Grammar

Montessori offers so many wonderful hands on tools for teaching grammar to children.  The subject of grammar can often be dry when presented through traditional worksheet means.  I have collected a number of free online resources and purchased materials to make grammar fun and engaging here at the Middle of Somewhere.

When we started our grammar education I started a wee bit backward from the Montessori method.  In a typical Montessori environment the farm is used first to introduce each part of speech.  Our farm was all set and ready to go but I was drawn to the wooden grammar symbols and sentence strips, so that is where we started.  I bought this set of symbols from Alison's Montessori and printed off sentence strips for free from Montessori Materials (look under the purple words grammar box materials.)  Montessori Materials also has some other great and free grammar and language materials, so take some time to look around  Montessori Primary Guide also has some great free lessons for introducing the parts of speech (look at the left side bar under total reading). We spent quite a bit of time working our way through the sentence strips and labeling them with our symbols.

Then, I introduced the grammar farm.  The farm we use is a Fisher Price set purchased as a gift for our oldest daughter 10 years ago.  Don't get sucked into believing that you must have a "Montessori" farm set for this, you don't, use what you have or what you can find.  We keep a basket of collected farm animals next to our farm and a sets of word cards for every part of speech.  The word cards would be easy to make yourself either on the computer or by hand but I purchased a set from Montessori Print Shop.  This has been a fun material to work with.  For our first grader the farm work has been an introduction to the parts of speech and reading practice.  For my older 2 children, ages 10 and 9, the farm has been hands on review and often times a creative outlet for silliness.  Also close to our farm set I keep a bucket with blank word cards and a pen for when the children need to write their own words rather than use the pre-printed materials.

So where will we go next with our parts of speech?  Well I think some worksheets will be in order and of course some books.  I am always drawn to picture books that can teach a concept and be engaging with its pictures and language at the same time.  We own several of the Ruth Heller grammar books, look for other titles by her as well.   I would also like to add some Words are Categorical grammar books to our collection. For the worksheets, I think a membership to Super Teacher Worksheets is necessary.  It would be nice to combine the books and worksheets to do a mini unit on each part of speech for review and deeper digging.

Happy Learning and today is Montessori Monday, go visit and see what other Montessori homeschoolers are enjoying.

Reading, Spelling and Word Study the Montessori Way

I love Montessori Language Arts from pink, blue and green series work to word study, it is a style of learning that keeps children engaged and wanting more.  I have said it before, we work slow here at the Middle of Somewhere, so while I see 7 year olds completing green level work my 10 year old is slowly working through that series for complete spelling mastery.  My 8 year old is working through blue and pink is for our 6 year old. The pink, blue and green series is the foundation to Montessori reading and it naturally incorporates spelling and writing skills.  The pink and blue series focuses on 3 and then 4 letter phonetic words and the green series works on vowel and consonant blends.  The Helpful Garden ( look on the left sidebar) is a great place to print free series work and Montessori for Everyone offers great posts on using the materials as well as purchasable work. I have also purchased a lot of series work from Montessori Print Shop.

pink objects and spelling with the moveable alphabet

more pink objects for spelling and reading

reading pink level word cards

more pink objects and moveable alphabet work

blue series words and objects for spelling and reading

blue series work with objects.  My older children also like to write out the words rather than use the moveable alphabet.

identifying vowel sounds in pink series words

spelling blue series words

matching objects to pink series word cards

We also supplement with some non Montessori work:

This is a vowel and consonant sort I quickly put together.

 

 And here is a look at some work K has been doing using the You Can Read series from 1+1+1=1:

circling sight words

sight word review

We are also working on a bit of word study, although I don't have pictures to show it.

E working on green level word study cards for suffixes.

Word study at our house usually consists of compound words, rhyming words, synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, and contractions to name a few.  I really like that Montessori for Learning has word study sets equated with the pink, blue and green series.  Scroll through this page to see what they have to offer.  Once the children have completed all the "card work" available to them, then they move onto worksheets or recording the work in their notebooks. 

Today is Montessori Monday and I'm linking up!

Learning with Centers and File Folder Games

I have been a long time fan of File Folder Games and Take It To Your Seat Centers and over the years I have made and collected quite a number of books, folder sets and websites.  Yet, I found myself not being able to fit them into our schedule but this year I decided to dedicate one morning a week to these great learning tools.  I think Centers and Folders are great tools for learning both new material and reviewing old lessons.

