Lent: Our Journey with Jesus to Easter

I'm sharing some inspirational blogs and ideas to get you ready for Lent with your little ones!

My children look forward to the Advent and Lent seasons, as they are times for family traditions and spiritual growth. I'll be honest, as a kid, I didn't look forward to Lent and I didn't really even know what Advent was. In comparison, my own children cannot wait for Advent and Lent, and I'm really glad for it. I feel blessed that I am able to be a stay at home mother, and share the beauty and richness of our Catholic faith with my children. One forum where the ladies never cease to inspire me is the 4 Real Learning forum. I especially visit the discussions under the heading: Domestic Church, for ideas and inspiration in celebrating the Liturgical year in our home. Through this forum I've found wonderful bloggers such as Meredith at Sweetness and Light,  Jessica at Shower of Roses, Lena at Joy Filled Family, Lacy at Catholic Icing, Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda, Jen at Wildflowers & Marbles, Anne at Under Her Starry Mantle, and Jennifer at Family in Feast and Feria, and so many more that inspire me. You can check out their blogs to see ideas on how their family observes Lent in their home.

"Mami, is Lent when the frijoles turn into jelly beans?"  -My son

The sacrifice jar is almost out! That means that Lent is just around the corner and for the duration my children can earn these:

And on Easter morning their sacrifices will turn into the sweetness of these:

This is one of the many things we do to show the children that we are on a 40 day journey with Jesus during Lent. At the end, there is the joy and sweetness of Easter. The grit before the glory, the pinto bean before the jelly bean!

Some people color their beans purple because that is the Liturgical color of the season. We however, have found that purple colored pinto beans are a bit too tempting for little ones! ;)

Daily readings from the book: A Family Journey with Jesus through Lent. The kids absolutely LOVE this book from Catholic Child, as it speaks from both the perspective of a child living during the time of Jesus, and from Jesus giving a special message to the children. There is also a "Scripture Memory Verse" for each story, and my children love to repeat it and see if they can memorize it.

We are using these 8x10 posters of Vincentini's depiction of the Stations of the Cross to meditate on our Lords Passion along with a Stations of the Cross for Children type book.
After each station we sing the Stabat Mater, you can hear the verses on this DVD carried by Catholic Child, "The Way of the Cross for Children". Here are a few verses of the Stabat Mater that particularly tug at my heart strings:

"Can the human heart refrain
From partaking in her pain,
In that Mother's pain untold?

Bruis'd, derided, curs'd, defil'd,
She beheld her tender child
All with bloody scourges rent.

For the sins of His own nation,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent."

For all the lyrics in both English and in Latin, check out CatholicCulture.org.

We are also singing and learning O Sacred Head Surrounded. You can find the lyrics by clicking Here. You can also hear it sung by clicking play on the YouTube video below:

I'm loving this "14 Stations of the Cross Candle Activity" from Just Another Day in Paradise. It is such a simple and touching idea.We are also enjoying this Printable Lenten Calender from Catholic Icing. Check out Catholic Icing for more great ideas to do with your children during Lent and all through the Liturgical Year!

Along with all the activities above, we are also keeping a sacrifice jar. Every time the children make a genuine sacrifice and offer it up to God we put a bean into the jar. On Easter morning, all of the beans will have turned into jelly beans! The sweet reward after all the sacrifice during Lent!

Check out this great idea called "40 bags in 40 Days" blogged by Jessica at Shower of Roses. It is a great way to involve the family in making a sacrifice to detach yourselves of material things, and reduce the clutter while doing. If you can donate your stuff to someone in need, than Great! Even better! Also be sure to check out Jessica's "Jesus Tree" posts with daily scripture readings and ideas.Finally, Check out Holy Heroes Lenten Adventure. The kids will be sure to love the videos, games, coloring sheets and ideas! Our kids love listening to their Stations of the Cross CD as well as the Sorrowful Mysteries, especially during Lent.

Have a Holy Lent!

Want to teach your little one's about the Catholic faith the Montessori way? Check out Elizabeth Papandrea's Catholic Montessori album!

Montessori Journeys: Nataša

Today's Montessori Journey is brought to us by Nataša of the blog, Leptir. Nataša has been inspiring teachers from around the world for quite some time now, since she is always so gracious in sharing many of her wonderful lessons and activities at her blog. It truly touches my heart to me able to share her story with you today. I hope you enjoy!

