sunflowers: flower study part 2

Elise and I have spent the past few weeks doing a "flower study."  Read part 1 here!

I've decided to try dedicating a little space in our classroom

each month to a special song or poem.

(Yes!  Elise has her own classroom now - I'll share more soon!)

From the classroom window, we are able to see dozens of sunflowers

and watch goldfinches and chickadees feasting on their seeds.

A sunflower song seemed like the perfect first choice...

Sunflower by Sanford Jones

Sunflower, sunflower yellow and round.

You are the prettiest flower I've found.

Tall, straight, full of grace...

I love the light in your bright yellow face!

This song can also be played on the Montessori bells.  

Here's a cute little YouTube video if you want to hear the tune!

We are using this homemade sunflower puzzle

to learn the names of the parts of the sunflower plant:

roots, stem, leaves, and flower.

(An older child may enjoy labeling the parts or matching 3 part cards like these.)

The puzzle pieces all button together,

which is great because Elise is in a sensitive period for buttoning!

One morning, after buttoning the petals to the seed part of the flower,

we decided to go investigate some real sunflower seeds...

See?  We've even got sunflowers growing out of the sidewalk!

We watched bees drinking nectar and gathering pollen...

And observed that some of the flowers were missing seeds

- could it be the goldfinches?!

We chose a few flowers that were done blooming to cut and bring inside.

We spent the afternoon pretending to be birds,

using tweezers to pull out seeds!

This was always a popular lesson in my classroom 

- check it out here -

and it has been so much fun sharing it with Elise,

who eats all the seeds on the spot, of course! 

"uh oh! the baby's out of bed!" - a finger play with Anne & Elise

I'm a little mortified about posting a video of myself - do I really sound/look like that?!! - but I thought this would be a fun way to share one of our favorite finger plays with all of you!  It's a slightly modified version of The Baby Chant from Chants, Finger Plays, & Stories by Bev Bos.  Enjoy!  Hope your computer doesn't break!  ;)

here's the baby (hold up pointer finger)
put the baby in the bed (lay pointer finger across palm of opposite hand)
cover the baby up (wrap fingers around pointer finger)
kiss the baby good night (kiss pointer finger)
uh oh! the baby's out of bed! (open hand and hold pointer finger up)

You can continue by saying, We must have forgotten something!   Encourage your child to come up with reasons why the baby keeps getting out of bed... maybe she needs a drink?  or a diaper change?  As those of you with a little one - especially, one who sleeps on a floor bed! - know, the options are pretty much limitless!

counting valentines

Sung to the tune of Michael Finnegan {listen to Michael Finnegan here}:

1 red, 2 red, 3 red valentines
4 red, 5 red, 6 red valentines
7 red, 8 red, 9 red valentines
10 red valentines!
10 red, 9 red, 8 red valentines
7 red, 6 red, 5 red valentines
4 red, 3 red, 2 red valentines
1 red valentine!

I love using felt manipulatives to go along with the songs we sing at line time, and counting these felt hearts has been quite a hit! In the past, I only used the manipulatives at line time, but now I make them available for the children to use during the work period, too. As you can see, they LOVE singing the song and moving the hearts all by themselves!

The hearts were cut from red felt. I numbered and decorated them with fabric paint and sequins. {This was my favorite part!} If you wanted to be really profesh, you could glue on the same quantity of sequins as the number on the heart. {the 4 would have 4 sequins, etc}

After the decorations were dry, I hot-glued magnets to the back of the hearts. The magnets I used are almost too burly for the felt - smaller magnets probably would have worked better.

At the beginning of the song, I stick the magnets to the back of a baking pan. As we count up, I bring each number to the front of the pan, and as we count down, I move each number to the back of the pan. When the song is over, the children always beg to see where the hearts are hiding on the back of the pan!

something we think is really fun...

building a "campfire" at line time


Here's our favorite campfire game:

Lying in my sleeping bag, I couldn't fall asleep...
the wind began to blow and the bugs began to creep,
so I roooolled to the left {roll hands and point to the left with thumb}
and I rooooolled to the right {roll hands and point to the right},
and I heard every sound you can hear at night! {we whisper this last part}
{from Chants, Fingerplays, & Stories by Bev Bos}

Then we take turns saying what we've heard
and repeating the sound that whatever we've heard makes.

