The Sequence of Montessori Work

No preschool this week - all of the families were sick, so we weren't able to meet. The girls and I have gotten some good work done, though, and I will post pictures soon.

As I mentioned recently, my oldest daughter is ready for some new challenges in the classroom. I pulled out a bunch of new math works but have felt uncertain about the sequence in which I should present them. That has led me back to the beginning, taking a fresh look at the Sequence of Montessori Work from David Gettman's book (which is very similar to other "scope and sequence" lists made available by multiple different authors and sources). I thought other homeschooling Montessorians might find it useful, as well.

You can download a Word version here. Otherwise, I've typed up the sequence below. But before you go :), what resources do you use for sequencing your own Montessori presentations?

SEQUENCE OF MONTESSORI WORK

PERIOD ONE
[Early Practical Activities, introductory Sensorial, Culture, and Language Activities, no Math]

Practical:
- Pouring beans between two jugs
- Opening and closing containers
- Buttoning
- Buckling
- Other simple dressing frames
- Carrying and laying floor mats and table mats
- Saying Thank You
- Other early grace and courtesy work
- Carrying a tray
- Lifting, carrying and putting down a chair at a table
- Climbing and descending stairs
- Walking on the line
- Folding
- Hanging clothes on a hook
- Brushing hair
- Dusting

Sensorial:
- Cylinder blocks
- Pink tower
- Color tablets, box 1
- Presentation tray of geometric cabinet
- Sensitizing the fingers
- Touch boards
- Presentation 1 of geometric solids
- Stereognostic bags

Language:
- Classified pictures, exercise 1
- Classified pictures, exercise 2
- Speech
- I Spy, Stage 1
- I Spy, Stage 2
- I Spy, Stage 3
- Book corner and library

Mathematics:
- None

Culture:
- Land and Water


PERIOD TWO
[Building fundamental skills in all subject areas except Math, concentrating on sight and touch in Sensorial work]

Practical:
- Pouring water from a jug
- Medium difficulty dressing frames
- Simple braiding of rope or yarn
- Laying a table for a meal
- Polishing brass, glass surfaces, shoes or furniture
- Washing hands
- Washing cloths
- Scrubbing a table top
- Sweeping sawdust
- Brushing clothes
- Folding clothes
- Hanging clothes on a hanger
- Handling a book
- Asking for and receiving scissors
- Greeting people
- Kindness to visitors
- Being silent

Sensorial:
- Advanced cylinder block exercises
- Brown stair
- Red rods
- Color tablets, boxes 2 and 3
- Geometric cabinet, exercises 1 – 4
- Binomial cube
- Blindfold
- Tactile tablets
- Later geometric solids presentations
- Stereognostic bags
- Sorting grains
- Sound boxes
- Preliminary presentation of bells
- Three-stage lesson on the names of the sensorial qualities

Language:
- Classified pictures, exercises 3 and 4
- I Spy, stage 4
- Single-letter sandpaper letters, exercise 1
- Metal insets
- Speech “questioning”

Mathematics:
- None

Culture:
- Land and Water exercises
- First maps
- Places classified pictures
- Classification by leaf, preliminary work

PERIOD THREE
[Developing more advance Practical skills, concentrating on other senses in Sensorial work, completing preparatory work in Language, fully entering Culture work, starting Math]

Practical:
- Pouring water from a jug
- Pouring water through a funnel
- Bows, laces, and other difficult dressing frames
- Advanced braiding, then plaiting hair
- Tying a tie
- Simple cooking chores
- Ironing
- Making beds

Sensorial:
- Geometric cabinet exercises 5 – 8
- Constructive triangles
- Square of Pythagoras
- Trinomial cube
- Fabrics
- Thermic bottles
- Baric tablets
- Presentations of bells

Language:
- Double-letter sandpaper letters, exercise 1
- I Spy, stages 5 and 6 frequently
- Exercise 2 with all sandpaper letters

Mathematics:
- Number rods, exercise 1

Culture:
- All maps
- Places picture folders
- Past and present
- Stories about the past
- Air
- Water
- Magnetism
- Classifying animals
- Classification by leaf
- Parts of animals
- Parts of plants


PERIOD FOUR
[Advanced Sensorial activities, early Language reading and writing, Mathematics Group 1 and starting Group 2]

Practical:
- Responsibility for certain daily Care of the Environment duties
- Helping and advising younger ones in a group