My name is Nataša Tkalec. I live in Zagreb, Croatia, and I'm Montessori teacher 3-6. I'm the 10th year kindergarten teacher in the public kindergarten, and I'm the 3rd year primary Montessori teacher. I write Montessori blog Leptir (Leptir means Butterfly) in both, Croatian and English language, for 2 years. I'm not great expert for English language, but I hope people can understand my posts.  I fell in love in Montessori pedagogy during my study on the Academy for teachers in Zagreb, on Pre-school Pedagogy course when I read the book "Montessori or Waldorf?" by Marielle Seitz and Ursula Hallwachs. After graduating for the preschool teacher, at the Academy for teachers, I graduated from 2 training programs for Montessori primary teachers in Zagreb, and I'm currently attending the on-line course by Karen Tyler. I loved Montessori pedagogy from the first day when educators began to show exercises from the practical life area.

After 7 years working in the regular national educational program, my principle offered the Montessori program to the parents in our kindergarten and I became head Montessori teacher in my classroom. Getting started in Montessori group was difficult for me because I led the program entirely alone, without a colleague who would work as an assistant. In addition, my Montessori group was the only group in the entire kindergarten in which the Montessori program was implemented, so I did not have anywhere to turn for practical advice. I'm happy because my dear colleagues from various kindergartens, who work for a longer period in the Montessori program, have given me valuable tips that helped me at the outset. Search the Internet also helped me because I was reading the various interesting blogs and got many ideas for work with children. Reading these blogs also prompted me to start writing my own blog. Montessori blog Leptir is the first and (so far) the only Montessori blog in Croatia, and serves me as reminder in working with children.

I try to prepare carefully my Montessori materials in order to be appealing to children for work.

Also, I often change objects in exercises and I try to adjust and prepare my materials for each theme, project or season. Because of that, children always come back to the same and yet different Montessori exercises.

My favorite Montessori materials are in math and cosmic education areas. I think children can learn a lot through these materials in a simple manner. Until observing math presentations (during training for Montessori teacher) I did not realize how the exact sciences like mathematics can be presented in a simple, but above all an interesting and appropriate manner to children.

 I'm happy to see that children are rapidly progressing and doing what is interesting for them in this point of their development.

Nataša Tkalec, primary Montessori head teacher, from Croatia. She writes about activities that she did with children in the kindergarten. You can find her on Leptir - Montessori blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Would you like to share your Montessori Journey? Email me at montessoricandy@gmail.com
Want to share this Montessori Journey or read others? Check out my Montessori Journeys page. Feel free to copy any of my Montessori Journeys logo's, but please make sure to include a link to: http://www.montessoricandy.com/p/montessori-journeys.html

Share Your Montessori Journey!

We are all on this journey together. Interconnected, whether inspiring one another, sharing advice, or providing encouragement.

Some of us are school teachers, some of us parents, some of us are a combination of both. Some of us are seasoned in all things Montessori, some of us are scared of homeschooling and don't know where to begin. Some of us are learning day by day and trying our best to implement Montessori in the classroom or at home.

We all have a story to tell. A story to share and possibly inspire and encourage others. Advice to give so that others may learn from our mistakes. A story in it's beginning chapters, full of excitement for what lies ahead...

Share your story with us. What has been your Montessori Journey so far? How did it all begin? What hopes do you have for the future? What lessons have you learned along the way?

I would love to feature your story on my blog. Please contact me at montessoricandy@gmail.com
Both bloggers and non bloggers are invited to share their story with us. Thank you!

To read my Montessori journey and others as I add them, check out my new

Montessori Journeys Page

Intentional Living

Have you been to SimpleMom.net? It is a wonderful network of blogs headed up by Tsh Oxenrider, which includes Simple Mom, Simple Kids, Simple Bites, Simple Organic, and Simple Homeschool. This past winter I purchased Tsh's book, Organized Simplicity, and it has made such a difference in my life!

In the her book, Tsh encourages you to think and write about what your family's personal life purpose is. Tsh then has you go through and account for every minute of a typical day. She has you write down what you do and how much time you spend doing it, even including going to the restroom! Then she has you write down what you would like to do more of. Finally she has you compare the list of how you spend your time to the list of things you'd wish you could do more, against your family's own "life's purpose" statement. This little gem of guidance from Tsh has really changed our perspective and helped to make life more enjoyable and feel more fulfilled for us. I'll explain more!

