maths, and other bits

Jordy is doing a lot of counting at the moment. He is getting up to 14 ok but then gets a little muddled. But he is really counting, ie he is understanding the quantity of each number to a degree that is a little surprising.

Even though i knew he enjoyed numbers (hence me introducing the spindles earlier than i may have otherwise) the last few days have seen a bit of a leap in his understanding. He is now adding things up. The first basic example for me was on Sunday when he said there were two chickens in the yard and two chickens in the house so there were four chickens. Fair enough. Not rocket science but enough to surprise me.

Today he asked for his talking calculator for the first time in a while. It’s one of those annoying battery operated things that never shuts up (that he totally loves) and i have often discouraged him from using… well not anymore. Today he sat on the floor and added over and over again things like 3+4=, and 6+2=, and 7+1=…. etc.  And did number quizzes counting forwards and backwards (surprisingly he got the counting wrong more than the addition which i don’t quite understand but there you go…)

We worked together with the stereognostic bag. He enjoyed feeling the shapes and rolling them. He won’t always feel the shape properly before pulling it out of the bag- he just reaches in to surprise himself with what he gets so we’ll have to work on the nature of the game a bit more.

I did a basic presentation of zippering the other day. He wanted to do it himself and got it once but then got frustrated when he did not immediately get it the next time. He hasn’t gone back to it although i offered it this morning.

What else have we been up to…. oh, been doing a little with the classified pictures. I’m not all that happy with the work that i have been presenting him and have had to rethink my method a little. I think i might sit with him and just look at a dozen or so pictures and talk about them a little and not try to classify them just yet. I briefly tried to sort 5 mammals, 5 birds, 5 reptiles today and show him a feather, the feel of scales and fur etc but although he went with it and we had a play i don’t think it really sank in.

I am now going to go with two separate paths with the pictures i have made so far-  simple sorting with 5 cards from each of three very distinct groups (animals, flowers, kitchen utensils) that he can work with without assistance so that he gets a good uncomplicated example of the task. And then present several at a time from the full range of cards from each group (eg mammals or fish etc) and just talk about them and relate them to our environment where possible.

I also took Jordy for his swimming lesson for the first time in several lessons (my mum has taken him) and it was wonderful to see how well he is doing and how much he is totally loving it. Now when we do ‘Under the Sea’ i can hold the back of his head and push him under and along and then let go and he kicks up to the surface, reaches for the wall and pulls himself out quite well (there is the occasional delay or flap and i can’t help but give him a little assistance!) His kicking and paddling is much stronger and he is holding his breath or blowing bubbles with no effort at all.

working on language

Even though there as soooo many things i want to do and even more things that Jordy is interested in at the moment i am focusing on language as that seems to be his biggest interest at the moment. I am working hard at making up the three part cards (although i guess i should call them nomenclature cards for now as that is all i am using them for). I must have made hundreds- well it feels like that anyway! I am going to get some coloured dots to stick on the back for a self-correcting check for when he starts to catagorise them.  I decided to use coloured dots rather than coloured card stock so that i can have multiple dots as we build up the catagories and i introduce the concept that things can belong to more than one catagory. For example i will start with his animal pictures and have ‘animals’, ‘birds’, ‘insects’. But later on i can break those into further catagories like ‘mammal’, ‘invertebrate’ etc. But i can also use them for geography studies with native australian animals and african animals, or even things that live in the desert or in the snow etc etc. Because, like most kids, he is very interested in animals he already knows what animals live in the ocean and which live in the snow so we could probably catagorise that straight away if i can find the time to put the dots on. :-p

We did the sound ’ssss’ again this morning and built on the presentation a little. I’ll do the walk around the house later. He is busy dancing at the moment and building lego so not in the mood for quiet work. He has already sorted the coloured buttons this morning. It’s now very easy for him but i am glad he chose to work with it this morning so i could see what he what he was up to with it. I think i will leave it on the shelves for a little longer but i will remove the set of three coloured chips that is the exercise before the coloured buttons as it no longer offers any kind of challenge to him. The coloured buttons can still be sorted in order of size as well as colour and although he names the smallest and largest we have not laid them out in a line in order yet so i will introduce that later today.

A new word building puzzle from ebay arrived this morning. The puzzles are a perfect level of difficulty for him and it combines puzzles and letters!!! yay!!! Two of his favourite things!