The children know that Wednesday mornings are folder and center mornings.  Each child has their own box full of appropriate materials to work on.  The children are required to pick one folder or center from each of these subject areas: Language Arts, Math, Geography and Science.  They are to complete their selections and call me over to check them before they clean-up.  At this point, all the children have to do is complete the folders but in our winter term I am going to ask them to also record in their learning journals what they have worked on.  For Example, in this picture E is working on a Science Layers of the Earth Folder and I would ask her to make a  notebook page for her journal.

I also think having a folders and centers morning breaks up our week, so we don't get bored or run down in our daily lesson routine.  The folders and centers also meets my goal for providing as many hands on learning experiences as possible and cultivates independent learning.

Here are a couple Math examples of folders:

Martian Multiplication

Turkey Feather Addition with an added number line. (It has been so long but I think both this folder and the one above are from File Folder Fun, a site full of free folder games.)

And a couple of Geography Examples:

World Continents from Take it To your Seat Geography Centers.

Land Forms--also from Take It To You Seat Geography Centers.

Here are a few of the Take it to Your Seat Centers we use:

Take it to Your Seat Phonics Centers
Take it to Your Seat Science Centers
Take it to Your Seat Geography Centers
Take it to Your Seat Math Centers
Take it to Your Seat Writing Centers

The Take it to Your Seats come in many grade levels so I did not include them all so be sure to look for the level that is appropriate for you child.

We also use a variety of folder games from Lakeshore Learning:


Science File Folder Fun
Fractions, Decimals and Percents Elementary Folder Games
Puzzle Fun Math Cards

Again, a lot of these folder kits come in a variety of age and subject areas, so be sure to take some time and see if what you are looking for is available.

It is Monday so I am linking up with Montessori Monday.

Have a great week!

Elementary Wrap Up--Sort Of

Here is a look at what E and A worked on to complete their 4th and 2nd grade years.

Language Arts:We made it through all eight parts of speech and still love our grammar symbols.  The symbols are such a wonderful hands on way to teach such an inherently dry topic.  Now this is a bit backward in the Montessori method, but we tend to follow our own course of study, we will be working with the grammar farm throughout the summer to keep what we have learned fresh.  So call us remedial, backward or slow if you want but it is what works for us.

E using our movable alphabet to spell and copy her weekly words.

We have also pulled out our phonics stamps from Lakeshore Learning.

A working with abbreviation cards

A doing a bit of prefix review.

Geography:  We finished our geography studies with a look at North America. We really focused in on Canada. Next year E will be doing a state by state study of the U.S. and creating a notebook as she works. For our study of Canada we read the book Lost in the Barrens and used a study guide from Queen Homeschool Supply( I tried to find the guide on line but couldn't).  We have really enjoyed all of the Queen studies.  The studies are very simple in presentation but a treasure trove of ideas.  The children actually stated to me that they really have liked our studies based on living books.  They compared this Canada study with our notebook study of the human body.  They said they liked the anatomy study but really, really enjoy these Queen studies.  During this study I read Lost in the Barrens aloud while they made books of Canada's wildlife.  They also completed a few notebook drawings to illustrate the different types of river terms found in the story.

A cutting out pictures of wildlife for his book.

A and E working together on a puzzle of North America.

Math:We are leaving off in math with A needing to work on his multiplication facts and E needing to work on her division facts.  Both E and A will be using copywork over the summer to continue the memorization of their facts.  I am excited about next years study of geometry and fractions.

A working on our equation and product cards.  He has completed the whole set, so now it is time to combine families for  more of a challenge.

Life Skills: E has been working in the kitchen to prepare lunch for her siblings.  It is always my intention to include the children in as much food preparation as possible but a lot of times they are busy playing and I don't want to disturb the peace of it all or I am to burnt out and just want to get the meal made and not instruct.  Either way I would like to assign E a weekly meal to fix with as little help from me as possible.  Here is a look at what she has done so far.  Strange how both meals included cheese.

E put together this lovely plate of Macaroni and Cheese.  This is our quick mac made with macaroni pasta, fresh cheddar cheese, salt and butter--no boxes here.

E making grilled cheese, she even added some leftover ham to the sandwiches.

I feel like this post is a bit choppie but the fact is it is hard to blog when children are running around and wanting my attention.  So thanks for visiting and leave us a comment to let us know you were here.  I am off to clean up breakfast and sew a skirt for our 5 year old (no I don't sew but we got a different machine and I said I would give it a crack once again).

