Winter is soon to be here in the Northern hemisphere. Many schools do close for a winter break so some of these ideas can be presented for that last week before school closes, or have them ready to go when you return from break, highlighting the new season. Either way, it is important for us to prepare the materials in advance. I find most of my prep work is doen weeks in advance. That is the benefit of having the 40-week curriculum PDFs, so that you can see wha’s upcoming, the examples I provide, and how to accomplish everything needed. Here’s some ideas for the Winter…
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Owls
During this month, we discuss the vertebrate group of birds. It is always fun to include owls as a bird of prey to be highlighted. I always like to order some owl pellets for the children to explore.
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Color Mixing
The youngest children often come to school knowing the names of many colors or very few. Montessori color boxes are used to introduce colors to the children. A variety of activities and songs are also a fun way to help children learn colors. Hap Palmer and Frank Leto both have great songs about colors, which can be easily be found online.
Gardening Lessons for Children
I have decided to share with you some gardening ideas from the past that you can perhaps use with children. Children are naturally drawn to plants and gardens. Maria Montessori said, “There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature, to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature… so that the child may better understand and participate in the marvelous things which civilization creates.”
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Fun with Soil
Children can enjoy exploring with different kinds of soils or dirt. They can compare which soil can hold water best, what kind of living things are found in soil, or just discover what is happening in a small patch of grass in the backyard. An area can be marked off with craft sticks and yarn or rope to be explored.
Younger cildren can draw their findings and older children draw, label and/or write about their discoveries. Perhaps they can look at the patch of grass before a rain and after a rain. Different times of the day can also be recorded. However, your children have a chance get their hands in the dirt, it will be a great!
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Weather
Today, we talk about our Lesson Science 47, which focuses on the weather.
We have talked about the four seasons that make up a year. Ask the children the name of the seasons? During the different seasons, the weather changes. We experience different kinds of weather in different seasons. There are many kinds of weather. So, continue asking questions: What might the weather be like in the Wintertime? How about in the summer? What makes the weather? What is weather?
Let us find out more…
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Hemisphere Map – From the Archives
I decided to present some lessons from the past school years. I will choose some from the weeks and days of the curriculum pages, as this school year progresses. I will also choose some pictures of children working with materials that are on classroom shelves during that month of the lesson presented. This is the lesson on the Hemisphere Map found in Week 3 Day 5 of the curriculum pages.
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Top 20 Montessori Terms Defined
Many parents (and even new teachers) can get lost in the Montessori terminology. So, I did a little research and found that there are about twenty terms searched for the most in the Montessori Glossary. These are the top twenty glossary terms asked about and searched (hope this helps):
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Group Lessons
We start to introduce group lessons about the middle of the second week of school. We introduced the five classes of vertebrates. On another day we read about mammals and found out how we now if an animal belongs in the mammal group. We will continue with remaining groups during the next few months.
In coming weeks, depending on when you start school, we will discuss further vertebrate groups, including amphibians. This is how I introduce Amphibians in Week 9, in case you want to use it as a template:
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How is Montessori different from traditional education?
It is interesting that when someone hears about Montessori Methods of teaching, they, many times, come to a wrong conclusion. Even some of my family took it as free-for-all environment where the children control the classroom. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. So I thought I would highlight the differences. I think it is important to understand that some of the most famous people in history we Montessori students: Anne Frank, Larry Page (Google), Sergey Brin (Google), Princes William and Harry, and many more. Jeff Bezos himself was a student and has 12+ Montessori schools of his own. Anyway, here you go…
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