scrubbing fish...

I just had to post about this fish scrubbing lesson I put together last week! Doesn't it look like a real fish?!

It looks even more real when it's wet!

Object scrubbing lessons are quite popular in my classroom. They're kind of like the next step after water transfer lessons like basting and droppering. They require fine motor control and organization, but not quite as much as the grating lessons. Scrubbing definitely builds muscular strength, as-well-as provides children with plain-old, satisfying work! :) It's relatively easy to set up - just look for something scrubbable!

Sometimes, we scrub the little house from the fish tank...













or teeth...
















or maybe a big rock.














What kind of things do you and your children like to scrub? I'm always searching for new ideas! :)

matching objects to pictures

I've been thinking about making this particular variation of matching objects to pictures for awhile now, and I am so glad I finally got around to it! First I picked out the objects: mouse, squash, rake, carrot, pine cone, and corn kernel - I was envisioning a harvest kind of theme.

Then, I made a collage that incorporated pictures that would correspond with my objects. They're not perfect matches because I didn't want to fuss over it too much! :) I ran it through the laminator (I love laminating things)...

... and voila!... a lesson that I can't wait to bring to school tomorrow! The main purpose of this lesson is to provide practice in visual discrimination for pre-readers. The child will choose an object and match it to a picture. I think it will also be a fun way to bring a 2-D picture to life and spark a little imagination! :)

an alphabet extension

The Letter Dice Game is a popular lesson extension in our school. The main purpose of this activity is to provide children with letter writing practice, but it's also an exercise in matching, letter recognition, and initial sound/letter association.

This is an o, k, z, q, l dice. The corresponding worksheet has a column for each of these letters. When first associating initial sounds with letters of the alphabet, we always use the same pictures. So, at the top of the "o" column, there's a picture of an octopus - k-kite, z-zebra, q-queen, l-lamp. I'll try to go into more detail on all of that sometime soon, but the gist of it is that we say the sounds, not the names, of the letters.

Anyway, the child rolls the dice. If he gets a "z," he traces a "z." The star column is kind of a free space - if the child rolls a star, he can write whatever letter he wants (usually, he makes a star, though :). It's a "race" to see which letter will cross the "finish line" first, second, third, etc. The children really enjoy this!

stringing beads...

This is probably my favorite new lesson on the practical life shelves this month - it's quite possibly the children's fave, too. :) The little wooden container has lengths of yarn with pony beads tied to the end (my prep work). The little sake cup in the middle holds the needle, and the little dish holds the pony beads. The little heart stickers are numbered 1-6, but you could use as many stickers as you wanted - the child will use them to count beads.


First, the child threads the yarn through the eye of the needle. Then, this is the part I really like, she counts out the beads she is going to by placing one on each heart sticker. This is a point of interest for many of the children. When I present this lesson to a younger child, I say, "Let's see what's written on the hearts." Then we count together, "One, two, three, etc." Older children enjoy using the hearts to make a pattern.









Next, the child strings her beads by pushing them over the needle and onto the yarn. After she's strung all six of her beads, I tell her, "You can string six beads as many times as you want." Some of the children will come up to me and say, "I strung six beads two times!" Then, I take this opportunity to count them with the child - kind of a play on skip counting! I usually tie the knot for the child, but some of them have figured out how to do it all by themselves.

to a new leaf...

I wanted to post this earlier in the week (as history was being made), but my computer was malfunctioning again... apparently, it's fixed for good now, so we'll see! My Montessori teacher read this during my training course, and I came across a copy of it the other day - it's almost too fitting!

Excerpts from a letter written by Maria Montessori in 1947 and sent to all governments:

My life has been spent in the research of truth. Through the study of children I have scrutinized human nature at its origin both in the East and the West and although it is forty years now since I began my work, childhood still seems to me an inexhaustible source of revelations and - let me say - of hope.

Childhood has shown me that all humanity is one. All children talk, no matter what their race or their circumstances or their family, more or less at the same age; they walk, change their teeth, etc. at certain fixed periods of their life. In other aspects, especially in that of the psyche, they are just as similar, just as susceptible.

Children are the constructors of men whom they build, taking from the environment language, religion, customs, and peculiarities not only of the race, not only of the nation, but even of a special district in which they develop. Childhood constructs what it finds. If the material is poor, the construction is also poor. As far as civilization is concerned the child is at the level of the food-gatherers. In order to build himself, he has to take by chance, whatever he finds in the environment.

The child is the forgotten citizen, and yet, if statesmen and educators once came to realize the terrific force that is childhood for good or for evil, I feel they would give it priority above everything else. All problems of humanity depend on man himself; if man is disregarded in his construction, the problems will never be solved. No child is a Bolshevist or a Fascist or a Democrat or a Republican; they all become what circumstances or the environment make them.

In our days when in spite of the terrible lessons of two world wars, the times ahead loom as dark as ever before, I feel strongly that another field has to be explored, besides those of economics and ideology. It is the study of MAN - not of adult man on whom every appeal is wasted. He, economically insecure, remains bewildered in the maelstrom of conflicting ideas and throws himself now on this side, now on that. Man must be cultivated from the beginning of life when the greatest powers of nature are at work. It is then that one can hope to plan for better international understanding.