Some New Work & Some Classics

This week, Big Bro and Little Bro have selected a mix of familiar and new work...

New Work:
Little Bro tried out something new that I put together as an informal assessment tool to see how he is doing with sound / letter identification, number recognition, and beginning and ending sounds.
Made up a board with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 1-10, and his name.
Folded up the paper so that he would be able to clearly see the different spaces for each letter and number. We used decorative glass aquarium pieces as the markers for the various games...
Then, did a presentation about how to use the board and the different games he could could to play to go with the board.

Sound identification:
Gave him a word and he had to identify the beginning sound and place a glass piece on top of the corresponding letter...
Gave him a sound and he would say a word that starts with that sound...then, he would find that "letter that makes that sound" and cover it with a glass piece...
Gave him a word and he had to identify the ending sound and then, he had to cover the letter for the corresponding word...

Letter identification:
Did both in order and out of order...
 
Number / numeral identification and basic math skills:
He did number recognition and then, some simple addition and counting...
For the letters in his first name... he did how many letters in his first name, how many sounds in his first name, how to spell his first name, etc.


Classics:
He also revisited one of his favorite works, a really neat wooden puzzle. In addition to using the pieces within the puzzle frame, Little Bro then took the block puzzle pieces out and did some building with those.

What can I say but that the boys love building?

Speaking of building, Big Bro decided to revisit the constructive triangles.
Suspect that he decided to revisit them because he overheard me talking to a friend about the various extensions to go with these, as well as some helpful links I had found to go with the constructive triangles.
Yesterday, as I was talking to her and emailing her, it seemed to pique his interest...
Sure enough, last night when it was time for him to select his first work for this morning, he selected the constructive triangles.

He did some of the extensions that Dr. Daniel Jutras had shared with us this past fall at the International Montessori Conference.
Then, he got into making his own extensions.
Big Bro is at the end of his 3-6 cycle, and seems to have a keen interest in doing extensions.
Have been fine with this, because I am completely confident that he has mastered the underlying skills that each classic Montessori work presents to a child... 
Big Bro will be moving on to 6-9 in the fall or late summer, depending on how quickly I can either make the materials or can purchase them for this new cycle...

Luckily, we are using the Waseca Biomes Curriculum, so this covers ages 3-8 and gives me some wiggle room insofar as the transition.

Am still not sure how it is going to work with doing both 3-6 and 6-9, but suspect that he might do a little bit of both at first...

In addition to the constructive triangles and the sound / letter games, we have also started in with reading about the world's rain forests.

We do not have work out on the shelves to go with this theme yet, but will soon have some three part cards of rain forest animals, parts of the frog, mas showing the rain forest biomes, and some materials about the indigenous peoples who live in tropical forest biomes throughout the world.


New Theme - Rain Forest:
Our introduction to rain forests is starting out well with some great books...

We have hopped into three so far...

We ordered several books from Amazon and each day, a new package has been delivered to our door.

We also have some that we found at our local consignments stores.

Was really excited to find this book, as it is in Spanish.

In addition to reading during our homeschool morning, we are also reading some rain forest themed books as bedtime books with the help of Daddy.
Dear Hubby is great about reading with the boys at night.
Initially, it was with some coaxing from me to get him to be the one reading the books.
Now, it has become part of our bedtime routine.
It is so nice to have him read the majority of our books at bedtime, because it kind of brings him into the fold of what we are doing within the scope of homeschooling...and it gives me a chance to relax and enjoy listening to someone else read.

At night time, I have also been researching various rain forest Webquests, as well as other interactive projects.
As Big Bro will be moving into 6-9, it seems that integrating technology into his daily routine is going to become more important.

As far as how we have ended up doing rain forests, from time to time, I will ask the boys what they would love to learn about next...Little Bro said, "frogs" and Big Bro said, "the future"...

Well, we have also been working on learning about the biomes of the world and so it worked well to tie things together by exploring rain forests.

I have plenty of resources for Little Bro on frogs of the rain forests, and plenty of resources on the uses of tropical plants in medicines, the conservation efforts that various groups are trying to promote in an effort to save the rain forests, etc. so hopefully,we are covering all of the bases...

One of the things I hope to do with this is to tie in practical life skills by doing some cooking projects using items grown and harvested from the rain forests, such as Brazil Nuts.

As I get some practical life work and recipes together, will post and share them with you, so be sure to check back...

Big Bro's Cool Desert Project & Little Bro's Nice Spin Off Work

Big Bro had to choose a project to do for his science co-op class.
He chose to research, as he titled it, "Desert Life in All the Deserts of North America."

Seeing that we live in Florida, finding hands-on resources about the deserts of North America appropriate for a six year old  was a bit of a workout, to say the least...we ended up ordering several books from Amazon, as our libraries and bookstores in our area were lacking in materials.

We did manage to find some great North American Desert Biome books from Amazon...

We did not have three part cards for desert plants, but did manage to find a lapbook component, a mini-book about desert plants that both boys used for shelf work.

