DIY Montessori Inspired Sound Bags

My 2 year old daughter is in a sensitive period for letters/letter sounds. See how we started here.

Here are our DIY Sound Bags:

The bags were at our local craft store in the wedding section. I used fabric markers to write the letters.

Then I put mini figures, picture cards, magnets and go-together picture and letter puzzles in each bag that begin with that letter.

First, we read the letter sound on the front of the bag, then she reaches in to see what's inside.

She opens each one of these bags with such excitement. She names each object as she pulls it out. For example, here she said, "Octopus! Ahh (for the letter O sound), Octopus!"

 

It literally looked like she was opening Christmas presents the first time we did this together.

After we explored the bags, I asked her to help me add moveable alphabet letters to each one.

She had fun "stuffing" them herself.

As she learns more letter sounds, I will make more ... for now, we're sticking with the ones she's familiar with.

When she wants to work on this, she takes the basket off the shelf and brings it to her workspace.

 

Have you created anything like this for your children?



My Kids (2-4 yrs) and Geography

My children love geography.  

 

It started with my son at age 3; we were in the middle of a Solar System unit study when he became very curious about Earth. I introduced Earth by starting large and simple: Earth is made of land and water. Later, I purchased an Usborne Book to help teach (Usborne are my favorites) and included a map of the world.

 

Next, I introduced continents. We started by singing a 7 continents song to the tune of "Are you Sleeping?" Here's my daughter waking me up to this song at 25 months:

 To extend on our continent work, we referenced another book we own: 

I printed animals from each continent and laminated them for matching, and sometimes I'd bring out Toob Animals for matching:

 We just took our time on each continent - sometimes up to two weeks - as there were many new animals to research.

When my son and I found the Hug A Globe at our local learning shop, we had to have it. My son still sleeps with this at night.
 

On the bottom of our world map is a list of countries and their flags. My son wanted to look at the flags every day. I had no idea where to go with this, so I researched it ...

For Christmas, when he was 3.5 yrs old, we purchased the Flags of the World, and a miniature globe:  

My son now knows 10 country flags and their dot on the map.  

I did a Google search and printed flags for matching. I didn't know if he would enjoy this as it seemed so simple. However, simple can be very rewarding.  

Now that we were on to flags and countries, I wanted to extend on this and explore each country a little deeper. I thought it would be fun to try Little Passports.

 

This just makes it easy on me ... they send my son information on a new country each month. And, slowly but surely, I'm now able to focus on putting together continent boxes.

I am in love with how these are turning out and will post about this, and open them up for you to see what's inside, very soon!

 

How are you exploring Geography with your little ones?

Exploring Black and White and Color Box3

Today I'm sharing two activities that we explored with black and white paint. One was great for my 4 year old son and the other was perfect for my 2 year old daughter.

 

I previously mentioned our Color Box3 work here. Here's a little work my son did today to create his own shades of color, and how we incorporated Color Box 3.

 

Exploring Black and White and their effects on color.

He wanted to begin with red. He graded the red tablets from darkest to lightest to start. I asked if he knew how to make dark red a bit lighter. He wasn't too sure, so I asked if he thought adding white or adding black to the color would make it lighter. This seemed to be a no-brainer.

He started by adding a little white, then added a little more, and continued until quite a bit of white was added to the red.

He couldn't wait to try mixing the red with black. This time he realized he didn't need much.

Next he worked on blue, mixing it with white, and mixing the next blue with a little black.

This is what his paint tray looked like when he was done. 

Here's how my 2 year old explored black and white:

I purchased some black and white Styrofoam paper from The Dollar Tree. They are very large, so I cut each one into four pieces.

 

 

My daughter (2 yrs) really enjoyed this. She learned that when she mixed black and white, she could create the color gray.

 

The kids were so busy. These were some great activities to extend on our Color Box 3 work.

Enjoy!

Practical Life: 18m - 2 yrs

Following my child's interests in Practical Life has been a beautiful thing ... just watch her grow.

