School Days April, part 2

The weather is finally warm enough for us to "school outside". We live on a dead end street and use is a lot to do school work with sidewalk chalk. Both boys loved this ABC Caterpillar. Mason went through is saying the sounds of the letters, backwards, and hopping on one foot. James and I went down it together saying the letters and sounds.

Mason wanted to know "how many minuets does it take to count to 1 million? He said he heard on a movie that it took 23 days (I don't know how accurate this is, but I went with it to not discourage him from wanting to do this math!)

I recited some random words for him to spell.

We reviewed nouns and articles. I wrote out sentences and he drew the appropriate symbol above the word.

Big blue triangle for noun and small black (he used grey) for article.

James' Work...

I got these spring erasers at the grocery store at 50% off! He graphed them.

Sorted them.

Sorted by fly or non-fly (Mason made him the paper)

Learning letter sounds

reading together

unlocking the box with a key

our version of spindles

pouring seeds

Mason's Work

4 addends

I have added this book, since I do not have the language materials together.  I hope to have it together for James! Mason was beyond that material when we started anyway.

North America continent box, I listed the things I want him to research.  We are going to make the continents a unit study over the course of next year. We will take all summer to do North America!

2 more land forms!

notice the water is not colored blue..we had a bit of a blue disaster with the food coloring in the kitchen..

Poetry journal

I love these cards! There is information on the back that I had Mason read to me, and 4 questions he answered.

School work in February

 While setting up the new school room Mason found the multiplication board...I knew he had figured out some of the lower multiplication on his own (like 2x3). He asked if you could look at it, and before I knew it he was really into it! He spent most of one day and a bit of another figuring it out.  He mostly found patterns in the numbers to fill in the squares, but he also used the abacus to work some out.....

 He filled in the whole thing!!

I asked him to pick an animal he would like to learn about, he picked Polar Bears.  We borrowed books from the library, and used animal research cards from Montessori for Everyone (free download section).  As he reads the books and finds information he puts the card with the correct answer under the question.  For example: Q. What does the animal eat?  Plants? Animals? or Both plants and animals? He would put the card that says "animals" under that card.  This is working great, cause he does not have to write anything!  He is having an anti writing period, so this is a great way for him to still learn and find answers with out having to write it all down (for now).

 James is working on his open and close basket

In the basket: eye glass case that zippers, eye glass case that opens, jar with twist top, jar with pop top, jewelry box that opens with a hinge, a bird flashlight that opens when you push a button, glass jar with small screw top.

 Making patterns

 using plastic ice to count and sort

 Blue tray

 Boys in blue (didn't even plan it! and yes they are doing school in their PJ's-it was a blizzard outside and since they don't get snow days...they get PJ days instead!)

 transferring cotton balls

Watercolors

Helping me sort paper!

The Cummins School House October 2010

I am going to try to keep track of what we are doing for school by the month if I can, This is what we did in October:

Mason Writes words in his word book, that starts with the letter "Mm"

This is the "Squirrel Game" I made for James! He LOVES this game. I found thesee jars at the Christmas Tree Shop, they are numbered 1-10. In the number 1 jar I put one squirrel.  To play the game the little squirrel stands on the cork cover and asks for 1 acorn. I pick one from the bowl of acorns and give it to the squirrel and he hides it in the "tree"/jar, we continue asking for 1 acorn until they are all gone.

Autumn Small, Medium and Large matching cards.

I got these from montessoriprintshop 

Autumn Matching cards

also from montessoriprintshop (I think)

James is practicing walking around the rugs, I gave him a pull toy use while he did this.

Mason is working on invertebrate 3 part cards. He also takes a class called Save the Bay where  he is learning about invertebrates all year.

I got these from  montessoriforeveryone

James is working on snapping and zipping, with the dressing frames I made. This was easy, I bought  wooden picture frames cheap at the dollar store, took out the glass, stapled material to fit around it and then added snaps or zipper.

Nature tray

Home school group field trip to Ward's Berry farm for a pumpkin patch hayride.



Cummins School House weeks 1 & 2 -James

Here is what James has been doing in "school". I have it in our schedule to spend 1 hour working/playing with James each day!

Putting chop sticks into a narrow neck bottle and dumping them out again.

Pouring beans from a wide bowl thru a funnel into a pitcher

sorting leaves

washing rocks for the rock collection

Matching color cards made from Disney paint samples I got at Home depot.

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Number cards 1-3 with cranberries as counters

Working together with Racing Ramps (see Mason's post for more info on these)

working together on coloring.

Our butterfly we raised and released!

Click on the link below to see what others are doing with their toddles!

                                                                Toddler Tuesday