Montessori Inspired Bedrooms

If we owned our own home, I would be setting up Connor's bedroom using the Montessori principles. Unfortunately, our home is a rental and there are certain changes we cannot implement. Nevertheless, these bedrooms are so beautiful and hopefully they provide a visual guide to those of you who are setting up their children's bedrooms.

Finnian's Montessori Bedroom

Vincent's Montessori Inspired Bedroom

Montessori Three Part Cards - Garden Objects

PDF Price: $4.95

The file includes:

• 34 garden objects: 34 pictures with labels (control cards), 34 pictures without labels, and 34 labels.
• Control chart showing each labeled picture.
  

Garden objects include: watering can, hand fork cultivator, hand fork, trowel, picket fence, garden table, garden chair, straw hat, snail, bench seat, lawn mower, ride on mower, hedge trimmer, leaf blower, grass, soil, hose, whipper snipper, hanging flower pot, flower box, shears, wheelbarrow, wheelie bin, gum boots, gloves, pots, gnome, spray bottle, digging spade, seeding rake, pruner, bird feeder, rake, and garden hoe.

This item is a PDF file. The item will be emailed to you once payment is received.

Tot School

Connor is 18 months old

Another week has flown by and if I didn't have the photos to prove otherwise, I would be thinking we didn't accomplish much. However, even though our learning has been completely unstructured again, Connor has amazed me with his accomplishments.

Firstly, he has mastered some new puzzles. Based on the puzzles he is doing I am thinking about introducing numbers to him in the near future. I have counted out objects to him for as long as I can remember and it seems to me that he is starting to catch on to the concept of numbers.

Also, after Connor sorted the flowers according to their colours, I decided to give him another colour sorting activity. Although he had no problems with the concept of sorting the coloured sticks, after about two minutes he seemed more interest in playing with the sticks then sorting them. I will leave this activity out for him to see if he shows further interest.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have also noted that Connor is very interested in pouring and spooning items - especially with his spades and toys in the bath. So as a precursor to introducing dry pouring, I have provided him with two cups in the sandpit to see whether he is able to pour between the two cups. He seemed to enjoy this activity so I will be introducing the dry pouring exercise as soon as possible.

From our Flowers and Gardening unit, we did simple flower arranging this week.

Also, with all the autumn leaves, we did some garden clean up. Connor helped out and in the process had a close encounter with an earth worm and a small lizard.


Lastly, Connor spent some more time with his grandparents. He loves exploring Grandma's garden where he can find frogs, walk on a beam, touch the flowers and ornaments, or just seat on a log.

Check out the Tot School page for more Tot School posts!

Another Cute Flower Craft Project

Instructions for making this gorgeous spring bouquet can be found at the American Crafts Studio blog.

Foam Garden Project

This is definitley a project I am adding to my to do list. I won't be able to make it for the current Flowers and Gardening unit I am doing with Connor, but it will be such a wonderful addition to future nature studies and general play. The instructions for making this project are located at the Ikat Bag blog. Specifically, you will want to visit the following posts:

• Dirt Foam Part 5
• How to Make Strawberries for Picking
• How to Make Pea Pods
• How to Make Plants
  

Your Blog is Super Award

While I have been away and resting I received this lovely surprise: The Your Blog is Super Award from The Adventures of Bear. Thank you so much!

Here are the rules for this award: Tape it up on your blog somewhere. Pass it along to 5 fellow super bloggers, and comment on their blog to let them know how lucky they are today! When you present your Super Blogger awards, link back to the super blogger who gave it to you.

Here are my five chosen blogs for this award:

Playful Learning

Spinner's End Nursery School

Making of a Montessori Mum

Homeschool Creations

The Learning Ark

This is such a small handful of the wonderful blogs that are out there (and I find new ones each day).

Tot School

Connor is 17 months old

I really felt like I didn't get much done in the past week. I am feeling really tired and resting as much as possible before the birth of the next baby. With only 1 month to go I was expecting my energy levels to fall, but I still wanted to do so much with Connor. Nevertheless, after looking at the photos from the past week, I realize that Connor still learned and experienced so much even if some of that learning took place without me.

He did a couple of activities from our Flowers and Gardening unit. The scented play dough was a success, as was sticking flower stickers on flower templates.

Other random activities included playing with large dominos with pictures of australian animals, and building towers with his blocks only to demolish them with his digger and "digger man".

However, his favourite experience for the week would have been going to the beach with his grandparents. There was lots of playing in the sand, looking at waves, exploring the rock pools, and playing at the local park.

Check out the Tot School page for more Tot School posts!

Access Learning A-Z for free during Teacher Appreciation Week

During Teacher Appreciation Week (May 4th - 8th), Learning A-Z is having an Open House. You need to register and activate your free pass. Once you have done that you will have access to the following websites on the following days:

Raz-Kids.com - All Week Long

Reading A-Z.com - May 4th

Science A-Z.com - May 5th

Writing A-Z.com - May 6th

Vocabulary A-Z.com - May 7th

Reading-Tutors.com - May 8th