Tot School

So I haven't posted a tot school post for a while and this one is quite late, but we are still going strong. We have been doing lots this week between Christmas activities, montessori activities and cooking we have plenty of pictures to show!


We have done plenty of building with the big blocks from the resource centre.




MAking Christmas stockings


Nativity sets


I have seen this bead bouquet activity on several sites and just had to try it. Both kids pick this one several times a day.



Lacing is still popular, although Liam still thinks he just threads one hole and then he is done!


I introduce colouring mixing with the eye dropper this week. Liana really enjoyed making and discovering new colours. Liam enjoyed dumping all of the colours into one cup.


Cooking is always a favourite.


And lastly, playing on the bouncy castle. We don't have any nice flat grassy area big enough at this new place to set it up outside, but the lounge room with its high ceilings works perfectly.




For more tot school posts check here.

Our First Montessori-ish Day

I say Montessori-ish because we are by no means true montessori sttyle. what I have done is taken the bits of this philosophy and many of the activities and changed other bits and pieces to meet our needs. Today was our first day using this new structure and I must say it was a success!!!

Because of all the new activities today was a lot of me demonstrating an activity to Liana then one to Liam, then back to Liana, the.....well you get the idea but both of the children worked really well on their activities and even Liam soon learned the idea of having to complete his activity, pack it up and put it away before moving on to another.

The good thing about the kids wanting to just do each activity one after another was that I could see what worked, what didn't and what I needed to change. I had to alter a few activities on the spot becasue they were either too easy or way too hard and I learned that flour is not a good option for the letter tracing tray. I quickly changed that to rice!

I forgot about the camera until about half way through, but as they worked on their activities for 1.5 hours I still got a few good shots. Liana worked solid this whole time and I had to make her stop for lunch. Liam worked on and off stopping to go and play with his trains every now and then and then coming back for more.

So I officially call today a success and am looking forward to tomorrow. Here are a few photos of some of our activities today.

Montessori

So after much thought and lots of googling and reading, I have found that I am heading back towards the place I began my homeschool journey - Montesorri. I have decided to change my plan and head away from the classical road and back towards a lot of the Montessori ideas and activities. I am slowly converting our games room and making and printing off all the materials I saved back when I first decided to homeschool 2+ years ago.

Tonight the kids spotted one of the activities I was preparing and were busting to have a go, so I let them at it! They played with it for over 30 mins before I insisted the have a shower and go to bed. You can see the response I got from Liam at this suggestion. I think this activity is going to be a winner.





The idea is to use the tongs to place a marble in each section of the ice cube tray. We then moved onto 2 in each. It is amazing how many times they wanted to repeat this. Great for fine motor, hand eye co-ordination and 1 to 1 correspondence.