How to teach children to be thankful

How to teach preschoolers to be thankful.

What does it mean to be thankful?  That is a big word for preschoolers.  How do we teach them to say thank you, show thankfulness and mean it?  From the time that children can speak we teach them to say thank you.  It becomes expected and automatic but does it mean anything?
I think that in order to teach children to be grateful we have to model it.  Just like everything else in their world they have to see it to believe it.

November is a great time to teach gratefulness.  Here are a few practical steps to teach your young children.

1.  Give to others often.  Find out who is in need and what they need, involve your children in blessing a family.  Make cards and gifts that do not cost any money.  Allow your children to give the cards and gifts to the family.  Reflect with your children on how it made them feel to bless others and how they thought that family felt to receive those blessings.

2.  Model gratitude in your everyday life.  When you are at the grocery store, a restaurant, with your spouse.  Let your children hear your say thank you and why you are thankful.  Then talk about it with them.  Say things such as:  "wasn't that nice of the grocer to bag our groceries for us and help us load the cart?" or "Didn't that waitress have such nice manners when she brought us our food"  Remember our children are always watching and learning from us.  If we have an ungrateful attitude they will pick up on that.

3.  Teach them how to express their gratitude.  In the hustle of life I have failed to do this lately.  I haven't taught my own children the importance of thank you cards and notes.  I haven't taken the time to sit down and model being thankful in this way.  I think this is a skill that is slowly dying today and needs to be revisited.  Who doesn't love to receive a thank you note?  It makes what you did seem like that much more of a blessing.  Even small toddlers can draw a picture or scribble some lines to show their thanks.

4.  Talk about your blessings.  Sometimes children forget all that they have to be thankful for.  They are born very self centered and we need to teach them to look outside of themselves to see all that they have to be thankful for.  This is also an area that you can model for them.  We have a thankful tree every November and we write on leaves the things that we are thankful for.  It starts out
 generic but as the month goes on it becomes much more specific and thoughtful.  We also have love letters in February.  Each of my children has a mailbox by their door.  Through out the month we write love letters to each other and put it in their boxes.  The letters start out with I love you because.... It is a fun way to show why we appreciate each other.

5.  Honor and love your family!  This is a biggie for me.  I feel like today with our busy schedules and all of our activities that we forget to stop and honor our family.  We need to visit our loved ones, call them, skype, facetime.  Whatever you need to do and teach our children to do the same.  Our family is what makes us who we are and we need to remember that and stay in touch.

I hope these simple steps to gratitude will help you focus on what is important this year and maybe remember it for years to come.  Have a blessed holiday with your families and friends!

Rachel Supalla

Show me the money! Montessori money math!

Sensory math!  Sorting coins that are "hidden" in water beads.  

Show me the money!!  I mean really, who isn't excited about money?  Kids included.  It is natural for children to have a desire to learn about money.  It is a part of our everyday lives.  We should take this opportunity to teach them about something when their interest is high.  I like to introduce money around President’s Day.  We start with a discussion about Washington and Lincoln and that leads into learning about pennies and quarters.  

Another good time to build excitement about money is on St. Patrick’s Day when you can go on a search for the money at the end of the rainbow.  

This is when you can introduce the nickel.  We start with sorting coins, nickel , quarter and penny.  I use clear water beads and hide the coins to sort in the water beads.  After they have mastered that I add in the dime.  The next step after they have mastered coin sorting is to introduce the coin values. 

I do this by making it a Montessori counting work, I use sandpaper numbers to help reinforce the value of the coins and have objects to count to reinforce one to one correspondence.  

At the end of our money unit we celebrate with a PJ day and snack money store.  Each child brings in a snack and I pass out coins for them to count out to buy snacks.  

This was a fantastic learning experience and super fun to top it off!!  Have fun showing the kids the money! 

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 

PreK and K Sharing Post Making a Theme Come To Life

PreK and K Sharing Post

We just finished up our pond unit and to make our theme come to life we went to the pond, the feed store and the pet store to actually experience pond habitats in real life!  The kids were thrilled and loved every minute of it!  You can read more about How we made our Theme come to life here at Pre K and K sharing! 

Let me know what you think!