A sampling of what we've heard:

wolves
bears
the campfire crackling
grasshoppers
mice
volcanoes erupting
deer
tigers
sharks

Our campfire is made out of stones, sticks and tissue paper.
{A flashlight tucked underneath creates the glowing effect.}

Sometimes we lay by the fire and read books like

'Til the Cows Come Home
and
Cowboy Small

Oh, and did I mention it snowed?
A lot?!

{enough said, right?}

crunch!

5 little apples hanging on a tree,
teasing Mr. Slinky Worm,
You can’t eat me! You can’t eat me!
Along came Mr. Slinky Worm as quiet as can be
and… CRUNCH!
4, 3, 2, 1...

Zero apples hanging on a tree,
away inched Mr. Slinky worm
as full as can be!

I love using concrete manipulatives when doing finger plays with the children at line time. We can still use our fingers to tell the story, but it's nice to have a visual image, too. Last school year, I made magnetic felt pieces to accompany my favorite Halloween and winter finger plays. The children thought they were fabulous! So, I decided to get on it and make a few more before school starts! This time, instead of felt, I used paper, and then ran everything through the laminator. Hopefully, these will be more durable because they sure get a lot of use!

Here's a close-up of Mr. Slinky Worm. I gave him a mustache as a nod to MUS (a visually delicious blog - take a peek if you haven't already) and her love of mustaches! ;{0

Oh! FYI - not that you would ever do this - DON"T put rhinestones through the laminator. Ummm... this is actually Mr. Slinky Worm II, and there's a rhinestone melting away somewhere inside my laminator as we speak. Yikes!

catch me if you can!

5 little gingerbread men on the tray.
One jumped up and ran away.
Catch me, catch me, oh catch me if you can!
I'm pretty fast, I'm the gingerbread man!
4, 3, 2, 1...

Zero gingerbread men on the tray.
I'll have to bake more some other day!

I made the manipulatives for this
gingerbread man fingerplay this afternoon.
They're quite simple little men. :)
I cut them out of felt,
glued on the buttons,
fabric-painted their faces,
glued their bodies to card stock,
and stuck magnets to their backs.

I used manipulatives for a Halloween fingerplay back in October,
and it was a huge hit with the children.
It's such a concrete way to sing a song,
and the children can still use their fingers if they wish.

I love the blog world (part 1)...

... because I'm always overflowing with ideas after reading what everyone else is up to! I can't even begin to try them all! I got the idea for this adorable turkey from Laura at My Montessori Journey. I finished making him last night, and I am so happy with the way he turned out - btw I am NOT much of a sewer, so he tested all my skills. :)

The best thing about this turkey is that his tail feathers are button-able... giving little hands a perfect task. Instead of buttons, I used chunky beads that would color coordinate with his felt feathers. After I sewed on the beads and his face (I made his eyes out of white sequins each with a black bead in the middle.), I blanket stitched his body together. I filled him with dried pinto beans, so he's a pretty solid weight. I absolutely love him, and I'm so glad Laura shared her idea!


The turkey is a funny bird,
His head goes wobble wobble.
He only knows 1 funny word,
Gobble, gobble, gobble!

(to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel")

eee-hee-hee-hee-heeeee!!!!!

the pumpkins and the witch

5 little pumpkins sitting on a fence,
a witch came flying by!
eee-hee-hee-hee-heeee!
I'll take you and make some pumpkin pie!

(then there were, 4, 3, 2, 1, etc...)

0 pumpkins sitting on a fence,
a witch came flying by!
eee-hee-hee-hee-heeee!
eating pumpkin pie!

I got the wonderful idea to use manipulatives during my circle time fingerplays from Laura at My Montessori Journey! For the pumpkins and the witch, I cut shapes out of felt and then hot-glued them to a piece cardboard. The witch's hair is yellow mohair, and her broom is a shish-kebab stick with white yarn hot-glued to one end. Next, I hot-glued round magnets to the back of each piece. The black background that the magnets stick to is just a metal tray from a toaster oven - I don't think it had been used for cooking, so it was a good find!



The children already know this particular fingerplay by heart, so they were really excited about the manipulatives. It was like one of their favorite Halloween stories had finally come to life - a total concrete experience. They counted the pumpkins like they had never counted them before! :) Thanks, Laura!

walking through my pumpkin patch...

Yesterday was our autumn adventure to the pumpkin patch. Other than being cold and windy (but, at least not snowy - that came later!), it was a fun and festive experience for the children, as-well-as for all of us adults :)

we rode on a tractor-pulled hay wagon

searched for pumpkins

hidden among dried-out cornstalks

and made our way home

to celebrate our shiny, orange treasures!

