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

Patience, Kindness, and Goodness

Miss K couldn't be with us today, so Miss D led Circle Time. She continued with Miss K's theme for the week, "The Fruit of the Spirit," which comes from this verse:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22 - 23

Today Miss D focused on patience, kindness, and goodness. The kids glued these three fruits into the basket they started yesterday, and then Miss D read them the Fruit of the Spirit poem from yesterday, too.

The batteries in my camera weren't charged, so no pics from today. However, Miss C's son worked with the cornmeal tray and the sandpaper numerals, the fabric box, and the metal insets. Miss D's son did the Thanksgiving matching cards from Montessori for Everyone, domino math, and the hundred board. My daughter did the hundred board with Miss D's son, bead sequencing, the pumpkin lifecycle cards from Montessori for Everyone, and she also pin-punched a leaf. Miss D's 2yo did bead sequencing. My 2yo did the cornmeal tray, and later her big sister presented color box 2 to her!

Finally, 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

I can't believe we're already on the letter L! It has been amazing to see the kids' retention as we learn these verses. The older kids can recite each verse by heart, and even the little kids can recite some of them (particularly the shorter verses, such as, "A soft answer turns away wrath," "Even a child is known by his deeds," and "Do all things without complaining or disputing.").

The Fruit of the Spirit

On Monday during Circle Time, Miss K introduced this Bible verse to the kids:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22 - 23

Before she read them this verse, she presented the kids with two bananas - one perfectly ripe and yellow, and one rotten and brown. She asked the kids which banana they would want to eat, and of course they all picked the ripe one. Then she explained that life is like those two fruits: on one hand, we have people who do bad things and make us feel sad; on the other hand, we have people who do good things like helping others and being nice to others. She asked them, "Which fruit do you think God wants us to be, the rotten banana or the ripe banana?"

Next she explained that God wants us to be good fruit, to treat other people kindly and do things that make God happy with us. Then she read them the verse, and she and the kids talked more in depth about the first three fruits: love, joy, and peace.

Then Miss K read a poem to the kids to help them remember the fruits of the Spirit:

The fruits of the Spirit are peace, joy, and love.
All these things come from God above.
We can't have them, just trying on our own.
But if we stay close to Jesus, watch them grow!
Two more fruits are being patient and kind!
Treat others this way, and no one will mind.
One more fruit is the one of goodness.
Trying on our own just gives us stress!
Being faithful is doing what you say.
God helps us be faithful if we pray.
Another fruit is the quality of being gentle,
Not being harsh or judgmental.
The very last one is self-control,
Letting Jesus shine through me - that's my goal!

Finally, Miss K had the kids glue that day's three fruits into a fruit basket.

New on the shelves this week: paper weaving. I had a bunch of cutting strips left over from this cutting activity, and I didn't want to waste them. I used these instructions to set up a simple paper weaving activity, which was very popular:







For PE, Miss D brought in bowling pins and a (plastic) bowling ball, and she turned our kitchen into a bowling alley - how fun! She taught the kids how to set up the pins (in a nice 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 triangle that would make Maria Montessori proud ;)...


...she taught them how to hold the ball...


...and then she taught them how to roll:


A spare!

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

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!

More Fun with Fall Leaves

On Monday, the kids wrote a Fall poem with Miss K's help. I didn't manage to write it down that day, but the poem was an integral part of Circle Time again on Wednesday:

An Ode to Fall :)

Fall is a time for long-sleeved shirts,
Fall is a time for falling leaves,
Fall is a time for a pumpkin patch,
Fall is a time for jackets,
Fall is a time for Thanksgiving,
Fall is a time for warm hats.

Miss K came back to class armed with pictures that matched the words in the poem, and the kids took turns reading each line and matching the pictures to the words:



Next, Miss K led the kids in a sorting and counting activity. She and the kids sorted a big pile of leaves by color...


...and then counted how many they had in each category and graphed the results into a bar graph:


Independent Work time was more chaotic than usual, because the two-year-olds came in right away, before everyone else was settled. In the future, I'll definitely make sure to have the older kids focused on their own work before the 2yos come into the room, because they definitely require management. One new item of note, though: Miss D's daughter worked with this beautiful Thanksgiving-themed matching activity that I downloaded for free from Montessori for Everyone (thanks!):



For Arts & Crafts, Miss K led the kids outside to collect a few more leaves, as well as a mum flower for each child. Then, using paper plates with the middle cut out, the kids glued the leaves all around the edges to make pretty Fall wreaths. I have to say that I thought the results were just lovely:




We ended the days with the "K" verse and story from My ABC Bible Verses: "Keep your tongue from evil," Psalm 34:13.