busy hands

cleaning up a big spill
The children serve themselves milk and water at lunchtime.
It can be challenging, as an adult, to witness a big spill...
but it's all part of becoming independent!
{We use a lot of cloths around here!}

...3 thousand, 4 thousand, 5 thousand...
the big display
{a representation of the decimal system from 1 - 9,000)

sharpening pencils
{Hey! Isn't that the same kid from the big spill? - Yes, he's a busy guy!}
The new pencil sharpener is still the cat's meow...
from 6 inches to 1 inch in less than a 60 seconds.
{We've been having a lot of discussions
about sharpening pencils too short!}

playing a bell...
and listening until the beautiful sound is all gone.

matching color tablets
to things in the environment...
{"Look! The pink tower is pink! Our favorite color!"}

building words
with the movable alphabet
{It's important to remember that when a child builds a word,
she's not necessarily able to read it yet.}

Here's a photo of what my busy hands made this week...
a new hat!
Perfect for all these snowy days we're having around here.
If you're curious about the pattern I used,
I bought it here.
{Yes! I actually bought a pattern. I'm pretty sure it was worth it.}

models?

As I cleaned the classroom this afternoon, I couldn't stop thinking about these pink tower/broad stair extension cards. Some teacher, somewhere along the way made them. They feature drawings and photos of various structures that can be built with the pink tower and the broad stair. They are super-worn out, and I can't decide whether I should make new ones or just get rid of them all together.

Here's my internal debate:

In my classroom, we try not to put out models with art lessons.
One of Bev Bos' (Don't Move the Muffin Tins) rules for preschool art teachers is to avoid models. Here's what she has to say about it:

By models, I mean those things you have made for the child to copy. Never make a model to show a child. In the first place, it's insulting. It's like saying, "You don't know what a turkey looks like, so I'll show you." I've heard teachers say, " Well, I always tell them they can make theirs any way they want, even if I make a model. " This isn't a solution. I know how inadequate I feel trying to copy any product made by someone much more skilled than I.

Does this apply to these cards? Do they stifle creativity and intimidate the children?

Not all children use them when they build with the pink tower and the broad stair. I've always felt that the children who do use them are inspired by all the possibilities, but maybe they should be making these discoveries on their own.

I took an art education class last spring, and when the instructor found out I was a Montessori teacher, he told me that one thing had always bothered him about Montessori schools. He couldn't understand why we had pictures to go along with the long red blocks. He was referring to the long stair, aka the red rods. (We have extension cards for this lesson in our classroom, too, they just didn't make it into the photo.) I couldn't give him a good answer then, and I still can't!

What do you think?

a broad stair variation

A little broad stair background:

• The broad stair is a Montessori material from the Sensorial area of the classroom.
• It consists of 10 rectangular prisms, varying in height and width (from 10 cm to 1 cm).
• When the child builds with the broad stair, he experiences the concept of width in a concrete way.

Top 2 favorite things to do with the broad stair:

1. roll a marble down the stair (It makes the most fabulous sound!)
2. build creatively with both the broad stair and the pink tower (There's a relationship between the two materials!)

What in the world is that child in the picture doing?

He's using a straw to blow a puff down the broad stair, of course!
He's having a blast, and he's...

• concentrating
• stimulating his facial nerves and muscles
• changing the focus of his eyes from near to far
  
• improving his balance
• strengthening the connections between the hemispheres of his brain

This is all according to HANDLE, of which my knowledge is very limited - I should just go ahead and take a class already!
What I do know is that the child in the photo is someone who rarely concentrates. He's usually the one rolling around in the middle of the classroom. (The one I feel like I'm constantly nagging...)

But, look at that photo, can't you just feel his concentration?
He LOVES using a straw to blow things like puffs and feathers down the broad stair.
I love seeing him engaged and successful. :)

carnage

Hubs and I came home to this...

Heavy, wet snow had broken huge branches down all over town.
We were like, Holy Moly!
The big branch in the center is actually the top of that tree on the right.
I certainly felt sad, but I do love a good snow-adventure!



In other news:

You can't see it in the crazy tree photo, but there was a box on the porch addressed to yours truly.

The box carried precious cargo all the way from Illinois, through a blizzard, to our little ol' home sweet home.
{Precious because it contained the most crucial element of my Halloween costume.}

Hmmm... what could it be?

You're right! 2 1/2 pounds of vintage, fake fruit!

Any guesses on who or what I'm going to be?

apple graphing

A concrete first-experience in bar graphing:
APPLES!!!

Earlier in the day, I had gathered an assortment of apples.
Some were from the store,
and some were picked from the trees on the playground
{A few even had bites taken out of them by worms and birds!}
I gave each child an apple,
and asked them to think of different ways we could sort them.
When a child thought of a way,
I wrote it down on strips of paper.
Then, each child put his or her apple on the chart
above the appropriate label.
We counted and made lots of observations...
it was really fun!

Some of the ways we sorted the apples:
color {red, green, red and green}
sticker or no sticker
size {small, medium, large}
stem or no stem
shape {sphere-shaped, ovoid-shaped}
bites or no bites

Here's a photo of the blank bar graph I made.
It worked so well, I think I'm going to make a more permanent version
out of poster board or laminated paper.
I wrote the numbers on the left side
and drew lines across to separate the rows.
I cut up several strips of paper to write the labels on;
if you had a laminated graph,
you could write the labels with an erasable marker
and wipe them off when you were done.
Actually, you could to that with the numbers, too,
depending on what scale you wanted to use - 1's, 5's, 10's, etc!

Hmmm... I wonder what we'll graph next?