Inch by Inch, Row by Row, Come and Watch Our Garden Grow

Wow, March certainly came in like a lion for us, roaring in more ways than just weather. For the last few weeks our children and teachers have been struggling with bouts of colds and viruses making it hard for me to find time to post to our blog. Fortunately March left like a lamb and hopefully left us all strong and healthy.

We welcomed April with the groundbreaking of our new school garden. How exciting!

Our ultimate goal is to connect children with the earth creating a 'seed to plate experience'. Since we are a year round Montessori School we can enjoy our garden throughout it's most productive time through the summer. More details on the garden will be posted on a separate blog soon.

In the classroom we are preparing work related to the season and our garden.

We have garden themed three part cards, matching, and science activities.

Just a personal note on making activities: Technology is wonderful. Downloading images, printing, and lamination are tools that were not available when I first started teaching so I really appreciated having these resources available to me now when I make my own materials. That said, I feel very strongly about balancing modern computer created plastic coated materials with hand made materials. There is a texture, a quality, a depth, and an energy to a hand made material that cannot be captured in something mass produced. I realize a card that is not laminated may only last one season, but that is part of the beauty of a hand made material. I also allow the children watch me make the materials. It includes them in the process and helps them value the effort that is invested in making an activity.

Here are two activities I recently put out on our shelves. The first is the life cycle of a pumpkin, a three part card activity I downloaded. The second activity is the parts of a seed sequencing work that I hand painted with acrylics on a parchment-like card stock. FYI the hand painted cards only took about 20 minutes to make and the printed cards took about the same amount of time to print and laminate.

Here is our seed sprouting experiment. We have eight trays. Each with a different combination of seed, soil, water, and light (we choose to keep air as a constant for this experiment).

As an art history and cultural studies unit we are studying the work of Andy Goldsworthy. We have photographs of his work, matching cards, and sequencing cards. We have been making our own sculptures using natural found materials from the grounds around our school. We will also be taking a field trip to visit Cornell's Lab of Ornithology's Sapsucker Woods. Andy Goldsworthy created a sculpture in the woods.

Our language area has been quite popular since we refreshed our initial sound activities with new objects and pictures.

I am always searching for interesting and appealing objects for the more challenging sounds like Q, U, Y, X, Z. Any suggestions?

Our metal inset area has also been quite popular.

TIP: I found these shoe storage racks work great as shelves for the insets. They are the perfect size and height. I think they are sold in home improvement stores as part of closet storage systems.

Build Your Own Child Size Work Tabe

When designing a space for children (classroom or home) it is important to offer a variety of work spaces and surfaces on which to work. I always incorporate

• counters and tables to work on at a standing height
• tables and chairs scaled to the child's size -- a chair size of 8" for toddlers, 10" for smaller preschoolers and 12" for taller preschoolers
• mats for floor work -- fabric, bamboo, and vinyl in different sizes depending on the activity
• low tables in a variety of heights and sizes

Here is a simple low table I made for our classroom. The table pictured is 24 inches square and 18 inches high. I have found that this is a great size for one or two preschoolers to work comfortably kneeling or sitting on the floor. It's actually quite simple to make. I made three in an afternoon!

For the table top I used a piece of scrap furniture grade plywood we had left in our barn. You could use any size scrap you may have available or purchase a piece of plywood at a home improvement center for under $10. You usually can find smaller pre-cut pieces of plywood at the end of the isle that has unfinished wood shelving and boards.

Tip: You can also purchase solid wood, pre-cut and shaped table tops in a variety of sizes (circle, oval, square, rectangle) at your home improvement center. The solid wood tops are a little more expensive $15-$30 but look beautiful when stained and finished.

I rounded the corners with a jig saw and sanded the top and edges with a finish sander. If you don't have a jig saw, you can just leave the corners square and sand them well.

The hardware for the legs and the legs themselves were purchased at a home improvement store. The leg hardware can be straight leg or angled leg and is under $2 per leg. The legs come in a variety of sizes, designs, and materials and cost between $2 and $10 each. All legs are fitted with a threaded end to fit into the leg hardware. I used an 18", colonial style, hardwood leg and angled leg hardware.

Just attach the hardware to the back of your table top and screw your leg into the hole.

I finished the table with a few light coats of polyurethane applied in a well ventilated area.

These tables are favorite work spaces for me as well as the children.

Breathing Room

We started Namaste Montessori School in our home in 2004 and in the summer of 2007 moved the school out of our home into our new space. The building we purchased and renovated was basically a pole barn (metal walls and ceilings, poured concrete floors, etc) that had been used for commercial and manufacturing purposes. I'll weave the story of our school's journey into this blog as I continue to post and label it under classroom design.

Our students helped to design our new classroom space and were involved in many of the decisions we made including color, floor coverings, and playground design. One of the top items on their classroom wish list was a "Breathing Room". This is a quiet place in the classroom where one person may go to find a little space, meditate, and reflect. Some Montessori classrooms call this area a peace corner.

Our Breathing Room is actually a simple loft framed from 2x4s and plywood. The top and sides of the loft are four feet by eight feet. The railing is made from left over spindles from one of my Dad's construction jobs. We have doors and a dry erase board on the shorter end of the structure. We use the underneath part of the loft as a closet space for storing our rest mats, blankets, and sheets.

