Montessori Style Workbox System

 So I came up with a system using Sue Patrick's workbox system idea. It helps to make sure that every day they do an activity by themselves and also that it gives them something to do when I am busy or want a break. So the way I set it up is that they both have one daily activity. So on Monday they'll be doing at some point in the day Monday's activity. And they cannot choose another activity from a tomorrow but can choose one from yesterday, but only if they finished the today's activity. So on Wednesday they finish Wednesday activity then they can re do Tuesdays and/or Mondays.  This way I make sure they get a variety of activities. Saying that I am not totally strict. If they REALLY want another activity we can switch. It hasn't happened yet though. They always seem happy doing the activity of the day. They only get one activity per day.

I homeschool in Spanish as much as I can. So I used binder clips and tape to write the days of the week in Spanish and I placed one clip per space and one on the top ones for their names. I choose an activity that they can do on their own unless I know that that day we'll be home and we are not homeschooling.

Here is a close up of the activities we have. I print some things from Confessions of a Homeschooler and other resources that I find online. But mainly I use if for Practical Life activities, art, and math. 

What's on the trays this week:

Umi:

Monday: ice cube tray with cotton balls and a tweezer.

Tuesday: Number tracing printout from confession of a homeschooler (COAH)

Wednesday: Letter A dot-a-dot page (COAH)

Thursday: Pattern activity also form COAH

Friday: Math-U-See math

I am still working on setting up Little Princess workbox. I only have now paper cutting. She loves using scissors!

I use it for both of my children. Little Princes has her spot next to Umi's. You can see in the picture above . The rest if the spaces are for papers and dry erase boards. 

Montessori is about letting them do things by themselves by fostering their sense of independence, and self discipline. That makes children feel empowered. I think this workbox system does just that. They have activities that they can do by themselves when they want to without anybody telling them how and when. 

Do you use workbox system at home? Does it work for you? 

Design a Town and More Cheap and Easy Christmas Tray Activities

 Design a Town

We bought all of this activities at the Dollar Tree (not the wooden car). 

This is how I set it up. I let Umi play on his own as much as he wants to.  You could make maps that your child can use to design a town. Add cars, people, animals..etc.

Also, you and your child can make up a name for it! You could also make a book about it. Take some pictures and write a story about your town. The picture can go on one page and the child's drawing on the other. If your child is old enough to write he can make the whole book by himself. If not, ask your child to tell you about the picture and you can write it for him.

Umi started making his own thing and having fun.

Matching Activity

I set this up for Little Princess. She is 1 and 1/2 now (Dec. 2012)

The tray and the little erasers came from the Dollar Tree. 

She stills put things in her mouth but not so often like before so she chewed some up...Not good....But if your child doesn't do that you can set this easy tray (Made in USA). 

Cheap Christmas Tray Activities and Games

This games and trays I got it from the Dollar Tree store. 

The left one set all the pegs in the tree (good for hand eye coordination and fine motor skills ) then hop over a peg and take it with you and put it on your plate (peanut butter jar lid). Only one peg has to be left in the Christmas tree.

The right game is a tic tac toe. Choose the pegs you want to use and take them with you. The younger player goes first. You all take turns putting the pegs in the game. The goal is putting 3 pegs in a row to win. You are supposed to stop the other player from wining by putting a peg in the way all the time.

This third tray also came from the Dollar Tree. The child can do patterns, make a bracelet, count, etc.

Little Princes is 1 and 1/2 now. She like playing with the pegs, and put them in the holes

and take them out.

Little Princes loves the beads!

So does Umi!

Other ideas for Christmas trays:

- Wrapping paper left over from wrapping presents for cutting for scissor practice

- Wrapping paper collage

- Draw a Christmas tree and trace cotton balls then let the child decorate the

tree by gluing the cotton balls to the tree.

- Same than above but make it an ornament.

- Draw a candy cane and let the child decorate by gluing cotton balls. Then you can count them see how many it fitted in there.

I hope you all are enjoying this holiday seasons!!!

PS: I apologize for the pictures not being so clear..I took them with my phone since I cannot find my camera....I am hoping Santa will help me with that!! ;-)

Space Sand Experiment

This science experiment it is from out of space! What happens when you mix water and a normal kind of sand? Of course, it gets wet. What happens when you use space sand instead? See it for your self and try it at home. It is a good science activity to do with your child. My suggestion is to do this with regular sand first so he can see that it gets wet then do this experiment next. Later you could color the regular sand the same color of the space sand and repeat this experiment so your child can see the difference from one another.

If your child is older and can write then you could ask him to write what is happening. Maybe he could try to pour oil on the regular sand (dried) and mix it. Then add water to see what happens...Does it get wet still? If it does, does it look like before? Why?

Materials:

- A rag to clean up any spills 

- A spoon. I also added a craft stick

- A bowl with the space sand 

- A bowl with water

It comes in many colors. I chose red because it is Umi's favorite

color. I bought it on amazon.

Here he is doing some spooning work.  Umi is 3 years old. (5/17/12)

So this is what happens! It automatically dries when it comes in contact with the air!!! 

The best thing of this experiment is that when your child is done you can place the sand on a tray to let the little water droplets dry (they get formed when you spoon the sand out), and you can re use it! Nothing gets wasted!!!

Magnet Learning Station

This is our magnet learning station. It contains a magnet wand and a 

tackle box with items that are attracted to magnets and other materials that are not. 

