good tree montessori homeschool

5 boxes of constructive triangles can cost upwards of $70, discounted.

the folks at jmj publishing
have all 5 sets of printable constructive triangles
here: http://www.jmjpublishing.com/sensorial.htm
(thanks lori from montessori for everyone [dot] com)
including a template for the boxes ( ! )
along with other dollar-saving printouts.

“The constructive triangles are used to demonstrate that all plane geometric figures can be constructed from triangles. There are five boxes: 2 rectangular, 1 triangular, and 1 large and 1 small hexagonal. Each box contains triangles of different sizes, shapes, and colors. With the exception of Rectangular Box 2, black guidelines are painted in different positions on the triangles to help the child to construct other figures. This should be encouraged as an exploratory work that will provide a foundation for later concepts of equivalency, similarity, and congruency.” (http://www.montessoriworld.org/sensfile/sconstr.html)

sanaa loves ironing.
a travel iron is just her size and weight.
we lower a regular ironing board to her height.
after spending a good 20 minutes
carefully removing all the wrinkles on a t-shirt and pair of jeans
she proudly lays out her work before putting on her clothes.

sanaa and rahmah have been doing sorting exercises since they were two.
i try to keep sorting a compelling exercise by changing the materials
and using a blindfold to make it even more challenging.

all natural materials: shells, cowrie shells, stones and cork.

weaving with paper strips

we tore out pictures from muslim girl magazine
and cut it into strips leaving about an inch from the ends.
then sanaa used ribbon scraps to weave in color.

develops pincer grasp.
after trying it a few times,
we made it more challenging by putting the ramekins farther apart.

sanaa is using the addition strip board to complete addition tables.

she was so excited to find the answers herself
that she completed all the tables,
1 through 9,
in the same day.

often she did not even use the table.
she would start counting from the first addend,
then add the second addend
by tapping her finger on the table to count it out.
e.g.: if the problem was 6 + 3
she was start from six and then,
tap her finger on the table 3 times saying, “…seven, eight, nine.”
amazing!

then, about halfway through, she figured out the pattern
and confidently declared that she knew her answers were correct.
even so, she graciously checked her work
against the answers.

this is going to be fun,
but i’ve got to make sure i’m prepared
so I can keep up with HER.

when the hype of the beautiful montessori tools gets to me
i try to remind myself
that practical life activities
including care of the self,
care of the environment,
and grace and courtesy work
are just as important
and required materials are often simply me,
the child
and an open mind.

this montessori web site
has a thorough set of practical life, sensorial, language, mathematics activities
for 3-6 year olds:
www.infomontessori.com/

rahmah sorting magnetic and non-magnetic items.

sanaa using the decimal cards and golden beads
to solve an addition problem.

317 + 162 = 479