snow?

Ummm... I can't quite believe it,
but the cold white stuff fell all day here.
{It was 82 degrees F and sunny yesterday, btw.}
All I can say is,

Yee haw!
Keep it coming!

hand washing

In a classroom filled with kids and teachers,
it is imperative that we wash our hands
A LOT.
Usually, it's 30 seconds at the sink
with that orange antibacterial goop,
but every once and awhile it's nice to slow down,
bring out the french-milled soap,
and turn it into an elegant affair. ;)

What you'll need:

• soap (the fancier the better) & a fingernail brush in a dish
• pitcher for warm water (Do you remember what the red line says?)
• hand towel
• mat (to organize materials and to catch any stray splashes of water)
• basin
  
• delicious hand cream

As I observed this child washing her hands,
I realized that she was having a special experience.
Not only did her body relax as she concentrated on her task,
but she took the time admire all the tiny details on her hands.
Taking a moment to care for herself became meditative and intimate.

I can't say exactly how this child felt
as she dried her hands and rubbed cream into her skin,
but I can tell you that after I took my turn,
my fingers were literally tingling with joy...
okay, you're probably thinking
cheesy!
but seriously, people,

it was like a Montessori spa!

busy hands

streeeeeeeeetching
rubber bands around a peg board

transferring beautiful beads
with a spoon

using a corncob holder
to poke out a paper butterfly

putting the final touches
on color mixing II

replacing the cylinders
from 3 different cylinder blocks
{If this doesn't look challenging enough,
try doing it blindfolded!}

2 friends tracing
botany puzzles

the flower
traced in pencil,
painted with watercolors

the alphabet box

Sometimes I think to myself,
How cool is The Alphabet Box?
26 drawers
{one for each letter}
filled with teeny tiny treasures...

the possibilities are endless!

Here are 2 ways we use The Alphabet Box:

The child chooses a letter drawer
and lays out its contents on a felt.
{The card at the top is also in the drawer
-it's the same as the alphabet story, only tiny.}

A small movable alphabet letter is in the drawer, too.
By moving the letter down the column of objects,
the child "tells the whole story"...
/b/bell, /b/bag, /b/baby, /b/banana

For this second activity,
the child chooses 2 letter drawers.
She places the movable alphabet letters
and the alphabet story cards
at the top of the felt.

She mixes up the objects from both drawers...

....and then sorts them into
the correct columns.
By "telling the whole story,"
she is able to check her work.

**I've never made an alphabet box from scratch - the one in the photo was already in my classroom. I'm always on the lookout for tiny objects to add to it, though. Craft stores, garage sales, and thrift stores are good places to get started. Also, Jo over at A bit of this and a bit of that hosts an awesome phonemic object exchange once a year. As for the box, Hubs just informed me, Oh, those? Pretty much every hardware store has them. (duh) ;)

busy hands

using tweezers
to pluck seeds from a sunflower
{we'll toast the seeds and eat them for a snack}

finishing up a bracelet made from
cut straws and a pipe cleaner

play dough!

using gentle hands to admire
fragile objects

reading and writing /ee/ words
{long vowel e}

constructing a tower with
the knobless cylinders
{big to little}

2 friends building short vowel words
with the movable alphabet
{I love this photo}
See those little yellow pouches?
There's one for each vowel
{a, e, i, o, u}
Each pouch has
three ever-changing objects
that share the same middle, short-vowel sound.
I made the blue felt on the right last year...
it's just a rectangle of blue felt
embroidered {ish}
to mimic the lines on
beginning writing paper.
{Let me know if you'd like instructions to make one of your own!}

freckle juice!

I finished reading Freckle Juice with the kindergartens this afternoon. This is a great chapter book to read aloud to children who are making the transition from picture books to chapter books. It's not too long... only five chapters, and there are a lot of illustrations.

Here's the gist of the story: Andrew wants freckles, so he won't have to take as many baths. He buys a secret freckle juice recipe for 50 cents from Sharon, a conniving classmate. The ingredients are all normal household items, but when mixed together, they're disgusting.

I would know because today, in honor of finishing Freckle Juice, we decided to give Sharon's recipe a try!

We made it outside - I was anticipating a lot of excited shouting and the slim possibility of some urping, too. Here's a photo of the ingredients in a cooler: onions, lemon wedges, mayonnaise, mustard, pepper, salsa (a substitution for ketchup), olive oil, salt, vinegar, and grape juice. At this point, I was confident that no one was going to be brave (crazy?) enough to try whatever concoction we ended up with.

Here's an action shot of the olive oil going in. Mayo and grape juice give the mixture that lovely lavender shade... blech!

Some final stirring. Remember how I thought there was going to be shouting? I was completely wrong - the children were nearly silent with concentration. It could have been with fear, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because they actually WANTED TO TRY THE FRECKLE JUICE!!!

