps getting them to colour a couple of relevant assignments.. by re-playing or role-playing those sessions and get them to show you / tell you what they know. This way you know they know what you've been wanting them to know...  

Who said early science preps should commence only in P2... when we can actually begin from birth? Being here in this forum just means we are that kiasu, right? So why wait? If you are keen to start on early teaching concepts of practically anything, just embark on it. Get those keywords smacking on those little lips like it means something... for later on it WILL mean something anyhow. Believe me, they'll thank you for it. 

Hard to find stuff? No excuse. With the number of Daiso stores growing like mushrooms and those novelty items you can get from those ever-so-frequent pasar malams (night bazaars), one can start on anything with one's children at anytime. They come pretty cheap too! Here's a set of the most realistic looking fruits i've got from Daiso. Yes, $2 for each!

Realistic size wise too! Still in mint collection. :) As an extension to introducing the names of the fruits to the children, you can make word strip cards for them to match to the corresponding fruit as well. Such exercises also promote sight reading in children.

Honestly, the gift of love is pretty much... time.

Your time.

So, make time if you have the time. Your children will love you for it! Make learning fun....... while you still can that is! Ahahakz! LOL!

*Final note :

*Montessorian children get to enjoy many of these activities in the classroom. Science explorations in a Montessori classroom spans broadly from zoology to botany and later even get to move on to early geography as well, where children learn about landforms and even natural disasters.

Trust me to add this on, uh? Well, can't help it. Hahaa! 

*Montessorian children learn beyond pre-school and whoever said it doesn't prepare children for P1 should research more into it. There's P3/P4 Science introductions in those 'fun' lessons, yo! Geography is only taught much later too! So before i end this article, just a quick nod to all fellow Montessorians, cheers!

Montessori : The Sensitive Period with Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends

The time window of the Sensitive Period is the best time for a child to absorb as many things as he can from the environment. Languages, early math skills, learning about good mannerisms and being gracious, exposure to the nature around him, the order of things and so many more... for once it has peaked, this window will slowly close and slows the rate of what the child absorbs as compared to when it first started. This is why experts have shared that the age range of 0-3 years old is the best time for a child to learn as many skills as he can.

Early childhood programmes like playgroup, gym and right-brain training have become so much popular in recent years for more and more parents are better informed. There will be working mothers who spare no time in clinching the best play schools for their children to occupy their days with and savvy stay-home-moms research on all the tested and proven early childhood methodologies to work with their children at home. 

The Montessori Method of Education is one of the most family-friendly method to impart skills be it in academic form, in values, in appreciation of nature and the world, in nurturing a child towards independence and so many more! A Montessorian child is prepared not only for academia but for life itself.

Fully utilizing on the Sensitive Period together with the chubs' current craze of the year : Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, I hope to interest him as much as possible in areas he enjoys doing and in areas he finds the challenges somewhat interesting. Interesting enough to push himself to overcome the challenges and interesting enough to sustain his concentration ability. I never realized I could have fallen head over heels in love with Thomas... and his friends too of course. LOL! 

Chubs' vocabulary bank is increasing by the day and he speaks to us often about his wants, his likes, his emotions for the day and never forgets to tell me he loves me... especially right before his breastfeeding session. LOL! Hubs likes to tease me that I am not playing fair as I have a secret weapon... or rather... gotta make that as "secret weaponS" instead cause there are two of them! ROFL! He claims I have the upper hand because I hold the food source!

Honestly, during this Sensitive Period... it takes less of the parent to teach for the child is a very observant & keen learner. He grasp concepts REALLY fast and can apply what he has learnt equally fast. It takes little effort on the parents' end. But what it does take is of course the parent's time. Time to be spent with the child. Simple and interesting resources are an added bonus.

Now, back to Thomas... the flavour of the season... the moment I observed his keen interest in everything Thomas, I didn't waste any time. I got everything over the shelves I could lay my hands on that I know he would love to work on. Then, I hit the blogshops, forums, spree sites for other Thomas related items not easily available in Singapore. Perhaps some are pretty easy to get but because I am normally holed up in my pigeon hole, the net is the easiest way out for me. I get to shop in my PJs!

