First thing in the morning, we notice our bulb has finally flowered!!  Everybody gently touches it.  It is so beautiful, it was almost glittering with new flower sheen.  They were waiting for this day, because once it bloomed, I had promised to take out the Amaryllis puzzle and cursive parts cards.  They were full of anticipation! A tiny finger points out the stamen The first puzzle customer Bean immediately traces the pieces and begins labeling the parts using the chart on the wall.  Links to that chart below. Pumpkin builds the puzzle outside the frame of the puzzle (just like big sis did). Parts of a Flower, cursive cards. Bean poses for me, as she shows off her cursive reading skills. Click here for free cards, control charts, and felt templates seen above.   Proudly shared with: www.notimeforflashcards.com

This is very exciting!  Deb Chitwood and John Bowman have collected a bunch of ideas from Mom Bloggers for Montessori, and they included this blog!  Click the button for a free ebook!! What a wonderful collection of Moms who love Montessori :)

Click here to see the full article on Mommy Moment! proudly linked to:

At this point, the girls discussed that this park is WAY better than any playground they've seen. Ah, I love Saturdays. We are now pouring over our leaves we found on the ground, matching them to our botany charts. THAT'S Montessori Science for you!

This is an activity I made using a flower press on a bulb my daughter found in the garden. She was immediately attached to it, wanting to bring it to the nature table.  After pressing for two weeks, I laminated and scanned the image.  It pressed very nicely, so I added words to name parts. By printing it twice, I made a simple nomenclature work to go along with our botany studies and gardening afternoons. Feel free to save the image for yourself.

Click Here: Volume Experiment for Kids Testing out the volume of rocks.

Bean and I made our own butterfly lifecycles to decorate our room. I read a book about lifecycles to her, and the next thing I knew- she had the circle metal inset out to create her own lifecycle! I made one, too. I'm still finding my girls to be much more independent if I make myself busy :) Both of our papers match our models of each stage, so we'll use it as a matching for Pumpkin and Peanut!

Today the tots and I snuck away for a special Nature Hunt. We went searching for shells and rocks for our nature collection. We even found a dead fish, not taking it home! We ended up finding a lot of wampum (our area's Native Americans used it as money) , great for our Waldorf Summer Swap at One Hook Wonder . My favorite part was sitting with them both on my lap watching the tide come in. Ah, relaxation.

Boy oh boy, we were active on this rainy afternoon! I never sat down until after bedtime. They chose painting, and counting, and flower work. We also spent time in the peace place and snuggled a ton and read our spring and Easter books. Proudly linked to:

Today we read my favorite book about the first day of winter, called The Shortest Day:  Celebrating The Winter Solstice.   I love how it told of the different ways the world has celebrated and recorded this particular seasonal change.  The illustrations were beautiful, and there are actual experiments noted in the back, like measuring the length of a shadow like the Chinese did over 3,000 years ago. We were lucky enough to have a dusting of snow, and a snowball fight! We sang the Birthday Celebration song, with a twist ending for today.  If you have a candle and a globe, you can travel while you sing.  Be sure the child only travels 1/4 of the way around the sun, one trip around would be one year. The Earth goes 'round the sun The Earth goes 'round the sun It takes twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred sixty-five days. And now it's winter (we ring a bell, our favorite from the Christmas Tree). Here is a link to a wonderful site about this...

We found this outside, flying I'm the air!!  She recognized the type of seed and its travel from her book, The Wonders Of Nature.  It's always wonderful when literature links up with life. Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.8

The girls loved getting their hands all slimey while soaking and seasoning our Jack-O-Lantern's seeds. Big sister spend some time afterwards making a Parts-Of-The-Pumpkin booklet with 3-part matching cards from Montessori For Everyone . I undercooked them a bit (I couldn't wait!) but they were good!!!!

Our girls love to collect. We first went on this walk today because the little ones are really into the moon. They couldn't see it, so we set out to find it. At 3pm, it was nowhere to be found. We will check again in the morning, I promised. However, we made some great observations. The brush is starting to disappear and we can see part of the walking trail we take in the winter. Leaves are on the ground and the leaves in the trees are turning beautiful colors. We put our collections on top of our backyard boulder for keeps.

Look what we found outside this afternoon! We think it is from a milk snake. Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8