Beginning and Middle Sounds

The children have to find the missing beginning and middle letter sound.

Cards like these can be found at Montessori Print Shop, Montessori For Everyone, Montessori For Learning

Gingerbread Man Uppercase/Lowercase Letter Matching

The children match the lowercase (baby gingerbread) letter with the uppercase (mama gingerbread) letter.  I wrote numbers on the uppercase and the lowercase letters for self checking.

Five Little Pumpkins

After reading the book "Five Little Pumpkins" many times to the children, I put out this work on the shelf.  I used some brown construction paper to make a gate and some orange paper to make 5 pumpkins with the numbers 1-5 written on them.  The children place the pumpkins on the gate in numerical order and then they can retell the story.  Big hit in my class this year.

Jack-o-lantern Matching

As a pre-reading activity, the students match the jack-o-lantern faces.

Leaf Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Matching

I cut out leaf shapes and then cut them in half with different designs.  I then wrote an uppercase letter on the top of the leaf and the lowercase letter on the back of the leaf.  The students then matched the uppercase with the lowercase.  I placed a number on the back of each leaf so they could check their work.  For some of the more advanced students I encouraged them to put the leaves in alphabetical order.

Pink Material Bags

My aunt helped me make these cute bags for the pink material picture/word matching.  There are 5 bags labeled with each vowel.  Here is the "a" bag.  The students lay the picture cards along the left side of the rug and the word cards are placed in a pile.  The students sound out the word and then match it to the picture.

Sand Paper Letters Variation

After the students had been introduced to a group of letters then we play the knock, knock game.  We lay the sand paper letters face down on the rug.  Then the teacher knocks on one of the sand paper letters and the student says, "whose there?"  Then they turn the letter over and say the sound of the letter.  Here is a picture of the students doing the work on their own.

Pink Material Word/Object Match

I found some objects that are CVC words.  I then made some cards that had a picture of the object and the 3-letter word on them.  I then printed just word cards.  The students place the picture/word cards out and then place the object and word card with the picture/word card.  Great beginning pink material work.

Metal Inset Variation

Here a student is making an egg using an idea card.

Here are the idea cards that I made for the students to use to get inspired to use the metal insets.  The cards have really sparked a new interest in using the metal insets.

Color Words Spelling Tiles

The students use letter tiles to spell the color words.  They just have to match the letter tile to the letters on each card.  To make it more challenging you can print the cards without the letters.  As an extension I have the students make a color book by coloring the crayon and writing the word on the line.  I have included the files below so you could make your own set.  When printing out the files print them in black and white otherwise all the crayons will be orange.  When I made the file the crayons were in black and white but for some reason when I upload them to googledrive the crayons are orange.  Crazy technology.

color word spelling: black and yellow
color word spelling: blue and pink
color word spelling: brown and gray
color word spelling: green and orange
color word spelling: red
color word spelling: white and purple
color word spelling blackline master

Handwriting Without Tears

A few years ago I attended a Handwriting Without Tears workshop.  This is an exciting curriculum that teaches students about proper ways to write.  This activity is the stamp and see work.  The student places the card on the magnetic board and uses the magnetic lines and curves to form the letter.  When they take the card off the letter is on the board and then they can trace the letter with the magnet pen.

Check out the Handwriting Without Tears website for more information about the curriculum and their workshops.

Alphabet Fishing

I got these lowercase magnetic letters from Lakeshore  The consonents are blue and the vowels are red just like the moveable alphabet.  They also have uppercase letters.  I just tied a magnet to a dowel to make the fishing pole.  I placed the letters on the copy machine and made a color copy.  Then I glued the paper onto cardboard and covered it with contact paper.  The students love fishing for the letters and matching them to the letters on the board.  Even if the youngest students enjoy this work.

Journals

Here is a journal entry from a young 4-year-old.  He drew his picture and then dictated to the teacher.  The teacher wrote his words on the opposite page in yellow marker.  He then traces the yellow.  This helps him practice holding the pencil and the correct way to form the letters.  It also teaches him left to right and top to bottom order of writing.

This journal entry is from a 5-year-old student.  He drew his picture and dictated to the teacher.  Instead of the teacher writing his words in yellow she drew lines for each word.  The student then had to write the words on his own on the lines.  If the word was one of his sight words he had to spell them correctly by looking in his sight word book.  Otherwise he had to spell them phonetically by sounding out the word.

 

This journal entry is also done by a 5-year-old student.  He drew his picture and then wrote the words on his own.

I usually do journals on Fridays and those students that don't attend school on Friday do their journals on Thursdays.  But as the end of the school year approached the students had been asking to do their journals more often.  I wasn't going to argue.

