Montessori Infant and Toddler Curriculum Part 2: Math and Language

This is part 2 in my Infant and Toddler Montessori Curriculum series.  I talked about sensorial in this post.  http://www.discoverykidzone.blogspot.com/2015/08/montessori-infant-toddler-curriculum.html

We are going to continue the series by discussing Math and Language.  Infants are always learning and it is exciting to watch and facilitate. 

Math

From day one infants are surrounded by math.  We ask what time it is, how old they are, how many ect.  Math is a very abstract and small children can’t understand the concepts.  They need to experience real objects in their environment to make the concept much more concrete.  Math begins with the realization of one and then more than one.  To witness a child evolving in this area is an amazing discovery.  Math activities for infants and toddlers can include:  Stacking and nesting cubes, number and block cubes, sorting and counting materials, matching and grading and sandpaper numbers. 

 

Language

From birth children are completely aware and are learning at an extremely rapid rate all about the human language.  Language is vital to the process of thinking.  The child needs to be spoken to, read to, sung to and listened to often.  Children need a broad exposure to language. 

Here are some song ideas:

Fuzzy Wuzzy Caterpillar Fuzzy, wuzzy caterpillar Into a corner will crawl. (squat and move to a corner) He’ll spin himself a blanket (move head in a spin) And then go fast asleep (pretend to sleep) Fuzzy, wuzzy caterpillar Wakes up by and by ( wake up, slowly move arms) To find he has wings of beauty Changed into a butterfly. (fly with arms)

Jack-in-the-Box Down in a box (squat to ground’ talk softly and slowly) There lives a little man. He waits and he waits, As quiet as he can Until I open the lid – POP!

Johnny Works With One Hammer Johnny works with one hammer, One hammer, one hammer, Johnny works with one hammer, Then he works with two. (repeat with 2, 3, 4) Johnny works with five hammers, Five hammers, five hammers, Johnny works with five hammers, Then he goes to sleep.

To aid the child in his language skill development the Montessori environment needs to be set up with literacy rich and language in mind.  Teachers and parents need to have books, pictures, picture labels, objects and matching pictures all thorough out the environment.

Click on the links below for book ideas for infants and toddlers:

Peek a boo Forest

Where is Baby's Belly Button?

Look! Look!

You can find more infant toddler resources here:

http://www.michaelolaf.net/BirthtoThreeDevelopment.html

http://www.blog.montessoriforeveryone.com/montessori-basics-7-essentials-of-a-toddler-classroom.html

http://www.infomontessori.com/language/introduction.htm



 Thank you for visiting.  Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments. 

Rachel Supalla



Montessori Inspired Writing Workshop

Hello All!  
It has been too long since I last wrote!  I just wrote a blog post for PreK and K sharing and you can find the post HERE.  I talked about how to start a writing workshop in a Montessori classroom.  The main thing is to instill a love of writing in a child at a very young age.  Writing can be a daunting task for children...and adults!  If you can find a way to make it fun and have meaning it doesn't feel quite so much like work.  

I think that in a preschool class having daily or weekly drawing workshops it teaches the children to draw with purpose.  Draw to tell a story.  This will get the child excited and begin the writing process.  Once the child is comfortable drawing with meaning then you add more complex steps such as labeling, writing a sentence using the labels and eventually a story.

Check out my post at PreK and K sharing and I promise I will write again very soon!  I have missed blogging and I am excited to be back!

Rachel Supalla

Montessori Monday Lovin Language!

Lovin Language!  What is the best method to teach reading, phonics or whole language?  This is a century old question and I will tell you what method Montessori teaches and why.  Let me first start off by saying that as much as I love Montessori math I LOVE the Montessori method of language instruction even more!  This method of teaching language is so complete and thorough that it not only teaches a child how to read but in the process they will become fluent readers and writers. 

Where do I begin?
Similar to Montessori math, language also starts out very hands on.  Children will learn to build letters and manipulate sounds to spell before they will actually write.  In doing so the child has a complete understanding of the letter and how it is used in the context of words instead of trying to memorize what a foreign symbol is. 

You start out by introducing sandpaper letters.
Sandpaper letters give children a tactile hands on experience with learning letters and sounds.  Here is a great post on living montessori now about sandpaper letters.

After you introduce sandpaper letters and sounds you can add activities to reinforce letter recognition such as sand writing, letter building, play dough, Melissa and doug puzzles, wikki sticks ect.