I think for some people, life becomes so busy and hectic and then you throw homeschooling in the mix and it can just feel downright chaotic! We start building up these long to do lists weather on paper, in our mind, or in the form of bookmarks on our computer. These are lists of things that we never have a chance to do, to read, or explore. People we'd like to visit with, places we'd like to take the children to, but never seem to have the time. After reading Organized Simplicity, my husband and I really started scrutinizing our life. We realized that we wanted to spend as much time possible guiding our children and spending time as a family. We found out that we could use our time to better accomplish the things we wanted to do, and cut out the things that we found ourselves doing unintentionally, which also tended to drain our time away.

Here's an example: We like to watch movies as a family occasionally. We purposely don't have tv, but we did have a Netflix subscription. While looking for something appropriate to watch that fit our criteria, (good message, kids being respectful towards parents, modest dress, etc.), we would browse the online catalog for what seemed like minutes when in actuality, a whole half hour had unintentionally gone by! We found this happening a lot, and decided that we could better use our time as a family together. My husband ended up cancelling our subscription to Netflix to help us avoid falling in to that rut of always defaulting to movies for family time. We still watch movies together, but not as often. Instead, we've replaced most of our movie watching with bike riding, working on a project together, or just some singing and playing along to music. In turn, we feel much more fulfilled because we are getting up and doing something and actually interacting with the children. It's really a lot more fun for us and it feels good to not feel that nagging feeling in the back of our mind. You know, the one that says's stuff like,  "You should really take the kids for a bike ride" or "I've got to get around to trying that new cookie recipe the kids and I have been wanting to make".

This idea of living intentionally according to your life's purpose comes in to play for homeschooling as well. Are inanimate objects getting in the way of the "animate objects" (people) in your life? I found myself being affected by too much clutter in the form of too many kitchen utensils, toys, books and more. When the kids had a science project to try out, I would sometimes feel a cringe because of the mess it would make or because I had to make time to get the ingredients. I found that I had to put things into perspective, and make way for the people and things that really do mean a lot to me. I've gotten rid of things to make room in the kitchen for the children's items. It feels so good when they can easily find something they need for a school project. It brings about a peace and certainly less frustration. Anything I can do to simplify life as the mother and wife in a family of eight, is fine by me! My husband and I have made the commitment to home schooling, it is part of our family's purpose  in this stage of our life. Because of this, we have had to make necessary adjustments to make everything run more smoothly. It is definitely an ongoing process for us, and it will be different for everyone, depending on your personal life's purpose. I love when the children and I can sit together and just make art. I love to explore different mediums with them, but I need the time and space to do so. Again, for me, keeping clutter (things we don't absolutely need or want) and unintentional living to a minimum, is the key to making things like art time jump from the "To Do" list to the "We Did It!" list.

Being a busy mother, I also definitely need time for myself and for spending time with my husband. We've recently started going on dates more frequently, and I've even started tackling the stack of decorating magazines I've been wanting to get to, but had never made the time for. I still have a way to go and everyday presents new challenges and distractions, but I can definitely say that I feel like I am enjoying the journey to the fullest more than I've ever let myself before.

So what do you think? Are there certain things and activities keeping you from leading a more intentional and fulfilled life? How does that come in to play regarding homeschooling for you?

June Inspiration

Here's a little June/Summer inspiration from around the web to get you and your  child's creative juices flowing. Have fun exploring these links, but more importantly, get up and try some of the ideas once you've been inspired!



Have you read Counting Coconuts? It is one of my very favorite blogs for Montessori inspired children's activities. Mari-Ann does a great job of sharing what is on her Montessori shelves for the month, as well as giving great ideas for making I spy bottles, sensory tubs and more! Check out what she's got on the shelf for the month of June.

The Crafty Crow was created by Cassie as a place to keep track of all the great arts and crafts ideas for kids around the web. Check out her growing list of links for Summer and Outside activities.

Rhythm of the Home is a seasonal online, family magazine. With categories such as Warmth, Play, Celebration, and Connection, you're bound to be inspired!

Organizing Montessori Materials: Montessori Printables

Have a some of Montessori Print Shop's Three Part Cards and other materials to print out? Evelyn, of 2 Pequenos Traviesos, has been so kind as to allow me to re-post her idea for organizing Montessori printable materials. She posted this article on her blog and has many more ideas to share regarding Montessori in the home over at her blog. Evelyn describes her blog as:

"A blog about 2 Little Rascals, 4 and 8 years old brothers, and Homeschooling, Bilingual Education (Spanish/English), Montessori, Arts and Crafts, Nature, Family Life, Catholic faith, Catechism of Good Shepherd and some CRAZINESS in between. We make our best effort in having an abundant life in HIM with a not so abundant budget."

