Montessori Monday
Frog Pond Trays
We are studying frogs
and ponds this month. For Montessori
Monday I
wanted to do a post about our trays.
I get quite a few questions and
comments on where I get my items and how
I set up my classroom. I am
going to
give you some tips on how to set up interesting trays in your
classroom and at
home.
This is a duck dropper work, the child squeezes the dropper to fill up the blue water and then fills up every duck on the tray. This builds fine motor skills and hand eye coordination.
Let me start off by saying
that I was a preschool, Kindergarten teacher
and mom all before I got my
Montessori certification and became a
Montessori teacher. The way I set up my school and homeschool
reflects
both backgrounds and I believe I have combined the best of both
worlds.
This is a pom pom transfer extension. They have to use the tongs to transfer pom poms to the matching color frogs. This is a build fine motor and math skills.
First I start with a
theme, for example this month our theme
is pond life.
Every month I go to the
thrift store, target and the dollar store to
constantly look for interesting
trays and containers that can be used on
work trays. After each holiday and season I shop all the
SALES!! I
have built up items over the
years and now I have an abundance of things
to choose from every month. At the beginning of each year I make a
scope and sequence to lay out what I want the kids to learn for homeschool
and
preschool. I break it down into
months. Every month when I write my
lesson plans I use this as a guide and I fill out each individual child’s
lesson
plan to target those goals. Here
is where the fun part comes in!! I
search
my items to look for works. For example
if I have kids who need
to work on operating a dropper I will look for fun ways
to reinforce this
skill with theme based items.
Every month when I put out the new works
the kids are always waiting in
anticipation to see what will be next and
even if it is reinforcing the same skill
it is packaged in a new way thus
making it more exciting!
These are some of our language trays. The first one is the 4 little speckled frogs. They use the felt pieces to retell the song and story. This reinforces language skills, counting, subtraction and sorting.
Next is draw and label a frog and sort the frog life cycle.
Here are some of our math trays, Lily pad addition using frog counters, frog sort and classify, frog counting with counters, frog patterns
Here are a few of our Practical life trays,
frog egg transfer using small Styrofoam balls, operating a dropper duck pond, build a turtle with wiki sticks and our sewing basket.
Some items that I
always keep in stock to use are:
theme ice cube trays and silicone baking trays, Silicone
shape baking cups, Colored trays, Theme erasers, Small
plastic toys such as
frogs, Water beads, Suction cup bath shapes, Marbles, Dollar store items for
sensory box,
Different colored and scented play dough , Theme based counters and letters, Theme
based shape books made on the
cricut, Crinkle paper, Medicine droppers, Various scoops and tongs from
Montessori Services, Theme based foam or felt shapes from Oriental Trading, Wiki
Sticks , Pom Poms, Colored
noodles, Pipe cleaners, Letter and number beads
With these basic items
you can make hundreds of fun work trays and change them often to keep it
fun
and exciting!!
What new works did you
make this week???
Rachel
I am linking up with living montessori now and what's on the tray wednesday
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