What a difference a week makes!

As you might remember I was quite disillusioned last week! I got some wonderful responses to my post which I took a lot of time to think about & we were away after that so I had almost a week to think more (& if you were someone who left me one I am sorry not to have responded but I was heeding your words). 

Yes, 2 hours is a long time. Too much to jump straight into me thinks now. Got to work up to it. I know that the 'ideal' Montessori work cycle is 3 hours but we will go more slowly. I did have the boys out running about before we started last week & this week we spent about an hour riding bikes before coming in, having a snack and starting... and for whatever reason things just worked more smoothly. No one tried to escape! ;) LOL. We probably worked for 1 hour and 15 minutes together before going off to create morning tea together.

I realised that I need to 'grab' their attention a little more, instead of expecting them to choose something right away. So I need to start with a lesson that they'll like. 

I had just read about the 'Memory Game of Numbers' game (the closet thing I found to link to it is here at My Montessori Journey and it's mentioned here again  by Meg at Sew Liberated who's lesson I am actually following) so we started with this. Basically, you write the numbers 1 through 9 on slips of paper which you then fold up & put in a bowl or drawstring bag.  Each person takes a turn at choosing a number & keeping it secret to themselves. Eg. If Hug draws a 4 he reads it but doesn't tell me what it is but I ask him to go & get that many shells. He returns with 4 shells and puts them aside  with his mystery number and I choose a number & say I'll go & get that many spoons (for example). When all of the numbers had been chosen & items collected we laid them out in order. I would ask "Who has the 3?" or "who has the number that comes next?" etc. until we had everything out. It was a lot of fun! Lovely doesn't recognise the number symbols yet but it's a good introduction of the concept to him & with my help & a few whispers he was able to play with us.

The pattern blocks are popular with both boys. 

I like when it gets 3D :)

Lovely did some 'sewing' with pipe-cleaners and hole-punched shapes. 

Lovely also did some work with our cylinder blocks (not official Montessori ones but they're really nice anyway) and Hug worked with a patterning game before teaching Lovely some finger-game songs. It was sweet :)

What a difference a week makes. If anything this has been a really interesting week for me & I've realised that I want to get organised & really follow through with the correct sequencing of the Montessori work. That's were I'm at now. In lots of ways I  came to realise too that I wasn't challenging Hug enough. He's ready to move on with the Maths work so now I've been creating the Tens & Teens Boards... more on that to come! Here's a teaser from our work today!