It can be a bit of a challenge to find resources that tie in with whatever your child is passionate about learning when you truly try to follow your child...but once we rounded up the materials, he was good to go.
We also found some neat larger sized plastic animals at Michael's.
We had to go to several Michael's Stores to find these, but they really helped to bring the animals to life for both Big Bro and for Little Bro.
The animals also worked well in our mini sand table that we had out as work while Big Bro was doing his desert project.
This made it possible to let Little Bro work on something related to the desert, too...
We found a tarantula, scorpion, desert tortoise, and a sidewinder snake...

Little Bro  just loved the book, Way Out in the Desert.

For Little Bro's work, since he has been working with learning to write his numbers, he was very intrigued that this book has numbers hidden on each page.
While Big Bro was working on his desert project, Little Bro worked at making a numbers book based on the numbers and the animals he found in Way out in the Desert.
 He enjoyed making his numbers book so much that on the following days after making his first numbers book, he made a second one, but then, he chose other items to count and to find on the pages.

Little Bro also did a numbers scavenger hunt with this book where he had to find the magnetic number to go with the number on the book pages.

He then chose to have me hide some numbers around our home for him to find. He had a great time looking for the numbers and then, putting them in order from 0 to 20.
He loves to do scavenger hunts so if he is in the mood to do one, it gets added to our day as his work...

It worked out so well that Little Bro was enjoying the various work on the shelves, but yet, with a totally different focus.

Big Bro pretty much ended up focusing on the Sonoran Desert, as we were able to find the most amount of materials appropriate for young children about the Sonoran Desert, as compared to the others.

We found two online resources that were especially helpful in giving his project some structure...

The first being a lapbook on Homeschool Share about Desert Animals.
This lapbook was designed by Jody Small...a big thank you to Jody for putting the lovely lapbook template together.
Instead of doing it as a lapbook, several parts of the lapbook were put out on trays as Montessori inspired shelf work that he then was able to choose.


This lapbook has nice classification cards that work well as three part cards if you make two copies and cut one stack into the photo cards and the labels.

Both boys enjoyed doing the desert animals three part cards...

The Homeschool Share Desert Animals lapbook components are all designed to work with the book, One Small Square - Cactus Desert by Donald M.Silver.

This author has a whole series of One Small Square books he has written and since this one was such a hit, we are most likely going to order the order ones he has written, as they were a great resource...interesting and informative, but not too overwhelming for a child just starting to learn to do research on their own...

Big Bro's favorite book though was Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson.

This is an awesome book!
If she has written any other books, we are going to order them.
Cactus Hotel takes your child through a beautifully illustrated and nicely written journey of the life cycle of the Saguaro Cactus...it tells you all about the life cycle of this majestic cactus, as well as all of the different critters who make their home in and around the Sagauro...just a fabulous book!
So glad that we ordered it! Big Bro loved this book...he read it to himself, had both Dear Hubby and I read it to him during the day and then, as a bedtime story...he read it to Little Bro and then had us read it to both of them...he could not get enough of it.

The second resource that proved to be quite helpful was a Bilingual Webquest  - The Desert Animal Webquest created by Ms. Magee and Ms. Miller at Blattman Elementary School  and then translated into Spanish by Mrs. Pereda and Mrs. Neal from the Howsman Spanish Literacy Team. A huge thank-you to them for not only designing this very child-friendly, informative Webquest in English, but also in Spanish...
The Webquest was created back in 2004, so it is rather simple in its design, but all of the material is still very relevant and the format is perfect for a young one to do some hands on research about desert animals. Ms. Magee and the others really came up with a great resource for young ones just learning how to do research...

They created a nice research guide that you can print out and then, your child can complete on his or her own.

If your children are going to do any research about animals, regardless of the biome, this research guide is a keeper...they could use it for every animal they study...
This guide will serve your child well as shelf work time and time again as they research various animals. 

Big Bro loved integrating technology into his project, and this was perfect, as it was pretty straightforward...not too jazzy or cutesy...very factual and well done.
Their Webquest is designed for two children to work together as researchers, where they each would select one animal and would fill out one form about the animal.
Big Bro worked on this by himself and instead of just doing one page about one animal, he did all of the pages about all of the animals in both English and Spanish, as well as a few additional animals.

He then did some separate research on desert plants, as he wanted to let his co-op classmates know how the plants and animals are both necessary in the desert biome.

If you are trying to integrate Spanish into your English program, this Webquest would be great for you, as it lets your child hear the names of each animal in Spanish, as spoken by a native speaker.
The research form is also available in Spanish, so your child could actually complete their entire research in Spanish.
Big Bro really enjoyed learning about life in the desert, and I must say that Little Bro and I also learned a great deal as he was working...really had never studied about the desert biome before and we all found it to be fascinating.
Here are some photos of Big Bro doing his presentation for his co-op class.

This was Big Bro's first time ever doing a presentation in front of a group. He was a little nervous at first, but then, once he got comfortable with being in front of everyone, he seemed to enjoy the experience. He had fun explaining what he had learned about desert life to his classmates.

Learning about the desert biome was a fascinating experience...so glad that Big Bro chose it for his project, as we all ended up learning so much about the deserts of North America...makes me want to go visit the Sonoran Desert in person!