We had a short preschool mini-unit at our house the other week.  It was only one day, but we had just enough time to learn a little bit about flowers.  I made a practical life tray where the kids threaded flower petals onto a string.  This tray was prepared by taking apart a dollar store lei.  (They have lots of leis in the stores right now for summer parties.)  I tied one of the flower petals onto the end of the string to prevent the child from pulling it all the way through the string and off the other side.

I also made a counting circle from a paper plate, which the kids loved.  I think I’ll be making many more of these.  I divided the paper plate to where it looks like pizza slices and then drew various numbers of flowers on each slice.  Next, I wrote the corresponding numbers on the clothes pins and the kids pin the correct number on the correlating slice.  This helps the child with coordination, pincer grasp and counting.

We also read a lot of books about flowers.  Ava’s Poppy, Planting a Rainbow and my personal favorite: One Little Seed.  I also have a really cute and easy arts & crafts project that I’ll try to share with you tomorrow.

If you want to take your flower education even further, here are some other great ideas:

1. Discovery Days and Montessori Moments has two wonderful Botany posts:  Stem Week and Flowers.
2. Montessori Print Shop has Parts of a Flower 3-Part Cards, a Flower Nomenclature Book, Pollination & Seed Dispersal Cards and FREE Seed & Plant Matching Cards.
3. Living Montessori NOW has Montessori-Inspired Flower Activities and Free Flower Printables and Montessori-Inspired Flower Math Activities.

I hope you guys are having a great week.  It’s been a little crazy over here, but I’m really working on simplifying my life and letting go of some of my high expectations.  I’m vowing to take care of myself a little bit more.  I think as moms, we get so caught up in caring for everyone else that we forget to care for ourselves.  Or at least I do.  I hope you’ll take a MOMent for yourself this week.  You deserve it.

In addition to some fun “water themed” trays during preschool, we also had “fish themed” snacks.  It was funny to see the kids’ personalities come out during our “fishing for snack” time.  Some kids worked really hard to dip their pretzel fishing rods into the cream cheese and then pick up a fish, bubble or shell.  Others gave up on the “fishing” technique and shoveled as many fish in their mouths as they could.

The second picture shows a rice cake smeared with blue-dyed cream cheese with goldfish crackers and broccoli coral.  It also has an orange boat with a cheese sail.  The kids weren’t too crazy about the rice cake so I would say that one was pretty much a fail, but they really liked everything else.

p.s.  The plate on the right was mine when I was little.  I love seeing my kids use them too!

I’ve never been a mom that makes sensory bins, but I’ve recently been making them for Asher’s preschool group and I’m kind of kicking myself for not making them earlier. They are so much fun! This bin uses the glass floral rocks as the “water” and I added shells, a shark and a boat. In circle time we talked a lot about what lives in water and other things we can find in water. We focused a lot on fish, shells and boats. I also hid fish, starfish and sea turtle shaped erasers and gold coins under the water for them to “hunt” for.

I always thought these seemed like a lot of work for little educational purposes, but now I see how much they benefit the kids.  They love searching through the bin, learning and role-playing.  What do you think?  Do you like sensory bins?

The children absolutely loved this tray. They loved looking at the natural beauty of the shells, feeling the slick, shiny surface and observing their similarities and differences. In a way, I felt like this tray combined both nature and sorting trays into one. We introduced shells in circle time when we talked about things you find in the ocean.  We also used the shells in circle time to line them up in order from big to small and then small to big.

Collecting shells on the beach has always been one of my favorite vacation past-times.  There’s something so relaxing and peaceful about walking along the beach picking up shells.  Just looking at this tray brings it all back to me.  I hope it takes you there too.

Okay, okay, I know. Where have I been!?!?!  I’ve actually been on a spiritual hiatus. I received a special blessing this past Sunday so I’ve been abstaining from tv entirely and the computer for the most part in order to prepare for it. Instead, I’ve been reading my scriptures, reading other religious texts & talks, praying and spending time with my family. It all paid off yesterday when I had a wonderfully spiritual moment between my Heavenly Father and me. One that moved me to tears and I’ll never forget it.

