Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control

Today during Circle Time, Miss D and the kids talked about the final three Fruits of the Spirit: faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. They discussed these qualities and what they mean, and then they reviewed all nine fruits. She and the kids also said the Fruit of the Spirit poem from Monday. (And I forgot to mention that on Tuesday, during Music Time, Miss D led the kids in this Fruit of the Spirit song by Steve Green.)

During Independent Work time, Miss D's son finished up his paper weaving project...


...while my 4-year-old presented the brown stair to the 2-year-olds:


They had a lot of fun trying to build a tower with the brown stair...


...and then they got out the pink tower and tried a couple extensions:


Hey...

...how'd that get in here? ;) (As I was uploading pictures to Blogger, I selected everything with today's date and unintentionally uploaded this picture - I couldn't bring myself to delete it. This is my seven-month-old :)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, just in case you missed it, Stephanie at Montessori Free Fall has pictures of some beautiful brown stair/pink tower extensions. I haven't had a chance to present these extensions yet, but I plan to soon.

Miss D's son, my daughter, and I played the Bank Game today for the first time, and they absolutely loved it. (My daughter kept saying, "Let's do another one!") I used Elizabeth Hainstock's book as my guide for this activity, and here's how it went: We created a supply mat with about a gajillion units, ten bars, hundred squares, and thousand cubes. Then I handed the kids a tray and asked them to load it with as many beads as they liked. We took the tray to a separate mat, where we sorted the beads (starting from right to left) into units, tens, hundreds, thousands. Then we started counting units. Each time we got to ten units, we took them to the supply mat (the Bank) and traded them in for a ten bar, which we added to the ten bars on our mat. We did the same thing for the hundreds and thousands. When we had exchanged everything at the bank, we counted each category and assigned the appropriate number cards:


Wonderfully (and inadvertently) enough, we eventually did a number where we had zero hundreds - we had exchanged them all for thousands.



When it came time to count everything up and assign number cards, the kids kept asking, "But what about the hundreds?" I just said, "There are zero hundreds." (Montessorians out there, was that the right way to explain it?) When we assembled the 7000, the 60, and the 2 to make 7062, they were awed by the zero in the hundreds place (and so was I, frankly! I know I've said it before, but Maria Montessori was a genius.).

After we finished with the bank game, my daughter and Miss D's son worked on this puzzle, and then it was time for Arts & Crafts. I didn't get any pictures of this, but the kids decorated a bear with the nine Fruits of the Spirit, and Miss D and Miss C used it as an opportunity to review all nine fruits.

We closed with the "L" Bible verse and story from My ABC Bible Verses: "Let your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16