Adrian works a lot with Montessori Sensorial materials like Number Rods and Knobless Cylinders, but what about, in a spirit of a 🎅 Holiday, building a 🎄Christmas Tree from them? Adrian first assembled Numbers Rods from ten to one to form a tree. Adrian then embellished his Tree with knobless... Read more →
Christmas is almost here. I am sure we all thought about Holiday cards, but what about the cards we had received in prior years? Yes, I save a lot of them, but not all. Also, what about Christmas paper, wrapping paper, tissue paper, left over ribbons? In the spirit of... Read more →
What are your children reading? Julia just turned seven, and while some of her peers have already finished reading the Harry Potter books and moved on to the Oliver Twist, others are just starting with the Magic Tree House series. Well, Julia just started with chapter books. Her first "big"... Read more →
This is an easy and fun Christmas activity for your child. Adrian had a lot of fun with it as he got to use his hands and be creative! You would need: play-doh, Christmas tree cookie cutter and anything that a Tree can be decorated with: small beads, buttons, stars... Read more →
Thanksgiving is such a special time to stop, reflect and express our gratitude for all the wonderful things our lives are full of. So often we focus on what is not working or on things that are missing or on something that we think we need. It takes some effort... Read more →
Maria Montessori believed that children from birth till six years are in a period of Absorbent Mind. She defined children at this First Plane of Development as "sensorial explorers" of the world, who have the ability to quickly and effortlessly absorb information from their environment just by being in it... Read more →
Summer, Fall, Winter ... I felt like we experienced all the three seasons in two days! Yesterday, was warm and sunny, and while taking a walk, we stumbled on these beautiful summer flowers ... Today, we had our 1st snow! Not a lot, but enough for Julia's Nutcracker ballet performance. Read more →
Recently, we have been very blessed with warm and sunny days. Usually, by the middle of November, all the foliage has fallen, revealing the serenity of bare branches. This year, however, we are still admiring all the beauty of the Fall. We have been talking about seasons with Adrian. In... Read more →
During our nature walks, children have collected leaves, pinecones, acorns and other treasured objects, and today we are putting them all to use by making a Forest Animals sensory bin with our forest animals. A sensorial bin (or "sensory box") is a tactile experience in a contained area such as... Read more →
We often play this Numbers Memory Game with Adrian. As an extension, or as a child gets older, you can use larger numbers, and/or incorporate color in the memorization process. Thus, a child, besides having to remember the correct number of counters to retrieve, also has to remember the color... Read more →
A sneak peek into the children's space ... Today, I will show you their kitchen nook. When we were designing our kitchen, we had our children in mind: our goal was to make their space child-friendly, comfortable, safe and inviting - a place where they would want to be. To... Read more →
It is a middle of November, and we had to move our tomatoes inside since we had freezing temperatures at night. The tomatoes are growing, and it looks like we will have a nice harvest in time for Christmas! This one is red! Ready to be picked! "Yummy!" Oh, no!... Read more →
At her Montessori school, Julia made a turkey from oven-baked clay. It took children few weeks to complete the project: they each had to mold, bake, and then paint over with lacquer their own turkey - just in time for Thanksgiving 🦃. Julia used scotch tape to adhere fresh autumn... Read more →
We finally have precise ⚖️ balance scales with metal weights which have 0.2 g. sensitivity. Balance (or a pair of scales) uses a balance beam and compares masses by balancing the weight due to the mass of an object against the weight of a known mass or masses. Adrian will... Read more →
The Hundred Board (buy here) is a traditional Montessori material, consisting of a blank board and wooden numbers from 1- 100. There is also a control chart with all the numbers filled in. The objective is memorization, and an understanding of numbers and their sequence. Also, this material trains the... Read more →
What are sensorial activities? From birth till about seven years of age, children have a very sensorial relationship within their world ~ they utilize all of their five senses such as sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell to learn about their environment. Anything that triggers their senses, goes directly to... Read more →
We love this Montessori: Letter Work book. Maria Montessori believed that children learn to write before they learn to read, so the process is driven by their own words and thoughts before those of others. That is why letters are taught first as sounds (instead of names), and indented alphabet... Read more →
Montessori Teen Board is a great way to introduce the concept of teens to a child. Not only children see how tens and ones are being build to make teens, but they are also physically building teens themselves! We are using a traditional Montessori Teen Board (bead-bars and beads sold... Read more →
Raking leaves during the month of November seems like fruitless activity since the leaves fall faster than we can rake. But children enjoy it: they get to be outside, enjoy the fresh air, have some physical exercise and do something practical, despite the result not lasting long; but what does? Read more →
With Adrian turning three years old, in addition to other geography lessons, I am also adding a theory curriculum, to introduce new terminology and other concepts. I have to be mindfull though not to be too wordy as Adrian will not sustain his attention if he is bombarded with many... Read more →