 

Yesterday was a bit of an impromptu practical life day. He worked with his play cooking pots and wooden cutting fruit. Then while i was busy with Darcy he climbed up on the chair to the bench and helped himself to the bread knife, butter, and vitaweets and made himself a snack. Had a bit of butter smeared up his arm and a big divet in the butter! LOL! But he did rather well i think. I am really glad that he showed the initiative to do it himself rather than ask. Leaving out a snackbox for him most days that he can access himself has really helped but i have to get more organised with the banana and knife so he can practice real slicing.

today’s activities bought to you by the letter…..

I love the sound of the day!! For our very first sound i chose ’ssss’. Montessori language exercises start with more commonly used and differentiated letters rather than starting with the beginning of the alphabet song (and the alphabet song does absolutely nothing to help teach a child to read anyway so it is not something we will be working with).

Once i started looking and thinking about ’ssss’ i was amazed at how many things we could use. Here is the table and mat that i layed out for him before i went to bed.

i have the sandpaper letters for him to feel, the sand tray (filled with polenta!) for him to feel how he can create the shape himself. And then a mat with various items that start with ’ssss’ as well as the fingerspelling auslan sign for S. I have sun, snail, sponge, snake, star, spoon, sock, scissors, sultanas. I also added a stick after taking the photo. I was going to put his sandels in too but just in case he called them shoes (which starts with sh and not ssss) i left them out.

Here he is making the shape of the letter. The first one is a bit backwards! and the second one he did not leave himself enough room to make the while letter. But he played around with it for a bit and made curves and circles and got the idea of the sandtray.  I think i might make him abnother bigger one to just draw in.

As well as naming the items, practicing the sound ssss and making the shape of the S we also talked about things you can do that start with ssss like swimming (he has swimming lesson today), and scratch and spin etc.

I was going to so a walk through the house and find more things that start with ssss but i will leave that for tomorrow. I will put the mat out again for him in the morning and build on the activity.

I also added another practical life activity with some rocks, tongs and two metal bowls. I have used metal bowls so that if he drops the rocks it will be quite noisy, and i have demonstrated how to do it as quietly as possible. He enjoyed it yesterday and has chosen to work with it again this morning.

And i finally found an Australia map (at Timbertown yesterday). The puzzle itself is not all that challening but he is asking the names of the states and has noticed the star (Canberra) and where the capitals are marked.

montessori bloggers

i’ve found some wonderful blogs of other Montessori HSers and this one in particular has so much great info in it. I particularly like the idea of the ‘letter of the day’ and going on ‘letter walks’ and the land, water, air presentation.

I think i might do a few ‘letter of the days’ while i get my phonetic pockets in order…..

cylinder block 2

i introduced the second cylinder block yesterday. Jordy put each of the cylinders back correctly with no effort but we sort of worked with it separately from the first block (although i presented them together). We’ve already had a big day out this morning (see my main blog) so i doubt we will do much more with it today but tomorrow i will set them out again and mix the cylinders up and see how he goes. He is good with the terminology too naming them thin and littlest etc.

Only issue we had was he noticed the V shape and then wanted to move to the other side and see the A and then he wanted to sit inside the V, and move them to form and L and a 7 etc etc! He’ll make letter shapes out of anything!! I really have to get his phonetic pockets up and ready.

shapes and signs

i introduced the stereognostic bag this afternoon (i have named it the shapes bag for Jordy). I started showing him the shapes and asking him to reach and and see which one he could find and point it out to me…. not the best way to approach it.  I quickly changed it to lining one set up and asking him to reach in to the bag and find a match for each item in turn (i started with the easier shapes first).

It went quite well.  He only chose three incorrectly and enjoyed the work. But he did not want to repeat it. He wanted to play with the shapes and then he wanted to roll the ball. So i packed the bag away.  I have not left it on the shelves yet. I will present it again tomorrow and see what he thinks.  The shapes are too invting to roll and throw so until i know that he understands the nature of the materials i will keep it out of reach.

I have to learn the names of the shapes myself. LOL! So i will do that tonight and refresh their names in the morning before i repeat it. I wonder if i should first show him the blue geometric solids before we use the bag again?  I can’t wait to start the Montessori course so i have a better idea of scope and sequence.