The top of the loft is carpeted. I painted the side of the loft with a mural. For those of you that love math, the mural proportions are based on the golden rectangle and the leaves represent the occurrence of the Fibonacci sequence in nature.

I believe lofts in classrooms provide children an opportunity to view the classroom from a different perspective. Although the loft area is still quite open and visable from all areas of the classroom the height creates a different experience of space and a sense of separation from the main classroom. Located in the corner, the walls and low ceiling create a sense of calmness and security. The textured red wall, green carpet, and yellow ceiling/walls create feeling of comforting earthy warmth in the space.

In the loft area we have activities that encourage reflection. On one low table we have a pile of stones (found outside on our grounds) and a set of laughing Buddhas (purchased at a Chinese import/dollar store). Children may build and arrange these items carefully exploring balance, beauty, and nature.On the wall we have a finger labyrinth designed by some of the children.

TIP: We made this labyrinth from a simple pine table top purchased at a home improvement store. After sketching the design we used a router to carve out the path. Next we finishing the project with some leftover paint and mounted it to the wall.

We also have a zen painting board. This is a board of coated rice paper mounted on black mat board. When children brush water over the paper a deep black stroke appears. The water slowly evaporates, and the stroke diappears.

In the area we also have a small bowl with two crystals on satin ribbon. Children may hold the crystals to remind them to bring love and balance into thier bodies.

Next to the crystals we have a framed print of our weekly affirmation. This week's affirmation is gratitude and we practive by saying "I bring gratitude into my heart". Our affirmations are based on a wonderful program called Angel Bear Yoga. I'll post more on this later but I also have a link on the side bar (Of Interest/Favorite Books) if you want to explore further.

Continents Globe

In the geography area of our classroom we have a map of the continents of the world, six individual continent maps, and a map of the United States.

TIP: To make an affordable Globe of the Continents purchase an out of date globe at a thrift store ( I picked mine up for a dollar) and paint over the exisiting maps. I choose to paint our globe with a high quality oil based artist paint for color and durability, but you could use whatever paints you have on hand. If you use a water based acrylic I recommend applying a clear polyurethene finish coat for durability. Remeber to make sure the colors you choose to paint your globe match the colors on your continent map.

A Land and Water Globe (sandpaper globe) can be made in a similar way. First paint the oceans blue and the continents brown. Let paint dry thouroughly. Next apply glue to the brown continent areas and dust areas with brown sand (sand will only stick where you have applied glue so make sure you apply thouroughly). Let dry and top coat with a clear polyurethene for durability.

We are currently studying the continent of North America. Some of our older children (4 and 5 year olds) decided to make thier own map of North America. Using materials we already had available in our environment they created this beautiful and dimensional map. They used clay to build the mountain ranges, sandpaper for the deserts, cotton balls for the artic region, hay for the grassland, rolled tissue paper for the temperate forests, and celephane for the oceans. They finished by adding labels and animals.

Here is a simple science sorting activity for children to explore the concepts of living and non-living.

Here is a science and geography activity where children can classify animals by the primary environment where they exist-air, land, or water. One jelly jar contains soil for land, one contains blue colored water, and the last is empty containing only air. We have had some interesting conversations about animals that may live in two of the environments such a a frog that can live in the water and on land. I always let the child choose the classification for animals that can be placed in more than one category.

Liquid Transfer Activities

A simple one to one pouring activity. A small sponge is placed in each tray to clean up any drips or spills.

One to one transfer is made more challenging with the use of a baster for transfer.

Opaque containers with tops.

Here the containers are of very different sizes and a funnel makes pouring a little more challenging.

When introducing this type of work always start with clear containers, colored water, and one to one transfer and progress to more challenging opaque containers, clear water, and one to many containers.

TIP: Coloring water with food coloring emphasizes he level of water in each container. Colored water spills are also easier to spot on the table or floor for clean up.

Dry Transfer Activities

Here are some dry transfer activites we currently have out on our shelves. We rotate these activities quite frequently changing shapes and sizes of containers and tools.

Opaque containers are typically more challenging than clear containers.

One to one transfer is easier than transfering from one container to two or more containers.

TIP: Yard sales and thrift stores are wonderful places to find unique, affordable containers.

A Series of Tonging and Tweezing Work

Tonging and tweezing transfer activities help to stregthen the fine motor muscles in the hand and the "pincher" grasp a child needs in order to hold a pencil properly for handwriting.

This tweezing activity also allows children to sort beads by color and shape. The six compartment ceramic tray is just a tea light candle holder from the dollar store.

In this activity children can use "practice chopsticks" to sort colored pasta into bowls.

This activity uses small scissor tweezers to pull corn kernals from a dried cob of corn. We then grind the kernals for corn meal or use whole kernals for collage work in the art area.

TIP: I always ask my friends to think of our classroom when they clean out thier kitchen drawers. Many people have utensils and containers they rarely use but are ideal for making work in the classroom.

Sensory Table

We currently have our sensory table filled with brown rice, sea shells, and a collection of containers for scooping & pouring.

TIP: An affordable way to make a sensory table at home is too purchase a utility bin from a home improvement store. They are almost exactly the same size as the sensory table bins you can find from a school supply catalog but are a fraction of the price. The bins are typically found in the tile and/or cement supply areas for mixing concrete. You can place it directly on the floor or raise it up off the ground with a frame made from PVC piping.