carrot seed lapbook example

The girls love the Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss. I just came across this website where a mom did a lapbook for it...I've got to try it...

Carrots in my lap

I got the link to this site from Shannon's Sharing website.. i luv browsing her blog.

good summary of a montessori curriculum

A Well-Rounded Montessori Curriculum

An ideal curriculum for children under six provides a good balance between physical activities and projects that require sitting down and working.

For those of you have not seen our earlier post from "The Montessori Method," here is the link Montessori Schedule.

Here are some tips for home and school:

1. Include three to four physical activity times per day. These activities can include group games, outdoor play, and anything else that lets children run and be active.

2. Make available equipment and instruction for all areas of classroom education including language, art, math, practical life, sensorial, geography, foreign language, music, and nature (botany, biology, zoology). Children will not usually develop at the same speed in all areas.

3. Focus on material that involves touching, manipulation, fine and/or gross motor skills, and hand-eye coordination.

4. Create child-sized equipment, shelves, and quiet areas for work. Present a new exercise several times a week in general.

5. Leave your child alone to work. Avoid the temptation to go and "check on him or her" unless your child asks your for assistance or wants to show you what he or she is doing. A lot of parents and teachers meddle out of habit, not necessity.

a. In teacher training, we observe other trainees and comment, critique, and use feedback to develop teaching skills. You can do this at home by video taping your classroom area and watching yourself at the end of the day. Or ask a friend or older child to watch you and take notes. Try to learn how to step back and observe yourself, too! It can be pretty tough to do, but it is a great way to learn.

b. Young children can focus on projects for a very long time. Let them do it! Even if you would prefer to steer your child away from drawing and towards a reading activity, stop yourself from doing it.

c. Look at your child's schedule and work activities over a one week or one month period. Your child doesn't necessarily need a balanced work day on a 24 hour basis. If you look at a longer period, you can introduce new activities in the areas in which you want your child to spend more time. For example, if you want your child to do more math, instead of talking about it, make a note to yourself to introduce a new and appealing math activity the next morning.

d. No talk about "bad at math" or "not good at reading" or anything else. Your child is too young to have preferences, anyhow. If a subject is not appealing, you can probably fix it by changing or improving your presentation. If you hit a subject area that you are not comfortable presenting (e.g. you are a tone deaf math professor and you want to teach your child to play the recorder), enlist a friend, hire a tutor, or buy an instructional DVD! You can share the lesson with your child and learn together, too!

Remember that areas of the curriculum such as personal care (bathing, tooth brushing, etc) area equally as important for development as math and reading, even if they seem less exciting!

Posted by Montessori House at 12:08 AM September 2007-12-22

sampling of a classroom schedule for a children's house..

Friday, April 20, 2007

Montessori Classroom Schedule...From "The Montessori Method" Publication

This is a long quote from Maria Montessori herself in her 1912 publication, The Montessori Method. You will see our notes after certain particularly poignant sections. We wanted to post this to give everyone a bit of the flavor of Maria Montessori's thought on the subject of sitting down and "working" versus social interaction and physical play.

"Opening at Nine O'clock–Closing at Four O'clock

9-10. Entrance. Greeting. (...)Exercises of practical life; helping one another to take off and put on the aprons. Going over the room to see that everything is dusted and in order. Language: Conversation period: Children give an account of the events of the day before. Religious exercises.

10-11. Intellectual exercises. Objective lessons interrupted by short rest periods. Nomenclature, Sense exercises.

11-11:30. Simple gymnastics: Ordinary movements done gracefully, normal position of the body, walking, marching in line, salutations, movements for attention, placing of objects gracefully.

11:30-12. Luncheon: Short prayer (blogging note -- remember prayer was part of life in Montessori's time).

12-1. Free games.

1-2. Directed games, if possible, in the open air. During this period the older children in turn go through with the exercises of practical life, cleaning the room, dusting, putting the material in order. General inspection for cleanliness: Conversation. [Page 120]

2-3. Manual work. Clay modelling, design, etc.

3-4. Collective gymnastics and songs, if possible in the open air. Exercises to develop forethought: Visiting, and caring for, the plants and animals.

(blogging note: from 11am to 4pm, the children have been engaged in non-classroom exercises! notice the attention open air, plants, and animals in an interactive setting with other children).

As soon as a school is established, the question of schedule arises. This must be considered from two points of view; the length of the school-day and the distribution of study and of the activities of life."

my own ideas about tarbiyya, education, homeschooling

this is an ongoing list of things as they come to me:

10/7/07

• my accountability is to Allah. Raising children, taking care of myself and husband…
• how do I set up our education system in the house to make sure that the children will be prepared to follow the fiqh of each of our basic responsibilities? I’m still struggling with several questions regarding salat, zakat, and saum…then there is the marriage issue..
• how do I keep myself motivated to report back to Allah at each salat???
• My own study of the deen….i need to make this as much a top priority as the kids education and raising them….
• Renew my relationship with Allah every single day…..
  

5/15/10
what should children learn?..good list

• 
  

Reggio related websites

So now i will try to put together a list for the Reggio list or similar:

Scrapperlicious (documentation)
Camp Creek Blog (artful parent's resources)
Learning (general stuff- About libby..)
The Living Classroom (100 languages of children)
The Urban Preschool (not necessarily reggio but similar approach)

not much i could find...will update as i find them...

Montessori blogs

Here is a list of the Montessori Blogs I enjoy reading and using as my Montessori sources. The list will be updated on a regular basis, God willing. I will finally organize my misc. bookmarks in one place (educational related). Next on list: Reggio Emilia blogs

Shannon's Sharing
Sew Librated
Chasing Cheerios
Good Tree Montessori
Mommybahn
Montessori mama
Montessorifreefall
The moveable alphabet
Our homeschool
Peacefulmann
Rowdy pea
a bit of this and a bit of that
Montessori at home
Lisia's montessori homeschool
Joy of learning
a garden of roses and lilies
montessori by hand
mama says
jojoebi's flicker
confessions of a montessori mom

reliance of a traveler

Bismillah - starting my journey as a homeschooling mom to my amana (trusts) from my Lord. I know this will be a challenging endeavor requiring my utmost sabr (patience), tawakul (reliance) on Him, tazkiyatun nafs (purification of my soul) as each day unfolds