Organizando Material.../ Organizing Material...
By Evelyn of 2 Pequenos Traviesos

Un lugar para cada cosa y cada cosa en su lugar...
Cómo me gustaría hacer honor a esta frase!

Pero mi historia es diferente aunque hago mi mejor esfuerzo por estar organizada.

***

A place for everything and everything in its place

How nice would it be to honor this phrase!

But I got a whole different story, although I make my best in being organized.

Así lucía la repisa de mi casa hasta hace unos días...

***

Just a couple of days ago, my buffet looked like this...

Afortunadamente, se me ocurrió darle uso a unas bandejas para organizar papeleo que tenía en la casa. Éstas estaban ocupando espacio y llenándose de polvo pero ahora tienen un gran propósito: organizar mi material Montessori impreso!

***

Fortunately, I thought of a couple of trays I had sitting around the house doing nothing, taking up space and picking up a huge amount of dust. Now, suddenly, these trays have a purpose in life: to organize all my Montessori printables!

TO CUT- Esta bandeja es para el material que necesito recortar antes de laminarse.
 
This tray is for the material that needs to be cut before getting laminated.

TO PASTE- Esta bandeja es para material que necesita pegarse sobre cartulina, o que necesita pega, antes de laminarse.
 
This tray is for the material that needs to be pasted on cardstock, or needs glue in some other way, before getting laminated.

TO LAMINATE- Esta es mi bandeja favorita! Aquí tengo el material completamente listo para laminarse.

This is my favorite tray! Here I keep the material that’s completely ready to get laminated.

TO CUT AGAIN- Todo aquél que ha laminado sabe que después de laminar hay que recortar. Para eso es esta bandeja.
 
Everyone who has laminated before knows that after laminating comes the cutting again.
This is what this tray is for.

Gracias Evelyn! Go ahead and stop by Evelyn's original blog post to say hello!

Continet Box Inspiration!

Go Check out Counting Coconuts for a ton of continent box inspiration! We've had a lot of computer issues for the past month, so I'm looking forward to sharing some pics once our new computer is in place!

Meet Jennifer of Montessori Print Shop!

Today we get the pleasure of getting to know Jennifer, the sweet and savvy owner of Montessori Print Shop. Not only does she carry amazing and affordable products, but Montessori Print Shop has quickly become what I consider a "must see" Montessori blog. Check out a recent post on the topic of Montessori at Home and you'll see what I mean. For now, read through the interview and find out how to get a coupon code for 10% off your next purchase at Montessori Print Shop!

How did you first become familiar with Montessori?

I was first introduced to Montessori in high school. It was a brief introduction through a guidance counselor who was helping the students to make some career choices. I didn’t choose the path of teaching though; instead I studied business in College and then proceeded to University to major in Fine Arts and minor in Psychology.

Near the end of my 4 year degree I was still in search of a career that I felt was waiting for me. Only problem is, I didn’t know what it was! I spent several weeks wandering through the stacks in the university library hoping that something would catch my eye and inspire me. Finally, one day I was wandering through a section on early childhood education. The titles of the books suddenly popped out at me - Montessori! I grabbed several books, settled in a quiet corner for hours, and soaked up everything I was reading.

After some searching I found the Foundation for Montessori Education (a teacher training center) in the city of Toronto where I was living at the time. I called and had a very long and in depth conversation about Montessori, the training course, teaching options, etc. At the end of the conversation I knew that not only had I found what I was looking for, but I knew exactly where I wanted to take my training. I thanked the person on the other end of the phone for their time and for sharing all the wonderful information with me. I asked for her name so that I could address my application directly to her. She responded; I am Renilde Montessori, the granddaughter of Maria Montessori.

The following September I began my AMI Primary Montessori Teacher Training at the Foundation for Montessori Education. The head trainer was Renilde Montessori. I heard many personal stories from Renilde that year that have inspired me in my teaching, my family life, homeschooling, consulting, being a school administrator, and through the journey of building Montessori Print Shop.

What led you to start Montessori Print Shop?

In January 1999 I took an extended leave from teaching Montessori to start a family. Within 3 ½ years my husband and I were blessed with 3 children. We wanted to raise them with the Montessori philosophy and so we followed our 3 children, learning from them what they needed to further create themselves. The toddler years were full of real practical life activities that didn’t require many special materials. We simply made sure we had size appropriate furniture and real-life items for our children to use and learn from.