Now I’m back though and I have lots of fun “water” themed trays to share with you. Here’s the first one which is so easy to make. All you need is an egg carton and goldfish crackers.  These goldfish crackers played many different roles in my preschool week. We also did goldfish graphing and goldfish patterns (the book in this post is amazing too). We even had a “fishing” themed snack where the kids fished for goldfish crackers. You’ll see more of these little guys in the week to come.

I hope you are all having a great start to your week.  We had class outside today in our friend’s “secret garden.”  Teaching outside is one of my favorite things about homeschooling.  What’s your favorite thing?

Here area a few of my Preschool Schedule tips:

1. Keep your schedule flexible. Follow the lead of the children, but have enough structure to keep their attention.
2. Consider assigning help during circle time instead of asking for volunteers.  It will save you the time of “pick me, pick me” and the kids feelings won’t get hurt when they aren’t picked.  I rotate through the kids for the subjects each time I teach so they all get a turn at everything.  The weather is always the favorite.
3. Please have a wiggle song or more than one!  The kids need to get their energy out in a fun way.
4. Give them plenty of time for snack because this is also when they socialize.  Their little conversations are so cute and they need this time to develop their conversation skills.
5. Include a gross motor skill such as crawling, skipping, walking a line, etc.  This is just as important as fine motor.
6. Include as much Montessori time as your kids will find success with.  My kids only get Montessori at my house so their attention spans aren’t quite as developed as kids that get it every day.  The thirty minutes works really well for us, but your kids might be able to do a couple of hours.

I hope that helps those of you who are considering setting up a Preschool Co-op.  I’ll be back tomorrow with my first “water themed tray” of our Preschool week.

1. Start with reading through your section of the Teacher’s Manual. It will most likely have it split by weeks or days so you can choose your curriculum for the week.
2. Make a loose Schedule, but remember that it’s flexible. It’s really just to give you a good idea if you’ve planned too much or too little. Also, it helps me remember everything I had planned for the day. I’ll post more about the preschool schedule tomorrow.
3. Set out a Puzzles & Play Time Area the night before. It helps me feel more relaxed that morning, while I’m getting my kids ready and fed. The kids will go here to play while they wait for everyone to arrive.
4. Set up your Circle Time Area the night before. Lay out the seat mats, put up your bulletin board and place all your “teacher’s materials” next to you.  I also plan another area with “back-up materials” in case we have more time to go more in-depth.  For instance, I had 3 differing sized shells for them to put in order small to big, objects for them to sort according to the sound they start with, a puzzle to review shapes, a land | water | air activity and parts of a fish cards.
5. Prepare the Snack in the morning before the kids arrive. In this “fishing for snack” themed snack I have everything but the cream cheese sitting out on the counter ready to go.  Then, I just have to add the refrigerated portion last-minute while they are washing their hands and we are ready to go.  You don’t want to make hungry kids wait!  ;)
6. During their Montessori Work Cycle, I sort their art projects into their backpacks and pack up all of the teacher materials in a single cloth bag to pass on to the next mom who’s teaching.

Then, after they all leave, I take a deep breath.  Preschool is rewarding and crazy all at the same time.  Believe me, the prep work is really worth it and will make your day a lot more enjoyable.  Here are some images showing you exactly how I prep.

{ Circle Time Area Ready for the Morning. }

{ Area for the “teacher’s materials” right next to the bulletin board.  The kids know not to touch this area until I hand them the materials. }

{ Back-up materials to fill in time if needed. }

{Puzzles & Play Time Area ready for them to arrive in the morning. }

So, if a Preschool Co-op really isn’t your thing, I’ll be back to Montessori based posts & materials on Wednesday.  I hope you have a great week!

