Math material - Addition

We started into our math curriculum two weeks ago using the stamp game. This material emphasizes tens units and carrying up to the thousands. Jer enjoyed this material but not like I expected. He already knows how to add and I thought we would enjoy the large numbers worked in these equations.

 But he got tired of 'moving all the little pieces', as he put it.    

So today I printed out the Addition Strip Board from the Montessori Print Shop it was about $4 and it came out wonderfully. It also came with directions how to present it which were helpful! 

All throughout my reading on Montessori education I have come across references to 'booklets' especially in math work. I'm not completely clear on the size and shape of one but I found this example on Pintrest and it showed how to make a lovely little booklet. I whipped this one up in Illustrator and printed it off. (If you can tell me how to share files I will gladly post it.) He then uses the strips to work out the equations. 

Each page has a different addition group and this booklet is one through five. Jer liked doing this work and it gave him more opportunity to work on his own (something I am trying to work towards since it is a major goal in Montessori). At first he didn't want to do much but as he got to it, while I worked around the house, he eventually finished it. Using these tools remedially has been tricky but rewarding and I think, worth the time.

I'm looking for more information to how many times this should be done to help with memorization. Comments and conversation are always welcome!

Remedial sandpaper letters

Montessori says to introduce sandpaper letters to a child around 2 1/2 years old. These are the typical shape and color. The blues are vowels and the pinks are consonants. The child will trace the letter while making the sound and associate the sound with the shape, not nessesarily the name of the letter. But they could eventually be used for that too. (I think the moveable alphabet may be more for that kind of recognition. We are having fun with that too! I will post on it later.)

Jer knows his sounds and names of the letters. What I am to using them for is handwriting, which is another benefit of the early use of the letters. I learned D'Nealian or Italic handwriting when I was homeschooled in 5th and 6th grades. It was a much needed change in my handwriting that was barely, if at all, legible. I had not developed the concentration or control that I needed to slow down and be purposeful with my writing. D'Nealian is a style that is fluid and keeps your pen on the paper as much as possible and helped me get the words on the paper legibly. I am already seeing this tendency in Jer so I decided to go with this style instead of the cursive handwriting that Montessori usually introduces.


Since I am using a different handwriting style I can't just order as set from anyone. I saw This set on Sew Liberated and they are from the Etsy shop Polliwog which is operated by Michelle.

I contacted her and asked if she had a D'Nealian font. She was very helpful and was even able to tweak some things for us. It is an investment (as are most Montessori materials) but I know that baby K will be able to use them too.

Here is Jer with the beautiful set. I got the smaller size and hoped that would make them even more enticing for him. Well, just tracing them wasn't cutting it. So we started playing what we call the vowel game. It's kinda like scrabble (which he loves right now). We lay all the vowels out first, one of use using capitals and one lowercase. Then we make words around the vowels. Whoever has the most letters used wins.

When we are finished spelling the word, we trace the letters. It's introducing them to him and helping me brush up on letter shapes too! We also have the numbers 1-10, they are in the basket there, and are green. 

Being creative with the materials seems to be the key to introducing them for remedial work. Using what he is interested in right now (or is sensitive to, as Montessori says it) is a great help for ideas of how to use them.

I couldn't find much on using the materials remedially when I wanted to introduce Montessori to Jer. I hope these posts will be helpful for you who want to share the wonderful experiences with your children! 

What response have your children had to sandpaper letters? Have you used them in creative ways? Continue the conversation in the comments!

Lesson 1, God

Keeping with the Montessori Elementary outline I am basing each week on a main lesson that could take one or two days to cover. In a Montessori class the first Lesson is about the Big Bang and how that brought the universe into being.

We are starting at the very beginning and who was there but, God? So the first lesson is all about him.

We are using this book Firm Foundations that we got from a family friend. I believe they use this book for introducing the bible in tribal situations. We have had it on the shelf for years and I grabbed it since it has such a great basic introduction feel. Now Jer, who is 5, has already had a lot of introduction to God and the Bible but this book was a really good resource to glean an outline and ideas for teaching the lesson. There is also a nice timeline that I am using for the first few weeks before I introduce the continents.

The rest of the lessons are done at his table but I thought it would be nice to switch it up and do them on the living room floor. 

This worksheet I made from the outline. We often do fill in the blanks at church and I want to introduce that to him before he sits in the sermon next summer. We took turns filling in the answers since he doesn't enjoy writing yet. It was great to have the verses to reference for each point and Jer seemed to like using his new bible to look them up.

This chart comparing the characteristics of God and Man was one that curriculum suggested and helped lead discussion and helped Jer visualize the differences.

I liked having the outline to follow and I was very happy with how he got into discussion and asking questions learning more about who God is and expanding his view about who was there before the beginning of time.

It all Starts Here

Notes from Day 1 

My plan for the day was this:

Work at small table (not Dining Table) - Jer surprised me by asking to work at his table, and since I had that in mind I happily agreed

- Continent puzzle 

- Shape inlays

- Reading Lesson

- Spelling - evaluation

- Sandpaper letters - Jaren 5

- Addition with Golden Beads/Bank Game

Things did not go in that order. It was more like:

- Shape Inlays
- Spelling

- Reading
- Sandpaper Letters
- Continent Puzzle
- Addition

I decided to feel my way through what he wanted to do at that moment

Everything is new to him except the Reading book so it was overall 'exciting' to do since he has seen these things on the shelves for about a week. ( The baskets on the bottom shelf are our 1 yr old's, Kaden. )

{ I plan on doing more specific posts on the materials we are working with and others. }

I chose these tools because we need to work on taking our time and not rushing through the work just to get it done. This was a major problem last year when we were mostly using worksheets with My Father's World curriculum.