Practical Guide to Practical Life Montessori Monday

Caring for Plants

Practical Life is one of the things that sets Montessori apart from traditional school.  In a Montessori prepared environment the teacher carefully chooses activities to place on the shelves for the children to practice and eventually master.  The practical life shelves consist of “works” that foster independence in practical life skills and fine motor development.  

By teaching a child to serve food by themselves they are learning grace, hospitality and courtesy at a young age. 

A few of these activities may include: 

slicing, chopping, peeling, spooning, transferring, tonging, dusting, polishing, sewing, cleaning, stirring, mixing, sweeping, serving, dressing skills, animal care, hammering, care of self, care of plants, care of animals and pouring. 
The practical life shelves in the classroom can bring the most joy to a child.  All of the practical life shelves in my classroom are theme based and carefully planned to flow into extension activities.  The young child will naturally gravitate to practical life shelves.  It is exciting for children to have meaningful work just like mom and dad. 

As new works are introduced and rotated often it sparks new interest in the child.  Many of the practical life lessons are sequential and build up to mastery.  These activities are not only fun and educational for the child but it also helps develop a great sense of pride in accomplishment.  The practical life skills will stay with them for life. 

Here are some of the works we have out right now in our classroom.  Because most of my practical life works are theme based I am only going to show you a few now and you will see more as they are introduced with new themes. 

This is a slicing work we have out on our shelf right now.  The children slice the banana, then place it the bowl.  They then place toothpicks in the slices and serve the banana pieces.

This is a carrot peeling work.  Usually I have 2 kids working together one is peeling the carrots and one is chopping the carrots.  The one who is chopping the carrots will then serve the children at the snack table a little silicone muffin cup filled with carrot slices.

Carrot chopping fosters hand eye coordination, concentration and fine motor skills. 

Care of plants.  In this work the children are responsible for taking care of the living plants in our class.  I also do this at home with my own children.  They feed the plants just enough water, clean the leaves and remove dead leaves and flowers when necessary.  This produces a great sense of responsibility and care for the environment.  They are very good about noticing when a plant needs care and attention.  I do not even have to remind them!

Sewing.  Sewing is one activity that is definitely sequential and produces fabulous results.  This is step one after the child learns to thread a needle they learn the basic step of lacing and the movement it requires.  After they have mastered this step they move on to the next 4 steps of sewing until they eventually sew their very own doll!!  Even the boys love the sewing works.  It helps with fine motor skills, concentration and self independence.

Care of self.  This is one of our dressing boards found at discount school supply.  Care of self is also another sequential set of activities.  We have several dressing boards that are the basic steps to tying, zippers, lacing, buttons and snaps.  Once they have mastered the boards they move on to dress up items to practice more.  Finally, they practice on them self and have usually mastered the concept at this point.  We have charts to keep track of when a child has mastered a new care of self skill and they children a excited to have their names on those charts. 

Care of animals.  In our classroom we have a guinea pig, fish and tadpoles.  The helpers are responsible for feeding and caring for the animals.  The children love taking care of our animals and watching them grow.  Here is a picture of a little boy feeding "Roxie" a piece of celery.  He is giggling with delight. 

Care for the classroom.  We have trays out on the shelves that allow the kids to clean the classroom.  This one is a table cleaning work with shaving cream and water.  They love this work!

Cooking.  We do many cooking activities.  This is one where the children grind corn to make cornmeal.  We use the cornmeal to make cornbread muffins!

Preparing snack.  We have snack out family style and the children prepare their own snacks.  Here they are practicing spreading by spreading cream cheese on tortillas to make meat and tortilla roll ups.

Sifting flour Click here for this post

Baking a cutting out cookies Click here for our unit on Gingerbread Men

Sequential Pouring excersises Pouring starts with two cups the same size and the children pour beans from one cup to the next.  The pouring items gradually get harder and we add water.  Shown here is a girl pouring from a tea pot into two cups.  This is a more difficult pouring work.  Click here for the link to this post

Sweeping into a dustpan, the childre dump the items in the cup onto a square on the floor.  They use the brush and dustpan to carefully sweep the items into the dustpan.  Click here for the link to this post

Crumbing a table is a fun and purposeful work for the children.  They use this small brush and dustpan to "sweep" all of the crumbs off the table after snacks and lunch.  Click here for the link to this post

Through out the year I will post more about our practical life activities.  I love teaching children how to read and understand math but practical life and social skills in the classroom and at home I believe are equally important! 

Happy Spring