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.

Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi

Raving book review alert! Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi.

This is a maths book that was recommended to be a couple of months ago. Ebi-kun got it with his birthday presents but hadn't got around to reading it, which was a plus because I decided to read it a bit differently.

Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi

The story is about learning about the value of pi and why it is important. Basically the knight gets turned into the dragon and the boy (Radius) needs to figure out how much of the medicine he has to give his dad to turn him back to a knight.

He does this by following a riddle and measuring various circles until he cracks the puzzle. As Radius goes through the book, we followed along. Ebi-kun got the tape measure out and he went and measured various circles around the house.

Both the diameter and circumference...

Then recorded the findings on a piece of paper. Once we had finished the book, I went through the maths with him, showing him how to work out the circumference if you only know the diameter. I will go through the opposite equation in a couple of days because I don't want to overload him with too much at once.

Ebi-kun was super excited to do all this, I wish maths had been this much fun when I was a kid! I will certainly be ordering more books from the series - I think this is actually the second book. 

Ebi-kun says: It is great, not only is the story funny but you can do the things at the same time as Radius and now I can work out the circumference of a circle!

The other book I ordered at the same time was "What's Your Angle, Pythagoras? A Math Adventure". We haven't read this one together yet but I will do it in the same way and do the work as we read it.

I think if you have a child who struggles with math then this type of book can really help, they can see the math in action and connect to the theory better or for a child like Ebi-kun who just loves learning especially when it is presented in a fun way. He hasn't done anything like this in school yet, he starts multiplication next term!

Liked this post, want more of this type of thing? Hop on the MOC fanzine, it's free!

How Parents Can Help Every Child Reach Their Potential...

Do you ever get the feeling that you are sometimes the last person to know about something? That is what happened to me this week. So, lets take a step back first.
Earlier in the week Ebi-kun was complaining about school, he is not a big fan and he hates maths. This worries me because he has always enjoyed learning, I suspect that is the problem, he is not learning and so he is bored.

In maths at school they are just starting addition where the sum is over 10, for a kid that can do long multiplication, he must be bored out of his skull. The problem is that it is teacher focused learning and they go at the speed of the slowest kids in the class. Great if you are one of the slower one but it is a system that penalises the brighter kids. 

I believe that as parents or educators it is our job and responsibility to provide our children with the tools they need to teach themselves, it is not our job to make them sit them down go through workbooks. Once a child's interest has been sparked, they will immerse themselves in the subject, they suddenly get a thirst for it and just want more and more. We should be there to provide the knowledge in whatever form so that they can soak it all in.

Wouldn't it be great if the kids at school could work at their own pace and the teachers was there to help those who needed it? Wouldn't it be good idea if the kids that are good at something could then help tutor the ones that needed the help? Anyone who is into Montessori will recognise these ideas and for me, it is a solid, sensible idea that would help EVERYONE in the class, no matter their ability.

So, yesterday I opened a newsletter from Kathreen and one of the links took me to this TED talk below. I sat and watched it. Twice. Then I clicked through and took a look at the academy, it is brilliant, the concept, the set up and the idea that they can change a standard classroom set up from teacher focused to child focused proves that it can be done. 

Ebi-kun came home yesterday and when it came to cook dinner I asked him if he would like to take a look at this new website (Khan Academy BTW it's all free). He said yes, I had already set up an account for him, so I introduced him to the first module and left him to it. He LOVES it, I had to drag him off to have his dinner and as soon as he was finished he was back on there! Yep, this is the kid who earlier in the week told me he hates maths. What he hates really is not learning maths.

The Victorian way of teaching that goes on many schools needs to be changed, to get best potential out of every child and every teacher the class needs to be child focused.

As one mom in Japan, I can't do much to make this change happen but by sharing this it is a start. If just 10 people who watch and read this then share the Khan Academy information with their friends and the their friends do the same, we can get this concept in front of a lot of people. Then maybe, Khan's dream of every child working at their own pace and the idea of child focused classrooms can become a reality.

So, take two seconds and hit the share button to share the video and let's help make a positive change for our children.

The Car Parking Game

Car Parking Game

I remembered this game and decided to give it a go with Ebi-kun. I used to use letters but decided on numbers because it is his numbers Ebi-kun needs to work on.

He can count fine but doesn't 'know' the numerals and since he is really into his little cars, trucks and diggers at the moment I thought it would be a good way to get some practice in. So this is my take on the game.