So outlining and coloring in the shape inlays was a hit and he decided to do two of them. I tried to exemplify how to take time and go slowly, staying in the lines.

The spelling we are using is All About Spelling Level 1. I chose it after seeing it on a homeschooler's blog. I like it because it bridges Montessori and Classical education styles. Jer flew through the letter sounds except for the vowels and I was glad to see where the 'issues' were with the help of a curriculum.

This picture shows the cards from All About Spelling and the Montessori Moveable Alphabet. I got the Alphabet because D'Nealian is new to him and I wanted to familiarize him with it but when I saw that he was missing some of the sounds because vowels have 2, 3, or 4 different ways to say them I decided to use them as a visual cue. Here he is laying out the letters to show how many sounds each makes. It worked very well!

The Sandpaper letters are D'Nealian as well and are supposed to be started around age
2 1/2 for handwriting (his 'biggest' issue right now). Jer is almost 6 but I hoped the lovely hand-size would attract him and we surged ahead.

He was not enthusiastic. It was very hard to get him to write these two lines after he had traced the sandpaper letters and I wrote the example. We will try different angles at these materials and the patience developed with the shape insets will help too.

Now we got to the continent puzzle which he is supposed to trace and label the continents (and maybe the oceans too). After the letters it was clear this was not going to happen and I didn't want to ruin his attitude toward this great (and expensive) tool. I have decided to hold off on it till we get into a couple more weeks and his patience matures.

So we wrapped up with the Bank Game Addition. Jer was really looking forward to this. Its very involved, gathering bars of beads to show each number in the equation. I thought he would be really into this but he must be passed this stage and only wanted to do it once.

This finished up the day (you made it to the end of that post!) . I will say I was a little disenchanted but pleased with how it all went, ready for the next day.

Everyone is very welcome to leave questions and comments. I anticipate researching answers for everyone! And I plan to post about the next day's experiences soon!

A little Introduction

Here is a great video of introduction to how the Montessori Method works in a classroom.



While we are at home, Jer gets interaction with many ages and a classroom setting twice a week at Church.

I love seeing the views from all people involved in the process. The child, parent, teacher and principal. In a correct Montessori environment everyone involved wants what is best for the child to have a lifelong love of learning and the discipline and excitement to continually be learning.

Starting Yesterday

We started school officially yesterday. I have a general outline by week for what it to come the next  29 school weeks with one week off for Christmas and other various holidays. This means we will end the last week of May, the week before Jer will move out of children's church and be ready to sit and pay attention through the sermon.

Weekly we will be studying through history as follows:

1 - God & The Universe
2 - Creation (overview/review) and God's plan for Humanity (Jesus)
3 - Angels & Stars
4 - Earth & Plants
5 - Humans & Animals
6 - The Flood & Family & Government
7 - Tower of Babel & Language / Math / Writing
8 - Review God's plan, Jesus, right before Christmas. Half Week.
9 - Abraham & God's chosen people Israel
10 - Egypt
11 - Assyria & Babylon
12 - Persia
13 - Greece
14 - Rome
15 - Early Church
16 - 1000
17 - 1200's
18 - 1300's
19 - 1400's
20 - 1500's
21 - 1600's
22 - 1700's
23 - 1800's
24 - 1900's
25 - 2000's
26 - Church ages (Rev 1-3) & Current events, Family Tree, Ohio local history
27 - contd' (Rev 4 - 19)
28 - cont'd (Rev 20-22 & Ez. 40-48)
29 - Our Church vision, body and history

Whew! That will be our whirlwind tour. Of course the beauty of homeschooling and that Jer is  above his age is that we can take as much time we like. In addition we will be studying Spelling Level 1
Math
Handwriting - sandpaper letters in D'Nealian and moveable alphabet
Science and Music to correlate with each week's subject.

Elementary Education Take 1

I have only known about Montessori for about 10 months. I can't believe it has only been that long.

After picking up the book by Meg McElwee, Sew Liberated, at the library I started following her blog (on the back cover) by the same name sew liberated  (although I have not started sewing more, sadly). This woman introduced me to a teaching philosophy that I had never heard of (big surprise, I am no education guru) but sounded wonderful. An idea that using beautiful tools to learn in seamless, real way, making connections between hands and brain, understanding from the big picture, a strong base to build knowledge on.  This I thought, as I began to read more about Maria Montessori and her research with young children, is the way God made us to learn! I was stoked, and the more I read the more I liked about the composure, discipline and self-sufficiency of learning the students acquired with this wonderful approach.

So today I started 'first grade' with my almost 6 year old using primarily Montessori tools and ideals. But far as I can find, I am doing a lot different. Being a Christian and believing in a 7 day creation of the universe and everything in it, I can't use the Key Lessons that Montessori has formed most of the curriculum around. They are based on the theory of evolution which I am not going to base all of history on, given the freedom I have in homeschooling my children. {Montessori does have bible story lessons but they are not the focus on the curriculum} So here I am, 'newly' homeschooling my child and writing the lessons in a Montessori style (big picture history-based) but through the bible's lens. We are also doing something else different, since I don't know how long we will be using this method ( I also like Classical and Charlotte Mason) we will be learning a general overview of all of history. Hopefully since Jer is 'ahead' we will have this year to experiment with a great way to learn and have a strong base of history to continue building knowledge.

I appreciate the many other bloggers out there who I have gleaned tons of great help from and I am directed to share this journey with anyone who wants to join. Questions, comments and fellow encouragement are very welcome!

P.S. I do not claim to be a writer. Please forgive my grammar and clarity.