Yesterday we revised a few signs that Jordy learnt a while back but we have not kept up with. He then asked for signs for a few more items. We played with them again this morning in bed and he asked for the sign for ‘bear’ so we learnt that too. I am going to make sure i spend some time each day using the signs from his baby sign days as he just soaks them up at the moment.

spooning, more latches, and other bits…

The latches board is still getting a good work out! It’s one of the first things Jordy chooses to work with most days.  Apart from doing the locks and latches he spends a lot of time reading the letters and counting what’s behind each door. I almost always leave him to work with it alone but if i am nearby I have started to ask him to find the circles, rectangles, triangles etc.

He is also chosing the cylinder blocks (1) regularly. I might show him how to arrange them outside of the block. I don’t want to introduce block #2 yet as i think he has enough other materials without adding to them but i will introduce it soon. I might spend a few days working with block 1 with him and getting him to select a missing cylinder or a few other things rather than just leaving him to work alone with it.

And today i introduced the spooning materials. He is working with it now so i’m about to go look and see how much of it is on the tray and how much he has decided to pour elsewhere!

… we just tidied it up. He went quite well with it. And the “Tidy Up” song is helping immensely for cleaning up afterwards.

He is really starting to enjoy the order and routine of things too and packing up is becoming less of an issue (sometimes! not always!). But brushing his teeth and hair, and getting dressed and going to the toilet before getting in the car and those sorts of routines are also becoming fun and playful for him- which is nice!

The phonetic pockets are good but i need more things for it. I am learning so much from each thing i introduce. I should have sewn the velcro tabs on the pockets before showing it to him as they keep getting pulled off! And i should have found a full selection of items for the pockets. I had a few items in most of the 6 letters i gave him but i had a couple of empty ones (nothing around the house that was suitable). That bothered him and he wanted to fill the pockets and move the letters around. So i have removed it until i can present it properly.

phonetic pockets

I made this wall hanging over the past few days. I made it out of a pillow case and some bits of flannel left over from the cloth wipes i made ages ago.

I’ll probably make nicer letter cards later but for now to get started i just printed them on some card.

I have things like a spoon, ball, button, comb, peg etc in the pockets. I made just 12 pockets so that i can start with just a few letters and change them as he progresses.  And it will be easy to move on to phonograms and even use the hanging for totally different things like plant classification or geography studies.

preparing a snack

The pear is still a little firm (and slippery) for him to cut. But the bananas are not ripe!

mr busy

Jordy has been in to everything this morning. Again just for 15min or so for each activity before he moves on.

He did his alphabet puzzle and then he asked for his blue sandpaper letters. I had wanted him to work with the lower case so i had removed the capitals from the shelves but that’s what he wanted so….? I gave him 6 to work with for a while before he moved on something else.

He played with the colour cards for a while but did not complete them (although he can).

We used a length of wool to form a circle on the floor and he did in and out, running around, backwards, etc etc. We have not done walking the line yet so i should draw something on the tiles.

I am going to get up an area on his little table in the dining room for him to prepare snacks on. Today i put a tupperware container out with some fruit, biscuits and sultanas and he has gone back and forth getting snacks as he has wanted them automatically closing the container up properly when he finished. I showed him how to cut up a banana into pieces so i’ll get him a small chopping board of his own and leave it there. As well as a small jar of peanut butter and some cruskits or something that he can prepare.

He likes the animal three part cards that i have just finished. I hope to find time to make up the insects and ocean cards. After doing all the animals i realised i don’t like the font!!! It has the ‘a’ like the one here rather than an ‘a’. 

We worked with the spindles for quite a while. I was asking him the number and he would count in that many spindles. I was just doing 0-4 with him but he asked to do the next one. It did not go so well from there! He wanted to put them all out of order and all over the place and then emptied them on to the floor…. He knows all the numbers and can count objects up to 6, beyond that the actual quantities can be hit and miss. It was the first time we had worked at length with the spindles so i really should have just left it at 4.

Funnily enough one of the spindles was missing and we looked everywhere for it. As i typed here he came in and was playing around me, he got a paper bag off the book shelves that has been on the shelves for yonks and is not something he plays with, he reached in and took out the missing spindle!! I was totally surprised and asked him where it was. He said in the bag. I asked him if he was playing with it there earlier. He said no. I asked how he knew it was there… he said MAGIC!  ????

And although i had shoed him the touch boards ages ago he has not gone back to them. He did today and after just generally playing with them i got him to close his eyes and match just the roughest and the smoothest boards. In another learning moment for myself i then chose to get the blindfold out which we have not used before. Then it became a game of on off on off. So while he continued for a while to match the boards and feel them i think the blindfold only distracted him.