I got hold of these books from an open fair at Yew Tee Point, in Choa Chu Kang. They are PERFECT! #1 : Boardbooks. #2 : Large A4 sized. #3 : Extremely colourful illustrations. #4 : Options for follow-up with activity books.

There were two Math inspired board books available at that time. I bought both definitely since both books offered different pleasures to a child. Apart from the beautiful illustrations on them, they each brought out something for the child to work with. Something interactive to engage the child's interest. 

The A4 sized Thomas 123 book shows the engines, the numbers each engine represents and finally the names of each of them (the engines). Chubs could relate to the engine shape from their colours, size, engine shape and their distinct faces with the help of his real engines. Yes, hubs and I bought him a few. Okay, that's not true. We bought him almost half the collection already. Teheeheee..

Chubs gets all his engines together and tries to match them on the board book itself. The control of error is that the last tender's number or the engine's number won't match with the one on the book, should any of the pieces were not placed correctly. 

Montessori apparatus comes with control of error. The special feature about Montessori equipment is that they allow for auto-education. A child can check and self-correct his work without much intervention from the directress after the material has been presented to him. The auto-education feature allows Montessorian children to learn from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and through these mistakes, we learn. We will make conscientious effort to do better the next time we do the exact same thing again. 

This is where the Montessori education is special. It provides freedom to learn anything and everything and yet offers comfort to the child's emotional worth that it is not wrong for him to make mistakes, it happens... in fact in happens to everyone because no one is perfect.

There is no one to ridicule the child for the mistake. There is no norm to conform to. The directress continues to guide and facilitate the individual presentations as repeat lessons everytime a child is in need of reinforcements. Hence explains the "no child left behind"... It has been said that time waits for no man. The Montessori Education offers the assurance that it is okay to learn at one's own pace. When a child begins to show the love for learning, that learning comes from within him and learning becomes easier. If the child finds it hard to learn how we teach, then we can teach him how he learns best. 

The second book (again a boardbook) which is slightly smaller entitled My First Numbers, feature catchy rhyming pages to help a child learn the numbers as well. Children once again relate to all the engine names and are led to rote count from number 1 via the simple rhymes. This book offers language opportunities as children explore the pictures used in the illustrations.

Using simple books as resources, chubs was able to learn one-to-one counting, recognize the symbols/numerals and got reinforcement on colours. 

Last Thursday, while waiting for DD1 to finish her violin lesson chubs roamed around the music school. I observed him looking up at every studio door. I realized he was looking at the numbers pasted on the doors. Without any prompting from me, he showed how he applied what he had learnt about numbers thus far. He said, "Mommy, this is room. Room is number 1. Thomas is number 1." He went on to the rest of studio doors in quiet request that I accompany him around the school using his little fingers wrapped around two of mine. "This room is number 5, James is number 5..." he resumed. Then, DD1's violin teacher called signaling the end of lesson for that day. Before that, chubs said, "Mommy carry. Mommy help chubs please.. I trace 5." With my wittle dragon_boi in the baby carrier pouch in front of me, I carefully lifted chubs to the side of my body and he got to trace the number 5 on the door of the studio before we went over to meet DD1's violin teacher. As I slowly let him down, he flashed me his handsome grin and let out a contented sigh.

It's amazing how I thought I'm the one who is supposed to be teaching him and reinforcing the concepts with him... but instead he taught me and shared with me that he has indeed learnt and understood... for today, he applied what he learnt. Perfectly.

Thanks to the Montessori Method and the discovery of the Sensitive Period, to Thomas and of course his friends too... LOL! and thanks to chubs today for showing me how learning can be so natural, so effortless and so much more meaningful when the desire to learn comes from within him.

I'm looking forward to chubs sharing more of his learning experiences with me.