Thank You, Kelly's Kindergarten and Montessori Moments

The holidays are quickly approaching and I am sick.

Sickness and Mommyhood don't go well together to begin with, but sickness, Mommyhood, and Christmas...yikes!

I have been trying to will myself to get healthy, but that approach is not working so today, we are all heading to the doc's to see what they can whip up to get me better.

Luckily, though, in between coughing fits, I happened to stumble upon a website called Kelly's Kindergarten:


She has all kinds of links for learning games, calendars, etc.
Her calendar sheets are set up to be homework, but with a little tweaking, they will work nicely as an open ended, Montessori inspired work plan for Big Bro.
Kelly has the sheets set up week by week.
If you download the primary font and open up her calendar files in Word, you can tweak her stylish monthly calendar to meet your needs.
This is such perfect timing!

Thank you, Kelly!

I took the nice December form she had on her site and set it up as a work plan for Big Bro.
Big Bro and I worked on his work plan together... he liked the idea of doing some of the activities she had listed for her students to do, so he decided to keep some of her work as part of his work plan.
This is our first real attempt at having him use a work plan.
Since he is in his final year of the 3-6 curriculum, we are just getting into work plans.

This year, we have been using wonderful agenda books we received in a care package from our dear friends from Montessori Moments. (Thank you, Jody!)

Now, we will tape the monthly Kelly's calendar forms into the front of each section of Big Bro's agenda book.

For those of you who are homeschooling using the Montessori Method, you should really consider using Kelly's calendars as well as purchasing agenda books.
If you have to turn in a portfolio, these are excellent organizational tools.

Since the beginning of the year, our method of choosing work is as follows:
Both boys choose their first morning work the night before and place it on our kitchen table.
We always start each morning in the kitchen and then, go into our classroom / playroom later in the morning...
Generally, I give a presentation to one or both boys sometime after we have eaten breakfast and they have completed one or two works.

For the next few days though, since I am coughing so much, I am going to give myself a break... will encourage Big Bro to dive into using his work plan and will guide Little Bro to continue doing his familiar work.
When you try to combine Montessori inspired homeschooling and being sick, you have to rework things so that you can actually give your body a chance to get better.

Then, this morning, I happened to read about the award that Montessori Moments won for her craft ideas. The concept of using a spice rack to hold misc. craft supplies is an excellent one, too, and perfect timing, as since I am not feeling well, instead of having to lay out everything, I am going to use our spice rack for the Christmas work for Big Bro and Little Bro.
Normally, we have all kinds of arts and crafts supplies stored in our buffet in our kitchen, but the spice rack will be so much more kid-friendly.

Here is the link to Montessori Moments, in case you want to turn your spice rack into something crafty:
http://mymontessorihomeblog.blogspot.com/

When you visit this site, take some time to look around, as she has some excellent ideas.

Thank you again and again, Jody!