A regular morning

We try to have Montessori mornings three times a week, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday. By Montessori mornings, I mean we specifically work with the Montessori materials and try and get into that 3 hour cycle. Recently we haven't been doing it upstairs because it is too cold so we now go up and choose which thing he wants to work with and will help him bring it downstairs, it is a bit of a faff but is working OK.

So, I thought I would share a typical morning.

6.20am we get up. Breakfast, get washed and dressed to the chores (Babyebi helps with the dishwasher and the laundry). I check my email and BabyEbi watches NHK educational programs for a while, by 9ish we are all organised,

8.50am wash the placemat and table

9.20am Get out the weighing scales. I picked these up a while ago at a bargain price of 500 yen, since they are wood I was very chuffed but they didn't come with weights so I made some out of salt dough. This is the first time he has worked with them and I don't think he will really get the concept of weights so I just stuck with heavy, light and the same. He got that and spent some time experimenting with the scales - as well as trying to pull them apart to see how they work!

9.55am tidy up and prepared and ate his snack, this morning it was an odd combination of sembei and ham with cinnamon milk. he then tidied everything away.

10.30am took out the sound pouches and worked through about 15 of them then he decided he had enough.

11.05am put the sound pouches away and got out the balance game he was much better at taking turns today and got excited when one of us was "champion" he had to do a dance no matter who won. He really got into it and played with this for a long time, he went mad when I had to get up to go to the toilet hahaha.

11.45am put the balance game away and got out metal insets he worked with this by himself whilst I started to prepare lunch. He finished up for lunch about 12.15pm

After lunch he takes a nap, and is currently curled up on the sofa, he looks so cozy and warm I am half tempted to go and join him.

I'm not sure how close this runs to a work cycle in a Montessori school, or how long, on average a child will work with one piece of equipment. Somedays he will sit for well over and hour with the same thing, the next day he will get it out for 5 minutes and put it away again. As long as he completes the cycle of returning the equipment to the shelf when he has had enough I don't worry about how long he works with it. I suppose sometimes he is just not in the mood or can't find what he really wants to do.

A while ago I bought 

The Tao of Montessori, when I first got it I tried to sit down and read it but found it really hard going. Recently I have it next to my bed and open it up at a random page and just read one verse and Catherine McTamaney's interpretation of it. I find it very thought provoking and insightful, it gives me something to ponder as I drift off to sleep....

How to make the sound pouches

Firstly, I have to say thank you to everyone who has left lovely messages and sent me emails, and all the inspiring minatures ideas. I apologise if I haven't got round to replying personally yet. It is all a bit hectic here at the moment, hubby left for Thailand at 5am this morning and I have secret items to make for my best mates hen night, which I have to finish this week before we start packing for the house move.

I apologise again for the pictures, I just used a piece of origami paper and drew on the stitching but hopefully you will get the idea.

You will need....

2m of felt

26 buttons

3mm thick elastic

coloured thread

scraps of felt for decoration

cut each pouch out, 19cm x 33cm, measure 12cm from the bottom and fold.

Using a pretty coloured thred, sew up the right side

Don't finish off the thread, turn the pouch over and cut a nice edge for the flap (I did mine all freehand)



Sew along the edge of the flap


turn it over again and sew down the lefthand side.



sew on a cute button


Cut a piece of elastic long enough to make a hoop to fit over the button, sew the ends onto the flap of the pouch. I used elastic because it is easier for BabyEbi to open by himself.



Use some felt scraps to make a decoration - which covers up the elastic end, so just the elastic hoop can be seen.

If you use a Mac you can download the Montessori font here. I printed out the letters then traced round them onto iron on felt, then ironed them onto the pouches, I also pressed the flap so that it folded down better. I did the letters in two batches rather than one at a time. I found that I could do 2 pouches a night, most nights and sometimes managed to do one during the day if BabyEbi was engrossed in his work/play.

It did take quite some time to do the whole lot but as I was making them I had them in a box in the living room, BabyEbi was wanting to look at them all the time and not just one pouch, we had to go through all the ones I had made. This was a great motivator for me, seeing how much interest he has in them and then how he is interested in the objects inside. He also tries to trace the letter on the front, like you would do with the sandpaper letters.

I had mentioned about doing a miniatures swap but I had completely forgotten that we are moving house in the next few weeks (how did that slip my mind?) so I will have to put that on hold until after the move, hmm but then I go back to the UK until Oct 9th. If people are still interested in doing that and can hang on a while, I will organise it at a later date, I think my husband will kill me if I take on something else just now!

That is going to be it for major projects for now, I might have a couple mini's, just to keep me busy hahahaa.

Thank you all again, if you have any questions, leave me a comment.

Interested in more Montessori posts, I have a free course and resources over on my website, click to be magickally whizzed over to jojoebi.com

Phonic Sound Pouches

I have finally finished the pouches. Like everything I ummed and aghhed before deciding which route to take. I decided that I would hand sew them, since getting the machine out is too much hassle and we do have such a love/hate relationship, I thought sewing 26 bags might be pushing it! So, I bought 2m of white felt, a couple packs of variety buttons and the rest of the stuff is out of my crafting supplies. Each envelope is 300mm x190mm, that is about where the continuity ends. Initially I thought I would use a button to repressed each letter apple for a, bee for b etc. but I soon came to my senses and dropped that idea. I sewed each pouch, one at a time and picked the thread/button/decoration depending on my whim at the time. I admit some are a little wonky due to a wee bit too much wine! The letters are iron on felt done in the same Montessori felt as the sandpaper letters.

It took me about 4 weeks to get them all done but I quite enjoyed them, I haven't done any hand sewing for ages.

I have put up a couple of pics on here but you can se the whole lot and what is inside on Flickr here.

I need some inspiration for letters n, i, q, u, v, y and z. If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

I got some of the little objects from swaps set up by Meg on Montessori By Hand or from friends and family plus a box that I bought 2nd hand. Some are crappy plastic things that I would like to replace, if there is anyone else making these bags that is interested in doing a swap, let me know.

mini

Look what I found! Some cute, cute mini work tools.

I really have to dig the sewing machine out to make the sound pouches. I am up to my eyes in sandpaper letters at the moment, I have managed to do half of them so far, and they are looking GOOD. I will do a write up on how I made them once they are finished.

The in-laws are coming the weekend after next so I really need to have a major clean up. pert of me is thinking, why do any this week? Just have a major muck out next week, the other half thinks I should start now since MIL is a bit of a neat freak!

I went to the ¥100 yen shop today and got some bits and pieces to make some more activities for BabyEbi, I have some good stuff lined up, but more about that once I have taken the photos.