School Update - November

Here are some of the school activities we've enjoyed lately.

Extensions have become very popular.  The older two love building them together.

I created a binder of extensions to choose from.  I purchased this set from Montessori Print Shop.

Elora is adding a dinosaur to each number on the number rods.  This is a variation we generally do when using the number rods solo for counting.

I'm amazed at how children begin self correcting without any assistance.  William has been randomly placing beads on the bead hanger for ages.  Suddenly he lines them up in perfect order without any direction.

Elora's spelling is not only improving, she's getting much faster.

Matching sentences to pictures.

Introduction to addition with the golden beads.

Reviewing our geography for the week which include Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I passed on purchasing a sandpaper globe initially.  I'm so glad I recently got one.  It really does provide an important concrete experience of land vs water.  Lockelan can already point out the difference.  This concept took much longer for Elora to grasp without it.

Two different ways to practice writing.  Elora is writing numbers on the divided chalkboard while William is tracing letters in the sand tray.

Reviewing the planets and the phases of the moon.  William cracked me up when he named the phases as new, full, quarter, crescent and "almost" moon.

Elora has completed her work with the tens board, for now.  She can easily make it through in a linear fashion.  I tested her by handing her a random number of ten bars and unit beads.  She could easily identify it and create the number.  Perhaps we'll come back later and work through the numbers backwards. 

Elora required no guidance on completing the hundred chain for the second time.  I challenged her to make her own labels and see if she could identify the correct individual bead.

Here are her labels.  Yes, she was able to find the correct bead.

Elora is not a fan of the hundred board but she finished it.

We reviewed our geometric solids and matched them to 2D pictures.  Elora loves comparing the shapes and finding bases that match.

William blew me away with his initial sound sorting.  I let him pick out three tubs of objects and mix them up.  He then had to sort them out.  I had backed off some time ago because he simply didn't get it.  Suddenly he's unstoppable!  We will begin the pink series shortly.

William chose a weaving work from the practical life area.

The older two worked together to complete the 45 layout.

William was far more excited about the work than Elora.  Technically, Elora was past this work but I wanted her to experience it.  I plan to present some variations to her.

And of course, we are still continuing our weekly meetings with our Classical Conversation community.  I adore the program, even if the experience of leaving Lockelan with a sitter and venturing out is exceptionally difficult at the moment.

Elora is reviewing geography.

William is cutting out the sun for our solar system model.

His completed work.  The glitter shows moons and asteroids.

Elora is giving a presentation on the cat and mouse exchange game for "make something or do something" week.

Learning about constellations.

My favorite activity so far has been creating a scale model of the solar system in the parking lot.

We had to battle the wind and boys who would rather be climbing trees but it was still fun.

I hope your school experience is going well!  While the pictures show our productive moments, I can assure you that we face numerous challenges too.