A sandpaper extension would be beginning sound objects.  Use small, interesting objects in conjunction with the sandpaper letters and place them in baskets for sound sets 1, 2 , 3, 4 and 5.  Everyone has a slightly different method of introducing letter sounds.  This is the method I use. 
sound set one:  m, a, t, s, p
sound set two:  b, c, r, f, e
sound set three:  h, i, d, g, n
sound set four:  j, o, k, l, u, w
sound set five:  x, v, z ,q, y 
As soon as they finish sound set one they can build, spell and read mat, pat, sat, tap, Sam, Pam, map, at and am. 

Also practice blending letters together by saying mmm-aaaa-t say it slow then tell them to say it fast, what does that spell?  Mat!
At this stage play games, games and more games!
Games are a "sneaky" way to reinforce learning without them knowing it.  A few games I like to play are: bingo, I spy, letter hunt and I have who has. 

What happens after they know the sounds?

The next step is the moveable alphabet and the pink series.  This is where it really gets exciting!  It is their opportunity to take the letters and sounds to build words  The first step in this process is to match 3 part cards with a picture and a word that matches the card with both the picture and the word, then they build the word.  

I start out with short a words the pink series is three letter short vowel words.  Continue teaching each set of short vowel words until you finally end with short u words.  Upon completion of this series your child will be able to fluently read CVC or short vowel words!  

What about sight words?
Remember that century old question I asked at the beginning?  Well here is your answer... BOTH methods are best.  In a Montessori language program we teach phonics in conjunction with whole language or sight words.  Sight words are not just words you can't sound out.  They are the most commonly used words in the English language.  I use the dolch list here.

After you teach each set of short vowel words introduce 10 sight words.  This is another area where you play games, games, games.  We have sight words be the magic word of the day.  We use funny voices such as (cowboy, valley girl, movie star and volcano) when introducing the sight words.  This makes it more interesting and fun.   A fun and educational DVD series that I use to introduce sight words is Let's meet the sight words. 

In our classroom and at home we have word wall set up.  Here is a picture of our word wall.  We use the word wall for writing workshop and sight word games.  We play sight word swat, race to the sight word, build a sight word and sight word art. 

By using sight words in conjunction with phonics it will speed up a child's fluency and they will enjoy reading much more!  Giving a child a love for reading is the gift that never stops giving. 

After the pink series is the blue series which is long vowel words and vowel combinations.  A program that uses a good systematic approach to this is primary phonics and they also include a teacher's manual that mirrors Montessori methods. 

BOB books is another great reading series for children and they also have itunes apps that are fabulous! Click here to view those. 

The last part of the reading series is the yellow or green series.  In this step the children learn blends and special sounds.  Allison's Montessori has sandpaper letters that I use to introduce this series.  Once your child has completed all of these steps he will be a fluent reader and enjoy reading!!!  My son is 5 and he reads at a 4th grade reading level because he learned with the Montessori Method starting at age 3.  

I hope this will be a useful guide on your quest to teach your child to read!  Listen to them read and read aloud to them often!

  Reading is the window to the unknown world.   

Rachel 

Montessori Monday Pond Trays

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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Word Work Wednesday!

Today is word work Wednesday!  On Wednesday's I teach Kindergarten.  We are working on writing labeling and writing 3 part stories.  We always start our day with journal time but recently I have been using that time to do our mini lesson on writing.  I forgot to take pictures of our anchor charts today.  Next week I will post all of our charts.  We started our mini lesson with a review on drawing, labeling and coloring a picture. 

Writing workshop, they are drawing, labeling and coloring a picture. I learned these ideas from Crystal at www.kreativeinkinder.blogspot.com  at the  Virtual Teaching Expo Everything K

Here is one of the pictures (these are in their journals so it is on wide ruled paper)

This student is extremely detailed.  You can clearly see he drew in pencil, labeled, and colored using at least 5 colors!  He is 5 years old!! 

Today our writing workshop was so much fun because usually I have them write a sentence and then illustrate what they wrote.  Today I told them to draw, label and color their picture and they didn't have to write a sentence.  They all wanted to write a sentence and did without me even telling them to!! 

Here is the sentence that goes with the picture above.  It says "Sneakers is planting the flowers."  The only thing I had him correct was the N needed to be lowercase and asked him to tell me what special sound was at the end of flower.  He remembered and corrected it on his own.  I love this!  "Sneakers" was our "elf on the shelf" ;) they still talk about him!!   

