Thursday, June 10, 2010

Some fun things we have been doing....

I've been reading about the Montessori approach where children move from being undisciplined to disciplined, disordered to ordered, distracted to focused through the activities and their environment. I love the philosophy and hope to add experiences that help the children learn skills as well as feel a sense of accomplishment. While it's always important to foster self-esteem by praising our children, they also need to feel that "praise" inside without the constant approval from others.
For the next two weeks or so our theme will be fish and we will be reading The Rainbow Fish and The Pout-Pout Fish (CUTE book).

Here are a few of our activities....

This is "fish tracing." On the tray is paper, colored pencil and two fish stencils. The tray is placed on the counter and if it's free a child can choose this activity. They take it to the table, do the activity, put all the supplies back on the tray and return it to the counter for another child. There is independence...they choose the activity, concentration as they do the activity on their own (I have demonstrated at the beginning of the day), order as they put the supplies back on the tray and return the tray to the counter.....and accomplishment as they have started, created and finished an activity.

The tray with the supplies (LOVE the Dollar Tree).

Jocey tracing her fish.


Nolan with a fish he traced and colored.