Inspiration for Edible School Gardens

This video was taken from the Edible School Yard website. They have some interesting sounding publications on integrating various curriculum with the school garden. Check it out!

Practical Life: Montessori Snack Time!

I've been eying these cooking cards by Kinderlings sold at Montessori Services for a long time now. I debated spending the money on them, but I'm glad I finally did. My kids love, love, love to help cook and they were so excited to get these in the mail.

To be honest, I don't think the description on the website does them justice. These cards are actually a Practical Life Montessori cooking curriculum!

They talk the "teacher" through the process of setting up the snack area and the activities are arranged in sequential order from simplest to more difficult in true Montessori fashion.

For example:
First it has you setting out a simple already cut/made snack. The child serves themselves snack on a napkin or in a cup. They then carry it to the table and when done they throw away the napkin or paper cup.
Next you would pre-cut an apple, and the child would take one slice and chop it up into pieces, put it on a napkin and carry it to the table, etc.

Once the kids have had a lesson on dish washing, you would introduce a dish washing station for them to use dishes and then wash them instead of using napkins or paper cups.

The recipes become more complicated, like cutting one apple slice, one orange slice and adding yogurt to make a fruit salad. They also have more complex salads and snacks later on and even have some ethnic recipes that can tie in to cultural studies.

I love that each step is on one card for the children to see easily. The teachers cards advise to set up the snack making area like an assembly line from left to right, with trays containing necessary ingredients with the corresponding card.

The teachers cards are awesome in that they tell you how to prepare ahead of time for each recipe, very "a la" Montessori. These cards make it so easy to implement an excellent Practical Life snack station for the kids. I had been trying to create a snack program on my own, but luckily now I don't have to!

I can easily see my kids 7, 6, 4, and 3 using these at different levels because the recipes and steps are very adaptable. I love that they will learn to follow directions, while understanding that each step is important.

Let me know what you think! I'd especially love to hear about how you do snack in your Montessori home school or program.

The Little Travelers Blog

Photo courtesy of Little Travelers Blog

Wow! I love the Little Travelers Blog! A family traveling abroad documents their international experiences through DVD's, blogging and pictures. The kids even have their own Blog! Enjoy! Here is the link:
The Little Travelers: Travel Notes & Musings on Raising Global Children

Wonderful Lesson from Susan at The Moveable Alphabet

photo courtesy of Susan Y. Dyer of the Moveable Alphabet

Check out this WONDERFUL lesson that Susan Y. Dyer over at The Moveable Alphabet came up with to show children how to make thick and thin lines with a paintbrush. This is a great art lesson in which she very creatively and naturally incorporated the Brown Stair Montessori material. What a great way for the children to use what they've learned with the Brown Stair and put it to use in a real life art exercise! Great Job Susan!

Spring is in the Air!

Happy Easter to you all! I've been busy with the family doing lots of great little Lent, Holy Week, and Easter activities. Speaking of Easter, How many of you have more than enough Jelly Beans to get you through the year? Now that Easter is here, I've gotten spring fever and am looking forward to rejoice in Christ's resurrection and enjoy the beauty of His creation with my children. Whilst searching for some fun and colorful activities to present to the children, I stumbled across this great jelly beans bracelet idea, by Sarah over at Mrs. D Lightful. We have a ton of yummy jelly beans, so I thought this would be fun to try! Stringing the jelly beans could make a great practical life activity and snack too!

I also found this cute little poem called, "God's Jelly Bean Rainbow" from the book, Celebrate Jesus! at Easter by Kimberly Ingalls Reese:

Orange is the twilight night He prayed.
Black is our sin stain for which He paid.
Red is His own shed blood so bright.
Yellow is the Son's warm, healing light.
Purple is His head crowned with thorns
Pink is hope risen on Easter morn.
Brown is the ground where He was laid.
Gray is the stone that was rolled away.
White is God's grace we freely receive.
Green our eternal life when we believe.
All of these colors represent something true:
Jesus Christ, God's own Son, died for me and died for you.

READING RAINBOW!

Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high....

Who else loves Reading Rainbow? Although we don't really watch tv, my kids love the Reading Rainbow episodes our local library has on DVD. Last year our 6 year old won 1st place in the local portion of the Reading Rainbow," Young Authors and Illustrators Contest". This year both our 6 and 5 year old are entering, so our house has been a mess of paints, glue, colored papers and more for the past few days! It's a bit chaotic, but it is so cool to see their books coming along! They are really excited to make their submissions and have learned a lot about the writing and illustrating process along the way.

Here are a few books that the children have used as inspiration and for researching various illustrating techniques:



















I just love picture books, don't you? Someday I would absolutely love to hit the road and take the kids to the Eric Carl Museum of Picture Book Art. It looks so awesome! For now we'll just have take a virtual tour. Check out their website for some great resources!

Montessori for Everyone: Free Stuff!

Have you checked out Lori's new site design over at Montessori for Everyone? It's great, and she's back to blogging too! She's got some wonderful curriculum support materials to offer, and she's been kind enough to offer a section full of free downloadable material! You can check out the free downloads HERE. Have fun!

Feast of St. Nicholas

Today we had quite an exciting begining! Papi and I were awoken to the sounds of our amazed children marveling at the tiny treats they found in their little shoes left by the fire place last night. They were so excited to see the little foil covered chocolates, candy cane, and tape. Tape? You ask? Yes, tape! :) Like the kind you wrap presents with! It seems these boys are never more content in this life than when they've got things like tape, rubber bands and yarn. What's funny is that they were not at all shocked that St. Nicholas had brought them something for being good little boys, but that St. Nicholas knew Papi liked Snickers bars and got him one ;) They just could not get over the fact that he actually knew!
After breakfast, the boys each got a different picture of St. Nicholas to color from SaintNicholasCenter.org and then our 6 year old read A Saint Nicholas Story to his brothers.

Jessica over at Shower of Roses had a great practical life activity for her children to do based on St. Nicholas. Her children made some St. Nicholas Hot Cocoa mix to give away to friends and family for Christmas. I think this is a wonderful idea and a great way to incorporate some Montessori practical life activities during this season of Advent. I know the children will be thrilled to do this! Thanks for the idea Jessica!

A Day in the Life of....

Check out these great, "day in the life of" posts at Montessori Free Fall where Steph gives us a look into her Preschoolers Montessori day!