Later on in the day we had our writing lesson and our regular writing workshop where they are working on 3 part stories.  To help us remember how to write stories we have "Steve the Story telling caterpillar"  He is a puppet and we have him on one of our anchor charts. 

Steve the Story Caterpillar.  I read about Anchor Charts in the book Teaching with intention.

We brainstormed about how to write a story, then we did interactive writing and we all wrote a story together on the board.  After that everyone chose a title for their stories and began writing.  When they were finished I met with each of them individually to discuss their stories.  I was amazed and proud of their stories!!  They were so creative and original.  I will post them next week after they finish illustrating them. 

During our writing workshop and reading groups we had word works or literacy centers.  Here are some pictures of what we are working on.  Everything that is out on the language shelves is all review to them and they work independently. 

This is the Moveable Alphabet.  She is working on her "pink words" , they are 3 letter short vowel words.

This is the "insta learn board".  I believe this is an absolute must for every classroom and homeschool room!!  I could and should write a whole post dedicated just to this board.  Zack is working on spelling words with digraphs.  This board is leveled and self correcting. 

This little girl is working on long vowel, rhyming words.  The children have to figure out how to spell the words and it will not fit if it is spelled incorrectly.  The cards are color coded so they always know what level they are working on.  Like I said... A maz ing!!!!  They also have a math one, but that is for another day! :)

Sight word horse races from scholastic.

Letter and word poking (kindergarten does words and preschool does letters)

After I teach morning Kindergarten we go home and finish our day homeschooling!

This is Allie doing her word work, compound word magnets from the good ole' Dollar Store!! 

This is another fabulous Dollar Store find!  A word wall spinner with commands.  Allie LOVED this work!!

One of the commands on the spinner was to define a word, so we just expanded on this and defined several words. 

After that Allie chose a word in the dictionary to be her new vocabulary word.  We call those our magic words and she gets a sticker on her chart every time she uses the magic word correctly!

We do some type of "word sort" activity everyday.  This one is from Hillary Lewis at Rockin Teacher Materials  Her Spelling has improved 100% since we started doing word works!!! 

Allie finishing up her polar bear research report during our writing workshop. 

We finished up our day with writing workshop.  We also have anchor charts in our homeschool classroom but they are a little more advanced.  Allie has discovered that she does like to write stories when she knows how!!  Homeschooling for her has been such an incredible blessing!  Tonight, the last thing she said before she fell asleep was..."Thank you mommy for homeschooling me and always planning fun things to do!"  It just made my heart melt and all the late nights laminating, cutting and printing are so worth it!!! 

Sorry this post was so long, I guess I had fun writing and doing word works today too!!  I hope you enjoyed it too!

More Penguin Activities

More Penguin Activities!!

Are you all getting sick of hearing about penguins yet??  Haha, well too bad I have more activities to share.  The Chart above is what we did today with preschool to review the facts we have learned about penguins.  For some of our activities we used Deanna Jump's Penguin unit http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Penguins-Math-and-Literacy-Fun

We fed the penguins gold fish crackers.  After we fed them we counted how many fish we fed them and wrote the number on a piece of paper. 

Penguin dial a sum math with penguin counters.  I found this activity here creative classroom 123

Classifying penguins by type.  They sorted the penguin and placed them by their type.  On the back of every picture was the name of each type of penguin for self checking.

Penguin sorting.  This is a more difficult sorting activity because the penguin manipulatives look very similar so they really have to pay attention to the details.

We discussed how male penguins choose the best pebble to give their mates, just like daddies give mommies a rock to ask her to marry him.  This activity is a fine motor activity placing pebbles on fish suction cups to remind them of this fact. 

Label the penguin.  After they labeled the penguin, they drew their own penguins and cut out strips to label.  This is our Pip puppet form the adventures of Pip.

One of our science activities we did was illustrate how the penguins' waxy feathers do not get too wet in the water.  We drew penguins and pushed really hard with the crayons, then water color painted over them watching the water and paint bead up and roll away. 

Counting penguins book and penguin manipulatives to count along with the book.

That is all I have for tonight.  I have more pictures to post tomorrow!  Thank you for all of your comments and support as I slowly learn all about the world of blogging!!  I am really having a great time sharing all of my ideas with you and learning all of yours!!