Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Montessori Monday (okay Tuesday) : Asia Swap and New Math Work

This week, instead of doing a combined Making Memories & Montessori Monday combined post, have separated out the two, as I wanted to do a special post for Father's Day.

So, here is my Montessori post for this week...

Signed up to participate in another Continents boxes swap, this time through Honey at Mondorfment. It has been an awesome swap, largely due to Honey organizing it and the great gals in our swap group:)

We all had to choose a continent or part of a continent to focus on for our swap.
I selected Asia, primarily because we have an excellent Asian market so figured that it would expedite putting the swap box together...

Made the following:
An interactive Asian banner that can be used for several different works, including:
language - naming the animals and spelling their names with the movable alphabet, putting the animals in ABC order, grammar command cards, ordinal numbers work, grammar  work - sentences and grammar work - parts of speech.

Tiny Japanese Lanterns - for language object or for cultural object in the continents boxes.

Pin map flags - for pin map work

Asian stick puppets

Interactive pages that can be done as either an art project or as a language / cultural work...
these pages highlight three customs from Thailand and integrate either works, such as the metal insets and the parts of a flower.

Recipes, info. packet, and  a fingerplay...

Then, bought some items for the swap...

Soup spoons

Asian Figurines of little Chinese boys

Decorative chopsticks


and a few other surprises for my swapmates.

All in all, this has been a fab swap!

Can't wait to get all of the cool items my swapmates have made for this swap.

Looking forward to future swaps, too, as this one has been fun.

In addition to working on the Asia swap, I also got psyched as our order from Alison's Montessori arrived...yippie!

Then, got the call that the math items from Lakeshore were also in stock now...double yippie!

So in our Alison's goodies box, we got the bead bar hanger, the teens bead bar hanger, a control map of the world, another three part card tray, and some more bead stairs.

Since the items have arrived, the boys have been enjoying doing math works with the two hangers. Then, while perusing other people's Montessori inspired blogs, I came across a great post and a free download for some worksheets to use with the bead stairs. These new works and extensions have been a hit here in the Sunshine State!

A huge thanks to Evanspor - Walk Beside Me for her nice downloads of sheets that correspond with the bead stair. They have been especially helpful to Little Bro. Big Bro also wanted something similar to go with the teen bar hanger work, so he made up a sheet with the tens beads and then, I helped him glue the bead stair sheet so that it ended up looking like addition problems...turned out to be an involved work...big Bro was quite engrossed with it for much of the morning...

We then went to Lakeshore Learning and picked up what had come in for us...a set of Classroom Write and Wipe Math Mats, a Five Minute Math Journal for Big Bro, and some math extensions to go with Base Ten cubes. Big Bro has enjoyed working on the Fractions work as well as the base ten work...

Also did some laminating while at the store...Dear Hubby did a cost benefit analysis a while ago as to what was the most cost effective way to laminate...taking it to Lakeshore Learning to use their lamination machine, buying thermal sheets and a smaller scale thermal scanner, or buying laminate sheets that self seal and do not require a lamination machine...

Well, according to my Dear Hubby, taking items to Lakeshore Learning and using their machine and their laminating film for the teacher's discount price of 29 cents per foot is the best way to go...the laminate is wider, thicker, less expensive, and holds up better than the comparisons we did for this cost benefit analysis...just have to be sure to get a teacher's card for your homeschool or Montessori inspired school if you decide to take this route, too...

All in all, we are off to a nice start of our "summer camp" (pretty much what we did all year but with a catchy new name!!!)

Well, hope that you all had a happy Montessori Monday, as well as a terrific Montessori Tuesday!!!
Please be sure to visit Jody's Montessori Monday at Mommy Moment as well as Nicole's Montessori Monday at One Hook Wonder.

7 comments:

Evenspor said...

Thanks for linking me. The post with the bead stair download is:

http://sporschool.blogspot.com/2010/05/parts-of-truck.html

It was probably hard to find, because it is at the bottom of the post. I actually thought people would be more interested in truck cards. Boy was I wrong!

Your Asia stuff looks great.

The Sunshine Crew said...

I loved the truck cards too...they look great. We are just doing some math at the moment, and what you made tied in perfectly with the new bead hangers we got from Alison's.
We will do the truck cards sometime in the fall when I do a unit on transportation with Little Bro...I will be sure to link back to you and to give you plenty of props for those as weel when I post about them. I really enjoy your blog.
On another note, since you are a member of the LDS church, do you know if there are missionaries in either Columbia or Panama? We are getting geared up to study the rain forest and the Cuna Tribe and I would love to get in touch with someone in the region who could tell us first hand about their experiences with the people, the culture, and the rainforests...we are not members of the LDS church, but have friends who are and they were also going to check to see if there are any contacts there who might have some first hand info. for us...
We have been to Belize and saw many different types of rainforest animals up close at the Belize Zoo...but Columbia and Panama are still a mystery to us.

Thanks again for your nice comment and as always, I really enjoy reading your blog!

Unknown said...

Ahh! Thanks! What she really means to say is Honey micromanages! ;) If anyone else is lucky enough to get to swap with you I hope they realize how lucky they are, how you're like a snowball & your swap stuff keeps growing, and growing, and GROWING!

How many people out there have swappers where they actually have to say a few times..."Colleen! It's too much! ;)" sometimes I feel I need to protect you from your swapper self!

Thanks for joining. All the swappers are great, really involved, and amazing. But I have to say that each time I see your number I worry if it's your hubby calling to yell at me for letting you in the swap. Thank God he's such a great sport! :) And, remember...tell him he's welcome to join the Tribes of the Americas swap all on his own...him and his mad computer skills! ;)

hehe! Havin' a blast with you!

Honey

The Sunshine Crew said...

Thanks, Honey! You have done an awesome job with organizing this swap...
did you see what I posted to the group last night? Just for you, my veggie friend:)

Evenspor said...

I am sure there are missionaries there, but I don't know any personally. I do know people who went to Paraguay and Brazil. Maybe you could try mormon.org. I think there is something there for contacting missionaries, so you might be able to get some info that way.

If I think of something else, I'll let you know.

The Sunshine Crew said...

Thanks so much! Have a nice day!

XYZZ said...

Girl, you can be my swap partner anytime!! ;)

I'm interested to hear how you like the bead hanger. We haven't got to the bead stair yet - do you think this is a necessary thing to have? Thanks!

Oh, and thanks for linking up to Montessori Monday. :)

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