Cummins School House October week 4- Mason

Mason presenting the Teen Board to Athena

The boys are settling right into the school curriculum as we continue to use Karen's albums from World Wide Montessori.  This week we have started a new Co-Op (sort of) My friend Janelle has decided that she wants to home school her 2 girls.  She is still at the researching all the curriculum stage (which we all know is the hardest part!)...So I have invited her and the girls over on Tuesdays to "do school" with us Montessori style.  This way she can see first hand how the Montessori method works and see if it is right for her girls.  So each week Janelle with hang out with the toddlers playing with all the great materials on James shelves and I will be with Mason and Athena, while Mason presenting lessons for Athena.  I think this is a great opportunity for Mason to get the peer interaction he does not get at a Montessori school.  Since Athena is younger, I thought it would be great for him to show Athena all the lessons that she can do. By the way they worked so wonderfully together!




History:We are continuing to use Story of the World with Mason's (other) Co-Op group.  This week they learned about the pyramids. At home we listened to the story, worked on the map and coloring sheet.  We went to Brenda and Evan's new house and made pyramids out of sugar cubes.




In our Montessori history this week we are "Keeping Track of Time" with beans? They take turns adding a bean to a jar for each day of school. 

Our friend Maddie from Co-Op let us borrow magnetic pieces that let you build buildings and structures from ancient Egypt.

Geography: For Geography Mason made a "Primitive Map" in a tray of sand, they way people would have along time ago.  I gave him an example with simple picture of mountains,trees, tepee, moon etc.  He then drew them in the sand.  Well anyone who knows Mason knows this is right up his alley! Drawing a MAP! It was a dream come true for him to be able to make a map at "school"!

Practical Life: It only naturally made sense to have him sweep up the sand off the table and chair when he was done! He needed a few pointers to get the sand into the dust pan and not under it!

Physical Science: We will continue to use the 3 part cards from http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/ for invertebrates along with his Save the Bay Class for the whole year. This month they explored the rocky shore line (on a day when it was POURING!!!) This did not bother the kids they were having fun exploring the rocks and finding, sea stars (I learned they are not fish so you can not call they star fish!), crabs, sea weed, snails plus more.  They went back to the exploration center and talked more about these animals and why they can live on the shore line. Lots of great vocabulary words to look up too....Echinoderms, water vascular system, tide pool, rocky shore line, habitat.....


We are also learning about Elasticity! we talked about how things with elasticity always bounce back to their original shape.  In the tray we have elastics, hair elastics, strips of sewing elastic, a spring etc... 

Science/Nature study: We are talking about the season of Autumn! on the Nature table is things you would find outside now: acorns,milkweed seed pods and seeds, leaves, apple seeds, and a robin's nest that fell out of our apple tree in the wind. Also is books, and 3 part cards for the seasons.

Math: Mason worked on the 100 and1000 chain this week.  This was allot of work for him!  He only got thru 1/2 the 1000 chain in one day and finished it the next day! During this lesson there is a chain of 1000 beads with little paper arrows labeled by 10's. Mason had to place all the labels along the chain from 1-1000. I have to tell you he was so proud of himself when he finished! I used an egg carton to hold the arrows in groups of 10's


































There are so many more "unschooling" lessons that go on during the day that I would be here forever! 

"We love to learn and we learn to love!"