Sorting Cards for Biology

The pictures from the former post (below) would be great for
making cards for sorting. Here is a really wonderful
post describing how to create and use cards for biology
and takes you through the steps of living/ non-living and
then the classification of zoology.
It is worth the read through the post!
http://moosehuntress.blogspot.com/2011/03/zoology-taxonomy.html

Great Free Botany and Zoology Pix

My favorite nature site is back blogging and posting.
She's actually been busy photographing an entire book
soon to be published. Many pictures are up online
and would be great to make matching, sorting, or three part cards.
Just go to any of her titles from this page and click:
http://www.english-country-garden.com/

You can access her blog from this page too:
http://english-country-garden.blogspot.com/

More Mini Montessori

http://www.absorbentminds.co.uk/acatalog/Absorbent_Minds.html
Absorbent Minds out of England now
has smaller sized versions of maps:

 

5 puzzle maps of the world, Europe, UK, Ireland and France.
The puzzles are 37cm x 29cm.

  
5 puzzle maps of 5 continents: North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia.  

The puzzles are 37cm x 29cm.

4 mini knobbed cylinder blocks (157mmx40mm) with 5 cylinders in each. 

Pretty Practical Life

Practical Life objects can be BEAUTIFUL! I've been
hunting around on Etsy for hand made containers...
child sized bowls, pitchers, for transferring,
pouring, juicing etc. There are some really lovely things,
for quite reasonable prices. Some of the vendors
will custom make items.
Here is the list:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/glyntpottery?ref=top_trail
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DirtKicker?ref=top_trail
http://www.etsy.com/shop/IllyriaPottery?section_id=6636833
http://www.etsy.com/shop/nealpottery
http://www.etsy.com/shop/darshanpottery
http://www.etsy.com/shop/PrimativePots?section_id=7321954

Back from Michigan!

Wow is Michigan beautiful. I had a nice visit with my daughter
and grandkids. I got to visit their Montessori school twice and
tour three primary classrooms. The school is great...well
staffed and equipped. There is the spirit of Montessori
dwelling there. The staff seems well prepared and
qualified to teach. It is interesting seeing a large
school operating from the primary through the
middle school levels.

Today I put together a button box for my little grandson.
I've been collecting large, larger and HUGE buttons for
a couple of years now. I found the perfect box for
the buttons...a used Huggies wipes box with the
soft opening in the top. He's enjoying putting in the
buttons over and over.  For this activity you need
a tray, a bowl for the buttons and the wipes box.
(I did have to show him how to open the box after
he put all the buttons inside.) Make sure the
buttons are really big so that they cannot
be choked on!

Super sized buttons can be found here:
http://www.k12schoolsupplies.net/Arts-&-Crafts-Buttons-s/83.htm

Box can be found here:
http://www.huggies.com/en-US/products/wipes
(of course you'll need to remove the wipes)

Tray can be found here:
http://montessori-n-such.com/detail.aspx?ID=979

Happy Birthday to Crazy Jo

Today is my No. 1 grandson's birthday!

Already a big boy 5 year old!!

... and here's the little No. 2 grandson eating

Sketti in my kitchen...

An Amazing Discussion!

http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/199405/what-do-you-think-of-montessori

Gotta read through this thread at Mothering dot com.

I found it rather enlightening, especially about the

pros and cons of Montessori schools and homeschooling

with Montessori. Also, people wrote in from around
the world with their own experiences. For example
Montessori in Sweden seems to be quite more open
and aligned with the national agenda vs. more
structured Montessori programs. Schools can be

so different. One lady expressed her frusteration

over the equipment being for only one use

ie. no creativity with the pink tower for example.

What do you think? Is Montessori too structured?

Not structured enough?

K.