Enjoy your week--hubs and I are off to the Beach Body Coaches Summit this week and Grandma is coming to stay with the children.  I bit of a break for us and some date time.

I linking up with Montessori Monday. Deb is talking about music appreciation, check it out.

Games for Language Arts

I have always loved games and was so excited when our children could finally play. Sorry, Go Fish, Memory and Clue were amongst my childhood favorites and  when I met Jay we spent long hours sipping tea and playing games like Gin and Cribbage.  Will you play a game with me?"  is a common question around here especially in the evening.  Games are not just recreational entertainment but a wonderful way to introduce a new topic, practice new skills or review previously learned materials.  Here are three games we use in the area of Language Arts:

Snap It Up Word Families-- Snap It UP is a fun game to practice word families, spelling skills and quick thinking. Each player is given consonant cards and word ending cards in which to build words.  The first player to build 3 words wins.

This is a great game for A because he needs a lot of reading practice and it gives him another way to build and read his own words.  Often, after we have a winner we just continue building as many words as we can until the deck runs out.

E is a great reader but needs a lot of spelling help, she often misspells words because she is in such a hurry to be done with her lessons.  Snap It Up causes her to take the time to think and sound out words.

Word Family Activity Wheel--This is a fun game for both our older and younger children.  E and A get spelling and writing practice and the little ones are entertained and exposed to early learning as they spin the wheel. This set is from Lakeshore Learning and came with an activity guide and 20 reproducible activity cards. I tried to link to the game but is appears they no longer have the game available.

The activity cards include things like bingo, charades, rhymes and drawing.

Bananagrams- Another fun word building and spelling game.  This one is a real challenge to build a crossword type puzzle using all of one's tiles.  I have watched the children sound out both real words and nonsense words in order to win the game. E has gotten good at doing her own spelling and A still needs help.

A grid that E built.

A sounding out words and building his puzzle.

A's finished grid.

I try to reserve Friday's for game playing and any wrapping up that needs to be done.  We have also taken a week and called it "Game Week". And sometimes we even pick a game to play for a month at a time, designating it to a certain day of the week.  I don't know, maybe it's just me, but games can really re-energize myself and the children and change the whole course of the day from just another school day to "the best day ever."

If you have never checked out Deb's Montessori Monday Posts check it out here, I am linking up every Monday to update our educational happenings for both our older and younger children.

Our Language Shelves

I recently got a chance to freshen up our language shelves. Our shelves include beginning, middle and advanced reading work as well as spelling and a bit of word study. I still need to do some refreshing of our grammar section so I will not show those shelves at this time but I hope you enjoy the peek. Now our shelves sit in a tight space under a window so the pictures were tough to take with a glaring background but it's really about the material anyway, right?

So here is our shelf--I laugh because I have already added a few new things for writing to the top section and a basket of cd roms for spelling, typing and reading practice.

This is our beginning reading shelf.

Here is the pink series work. In the back are cards for identifying end sounds and middle sound. In the middle is pink series picture cards to use with the moveable alphabet and in the front row are pink series cards and labels for reading and matching. To the right is a container of word books 1-4.

Also on the bottom shelf is a basket of mystery balls for word building. The balls are from Lakeshore Learning and contain an object and the letters to spell the object. And finally to the right is a Rhyming Word puzzle.

This is our intermediate reading shelf otherwise know as blue series work.

In the back is card sets for ending blends, the basket in the front contains blend cards for general practice and in the container on the right is objects and blank writing paper for spelling practice with you guessed it, blends. Also on the shelf, from right to left, is Scrabble Junior, Bob Books and a special gem given to me by a friend, Learn To Read Treasure Hunts.

This is also blue series work--in the back are cards to fill in either beginning, middle or ending blends, the blue bucket contains sentence strips for reading and the other material is blue series cards and labels.

Finally, our top shelf. On the top shelf from left to right--Bananagrams game, the Spelling Power Activity Box, spelling activity cards, letter and stamps for spelling activities and our activity envelopes from Take it to Your Seat Phonics Centers.

It is not necessary to feel like you have to spend a lot of money to create centers like ours, shop garage sales, thrift stores and children's consignment stores. There are also a lot of great sites to print free materials or purchase them inexpensively. Great free sites:

http://www.montessorimaterials.org/index.html

http://montessoriforlearning.com/FreeDownloadIndex.html


http://www.wikisori.org/index.php/Main_Page

Other sites that I have purchased printable materials from:

http://www.montessoriprintshop.com/Montessori_Print_Shop_Home.html

http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to share your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you.