Activity of the Week

Each week I work with over 50 children, teaching them English or working on developing other skills through the Montessori educational method. It has become part of my philosophy to individualize each lesson according to each child. Once in a while though, certain activities prove to be of great success with almost all children, so I suggest them to others as well.

A popular activity of the last week was enhancing the wild animals vocabulary, through listening, singing, reading and discussing with the help of two great instruments from Barefoot Books: Walking Through the Jungle video and book by Stella Blackstone, illustrated by Debbie Harter and sung by Fred Penner.

Firstly, the children watch and listen to the video:



I often played it twice, firstly because the children asked for that, and I wanted to follow their interest, secondly because I asked them to focus on what they see, then on what they hear.


Afterwards, I took out the Walking Through the Jungle book, with similar illustrations. The children loved the colorful images, and graphic of the animals. I liked the book because it presents animals together with the environment they live in, thus making it easier for them to build later on connections with countries and continents.

With the help of the book, taking into account the level of development of each child, the following activities can be done:

1. Reading the lyrics of the song. Through repetition they consolidate their reading skills, and gain confidence to read further. 
2. After reading comes translation, for the ESL children. Make sure they all understand what they are reading / saying.
3. Identifying each animal in relation to the environment. If you have world maps, globes or puzzle maps, it would be a good way to take the learning further and associate each environment with its place on the map.
   
4. Discussions on animal behavior. Make sure they know it is normal to be afraid of these animals and to stay away from them because they might be dangerous. In the book, characters are running from the ferocious wild animals, but in the end they all gather together for supper, giving a positive psychological closure of the adventure, but also a humorous creative ending. The children laughed about what each animals was eating and how the whale "poured" water for the girl. This type of creating ending could stimulate their imagination. Some questions for that can be: What would happen if these wild animals would come at your home for dinner? What would you feed them with? 
5. Grammar activities focusing on the lyrics. Children can identify, write or mime each of the action words (verbs), naming words (nouns) or describing words (adjectives).
6. If you have sets of plastic wild animals you could take the activity further by sorting out the animals they have seen in the book / clip. To further consolidate classification they could be sorted by color, environment, what they eat, certain skills they have such as swimming or climbing, etc. 
   
7. Painting or drawing with the book illustrations as inspiration. Each child can make his/her own version of the jungle, the desert or any other place described in the book.

I am sure this list could go on with endless activities that can build or consolidate learning. What other books related to wild animals do your children enjoy?

Have a great week, full of wonderful, sparkling learning moments!

Two by Two: Two Montessori Inspired Books for Preschoolers

Two by Two is an exciting children literature project. Its purpose is to bring more or less known children books in the attention of teachers, parents and children around the world, paired on specific themes such as death, communication, self esteem, anger management, friendship or unconditional love. A lot of these books were brought to my attention by a very dear friend, with whom I share  the passion for child literature. Almost all of these books are in my personal library, carefully chosen to fulfill some of the criteria described here, and have been used during my teaching classes. The children I work with had wonderful reactions to them, and this has inspired me to write this Two by Two series.


Maria Montessori was a remarkably bright girl who grew up to shake the foundations of the traditional education system. Although her method is becoming increasingly popular (you can read a detailed article about it here), there still are many less known facts about her life. She grew up in a period when women were not allowed to vote or to make decisions for themselves. She was one of the first Italian girls to be allowed public education. She challenged the norms by deciding to take technical studies, then switched to medicine. She was sensitive but strong willed and liked to do things her way. She was a fast learner and quickly adopted good case practices from around the world and took on the challenge to work with very disadvantaged children. She then grasped the first opportunity to work with normal children and by observing them and their needs, she designed materials and activities that could help them grow happy and independent. She lectured in countries around the world and assisted in the opening of many Montessori schools. She refused Mussolini when he demanded fascism to be taught in her schools and relocated several times. She met Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore. She received three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. These are some of the reasons why I chose this first article of 2014 from the Two by Two series to cover two Montessori inspired books!


1. Montessori Shape Work, by Bobby George, June George, Alyssa Nassner (Illustrations)

Although the third in a series of books created by the same authors, I believe it should be the first to be introduced to children, as they encounter shapes in their environment much earlier than they recognize and understand the numbers or the letters. Unlike other books presented in the Two by Two series, this one does not stand out because of stunning illustrations. As Montessori advocated for children to be grounded in reality at early ages, the pictures show colorful real-life objects which can help children spot the shapes in their own environment or outside of it.

Throughout the book, shapes are introduced three by three, from three different types of triangles (isosceles, equilateral, right-angled); to three different types of rounds (circle, ellipse, oval); to three different types of parallelograms (square, rectangle, rhombus); and three different types of polygons (pentagon, hexagon, octagon).

What makes this book more special than other shape books is the fact that it contains die-cut shapes for children to trace with their fingers, thus working towards imprinting the shapes in the "kinesthetic" or "muscular memory" of the child. 

2. Montessori Number Work, by Bobby George, June George, Alyssa Nassner (Illustrations)

Like all of the three books in this Montessori series, the number book is also a board book meant to stimulate the child's learning through visual and tactile senses. Accompanied by an adult, the hearing sense comes to help as well, as children discriminate the sounds used for each of the symbols that represent the numbers.

