GIVEAWAY from a galaxy far far away!!!

Star wars is coming out in 3D this week so I thought it would be fun to have a Star Wars themed giveaway for my 100 fan celebration on Facebook!!  I will be giving away a 20 dollar fandango gift certificate for you to go see Star Wars in 3D!

Here is how it works, become a new follower of my blog and my teacher facebook page www.facebook.com/kidzoneteachermama and leave a comment that you did these things and who your favorite Star wars character is! 

Have fun and remember..... 

Thank you!!!



Mommy Monday Hip Homeschool Hop!

Dolls, Barbies, fingernails and hairbows!!

On Monday's we stay at home and have "mommy day".  This is our day to do fun homeschooling and projects.  Allie loves to play with her dolls and barbies.  Her favorite thing to do is cook and she loves learning anything that has to do with cooking!

Allie is getting very good with her fractions because of all the cooking she does.  She can go in the kitchen all by herself and make the whole family scrambled eggs and she even adds bacon, cheese, dill (and one time even raisins!)  While we are cooking I always grab that teaching moment.  We talk about volume. measuring, adding, subtracting, dividing equal shares and fractions. 

 

This is one of our math songs!

For reading today we read Aesop's Fables.  We did a comparison chart and we discussed why Aesop chose certain animals for his fables.  She chose her favorite fable and told me why she chose that fable.

Her favorite fable today was the one about the peacock.  She liked how the goddess pointed out the peacock's strengths and how everyone has something they are good at and everyone can't be good at everything. 

Allie as a fairy in Peter Pan

After we talked about the peacock story she told me what she was good at.  She is good at acting, singing, cooking and riding horses.  For her writing assignment today she made a bubble map all about her.  She then used her descriptions to write an acrostic poem about herself.  She really enjoyed this creative writing assignment. 

We use the Workbox system for homeschooling.  A few of Allie's workboxes today were her contraction snowmen (see freebie!) and clay suffixes

making clay words with suffixes. 

For art we are just finishing up our Polar regions unit.  Here are the projects she did for this unit.  She also made a Polar bear mask.

Here is her torn paper landscape with polar bears!  I think she did an awesome job :)

Here is her Inuit Native American and her igloo made out of Styrofoam blocks.  This was a great math project!  She had to cut the cubes and spiral them in tilting towards the middle.  I put on the hot glue where she wanted and she placed the cubes.  The little man was made out of a wooden clothes pin, paper and fur.  Allie made his arms and legs out of pipe cleaners and then wrapped the paper around them and taped it. 

I love homeschooling!!!  We had a great day, I would love to hear a comment about how your day went!

Montessori Monday Valentine's Day Fine Motor Skills

Valentine's Sensory Box!!

Spooning water beads into heart trays.

Today I want to share with you some of our Valentine's day "works".  In a Montessori classroom we call the items that we put out on the shelves for children to work on "works".  Many of these activities can be made with common household items.  The kids are given an individual or group lesson and then they may choose them off the shelf to work on. 

These are our practical life shelves. 

Practical life "works" are introduced to kids to build fine motor skills and to work on practical life skills.  Many of the tasks in this area are to practice everyday skills.  The children love working on activities that they see adults work on everyday. 

Card writing basket. 

This has word wall words, Valentine's day words, pens, markers, pencils, and items to decorate a card

Sorting, counting and patterning Valentine's erasers

Valentine's Tangrams

We are working on Pouring into 4 containers. 

Lacing beads extension, making a criss cross on the buttons

Heart lacing

Shape nuts and bolts, sorting, and matching fine motor practice

Letter Pinning and heart pinning

Fine motor practice marbles on a suction cup paddle

Letter writing on white boards

Wikki Stick letter and heart shaping

Fine motor practice heart sticks into a Parmesan cheese container

I found this adorable broom at the Dollar Store and thought it would be perfect for "crumbing" the tables.  The children love doing this work. 

Heart "I spy" box.  I found this box at the Dollar store.  I filled it with rainbow rice, Valentine's shapes, letter number beads.  The children shake the box and find letters and numbers.  The younger ones circle the letters and numbers they find on a control chart.  The older ones write the numbers down. 

Heart shaped links.  I found these at the Dollar store.  The children make patterns and sort them.  This week we will use them for measuring. 

Our Math Shelves

Here is what is on our math shelves right now.  When a new parent asks about Montessori I show them our math shelves as an example.  I tell them you will not see a lot of worksheets come home because everything we do in the classroom is hands on.  We have a "math work time" and a "language work time" everyday.  

Fine motor practice and counting

Shape matching

Pattern Block and unifix cube graphing

Penny sorting, and coin rolling. 

These are a few of the works we have on our shelves right now.  I would love to know what you are working on this month.  Please leave me a comment and let me know how you can use some of these works at home or in your classroom! 

100th day of school FREEBIE!!!

Here is a fun freebie pack for you with activities and pictures for the 100th day of school.  Please share this link with everyone to come and get their own copy.  Leave me a comment if you liked it and how you can use it. 

Click Here for 100th day FREEBIE!!!

Have a great Superbowl Sunday!!!

Fun Friday! Winter Crafts

Torn paper snowmen

Today is fun Friday!  This week I decided to post some of our winter crafts and art projects.  I didn't post these before and they are so cute I didn't want them to get forgotten in my dusty picture files ;)

Our art display line

Our hand print tree and snowmen glyphs from (Deanna Jump)

snowmen glyphs

The kids do the entire project by themselves.  I don't do any prep work.  I love doing art projects this way because they all turn out completely different and they are working on cutting, spacing, gluing and creativity skills.

syllable snowmen (Kai-son) 2 syllables equals two parts to the snowman

Penguins with hand print feet

March of the penguins.  The kids chose a emperor penguin or a macaroni penguin.  They wrote the name or beginning sound of the name on the belly of the penguin.

Rainbow, rice, red "R"

We do a sensory art for every letter. 

soft fluffy penguins

 

Macaroni penguin

This penguin was created during "free art", the child went to the art center and created this penguin completely on her own.  This is creative learning at it's best!!! 

I hope you all had a great week and have a fun filled super bowl Sunday!!  I will post some more fun science activities tomorrow for "Science Saturday"!!