Materials that I put in the tackle box:

- Wooden rings

- Cardboard square

- Stainless steal hook

- Key chain ring

- The circles that came with the wand

- Magnet

- Plastic caps

- Stickers

- Glass beads

- Paper clip

- Washer and bolt (can add screws)

- Paper

- Cotton balls

- Piece of sponge

- A penny

- Cloth pin

Then Umi can place the items that are attracted to the magnet wand on one basket and the ones that are not attracted on the other basket.

I am planning on making a magnet exploration bottle. But that is a subject for another post!

Homeschool Room

This is our playroom or homeschool room. As you may see it is small and a bit crowded for my liking but it is what we have now. I am happy to have a room I can dedicate for Umi's montessori and homeschooling materials and for him to play.

This is his desk. Inside he has some activities. Next to it it is the music instruments. Inside the blue dresser are musical instruments like maracas, shakers, recorder and more. The bottom drawer has tapes and a walkman where he can listen to music and stories I recorded for him. On top of this dresser is his drum and underneath the record player.

This is our shelf unit that my husband built. 

This is the language shelf. On the left we have the Spellable game. It is great since it is in

English and Spanish, the only down side is that it is in uppercase...Inside of the blue tin box we have 

rhyming words cards that I printed and laminated. Next to it the sandpaper letters. Then Brain Quest cards. They are for a 5-6 years old but Umi (3 years old) can do them easily. 

This is what we are using for math right now. I have the spindle box but it seems that he still needs to learn the correlation between the numbers and quantity.

We left this space for seasonal activities like in this case Easter. When there isn't a especial holiday

I use it for sensory, geography or practical life.

This is where I store things like paints, papers, etc. My project with this is to

cover the glass doors with pictures.

I have all the maps, control maps, and other materials that soon will come out of hiding but as far as today this is what we have on the shelves.

Happy Easter Ideas!

Hello everyone!!! I wanted to wish you all a very happy Easter full of love, happiness and peace! Here are a few activities that I had for Umi. He is 3 years old (2012).

On the left there is a egg matching activity. In the center there is a bunny puzzle. The basket

on the right it has an egg puzzle. It seems a bit difficult for a 3 year old, but I thought of giving it a try. 

I got the egg puzzle at the Dollar Tree. It comes apart and it is a bit tricky. Behind there are 3 

cards a basket, an egg and a bunny for decoration and vocabulary.

Here is the sorting activity. You can also use this little erasers as a counters. Umi likes

to grab one bunny and feed him a carrot, then we count how many bunnies and how any carrots are there. I also got this erasers for the Dollar Tree store last year.

The cards on the left are sensory matching cards, they are made with

different materials from rough to smooth. And on the right is an egg color matching activity.

Easter mystery bag. I am going to decorate the eggs with different

textures. You can use sand, and glue. With a hot glue gun you can glue things on the eggs too.

He really liked his easter stamps.

This are great! I got them from the Dollar Tree store. They are for tracing different shapes. 

They are easy to use and they were only  1 dollar!

Monkey Hanging on the Line Fine Motor Skills Game

I just got this Barrel of Monkeys on a garage sale for 25 cents! So I thought of putting this tray together for Umi ( Ex Big Boy). He loves monkeys and I think he will love it! He's turning 3 on March.

I recommend that you put the tray there and let your child discover it on his own and let him do whatever he wants before turning into a counting game, etc.

You can use this monkeys in many different ways here are a few suggestions:

- Math: Use it with number cards. Let the child to draw a number card and he has to hang the same amount of monkeys in the line. You can also use a dice instead of number cards.

- Sensorial: Make a monkey chain first one, then two, etc. Then you can talk about which one is shorter and which one is longer.

Enjoy!

PS: Umi  just discover the monkeys!!!! I out them in the tray and came to blog about it, then he found them and knew exactly what to do. When he was done he put it all away the same way he found it! I am so proud of him!

Heart Ice Cube Tray for Practical Life Activity

I just used one glass beads for each heart. The child uses his hand to grab each bead and place it onto the wooden tray then he puts the bead back on the heart tray one for in each heart.

For a variation of this you can use tweezers, spoon, thongs, or chopsticks. Also you can replaces the glass beads with smaller beads, or red colored rice and use a small container to hold the beads or rice. You can use water and a table spoon for spooning. Make sure you have a cloth towel so the child can clean afterwards.

Saint Valentine Theme Math Tray

For this activity  the child has to empty the vase then choose

a number card then put the corresponding hearts back in the vase. He

needs to empty the vase each time to get another number card.

Baby Food Finger "Painting"

I simply placed her food on the tray. She fed herself and ...

Painted herself and the tray green! (1/27/12 8 months)

I made the "Paint" with broccoli, peas, quinoa/rice cereal and banana. You can see the first picture how it started. 

You can talk about color. temperature, how it feels and how much is spreading on the tray and on herself. Also, how it  smells!  My little princess loved this very sensorial activity!

Christmas activities

 We use this to build a city. We added cars and a wooden train set to complete it. With this 

activity we talk about vocabulary like "next to", "in front of", etc. With older children you could

draw a map and then us the map to build the city. (We got this ceramic buildings at the Dollar Tree store).

This is a small tree that Big Boy can decorate himself.

Stocking Christmas houses.

Idea for a practical life tray

Here is another idea for a practical life tray. I don't own this idea, since I've seen it in another blog. I just used pipe cleaners instead of satin ribbons (I didn't have any).