The Seven Continents

The seven continent!! We have sing the continents song alot and Yuta is getting quite familiar with names of the continent. I made him a place mat with the map earlier and wanted to make this for so long until last week. Instruction to make this from here. I used the remaining foam board i have from making the sandpaper letter. make a few flags with name of continents. I also make extra flag for Japan, Malaysia and Houston. This is also to explain about our up coming moving, to give him an idea that we are moving from 1 place to another destination. He remember name of continent by their colours. With the extra flag he can see, Japan and Malaysia is in Asia, the yellow zone. Later im going to introduce, who (friends and family) is is which continents

Beginnig Sound

The classroom is officially closed. For now most of the work will be done in the kitchen either on the dining table or on the kitchen floor. We are concentrating on working with language for the past month. I see Yuta is resisting on Math so i have stop working on mathematic for a while. We are working on beginning sound and a little bit of CVC words. I pick up books like cat in a hat for him to read. He is happy that he could actually read words from books. Im not an english native speaker and i do not remember i learn english by phonic system, infact i dont even remember how i learned english. i remember we were asked to read and do alot of comprehension. Teachers will get us to read aloud in the classroom. Now that i have to teach my kids english, i have to depend alot on reference book for guideline. After CVC words, what should i go next etc. Living in a basically monolingual country, im worry that he will lost his english once he goes to public school so, determination comes along way. It is also a fun thing for me to "relearn" the language. 

On a side note, i made that set of sandpaper letter. This is one of my earliest montessori homemade. It took me 3 months to complete this. unbelieveable. The sourcing for material is the most time consuming. I tried a few material and dont find it quite suitable and at last i settle for foam board. I dont even sure what i made is correct. I first started making them with instruction from Teaching montessori in the home by Elizabeth G. Hainstock and later when i read Basic montessori learning activities for under five by david.gettman, it says thre is no letter "q" in the sandpaper letter.I should go check in Yuta's classroom of the real thing.

With all the time spent and the cost of material were not as cheap as i though i dont know how justifiable is making montessori material at home but they work well so far and im happy with my accomplishment.



Sweeping

Sweeping object to the designated area. This is the classic montessori practical life activity. Yuta decided he wants to try with the real broom after a few times trying with the toddler size one. He let Ai to have her chance to work with the toddler size broom this time.

montessori method

I immediately wanted to blog about this after i watch this video. It is an awesome video explaning how montessori method is different from conventional school education system. It brought alot of insight for a person who do not know alot about montessori method but would like to practise montessori method with her children. I can see a whole lot of difference and impact montessori method has on yuta after attending montessori school for 2 years. I quickly spotted these differences and improvement just after 3 months he attended the school. From then on i have a very strong urge to read and know more about montessori system. I remember i read from an article saying that parents should practise montessori method at home and not only sending them to montessori school. and so i want to supplement my children with this system eventhough they will be going to the public school later on. A comment in this video made me sad that i can no longer to afford sending my children to a montessori school. Im not saying that conventional school is all bad and kids dont find success in public school but is sad that you have to let go the which best system that worked well for your kids. I did a few search about montessori school in japan but i found only a handful of result and it just shocked me that one of the montessori school is a international school and there will be no way that we can afford the fee. Most of other schools dont use the name montessori but "international" or english school but even that it cost a bomb to us. When financially not allowed i will have to go back to work , and im not sure if i can even supplement them with just 1 hour of home education. I have asked a friend of mine why home schooling is getting so popular in recent years in america and she told me many parents dont agree and dont trust the school system anymore and prefer to educate their child by themselves but again, she said not all family can afford to homeschool due to the costly homeschool material and level of education of the parent(s). Im not crazy about montessori method but im using it as a guideline to help me help my kids learn but i have many friends and people that dont really agree with me. A friend said "you dont have to teach them shape, discrimination of size, colours, they will sure know them later on, so what is the fuss". All in all, i like montessori method and think it works well for me and my children.

I dont remember where i saw post of this activity. Ai likes it so much and she will do it again and again. I first show her how to put each pom pom in the pallet well, she didnt seem interested at all but were shouting ball, ball and tossed those pom pom around. Then gave her a spoon to scoop and she is liking it. I have been doing quite abit with Ai but didnt take any picture of her working because everytime i take picture she will stop working and want to grab and play around with the camera.

Big and Small

I used this set of nut for his size discrimination work and later he decided that he wants to build a tower with them. It was hard to work to build a tower because they slip. Is going to find those better set of bolt and nut. He likes this work, maybe is a boy thing.