 

“The child becomes a person through work.” ~Maria Montessori

 

In remembrance of St. Nick, she received her own sized broom and dustpan (18 months). She still loves these items now as she approaches 2.5 yrs old.

She enjoyed sweeping colored rice and snowballs (cotton balls) and anything she could find around the house.

 

Around 22 months she discovered folding - little washcloths and a basket from The Dollar Tree:

This basket is still on her shelves today; she still takes them out to work on folding. I've recently noted them being used to wash her table, clean her baby's face, wash dishes in her play kitchen and dust her room. 

 

We've been working on solids transferring since a young age. When my daughter started digging in the dog's food bowl and trying to get into the food canister, here's what she worked on:

Dog food transferring (cocoa puffs) almost 18 months.

“Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.”

 

We continued to work on pouring solids to develop her small muscles. Eventually we moved to water, which prepped her for helping fill her dog's water dish at 2 years.

In the picture above, we have a plastic pitcher on the shelf under her table. She fills and dumps the water into his bowl.

Here she is at 2 years walking with her tray and glass pitchers for some water pouring. Prepping for pouring her own drinks.

She loves clean-up too!

"He who is served is limited in his independence.”

 

Unable to reach our water spout in our fridge, we placed a water container with a spout on a low shelf for her to fill her own cup.

 

I made some button work out of some leftover fabric and a quilting hoop. She started working on this around 18 months and mastered it, buttoning and unbuttoning, at 24 months.

 

 

Hanging her doll clothes on the line.

 

Making and pouring her own orange juice.

She loves fresh juice!

Helping prepare snacks.

 

Rolling napkins and placing them into rings.

 

Following folding patterns (around 25 months).

Recently she's been developing an interest in folding her own clothes.

 

Flower arranging.

 

Following my daughter's interests has been nothing short of beautiful ... I love watching her grow.

 

How we make room for Montessori when we don't have a room for it

Today's post is brought to you by my phone, so the photos are not the best. However, I wanted to share how we make room for Montessori when we don't have a room for it.

Our living room has a few shelves holding our Montessori materials. Above is our sensorial shelf with the Pink Tower, Brown Stair, Color Tablet Box 2, Knobbed Cylinders, Binomial Cube, DIY sound Jars and Pressure Cylinders.

 

I keep some material in storage for rotation. So far the tower, stair, and cylinders are permanently on this shelf.

 

Close by is a small work area where I do a lot of rotation (usually home to my DIY materials). Pictured are DIY Tactile Bean Bag Match, DIY Montessori Folding Cloths, my M inspired lowercase alphabet with DIY coin box seen here, and some wooden puzzles.

 

You can somewhat see our train table which we use for a lot of work, and not far from that is an Ikea table with two chairs for another work space. The kids will also use mats on the floor for designated work areas, usually for larger activities such as the tower and brown stair.

 

In the other corner, closest to our kitchen, are our geography and Metal Inset shelves.

 

The top geography shelf, is a wooden Flags of The World map with a small bowl holding the country flags my son and his friend are familiar with (so far they have 8 flags they are able to identify and stick into the puzzle).

The tray on top holds the Around The World Toob with real life photos of the monuments. We use a 3 period lesson for these, and independently, the children can match the monuments to their pictures.

Behind the small globe is my son's Little Passports suitcase. He receives a new country in the mail to explore every month.

 

I recently wrote about our the beautiful pink and blue metal insets here.

 

Close by, in the kitchen, we have our math and language shelves. These items are most often worked on at the kitchen table. In the drawers above are our pencils and colored pencils.

 

On the top: Hundred's Board, Spindle Box, Sandpaper Numbers in a sand tray, Wooden Numbers and Counters, and our Teens Board.

On the bottom: Bob Books, Moveable Alphabet Box, Sandpaper letters: upper and lowercase, and a wooden bowl with my daughter's Moveable Alphabet figurines and picture cards.

 

We also have a little basket close by with our Montessori Books: Map Work, Letter Work, Number Work, and Shape Work.

 

So, while we don't have a Montessori homeschool room, we make it work with the little space we do have - and it works very well! Hope you enjoyed viewing our shelves:)