Similar to the other books, the first page hosts a Parent Letter, during which the method used is explained. Again, the book is accompanied by real life objects to count, numbers to trace, and the corresponding number rod!

Number rods  is the first of a series of brilliantly designed mathematical instruments that Montessori created with the purpose of teaching children numeracy and arithmetic. As the child counts through the objects, s/he begins to make the correlation between the quantity, symbol, touch of the symbol and sound, and ultimately the corresponding number rod.

The last book of the series is simply called Montessori: Letter Work and it builds up on the skills gained in the two previous books. I really love these books because they conveniently have some of the attributes of the Montessori materials packed in elegant, practical, simple board books that respect some of the Montessori principles and help the child make connections between concrete and abstract with the help of their senses.

These books are an excellent tool for home or classroom learning. I hope they make you at least a bit curious about Montessori and her method! Feel free to contact me at alexandra.asofie@gmail.com for any questions you may have related to that! I am happy to share my knowledge with any education enthusiast!


Source of Images:

1. http://wmontessori.com/german/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/maria-montessori-249x300.jpg
2. http://vibrantwanderings.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/20120830_180734-558x600.jpg
3. http://www.howwemontessori.com/.a/6a0147e1d4f40f970b017ee40879d5970d-pi
4. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKUpgJpxeOZtLR7IerP3D0bd3YR5munPn831LbI8jeKk6gPoHEwklrLP6XnuuKnHr-0YQCWZh-UUl5_Q7yDCkHJu-FEJ4c-QbafVKXWeqSuL8NniC2aqogXUEG1U-J3UMtaiwy5FHL-Os/s1600/Montessori_NumberWorkSpread01-2.jpg
5. http://www.montessorialbum.com/montessori/images/c/c0/Number_Rods_9.JPG

Bibliography

Standing, E.M., Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work (New York 1984)

Super Learning Activities with Cars

Once upon a time there was a little boy so passionate about cars that he inspired his teacher to design some special car activities just for him! Here are two of them detailed, easy to make, perfect for home or nursery settings!


The Learning Goals for each of the activities are:


Direct objectives: to make correspondence between the numbers on the parking lot sheet and the numbers on the cars; to match drawn quantity with concrete material.

Indirect objectives: to visually discriminate the numbers from 1 to 5, to learn and practice with concrete materials the increasing and decreasing order of numbers, to begin to make some correlations between symbols of numbers and quantity, to develop the vocabulary by naming the number symbols and learning words from everyday living, to develop a sense of responsibility by helping take and put back the materials, to develop observation skills, to develop listening skills, to concentrate, to discriminate colors; to refine the concept of "rectangular", "inside" and "outside"; to refine fine motor skills, to increase knowledge and understanding of the world by small world play, to have fun!


1. Number Parking

Materials – 10 mini cars of any type and colour, 1 Parking lot sheet, 2 sets of mini number cards to stick on cars from 1 to 5; blutack for sticking the mini cards on the cars.

Step by step guidelines:

1. The teacher introduces the activity and the materials. Depending on the available time, s/he may ask the child / children to help her stick the numbers to the cars. 
2. S/he introduces (if necessary) the ground rules of working with the material. 
3. S/he arranges the cars and the parking lot sheet with the help of the child /children; 
4. S/he demonstrates how the cars should be parked with the first set of five cars; 
5. S/he uses the specific vocabulary: “This is car number one, I am searching for parking lot number 1”. 
6. S/he invites the child(ren) to try and do the activity his/herself with the second set of 5 cars. 
7. When the activity is finished, the teacher asks if the child(ren) would like to try again on their own. 
8. At the end of the activity, make sure the child puts the materials back to their place, and thank him/her (them) for doing so. 

2. Sets of Cars

Materials – 10 mini cars of any type and colour, 4 Sets of cars sheets; (A4 and markers)

Step by step guidelines:

1. The teacher introduces the activity and the materials. 
2. S/he introduces (if necessary) the ground rules of working with the material.
3. S/he arranges the cars on top of the Car Sets sheets, which should be in increasing order, with the help of the child /children;
4. S/he demonstrates how the cars should go from outside the rectangle to inside the rectangle according to the drawing;
5. S/he uses the specific vocabulary: “There is one car drawn outside the rectangle, so I have to put one care inside it”.
6. S/he invites the child(ren) to try and do the activity his/herself.
7. When the activity is finished, the teacher asks if the child(ren) would like to try again on their own.
8. At the end of the activity, make sure the child puts the materials back to their place, and thank him/her (them) for doing so.

I very much enjoyed working with Tudor again and although his numeracy journey is just beginning I am happy to have provided him the context to plant some little knowledge seeds for the future! I am also grateful for the openness and trust of his parents and grandparents, who really strive to provide him with the best education possible!

One of the greatest learning points of this lesson was the importance of following the child’s interests and always approaching him from the base of what I observe he likes and is interested / curious about. I have no clue how original these activities are, I have never done or seen them before, but I am certain that he enjoyed them because it sprung from his passion towards cars which, for Tudor, can be an endless theme for consolidating and acquiring knowledge!

Photos taken with the courtesy of  Tudor's parents, Vanessa and Victor! Thank you! :)