Sensorial:
- Geometric cabinet, exercises 9 and 10
- Thermic tablets
- Mystery bag
- Visual work with blindfold
- Bells exercises 1, 2, and 3
- Tasting cups
- Smelling boxes

Language:
- Movable alphabet
- Writing individual letters
- Writing families of letters
- Positioning letters on lines
- Sandpaper capitals
- Box 1 of object boxes
- Action cards
- Box 2 of object boxes
- Reading folders, exercise 1

Mathematics:
- Number rods, exercise 2
- Sandpaper numbers
- Number tablets (with the number rods)
- Spindles
- Numbers and counters
- Memory play
- Limited bead material
- Number cards
- Function of the decimal system
- Fractions

Culture:
- Gravity
- Sound
- Optics
- Places artifacts


PERIOD FIVE
[Further development in Language reading and writing, essence of counting, adding, subtracting, and multiplying in Math]

Practical:
- Assisting with group activities
- Attending to visitors
- Comforting other children

Sensorial:
- Knobless cylinders
- Bells, exercises 4, 5, and 6

Language:
- Matching and writing capitals
- The alphabetic sequence
- Writing copies
- Puzzle words
- Reading folders, exercise 2
- Classified reading
- Environment cards
- Articles
- Adjectives
- Conjunctions
- Prepositions
- Verbs

Mathematics:
- Formation of complex numbers
- Introduction to teens
- Introduction to tens
- Unlimited bead material (Addition, subtraction, and multiplication)
- Counting
- Stamps (Addition, subtraction, and multiplication)
- Dots
- Fractions exercises

Culture:
- Plant life cycles
- Timeline


PERIOD SIX
[Advanced Language work, basic division and arithmetic memory work in Mathematics]

Practical:
- Serving snacks and meals
- Subtle etiquette

Sensorial:
- Advanced bells work

Language:
- Margins
- Punctuation cards
- Reading folders, exercises 3 and 4
- Adjective matching
- Detective Adjective Game
- Adverbs
- Command cards
- Adverb matching
- Verb games
- Plurals
- Feminine and Masculine
- Root word charts

Mathematics:
- Unlimited bead material (Division)
- Stamps (Division)
- Addition and Subtraction Snake Games
- Addition and Subtraction Strip Boards
- Multiplication tables
- Multiplication bead board
- Addition, Subtraction and Multiplication charts
- Advanced work with fractions

Culture:
- Reading classified cards in Geography, Nature Studies and History
- Fact books from the library


PERIOD SEVEN
[Application activities in Language, abstraction in Mathematics]

Practical:
- Helping the Director prepare the environment
- Presenting practical activities to younger children

Sensorial:
- Presenting sensorial activities to younger children

Language:
- Written questioning
- Free writing
- Reading folders exercise 5
- Reading analysis

Mathematics:
- Unit Division Board
- Division Charts
- Short Bead Frame
- Hierarchies
- Long Bead Frame
- Simple Division

Culture:
- Definition stages of Classified Cards in Geography, Nature Studies and History
- Field nature observation work

Making "Sense" of Winter

Today we were all back together for the first time since before Christmas. It was great to have everyone back!

Miss K's Circle Time theme for this week is the five senses, and today she talked about using senses to appreciate winter. She explained what the five senses are, and then she and the kids worked together to write sentences like, "In winter, I can wear a soft hat" (to explore the sense of touch), "In winter, I can see snow," "In winter, I can taste hot chocolate," etc. It was a great activity that incorporated creative writing, reading, handwriting, new information, and applying that information to the world around us. As usual, nicely done, Miss K!

Not many pictures from today, but I do have downloads (I used primopdf to convert the files to .pdfs - it worked really well!). As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently created number cards for the red and blue number rods and small number cards for basic addition as set forth in Elizabeth Hainstock's book Teaching Montessori in the Home: The School Years. I printed out three sets of these cards, cut them, and laminated them. Miss D's son and my daughter had fun doing static addition.

Also, I put out a new snowman outline to pinpunch, although I had no takers today.

For PE, Misses D and C led the kids outside, where they dribbled soccer balls through cones and kicked them into nets, and they played with the parachute.

We closed with the "O" story and verse from My ABC Bible Verses: "Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good," Psalm 118:1.

