The Red One is learning to use scissors and enjoys creating geometric shapes. Here he is showcasing his rectangle!
The Kid is excited about Practical Life exercises because he gets to use adult materials that are normally off limits. Here, he is beginning a sewing activity that is aligned with his love for all things outer space.
The Red One loves animals so we are building our Zoological vocabulary with this Montessori activity. He’s matching the model animals to their picture and written name. By the first iteration of this game, he had already learned the animal “Impala”.
About an hour and 20 minutes after he began, The Kid completed his Rocketship pillow! You can see his pride!
The day before, we toured a Mosque with a lovely Muslim gentleman who told the boys all about how the Mosque is used, Arabic calligraphy, and the traditions of Muslim worship. They also learned the many ways that Christianity is similar to tenets of Muslim doctrine found in the Quran. We rounded out this experience with a beautiful Book about Muslim traditions, celebrations and attire. The boys learned new vocabulary and broadened their cultural horizons.
After an exercise of pattern making, The Red One decided to use the same materials to make his own “snake”! He truly enjoys animals including reptiles.
This exercise builds dexterity and focus, perfect goals for a 3 year old. “I Never Forget A Face” is a fun, culturally diverse Memory Game that takes you on a trip around the world. You match the faces of children in traditional attire from 24 different nations in the world. We learn to take turns, follow rules, compete and study the faces of children all around the world. This game sparks geography conversations and inquiry every time we play. We used our giant World Wall Map many times to identify the home nations of some of the children.
Working on multiplication can be abstract at age 5, but not with manipulative a like these. The Kid found multiplication easy to understand with this fun material.
Questions about multiplication’s parallels in addition sparked an exercise in doubling using addition. We worked our way all the way from doubling numbers in the ones place all the way to doubling numbers in the ten thousands!! No tears and I had to actually tell him to stop! This exercise Reinforced long addition, carrying numbers from place value to place value and was a lot of fun!
Both fellas are interested in how they can make their mark on the world. One way that we highlight their potential contributions is through order, cleanliness and responsibility. To drive this point home and illustrate Big things Little Hands can do, we talked about and explored recycling. Thanks to Reading Rainbow, we “visited” a recycling plant to look at exactly how old materials are cleaned and repurposed into new, useful products we need everyday.
We played our own recycling game by sorting various pretend items by their composition materials. In short, we played a recycling game!!
Our new neighbor is excited to have young children back in the neighborhood. Our family has the youngest children on the block. Having tiny neighbors inspired him to decorate his house for Christmas for the first time ever! The Kid wrote him a thank you note to show his appreciation for Mr. B’s thoughtfulness and creativity! We, in turn, got a chance to work on handwriting, spelling and letter formatting!
We suited up for the weather and hand-delivered our letter to our kind and newly retired neighbor!
MilkBrain 