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.

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.

Sign Language

We have started to learn more signs for worlds that he already knows. As opposed to what we did with the Baby Sign where we learnt a sign before he could say the word.  I think it would be good for him to continue to learn sign language so i might each couple of weeks we might introduce a couple of new signs that relate to whatever activity we are doing that week. The problem will be me remembering to use the signs in conversation to back it up.