Here's a fun pumpkin patch song/game that I'm still trying to fine-tune. I played it at circle time with 9 Kindergartners yesterday afternoon, but I'm not sure how it will go with 20 preschoolers...

First, I had all the children curl-up in the middle of the circle like pumpkins in a pumpkin patch. I walked around them singing (the tune is kind of like "Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow"):

walking through my pumpkin patch, walking through my pumpkin patch, pumpkins ripe, pumpkins round, orange pumpkins on the ground...

I tapped a child on her back and sang (I really don't know how to describe this tune... it's higher and faster than the first part):

a pumpkin ran away, it was on a beautiful day, said he they'll make a pie of me if I should stay

Then I sat down on the line, and the child I tapped took a turn walking though the pumpkin patch. The children really wanted to run when they were tapped - I had them do a sort of tiptoe-skip around the outside of the "pumpkin patch." This would potentially get crazy with 10 more children in the mix! Hmmm... I'm going to give it a try on Monday.

busy hands

hammering golf tees into clay

bumble bee finger play

here is the beehive (hold up fist)
but where are the bees?
they're hiding away where nobody sees
here they come, out of their hive
one, two, three, four five... (raise fingers as you count, when your hand is open, "fly" fingers in the air)
*After the children have "buzzed" for awhile I remind them to "catch their bees!"

dry pouring

With October in full swing, the classroom truly is a beehive of activity! Our classroom is unique (and lucky!) because all three of us teachers are Caspari Montessori certified. With three "lesson teachers" in the classroom, the children are able to receive lots of lessons, and because we teachers have completed the same Montessori training, we are consistent in the way we present the lessons.

tracing the world map

Every so often, all the children settle into meaningful work, and we teachers stand back and say, "Wow! Is our classroom already normalized?"

sponge squeezing

Wait! Before you think I'm boasting, let me just reemphasize the every so often. Today was CRAZY!!! I'm not sure if it was a change in the barometric pressure (it's supposed to be in the 30's here by Friday), or what, but it was a wacky day. There were a few meaningful moments here and there, and I took some pictures to prove it. I need some inspiration for tomorrow!

basting

clock work

useful words

apple counting

coffee grinding

hammering tacks

skip counting

gluing squares

droppering

tweezering sunflower seeds

new p.l. lessons

dry pouring

Is it obvious how much I love practical life? I promise I'll post about the other avenues of the Montessori classroom someday because I love them, too! Practical life lessons are just so much fun to set-up... it's the one area of the classroom that requires the Montessori teacher to use her own imagination and creativity.

lock and key

Here's the lesson routine at our school:

A child must have a lesson from a teacher before he can use a material. He may request a particular lesson, or the teacher may invite him or her to do a certain lesson. Here's a song we sing at circle time to remind children of this:

(to the tune of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" - sort of!)

when I look upon the shelf,

there's a work I'd like to do.
I've haven't had a lesson,
so this is what I'll do.
I'll ask.
I'll watch.
I'll wait my turn.
now, I've had a lesson
I know just what to do!

tonging

The teacher introduces the child to the lesson by saying its name and then asking the child to repeat it. This is tonging. Please say tonging. (When the child's in the routine, he'll naturally repeat the name of the lesson.) Thank you. First, it will be my turn. Then, it will be your turn. (We emphasize this language over and over to the children.)

droppering

It's important that the teacher models the lesson first because this gives the child an opportunity to observe the task performed with mastery. For example, when it's his turn to spoon, we really want the child to hold the spoon pinched between his thumb, pointer, and middle finger, so his fine motor muscles will be strengthened and prepared for writing.

spooning

During the child's turn, the teacher's job is only to observe. The child should know that she is there, enjoying the experience with him, but his main connection should be with the material. The teacher's motto is teach teaching, not correcting. She lets the child explore the material in his own way and pace without interrupting him. If during his turn, the teacher feels that he's totally missed the purpose of the lesson, she'll make a note to present the lesson to him again at another time.

sponge squeezing

After both the teacher and the child have taken their turns, the teacher tells the child that he can now do the lesson again whenever he wants. Children will repeat lessons at their own will, but many of them will tire of spooning the same popcorn kernels and pouring with the same pitchers. Sometimes, all it takes is a new tray to get a child to repeat a lesson!