ABC Tubes

I have filled these baby soda bottle test tubes that I got from Steve Spangler Science with items that begin with each letter of the alphabet.  I have the students put the letters in alphabetical order and then they have to match the tubes with the correct beginning sound of the item in the tube.  I have also included cards with the letter and the object so they can check their work when they are done.  The students really love this activity at any age.  I have the younger students just match the letter and tube to the card.

a: ant

b: buttons

c: cotton

d: dice

e: erasers (I had a very hard time finding objects that started with the short vowel sounds that would fit into the tubes)

f: feather

g: glitter

h: foam hearts

i: iguana

j: jelly beans

k: keys

l: leaf

m: marbles

n: noodles

o: oatmeal

p: paper clips

q: Q-tips

r: rocks

s: sand

t: telephone

u: umbrellas (I used the drink umbrellas)

v: velcro

w: water

x: x-ray

y: yellow yarn

z: zipper

Sound Books

I use the Three Period Lesson to introduce letter sounds to my students:   
1. I show them the sand paper letter and say the sound (not the letter name).  I then trace the letter and say the sound. 
2. I have them trace the letter and say the sound
3. I have them tell me what the letter sound is. 
If they can tell me the letter sound I write the letter in their sound book.  If they have trouble remembering what the letter is we do the three period lesson again.

When we meet to do sounds again we will review the letters in their sound books.  If they don't remember a letter sound then I fold the corner of the page and we will review the sound with the sand paper letters.  If they know all the sounds in their books then we will add a new letter.

This is the order that I introduce the letters: a, s, m, e, t, c, o, p, u, d, f, j, g, l, b, i, n, w, r, h, y, q, z, k, v, x.

Here is a link to google docs for a template for the sound book covers: Sound Book Covers

To help the students hear the letter sounds in words I made these letter sound books.  In each book there are pictures of objects that begin with those letters.  I grouped 6-7 letters together and color coded them so they would be easier to organize.  The first six letters a, s, m, e, t, and c are red and are stored in the red basket.  I couldn't find different color baskets like what I wanted so I used white plastic baskets and used a Sharpie to color the edge.  The students then can place them into the correct basket when they are done.

When saying the name of the object on the page I say the beginning sound 2 times and then say the name that way they can hear the beginning sound clearly.  Example: /t/, /t/, turtle

 This is how the books are stored on the language arts shelf.

 The baskets in front of the books have sound sorting cards.

My Montessori Journey: Montessori-Language has great ideas for introducing sound books

Montessori Guide

Montessori AMI Primary Guide is a great website that gives a step-by-step guide to using Montessori materials with explainations as to why the materials are important to the students. 

Metal Insets

Using metal insets gives the students an opportunity to strengthen their eye hand coordination, fine motor and writing skills.  As the students trace the insets they are learning how to properly hold a pencil and how to apply proper pressure when using a pencil.  The student places a metal inset paper onto the tray and places the inset over the paper.  They then trace the inset and color it in before removing inset.  An extension to this work is to have the students write the name of the shape at the bottom of the page and then staple all the pages together to make a shape book.

Here you can see that the student colored in the shape and then labeled the shapes.  When she was done she stapled the pages together.

This is how the metal insets are displayed on the shelf.  We only have on set out at a time and we switch them periodically to help keep their interest in using them.  We also show them how to use the different shapes to make things like Easter eggs, Christmas trees, flowers, balloons, etc.

The Montessori At Home With Love blog has some great info about metal insets http://montessori-in-the-home.blogspot.com/

Here is a link to a printout that you can use if you would like to make your own metal insets http://www.montessorimaterials.org/Language/metalInsets.pdf

Discovery Days and Montessori Moments also have some different ways to use the metal insets http://discoverydaysandmontessorimoments.blogspot.com/2012/01/montessori-essentials-metal-insets.html

Pink Word Lists

This pink word list is from the NAMC Early Childhood Language Arts Teacher Training Manual.  You can create your own by making a list of CVC (consonant-vowel-consonat) words.  The students sound out the letters and read the words.  Montessori Print Shop has pink word lists http://www.shop.montessoriprintshop.com/Pink-Word-Lists-LF-1c.htm.  Homemade Montessori also has some word lists and other pink materials to print http://homemademontessori.blogspot.com/2008/10/pink-series-word-lists-pictures-and.html

As an extension I have the students write the words on a word paper so they can practice handwriting and then they are able to take the word list home so they can read the words to their families.

Moveable Alphabet

The students use the moveable alphabet to phonetically spell words.  I don't correct the students when the words are not spelled right unless it is a CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word.  The cards that are being used in this picture are from Lakeshore.  The words are printed on the back so they can self check if they would like.

Getting Started

As I am about to wrap up my 2nd year of teaching in a montessori classroom I decided to start a montessori blog as a way for me to look back at what I did each month in the classroom.  I started realizing as the months went by that it was hard to remember what I did each month for each area of the classroom.  So to add to my already hectic life of raising a 6-year-old and a 6-month-old I decided to start a blog as a way to remember and also so others could get some ideas from me.  I hope you are able to get some inspiration from my photos and posts.