Teen bead and Teen Board

I received my first bought montessori material from Alisson Montessori. I thought the bead set comes together with board but it didnt so i have to just make up my teen board quickly with cut carton box pieces. Overall, i was quite satisfied with the buy $15 with the set of bead that comes with a nice 2 compartment wooden box and Allison gave me a free gift of a remote control truck(save it for his birthday present). Well, it worked out well. I found out that one of my friend actually have a wood cutting machine so will bring my measured wood piece and get her cut for me and that will save me alot of time and money. Making the material by myself is fun but sometimes sourcing for the material takes a longer time then the making process. Since Yuta is in school 3 days a week i have to work out my activity plan fast to cope up with him.

More on colours

Yuta hasnt got enough of his colour changing work. After the did our first presentation , he wanted to show daddy what we did, so did the same thing again with daddy after dinner.The next day after school, he asked to do the same work, so we did it and some extension to that.

This time i gave him the primary colour, blue, red, green and white and show him how the colour

changes into a lighter shade by adding white to it. Also explaining about darker shade with adding some black.

He would prefer to do it on liquid rather than paint, so i gave him 3 primary colour again and let him work around. Im glad at the end of the work,he told me, "mommy, this is Green, and this is Dark green, they are same green but different". Nice intepretation,i like it.

Gotta hurry with my making of colour tablet.

Starting out slow

Today is our official first classroom day. Im trying to start things slow, means starting with something Yuta is familiar with is good. We started our line time with the "days of theweek"song, but he surprised me with the spanish version which i cant sing along. So,that was my lesson of the day. We started out with pouring water, " the water work" he calls it. He is very familiar with this and has quite a good control in doing this work, so i make some addition to this work. Pouring into an ice cube tray,and using a dropper to suck it back from ice tray to pitcher.

He keep on asking me about "changing colour" work,which we did long time ago. In extension to the water pouring, i gave him some different colours,to mix around and show him what colour changes into what colour and get him to record down the result.

Drawing out the observation.

The result

Later in the day we did more practical life, scrubbing table.

Perhaps he has done this in school but this is the first time i seen him doing. He is expect to put away all his dishes in the sink after meal(still need reminder), with some luck he will volunteer to clean up the table spill on the floor after meal. I think by montessori standard, he should be able to do this without any reminder but im just taking it slowly.

Squeezing out water from a sponge practise.

Squeezing out water from wash cloth practise

Later he took out his japanese writting booklet for first time. Im surprised that he could actually write quite well with the japanese character eventhough that was his first time drawing japanese character compare to the alphabet. I guess is probably Japanese character is made up of few strokes where by alphabet always have only 1 or 2 only continuous line that needs better control and motor skill.Anyway grandma will be very happy to see this picture.

Wrapping up the day. He still wants to do more but it was just too much for me for today.

The setting up

I have converted this formal living room to the class room. This room is perfect for our classroom, bright enough and overlooking our front yard with alot of old oak tree. The only thing is that kids might get distrupted when car pass by sometimes. I only use the coffee table which have shelves on it to display a few material for Yuta. So far i only have the number card, sand paper and geometric inset done. well, not really done, the sand paper is half way done.

At the other end is baby corner for Ai. That is our old tv shelve. you can see i put up some random toys that i have at home, puzzles, block and some fruit cutting toy, stacking cup.

She likes to work with the bottles and stacking cup. she would stack up to 3 cups and knock them down and giggle. thats fun to watch. she also likes transfering. i put water bottle top in a basket and she will transfer from one bottle to another.

The blue couch with some books next to it, is our cozy corner.

I have started them in this place for 3 days, and so far so good, some peace at least.

My Montessori In Making

I heard first of the word Montessori when there were a Montessori and Kumon boom back home in Malaysia in the early 90's. Couldnt be bothered what that really was since i dont have a kid yet until when i was looking around for a daycare for Yuta. I sent him to a home day care so called montessori method but was not impressed with that, after 3 months i stop sending him. and i started looking again after 3 months, and i found this wonderful school nearby our house. I also went to a tour in few other school but after looking at the montessori child development centre, i know that was my choice.

Yuta is going to the montessori school 3 days a week for over a year now. I see significant improvement in his personalitiy, level of responsibilities besides all other academic improvement. I went on to read alot more about montessori method from books and online resources. Without formal education of either early childhood development or montessori method, i took me so long to actually begin my montessori journey. My objective is to incorporate montessori teaching in my children learning routine. I dont plant to homeschool but teach montessori as a supplement.

The setting up part is the most difficult. Ihave tried to make a classroom in a room, it didnt work out, i set the learning space in the living room, it didnt work out either. This is my 3rd attempt to set up a learning space, and by far it is the most comfortable for three of us.

I dont have all those shelving to accomodate materials, just using whatever shelve and table and material that i have. A big moving will take place in another 2 months so i dont plan to buy anymore shelve/furniture for the classroom. Just need to make as many material as possible and when we get back to Japan, i can just put them up right away. I feel sad sometimes that iwont be able to send children to montessori school anymore because is just too expensive in japan for a international montessori school.

This is my place to document down all my ups and down in our montessori journey and i hope one day i can look back at this blog and proud of what i have done.