Montessori Geometric Solids Extension

Due to school we don't get to do as much formal Montessori activities these days and I also have to work at keeping Ebi-kuns English level up. What I find works well is a combination of both. My main aim for the English side is that it is fun, he enjoys it and is inspired and motivated to take it and continue with it by himself.* We do a lot of projects and activities together, in English and I try and work some reading and writing in there too. 

Since watching The latest Miyazaki film with his daddy he has shown an interest in technical drawing and how things are put together. Hurrah! I think to myself, engineering drawing was, by far, my best and favourite subject at school, so I have been patiently waiting for the day to do this kind of activity with him!

We started out by getting out the Montessori Geometric Solids and re-familiarizing ourselves with the names (yes, I am including myself there, I am getting older after all! You can get the cards here). Then I showed him how to do a plan of the rectangular prism, I chose this one because the length is longer than the width making it easier to visualize. On a piece of paper I drew around side A then rolled it over and did side B, then C the D. Like below....

 Next I asked him where the ends would be (E and F), he figured out how to add them and we talked about how they could equally be attached to any of A, B, C or D.

Once he the basic idea set in his head, I introduced other shapes. First I got him to sketch the plan, no ruler and no measuring so that he would get the image from his head onto paper without worrying about the details. We then talked about how we could make it into a solid object and that it would need flaps to hold it all together. He already had an idea about this from doing the magic box from the gadget book. So he then added flaps to his sketch and drew arrows so he knew which side they would be attached to.

Then we got out the gridded card. So that his plan wouldn't fall off the paper, I showed him how to decide on a start point. He set to and drew out his plan. For all 3 shapes I did the cutting out, the card is quite thick and neither of use feel confident about him using the knife to do the cutting but he did everything else.

When it came to the triangular prism, I had another trick up my sleeve and showed him that a compass isn't just about drawing circles. He LOVED that!

We did 3 of the shapes, sticking with the easier ones this time round. We did discuss how you would go about drawing a plan for a cylinder and I am sure that will be in the works soon!

What I want to know from you is... what was your favourite subject at school and have you had the chance to share your passion for it with your child yet? Tell me the comments, I would love to know!

* When I read this through I realised that, that is actually my philosophy for all learning, not just English.

a scary experience

Having this beastie visit for 4 hours yesterday was not a pleasant experience I must say! I had got the patio door open as I was loading stuff into the car ready for camping this weekend when he snuck in. I had no idea what it was and it was so damn big, about 2"! I didn't want to get too close, the one of the drawbacks of living in a foreign land is not being familiar with the beasties and being clueless on what is dangerous and what's not. I think this was a giant asian hornet and by all accounts they are nasty pieces of work and very aggressive, they also attack black - guess what me and Ebi-kun were wearing, yup, it was straight upstairs to get changed. Apparently 40 people a year die from it's sting, NASTY. I couldn't lock it in a room since our downstairs is all open plan and I didn't want to go out and come back and not know where it was. I opened the windows and hoped that it would leave by itself (and that it's mates didn't turn up to visit too!). It did eventually make it to the curtains so I gave it a gentle push - using my long sewing ruler and off it went - phew. One house guest I will be happy never to see again.

Enough of the beasties, a couple of days ago Ebi-kun got the geometric solids out. He started off by building with them then I gave him these cards to match the shapes. We have already been round the house and found shapes that match so this time we took it outside.

I made a copy of one of the pages in my manual with all the shapes on it and we took that and the camera round the neighbourhood, he had to find the right shapes and take a photo by himself, he did really well, we found most of the shapes...

We are off camping tomorrow for a few days, I still have the comments on moderation but don't let that put you off posting a comment - I do love them so! If you email me I will get back to you once we are back and unpacked :o)

Happy Golden Week to you all!

Geometric Solids

Boy, was I a busy girl today?

I went over to the ¥100 yen shop to buy one or two bits, ended up spending ¥2500 - oops!

I found some fab little baskets and now wish I had bought more. I put together a folding activity with 3 different towels in a basket and I found 5 wooden shapes for my geometric solids set. Also picked up some blue paint and what I hoped was overcoat - all I understood on the label was "paint" and "up/over".

Painted the solids as BabyEbi ate lunch (takes him an hour) and then did the overcoat when he had dinner, I was pretty impressed with the result, especially since the whole lot only cost me ¥840! Just have to work out where I can get the other shapes from now...