Montessori work: Thursday July 2nd

Lovely, using his pincer grip (& one of these things that I can't remember the name of!) to transfer green water. It is tricky to co-ordinate when to squeeze and when to release. Lovely can do it but it was a challenge & after a little while he *tipped* all of the water over to the other glass.

I removed the small glasses (because he wasn't using the materials in the way that I'd shown him) & got 2 jugs & asked him if what he was interested in was pouring. Yes :)

... and he poured & poured & poured! Back and forth between the jugs. Very cute. I actually didn't think this would grab him as he's able to pour his own glass of water to drink but the green really added a new point of interest.

There was the inevitable spilling of half a jug of water ;) so I gave him a little lesson on how to wipe (starting top left corner in broad movement across the tray) & he got to practice squeezing out the sponge. Again, he was quite into this & I'm sure it was that green water!

When he had finished with all things green he wanted to start our actual workcycle (we usually start with some songs & a special chime but he had spotted the green water on the bench & got into that first) so we sat down together & learnt a few songs from the NCM guide: '5 little people went out to play', 'We're telling the Teacher' which I changed to 'I'm telling Mama' & 'The Cutting Song', modified from the fingerplay 'Open Shut Them':

Open, shut them (like scissors)

Open, shut them

Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut!

Open, shut them

Open, shut them

Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut!

Then, we opened the work cupboard & he was happy to find this number puzzle which had been gone for a few weeks. He traced the shape & said the number before removing it from the board to count the items beneath. Like most children, I'm sure, he loves the idea of zero not having anything. When he'd removed them all & was putting it all back together he started being silly & saying an 8 was a 3 and a 4 was a 7... ahhh, my baby is learning so much that he's starting to try to fool me ;)

The next new basket he found on the shelf was the touch boards that I'd made last night & I explained that before we could do this work we had to sensitize our fingertips. He was quite interested in looking at his fingertips & then we dipped them in warm water & gently dried them on the towel.

Here are the Touch Boards. The first one shows the contrast of smooth and rough. The second one is a pattern of smooth/rough, and the third one is a gradation of sandpaper from fine to rough. I presented each one in order & he was quite interested at first (I'd been practicing this presentation last night!) but half way through the 2nd one he lost interest & said he didn't want to do it anymore. I asked him to watch me so we could still finish them but I think that maybe he already has a grip on this concept & I'm presenting it too late.

Another new work on the shelf. I had printed these cute cards of Prepositions from the blog Montesecrets & asked Lovely to get an apple for the fridge (which he loved! he is crazy for getting things - anything! - from the fridge at the moment). I had altered this work slightly & put the preposition words on the back of the cards so that I could read them to him (without him seeing the photo) & ask him to position the apple & basket from my command & then he could turn over the card & check it for himself.

He liked this activity :) Thanks Montesecrets!

Shape sorting. I made cards to match the different shapes. There are 8 types of shapes & a different grouping on each side of the card.

A good thrift shop buy!

He lost interest in the Montessori cupboard & got out his wooden pizza kit. I was watching & getting quietly excited because I realised we could use it for teaching fractions at a later date!

I wanted to finish off the rest of our workcycle so I suggested that I could lay out the sandpaper numbers & he could match the correct number of toppings. Here's 5 pieces of salami.

I showed him how we could lay out the salami in pairs with the little guy who had no friends at the bottom, introducing the typical positioning of Montessori cards & counters.

He was getting tired & insisted that the number 4 was, in his own words, a 'carport' (it is a bit of a strange shape) & in the spirit of trying to fool me insisted that these 6 mushrooms belonged under the carport. Cheeky chop! I was impressed to see that he'd laid them out in the style I'd just showed him even if he was being silly. We packed this work up after this.

He spent a while practicing folding the rug to put away & this isn't a great shot but I was trying to capture a picture showing the cardboard rocketship that's in the middle of our loungeroom! It's not finished yet & you can't see the tapering at the top but the boys had some of the neighbourhood children over this week & they all loved playing in it :)

We finished up with a circle time - singing our new songs & fingergames & reading (one of Lovely's favourite books this year) The Best Nest.