As our oldest child began showing signs of readiness for the Moveable Alphabet I started my search for Montessori Language materials. During my years of teaching I had made many language materials by hand for my classroom, but since I had taken my leave half-way through the school year, I had left everything behind for my students. When I thought of purchasing them for my own children I was awestruck at the hefty prices the suppliers were charging! I decided to begin creating my own language materials for my children to use at home.

By 2004 I had created enough Montessori materials to open a store on eBay. I was hoping a few sales a month would help offset the cost of some wooden math and Sensorial materials I wanted to purchase. I was completely overwhelmed by the response of my eBay customers. My sales took off and I was requiring help from my husband and mother (and anyone else who would offer) to print, package, and ship the orders.

By 2008 my time was spread very thin as I had 3 children, a large volume of orders, an eBay store, a website, and the desire to keep designing materials. It was then that I decided to stop printing and shipping orders, and go completely digital. Offering Montessori materials in digital file format allowed me more time to design materials and spend less time printing/packaging and delivering orders to the post office. For my customers it meant greater accessibility, a huge drop in the prices, no shipping charges, and instant delivery regardless of their location.

What are some of your favorite materials and why?

I absolutely love the geography materials. They are definitely my favorite visual material. I have not done a lot of traveling and the geography materials have helped me to get a sense of how people in other countries live. As the geography materials have been created my list of future travel plans has grown!

I love the language materials for a completely different reason than the geography materials. The language materials don’t have the same visual impact; however I’m thrilled with the ease with which children have learned to read by using them. It’s a clear 3 stage/step process that prepares and guides the child towards reading. There are no great tricks to be taught, just the simple process of decoding words. We’ve made it simple by breaking down each stage/step into smaller digestible lessons. This allows the child to absorb each concept, put it to use in the lesson, be successful and gain confidence. Top it all off with the grammar lessons and the children are well on their way to becoming total fluent readers.

What are some of the things you have coming up for Montessori Print Shop?

We are constantly working on new materials for each area. Sometimes our ideas come from our children, from customers making requests, or we simply feel inspired to create something that has interested us. Our new releases for the upcoming month will be focused on math extension lessons. Our longer term goal is to create short readers to compliment our Pink, Blue, and Green Language Series. 

Readers leaving a comment at the Montessori Print Shop blog will be emailed a code for 10% off their next purchase! Coupons are valid through November 30th 2010.  

Jennifer is the owner of MontessoriPrintShop.com and the author of the Montessori Print Shop blog. Check out the shop to see the products mentioned in the interview and more!

Sorting Animals by Continent!

Photo taken from, and property of Butterfly Montessori Blog

I came across this very cool piece of "Montessori Candy" and just had to pass it along! Check it out at Butterfly Montessori Blog. What a great idea for inclusion in Montessori continent studies! Thank you Natasa! I wonder if she could share some tips on making fabric continents? I'm wondering if you would just trace the continent map puzzle pieces on to felt and then enlarge it somehow? I don't know?! I'm not very crafty! I guess I'll just have to ask her on her blog! Don't forget to check out the rest of her blog! She has oodles and oodles of ideas to share with everyone and great pictures to accompany them too! I had seen her blog before, but it wasn't until just recent that I "discovered" the translator function she has included on the left hand side of her blog. I'll definitely be checking out her blog even more now that I've got help of the translator!

... After a little bit of thinking, I just got an idea! Maybe a variation of this activity could be to trace continent puzzle map pieces on to paper and then use a copier to enlarge the outline and print it on to colored card stock, glue on to a 8.5x11 sheet of white colored card-stock and laminate, or copy an enlarged outline on to an 8.5x11 sheet of white card- stock and just draw over the outline in the appropriate color with a marker and then laminate. You could place 7- 8.5x11 sheets on a tray with a basket of animals and/or laminated cards of animal photos (cards with corresponding outline color for each continent like Natasa has shown). You could even start with two continents on a tray, and one by one add a continent sheet and corresponding animals/cards until you have all 7 on a tray. This sounds like such a fun idea that the children would love!

If you're short on time, you might want to check out this alternative at
Montessori Print Shop: Animals of the Continents

Montessori Print shop also has some great individual cards of the animals and their corresponding continents if you want to make up your own activity: Animal Cards
We've purchased these for our co-op and really like them a lot!

By the way, I just found out that Jessica at "Garden of Francis", is selling felt world maps. Check out her page Here for more information and for questions on custom products.

Mmm, Yumm! Totally Distracted!

