Orange Juice Squeezing

Another yummy fine motor exercise, orange juice squeezing is out on our shelves. After the child washes their hands, they take a tray to the table. Then they bring over half of an orange. We teach them to squeeze the orange while pushing down and twisting. These oranges have seeds in them which is actually quite good as the children can see the seeds sticking in the top.

After the juicing is done, we pour it into a cup. Sometimes this needs a little adult assistance.

Enjoy the freshly squeezed orange juice!

Addition with Golden Beads

For the older children, they have progressed through many of the other math materials and have moved onto golden beads. Again this is an amazing Montessori material that teaches units (ones), tens, hundreds and thousands concretely. We have many exercises that begin with teaching the quantity then the symbol and finally matching quantity with symbol. Once they understand this we move onto the operations beginning with addition without change.

Once the child understands this concept, we begin addition with change or dynamic addition. Here the child realizes they have to go to the "bank" and change 10 unit beads for a ten bead bar and carry it over into the tens column. From here we actually move to multiplication as it is really just "fast adding!" Stay tuned!

Addition with the Short Bead Stair

Once the child has gone through the sequence we call the "first five" of the Montessori maths materials, we move onto other aspects of math. The first five helps the child understand the concepts of 1:1 correspondence, the idea of zero and matching the symbol to the quantity of 1-10. One of the directions to go is to introduce the Short Bead Stair. This helps to reinforce the quantities 1-9 and to prepare the child for the operations of addition and subtraction. Many works are completed to familiarize the child with the short bead stair and the children enjoy working with the beautiful colorful beads.

We place a set of beads and the child counts with their fingertip or the tip of a pencil. They then write the number in the first slot. For some, as they can be only three, they need help writing so we use a dotted stamp for them to trace. For most, they love to stamp the numeral too. We then place the second addend on the green felt. They count this as well and write the number. We then show them how to put the beads together and add up with the fingertip or a pencil and write the "sum" in the box.
This is an example of how the Montessori math materials progress from concrete to abstraction in a specific sequence. The children really enjoy this activity and ask for it when they come to school. Many tell us, "I want to do math!"

Titi the Gecko

We had a visit from a Gecko today as we are studying reptiles. He was very shy and wanted to hide but made an occasional appearance and quite an impression on the children. We were happy to be able to borrow him as we want to make sure the children have a concrete experience with what we are studying.

Some of the afternoon children decided to make a parts of the lizard book. They enjoy looking at their pictures and some are now writing the words themselves. Thank you to our friend who allowed us to bring his Gecko to our school today!!

More India!

Our special visitors came to tell us about India! They brought puppets, clothes, and food!
We made pani puri which had a filling of lightly seasoned potatoes. The children peeled the potatoes, mashed and added salt. They then filled the pani puri.

All of the children ate these treats and several asked for seconds.

After our snack, we looked at pictures of their recent trip to Jaipur to visit with friends and family. We saw photos of them riding camels and an elephant. They even got to see a snake which is a reptile (like we are studying right now)!

We learned how to say Hello which is Namaste! We folded our hands too.

Since big sister came, we also did some Bollywood style dancing! This was really fun!!!

Thank you!!! We learned so much and had a great visit!!

Baric Tablets - Feeling the difference in Weight

The Baric Tablets were developed by Dr. Montessori as a way to develop the sense of touch and more specifically to make fine discriminations in weight. The child wears a blindfold to focus his attention on the weight rather than the color of the tablets.
Although there are three different weights of tablets, the two most contrasting ones are used to begin. We teach specific vocabulary such as "heavy" and "light" to describe the different weights and carefully place them on the fingertips of the hand. Here a child has completed this exercise and another child wishes to help place the tablets in the hand.

After the child feels the difference (by gently moving the tablets up and down), they state which one is heavy and which one is light. We then place these in two separate piles. At the end, the child removes their blindfold and looks to see if the piles all have the same color. This is the control of error. At that point they may wish to complete the work again.

Montessori (Discovery of the Child, 1988, pg. 118) explains the material is made of wood because, "differences of temperature have to be avoided (and this is why materials are made of wood), if one is to obtain a true impression of an object's weight. Moving the hand up and down changes the weight because of the resistance of the atmosphere." As you can see, the Montessori materials are well thought out to provide a rich experience for the children.

Continuation of Asian Studies- India

We have had a great beginning to India week in our Asian studies! We are lucky enough to have a family from India in our class and they have brought in many items of clothing, scarves and bangles for the children to explore.

We have looked at beautiful objects from India (a gift from our family- thank you!), colored the map of India and the Indian flag.

We have also colored Rangoli which is a geometric design. We will be applying colored sand later in the week (using colored sand or rice is the typical way) but today we have been coloring these beautiful designs.

The children also walked on the line to special Indian sitar music by Ravi Shankar while holding special items from India.

We will have more fun tomorrow as we will have visitors teaching us more about India! Stay tuned!