This song turned out to be so much fun, that we sing it even after we were done with our unit in Geography.

“I live on Planet Earth” song to the “He’s Got The Whole World in His Hands“

We tried singing it with props: I printed pictures of earth, USA map, our State, our state with it’s city on marked, picture of our house. I punched wholes in all pictures and at every verse we’d string another picture on the “necklace” and sing it wearing the “necklace”. This fantastic idea comes from here: My Montessori Journey – Geography
Materials and song are available here: I live on Planet Earth file.

Montessori Practical Life transferring activities seem redundant and boring to me… and absolutely irresistible to my kid. I think my older one, Sunshine, can spend hours just pouring water or spooning beans. Though it’s tongs and tweezers that are the dearest to his heart!

This activity came together spontaneously, but it immediately became his favorite out of all our similar activities.

What did we use? I happened to have these things in my house…

• Transferring tool: I had training chopsticks for kids

My little one is turning 10 months in a few days. These are his favorite Montessori activities:

1. Opening and closing boxes

Read more…

So, here are the Montessori resources that I found useful! Enjoy and please share if you discovered something that I haven’t seen yet!

• Books
• Websites for ordering materials or reviewing what’s there
• Montessori Courses for Parents and/or Teachers
• Websites for learning how to make your own materials, blogs, and free printables.
• Video demonstrations of Montessori presentations, classrooms, homes.

Books

There is one of the original books by Maria Montessori that is available online for free: “The Montessori Method” by Maria Montessori .

Having a second baby didn’t change anything for us: we are still as eager to spend tons of time educating and having fun with our kids. Actually, it is the same thing – learning – is fun…

Having a second baby changed everything: we have absolutely NO TIME!

How do you teach your kids colors? Shapes? Materials (wood vs plastic, metal vs glass)?

Thanks to Heidi for sharing her creative system for teaching colors or any other sets of things:

How about showing your kid sets of things that are exactly the same in except for the color?

When I was teaching my daughter to read words for the colors, I flipped the words over to show the color, I also used sets of things that were identical in every aspect except color. I.e. square blocks in 9 different colors, then at a different time plastic rings in 9 colors, then later on a set of colored pencils in 9 different colors, and so on. This worked well for my daughter, at 10 mths the only colors she had difficulty distinguishing between were bright pink and red!

“Mommy, why do stars twinkle? Daddy, why do fingers look funny in a bathtub? Mommy, why do we need to go to bed? Daddy, why?…Why?..” Do you have a “why-attack” in your home? I love those questions. I think it exposes kids curiosity. I think it shows is their thirst for knowledge. I think it is fun to learn about things, I haven’t even thought of myself! And I think that by answering them, we show our kids how much we respect them, their desire to learn, how much we encourage getting to know about this world.

My son absolutely loves using “adult” real equipment: instruments, kitchen utensils, office supplies, even my makeup brushes. Anything that I use myself. Many of those tools can actually do a great job developing his small motor skills, so I love finding a chance for him to use it. I even set up a shelf in my kitchen closet filled with his own “adult” tools: a little water pitcher, salad tongs, spoons, dough roller, bowls and cups of different sizes. He loves it!!! Montessori-style, I also added a tray and a little mat to place underneath his tools, to avoid slippery surface.

New Presentations Uploaded:

• Teach Your Child to read… in Russian: Syllables with Myagkiy Znak – p’, r’, s’… up to sh’ + words, and sentences with those syllables . With illustrations. (3/15/2009)
• Teach Your Child to read… in Russian: Syllables with Yu – pyu, ryu, syu… up to zcyu + words, and sentences with those syllables . With illustrations. (3/15/2009)
• Teach Your Child to read… in English: Couplets 7 – Foods 1 and colors . With illustrations & sounds. (3/11/2009)