I just totally got sidetracked while looking for a picture of Mother Theresa to print for our studies of India this week. I was over at Charlotte's blog looking for her amazing hand drawn coloring pages, when lo and behold I saw this:Charlotte is having a giveaway for Barbara Beery's new book: Pink Princess Cupcakes
Pink, pretty, cupcakes, what more can I say? I totally got distracted! Anyway, it also turns out that Barbara Beery has a cool online shop dedicated to selling kids cooking supplies! You can check it out here: Batter Up Kids

Now to get back to work! I'm supposed to be gathering info on India and the Catholic missions there! I might need to take a quick sugar break first though ;)

What we did on Monday!

Photo courtesy of St. Francis of Assisi Montessori Academy

Check out our great day at our Montessori home school co-op blog:

St. Francis of Assisi Montessori Academy

Wildflowers and Marbles: Eye Candy and More!

Check out Jen's blog, Wildflowers and Marbles, for a glimpse into her home learning space. Aside from all the eye candy, she also has some wonderful posts about how she stays so organized. I absolutely love reading about organization, especially from other mom's, and love being able to peek into a beautiful learning space such as hers!

What's on the Shelf?

Check out this blog full of inspiring ideas and photos for your Montessori shelves at home or school: On The Shelf: A Picture Diary of Montessori Work In Our Classroom

Montessori Geography Boxes!

Photo Courtesy of Lori at Montessori for Everyone

Well, Lori has done it again! Montessori for Everyone never ceases to inspire me! Please check out her post at the Montessori for Everyone blog. She shares pictures and ideas for putting together your own Montessori geography continent boxes.

After thinking about how I would go about starting to make my own, I saw this holding art supplies in my laundry room:
I bought it at Target and guess what? There are SEVEN drawer boxes! Seven for the seven continents! The boxes are completely removable and each have their own lid. With a little color coded labeling, these will be perfect for me to make a continent cabinet filled with a book on each continent, coins, textiles, Safari ltd. animals from Michaels, pictures of saints from each continent, and pictures showing the universality of the Catholic faith around the world.

Photos taken from Apostle Magazine

Montessori Farm School in the Home?

Do you have older children you'd like to home school using the Montessori Erdkinder model? Angela over at Three Plus Two has some interesting information to share. Check it out!

Montessori Art Shelves

Photo used with permission from Montessori for Everyone

With summer approaching, I've been thinking of ideas for setting up some fun Montessori inspired shelves to keep the kids learning while having fun. Lori at Montessori for Everyone has a great blog post about bringing art into the Elementary classroom, as a well as a whole bunch of other great blog posts. These include topics such as, Montessori basics, home schooling, organization, child development and more! Go check it out. It is one of my favorite and most informative blogs!

For some inspirational pictures of children at art check out Brooklyn's very own, Painted Cloud children's art studio blog: The Cloud Kids

Have fun!

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!

Saturday Night Eye Candy...

The Montessori Prepared Environment 036, by sew liberated.

Meg over at Sew Liberated has so many great pictures of her Montessori journey in Mexico to share. I particularly like this little art setup here because it has a great view to the outside and it looks very inviting. She also provides us with the great idea of putting paint inside old elmers glue containers so that the children can squeeze out their own portions! Great idea Meg! You can follow her adventures in crafting and Montessori Here.

This is what she has to say about the above photo, posted on Flickr:
"Our painting station works quite well. To the left, you will see rolled-up, pre-cut-to-fit paper for the easel. Each roll is secured with one paper clip, which the child removes and places on a little plate on the small, pink "painting provisions table." The child then hangs up his paper. Then he can serve himself paint. Generally, we provide red, yellow, and blue paint, although right now we only have one color available because it's the beginning of the year. We use old Elmer's glue bottles, with the label rubbed off, so the child can serve himself paint. The child squeezes a bit of paint (we have a TINY little bowl for each color.) Now we have to options - you can use a paint brush, or a sponge with which to paint. I suggest changing the painting tools to keep the level of interest high. When the child is done, he hangs up his painting to dry, rinses off the paint brush and little bowl in the the pink bucket, dries them with the towel hanging on the right of the easel, and replaces the material so another child may paint. At the end of the day, one of the older children empties out the dirty water in the bucket and cleans the easel to prepare for the next school day. "

It's Monday! New Post at Montessori for Everyone!

I love Monday's. Why? Lori over at Montessori for Everyone adds a new post to her blog on Monday's. I always look forward to reading her insights as a former Montessori teacher in the classroom who is now home schooling her two children using the Montessori method. Go check her blog out at http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/blog/