Both boys have been selecting Learning Palettes for the last few days.
We have these for grades 1-3 for both language arts and math. Let me tell you, the boys just love to use their Learning Palettes!
Learning Palettes are great, in that they focus on a particular skill set at a time, are colorful and interesting to use, have a built in control of error, and are a self checking - self correcting work.
The math ones in particular are great, in that they correlate with the NCTM standards for math. We also like the reading ones, in that the skills covered are similar to how Montessori covers reading and language with children.
Big Bro has been having fun learning about caves and caverns. He has been working with the Caves and Caverns Elementary Work Pack by Laughing Star Montessori, a material that we were sent to review. He has enjoyed not only learning the terms and seeing the photos that tie in with caves and caverns, but also, playing the Who or What Am I? game that goes along with this work.
What a great pack of Montessori inspired materials!
So interesting and very challenging to boot!
This work goes way beyond stalactites and stalagmites.
Big Bro loves this work!!!
A work that has been a keen interest of both boys is the Road Trip USA Animal Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler. They have enjoyed matching the animals to the cards, finding the various states on the map, and researching animals that are new to them since doing this work.
They have done some of the work together, some in tandem, and some separately.
Thanks so much to Confessions of a Homeschooler for this lovely work!
My boys really have gotten so much out of it! It continues to be a family favorite in our home.
Little Bro has been also selecting to do a fun twist on language objects work. One variation / extension to his regular Montessori inspired language work is a work made by Lakeshore Learning called Mystery Word Builders. The work features round balls that can be opened by the child. Inside each colorful ball, there is a language object, along with foam letters that spell out the name of the object. There is a control of error built into this work, in that there are only the exact letters that a child needs to spell the word, but then, in addition, the actual word is spelled on one of the two halves of the interior of the ball for the child to be able to self-check.
Even though we have a huge tub of language objects, and many different Montessori-inspired language works, this twist from Lakeshore Learning seems to be a favorite with Little Bro.
He loves the colorful balls, how they look and feel.
Plus, it adds another element of interest to be able to shake the balls first and to guess what might be inside of them...
Big Bro has been selecting to work on his cursive. He has been using a wonderful wooden movable alphabet set of cursive letters from Alison's Montessori.
He chose to have this set in dark green so he practices writing his cursive words in dark green pencil or marker.
Big Bro enters them into a dark green notebook.
So very like Big Bro, as everything goes together so well!
In addition to the cursive practice with the movable alphabet from Alison's Montessori, he also has been enjoying doing work from Laughing Star Montessori's Beautiful Handwriting Series.
The work he creates from these books turns out so nicely!
The Laughing Star Montessori Beautiful Handwriting Series has really helped to improve Big Bro's handwriting.
We also updated Little Bro's bedroom recently, as he had outgrown some of the decor from his original room. He wanted to have a dinosaur theme room, so we switched things around and voila! Dinosaurs galore! One of the things in his room now is an activity table where he can play with dinosaurs. We have a nice collection of plastic dinosaur figurines.
Several of his dinosaurs are from the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection. They are attractively hand painted, interesting, and detailed. Little Bro loves to play with these dinosaur figures in his room. He also has enjoyed reading about dinosaurs, so we have been doing just that, for pleasure reading, bedtime stories, and as homeschool reading too.
Last but not least, since the temps have been slightly cooler than normal, the boys have spent a great deal of time at the park playing, riding bikes, checking out insects and other interesting critters, and climbing trees. What a great way to take in the sunshine and to enjoy the cooler temperatures!
Here are some photos of the work and play times here in our home:
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| Little Bro doing his language work, Mystery Word Builders from Lakeshore Learning. |
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| Big Bro doing Road Trip USA Animals Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler. |
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| Here, the boys chose to work together on the Road Trip USA Animals Unit ...they worked hard and matched up all of the animal cards! |
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| Little Bro is working hard by himself on Road Trip USA Animals Unit here... |
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| Little Bro is having fun using his Learning Palette for this math work. Big Bro also loves doing his work using Learning Palettes. He uses the ones for older children. It is so nice that Learning Palettes are for a wide range of ages, for both language arts and math! |
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| Big Bro is working on his Caves and Caverns Elementary Work from Laughing Star Montessori. Such a cool work!!! He absolutely loves this work! |
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| Little Bro's new dinosaur table in his newly re-decorated dinosaur themed room. Some of the neat dinosaurs are part of the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection. How he loves this activity table! What fun! |
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| This is one of the black line masters books from Laughing Star Montessori's Beautiful Handwriting Series. Such a neat collection of works for children to practice their writing! Big Bro is enjoying learning how to do cursive! |
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| This is the map showing the Continents of the World. This is the page that Big Bro decided he wanted to practice for the day! Very highly motivating program for handwriting! Thanks to Susan from Laughing Star Montessori for creating this super series! |
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| Fun in the cooler temps! Great days for climbing trees, playing outside at the park, and riding bikes! Yay! |
What have you been doing in your homeschool or classroom?
We would love to hear what you are doing!
Please feel free to leave a link if you wish to share what you are doing for early October work in your room.
Full Disclosure:
We were given a set of the Caves and Caverns Cards Elementary Pack by Laughing Star Montessori for the purpose of reviewing it and using it in our homeschool. We were given some of the Beautiful Handwriting Series blackline masters books from Laughing Star Montessori, although in addition to what was given to us for the purchase of review, we also have been very happy customers of Laughing Star Montessori and their materials.
The Road Trip USA Animals Unit is available as a free download from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
To download this work, please visit the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog directly.
Our family purchased all of the following materials:
Learning Palettes for both math and language arts,
Mystery Word Builders activity from Lakeshore Learning,
the cursive movable alphabet from Alison's Montessori,
the activity table and all dinosaur accessories and decor featured in Little Bro's room.
We did receive some of the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection Dinosaurs as part of an arrangement for me doing an earlier project for Safari Ltd. and those are featured in the photo of Little Bro's room.
All opinions expressed in this post are my own.
My boys thoroughly enjoyed all of the materials that were mentioned in this post, regardless of whether the products were given to us or whether we paid for the materials ourselves.
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