What you need:

• a large piece of card make into a car park with numbers written in the different parking spots
• a set of 10 cards with spots 1-10 on one side and the numeral written on the back
• 10 small cars to park

To play, the child takes a spotty card, counts the spots then finds the right parking place, say he picks a card with 3 spots he needs to find number 3 and places the spotty card next to the parking spot (to self check later). 

He then parks his car in the 3 parking place. 

Then, continues with the next card until he has used them all up. You can see that Ebi-kun made a mistake above and parked the green steam train in 4 instead of 2. 

When all the cars are parked turn over the spotty cards and check the numbers on the back match the parking place number, if it is correct the car stays put, if it is wrong then the car has to drive out.

 Once all the cards have been checked the child repeats the exercise with the 'wrong' cards until they are all right. Ebi-kun enjoyed doing this, I think I need more construction car games!

Dinosaur Island

Babyebi was taking his afternoon nap a couple of days ago when he was rudely woken up by the postman, this meant I had one grumpy little chap on my hands, that was until he opened the tube that the postie had bought with him. Inside were a load of little dinosaurs from my counting swap partner, Carol. Suddenly grumpy pants had disappeared and we had a happy chappie in the house again.

So this morning I knocked up some islands on the computer, they are no works of art but if you would like to download them go over to flickr you should see a set called "dinosaur island" on the right-hand-side there are thumbnails of all the pictures in the set.

Click on one of the pictures, to the right there is a link in blue "different sizes" click on the link

Above the picture it should say "download the medium size" you could use this but for better quality pictures click on the "original" size and then download it. (repeat for other files)

You should have the jpg file on you computer to print out as you like.....fingers crossed.

To play, place the islands all round the room, I made it quite easy to find them the first time then stepped it up a notch the second time round by hiding them up the stairs and in the bathroom too. The child then takes a basket of 55 objects, we used dinosaurs but shells, pirates, treasure, nuts... anything could be used instead. It is important to have 55 objects so that when the child gets to the last island if he/she doesn't have the correct amount of objects left it means they have made a mistake (control of error) and so they need to go back and check the other islands.

If the child does not yet recognise the numerals then a matching game could be played with the islands, set them out as above but give the child a number card instead of the counters and ask them to find island number '7' etc. The game can be played in reverse (AKA tidying up) when you ask the child to go and fetch island number '4'.

Babyebi had a lot of fun with this and the first thing he said when we got home after shopping was "play dinosaur islands?"

If anyone else has any other counting games, I'd love to hear about them.

And there is still time to sign up for the continent swap, come on, you know you want to......

Montessori Swap Shop - swap one

I am sure I am not the only one who enjoyed doing swaps over the holiday season, which got me thinking about doing Montessori swaps. I am not making any promises but I am going to try and do a bimonthly swap for things that would be found useful in a Montessori environment.

For the first swap we will swap counting objects (nice easy one to get us going) so you need to provide 55 small objects to count such as frogs, horses, trees, apples etc. Try and choose something that can be incorporated into the Montessori  class themes.

If you want to join in the swap send an email to me with "counting swap" in the subject bar to 

montessori.swapshop@gmail.com

In your email please put 

1. your name 

2. country you are posting from 

3. what objects you want to send (frogs/cats etc)

The swap will close January 16th, I will send you an email with your swap partners information a few days after. Contact your partner and swap mailing addresses and then pop your swap items and maybe an intro letter about yourself and connection to Montessori in the post by the end of the month.

Future swaps - if you have any ideas or something you would like to swap then please leave a comment. The next swap - taking this one goes OK will be for a culture box but more ideas and suggestions are more than welcome.

********UPDATE**********

I have had a couple of emails asking about what kind of objects, I am far from an expert but the things I have seen have been like these frogs or fish

Having more natural made objects I think is more desirable but practically it maybe difficult or expensive to find say 55 wooden elephants or whatever although there are some natural counters to be found such as shells or pine cones. From my understanding the reason for having different counters is to keep the exercises interesting and it also enables to the teacher to link counting with other topics being studied at the time. Maybe butterflies are the theme in biology, learning the parts of the butterfly and about it's life cycle and there are a number of butterfly books on the book shelf, creating butterfly images in art etc. making everything tie in and hopefully more interesting

I don't think the objects need to be exactly the same, i.e 55 pink pigs but should follow a theme like the fish bucket above or the frogs. I suppose size wise they should be about an inch to two inches, children who have got to this stage should be past putting things in their mouths.

Does this make it a bit clearer?