New Activities

On Wednesday, school was a no-go. Despite my great hopes, the "respiratory infection" that reared its ugly head in my two-year-old last Friday...then worked its way to my 9-month-old by Monday...managed to grab hold of my four-year-old on Tuesday night. I wouldn't wish this on any family (especially now that my 9-month-old has a secondary double ear infection!!), so we're biding our time and hoping that we will all be healthy and contagion-free by Monday.

I used the time to finish up some activities and create some new ones. I finally finished all of the sound boxes from Laura at My Montessori Journey's system. Basically, she breaks the alphabet up into three sections: red (RAMFBITG), yellow (PONLHUSC), and blue (DEXQYJKVWZ). (I think I've modified the order somewhat.) For her phonetic objects/sound boxes, she breaks the three groups into six smaller ones and has a set of phonetic objects for each group. Typically, phonetic objects are dollhouse miniatures, which my budget doesn't really accommodate (although I'm always keeping an eye out on craigslist and freecycle - just in case!). Instead, I made my own phonetic objects (phonetic pictures?), printed them out, laminated them, and organized them into six boxes:

Boxes 1 and 2: RAMF/BITG

Boxes 3 and 4: PONL/HUSC

Box 5: DEXQY

Box 6: JKVWZ

I tried to find six pictures for each letter, but some were harder than others. After I made these, it occurred to me that I should have included "inchworm" for the letter I - I'll revise the file and re-upload it soon.

I also made number cards to go with the red and blue numerical rods. I'm not sure why my initial materials order didn't include those, but it's been bothering me that I didn't have them. Sandpaper numbers don't work, because those go from 0 - 9, and I needed 1 - 10. I went ahead and made my own set that I cut up and laminated. The font I used is not all that common, so I need to figure out how to save the file as a .pdf, and then I'll upload it.

I also made a set of small number cards so that we could move beyond the bank game to simple addition, as Elizabeth Hainstock does in her book. The font is very important with these too, though (because the numbers have to be spaced just so), so I'll need to save them as .pdfs as well.

Those activities have been on my To Do list for a while now, and it feels great to have them finished. I hope you and your family are weathering this winter better than mine, and here's to healthier days to come!

Go Tell It on the Mountain!

This is the last week we'll be meeting before the holidays, so Miss K's Circle Time theme for this week is the nativity story. She brought in her family's Little People nativity set and read the nativity story:



The kids enjoyed this so much, they did it twice.

At the start of Independent Work time, my daughter and Miss D's son made plans for their day. Miss D's son chose the addition strip board, and my daughter chose reading, pin punching (I put out a new Christmas tree to punch), and the addition strip board. She sat on the couch and started reading a book, and Miss D's son plopped down next to her. She read to him for a little while before getting fatigued, so I sat down with them and read to them for a while. We don't usually read together in the classroom, and it was a nice (and somewhat refreshing) change.



Miss K's daughter chose (among other things) nuts and bolts...


...water transfer with a funnel...


...and pin punching...


...which was a very...


...very popular activity:


Miss C's son also chose sandpaper letters and the cornmeal tray, and then almost the whole crew worked together on the geometric solids matching cards:


Toward the end of the day, Miss D's son wanted to read some more, so Miss K picked up where I had left off - she attracted quite a crowd:


During Music Time, Miss D led the kids in a rousing rendition of "Go Tell It on the Mountain," which has been stuck in my head for days now! She also brought in jingle bells and sang all the requisite jingly Christmas songs. Then she gave the kids rhythm sticks and led them by donkey to Bethlehem, clip-clopping all the way.

We closed with the "N" verse and story from My ABC Bible Verses, "No one can serve two masters," Matthew 6:24.

Geometric Solids Matching Cards

OK, I think I've finally figured out how to use box.net to upload files, and I'm going to give it a shot. I created a series of images to go along with the geometric solids - you can download the file by clicking here. I printed these out, cut them up, and then laminated them using a Scotch Thermal Laminator I bought brand-spankin' new for $10 (!!) off craigslist.

To use these, the child lays the geometric solids across the top of a mat, and then matches the pictures underneath the appropriate solid:



I didn't have any kind of reference to go by when making these cards - I simply looked around Google for things that were the correct shape. I tried to find six images for each solid, but I had trouble finding that many for the triangle-based pyramid (only found two) and the ovoid (only found four). If you have any ideas for those solids, please let me know and I'll update the file and upload it again.

I hope this is useful - I'd love to hear any comments anyone has!