Like a broken record, I kept insisting, "You don't have to try it." It didn't work. I tried, "It was just an experiment. There's a yummy snack waiting for us inside." No luck.

I even tried, "Freckle juice is a hoax! Do you really think I got my freckles from drinking that stuff?" (I was reluctant to go there because it felt a little like going into "Santa's-not-real" territory.) They pretty much rolled their eyes and politely explained that my freckles were probably the result of inconsistent sunscreen use. Seriously!

They wanted their freckle juice. That meant I had to try it, too. So, I need your help. Has anyone out there made and tasted Sharon's secret recipe and lived to talk about it?!! If so, please tell me that we're all going to be okay. I haven't felt sick yet, but it's only been 7 hours...

writing in the sand

The children in my classroom love to hone their writing skills in this box of blue sand.

Sand is the perfect medium for beginning writers.

It's more interesting than tracing sandpaper numerals,
and it's more forgiving than a pencil on paper.

Usually, the children practice writing letters in the sand,
but this child decided that he would rather write numbers.
(Hooray! for thinking outside the box! As I watched him write, I thought, Why haven't I ever done this? From now on, I am definitely going to use the sand for number practice, as-well-as letter practice!)

When a group of friends gathered around the number-writing child,
he effortlessly turned his work into a game...
encouraging them to guess what number he was writing.

It's the best when the children become the teachers!

melting ice

The idea for this game/science experiment came from Laura at My Montessori Journey.
It was the perfect activity for a hot, September afternoon!

Since we don't have a color printer, we couldn't print out the original direction sheet from hummingbirded.
Instead, Christy (my fabulous co-teacher) typed up the directions, and I drew the quirky little pictures on the side. :)

The children split up into groups of two.
I gave each group
a dice,
a dish of water,
and two ice cubes.
Everyone shared the shaker of salt.

Not only was this activity a fun counting game AND an ice melting experiment, it was an exercise in cooperation... and it was a riot!
(In a good way!)

If a child rolled a 1,
he held the ice cube in his hands
for 10 seconds...

If a child rolled a 2,
he had to drop the ice cube
down his shirt...
(miraculously, I never rolled a 2)

If the child rolled a 3,
he blew on his ice cube
for 10 seconds...

If the child rolled a 4,
he dropped his ice cube on the table...

If the child rolled a 5,
he sprinkled 10 shakes of salt
on his ice cube...

if the child rolled a 6,
he counted to 10
as his ice cube floated in water.

If you're wondering how to get your
ice cube to melt the fastest,
try to roll a lot of 2's.

7 out of 7 kindergartners agree,
dropping an ice cube down your shirt
is the most efficient (and fun) way to get it to melt!

ah, monday!

Today started with this
awesome
new pencil sharpener.

The children kept all their pencils
sharpened to maximum pointy-ness
AND
strengthened their fine motor control.

Oh yeah, did I mention
the pencil sharpener suctions to the table?
How cool is that?!

Today ended with this hobo spider
creepy crawling
across my living room floor.

I'm usually not too freaked out by spiders,
but the this guy gave me serious
heebie jeebies.

I hope there aren't any more lurking around the house
like in my bed...

YIKES!

t.l.f.

(true love forever)

Happy anniversary, Hubs!!!
1 down,
a lifetime to go!

busy hands

building a tower
with the broad stair
~I love those legs
lounging in the background!~

"tap, tap, tap!"
hammering barnyard animals
onto cork board with tacks

using an eyedropper
to fill a whale ice cube tray
with orange water

carefully carrying scissors
and special snipping paper
across the classroom

the snip cutting begins!
~I wish I could show you the
concentration
on this little person's face!~

twisting a nut
onto a bolt

sorting teeny tiny treasures
from two drawers of the alphabet box
~/a/ and /f/~

apple tasting

The first two apples we tasted
were picked from the playground....

The children made observations about their
color, size, taste, and texture.

I recorded their observations,
and then they voted for their favorite of the two.
~We decided that there was no
right or wrong answer;
it was just a matter of
personal taste.~

The next two apples we tried
were from the grocery store.
~We looked at their stickers,
and discovered that
one was grown in Washington
and one was grown in New Zealand!
(both a LONG way from our playground!)~

red delicious & granny smith

our results
~The children had a tough time choosing a favorite!~

The last apples we tried were of
mysterious origins...
one was from a playground tree
and one was from the store.

We used our apple tasting skills to determine
which was which.

the results...
~The sweetness of the pink lady apple
was pretty much a dead giveaway :) ~

*I did this apple tasting experiment with the kindergarten students this afternoon. These 5 and 6-year-old students are part of the regular mixed-age classrooms, but everyday they meet to do something special together for 20 or 30 minutes. If you're interested, I'll try to share some of these games and projects that we do. This one went over huge - anything with food usually does! Even the pickiest of picky eaters got in on the action! :)