I’ve had a few questions from readers about the Preschool Co-op I’m participating in. Our co-op is made up of four 3 & 4 year-old children and we meet in our homes on Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00-11:30 am.  It’s been a wonderful way for us to work through Asher’s separation anxiety while still educating in the home.  It’s also nice because it’s very low in cost.  We all pitch in our time for teaching and we split the curriculum costs evenly between the moms.

Here are the steps to set up a Preschool Co-Op:

1. Find a group of moms that you trust with your child. The moms in my co-op are friends from church, but it could also be long-time friends, neighbors or fellow homeschoolers.  I recommend keeping the groups between 4 and 6 kids.  Less than 4 seems like too little and you’ll be teaching very frequently.  More than 6 starts to feel like herding wild animals.
2. Decide on the school year calendar. Our group goes along with the local public school calendar. It helps the moms that have older children in public school plan vacations and family time.
3. Pick a curriculum. We chose the Firefly Curriculum from Funshine Express. They send a packet monthly with a Teacher Pack (instructions) and materials for Circle Time and Arts & Crafts.
4. Organize a teaching schedule.  Rotate through the moms until everyone is teaching equally.  Fill in extra days with field trips and parties.  Schedule Winter & Spring Breaks.  This schedule can be flexible as emergencies arise.  We swap with other moms as needed.
5. Buy supplies.  Either assign one mom to gather supplies for all the children or have each mom buy supplies for her child.  We bought pencil cases, crayons, glue-sticks, safety scissors and a folder for each child.  Make sure you label the boxes.  Each child also brings a backpack to school to carry their items.

It’s really quite easy to set up a Preschool Co-op.  The hardest part is finding the group of moms you mesh well with and trust enough to teach your child.  Our co-op is not Montessori based, although I do introduce the children to Montessori materials in my home.

Have you ever thought of setting up a Preschool Co-op?

p.s.  We had preschool at our house this week, which explains the silence on the blog.  Our theme was “water” and I have lots of fun stuff to share next week.

Have you ever thought you really want to try Montessori at home, but you aren’t really sure where to start?  I get lots of questions from readers about how to start Montessori at home and I try my best to answer them, but a short answer from a Montessori MOM will never be as encompassing as an instruction book.  This eBook, Montessori at Home will guide you through the process of creating a Montessori environment at home for your 3-6 year-old child (and it’s only $10.95).

One of the best parts of the book is the Quick Start Guide on page 8.  This is a great place to get started; to avoid getting overwhelmed.  It gives you 6 easy steps to get started.  It starts with educating yourself about Montessori and then picking your first activity to present to your child.  It then gives you the steps of how Montessori work is traditionally completed by the child.  The eBook will go over how to present a Montessori material, how to store them and it has tons of ideas for trays.  Plus, you’ll get to see pictures which will give you a visual of how the materials should look.  A few photos of John Robert and Asher are even in the book (and one of me too – see if you can find it).

If you want even more than the eBook, two of my favorite people, John of Montessori at Home and Jennifer of Montessori Print Shop,havejoined forces to provide you with a great package.  You can get the Montessori at Home eBook and 21 Montessori Print Shop printables that go along with it for $24.95 .  It’s called the Montessori at Home Materials Bundle and you can purchase it here.  We love MPS materials because it takes a lot of the prep work out of creating materials.  We use their materials A LOT!  Here’s an image that shows you what their materials look like, so you can decide for yourself if they would be helpful in your homeschool.

I am an affiliate of Montessori at Home.  That means I have chosen to support this eBook because it will help many homeschool moms.  A Montessori education is expensive.  It’s something that I have struggled with myself.  After much consideration, I decided to educate my children at home using the Montessori Method.  If you are considering doing the same, the Montessori at Home eBook will help you tremendously.  I do receive a referral fee if you purchase the book upon my recommendation.  If you do purchase it, please let them know I sent you.  There’s a button at the top of my sidebar that will take you to the site.

Really, I don’t care as much about the commission as I do about helping you out (honestly).  Montessori is incredible for your kids, but it can be overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.  Maybe Montessori at Home is the answer you’ve been waiting for.