Pilgrim Colors

I printed these cute color pilgrims from childcareland.com.  The students place a clothes pin on the color that matches the rectangle that the pilgrim is holding.  Not pictured are cards that have the color word on the rectangle instead of the color.  The students have to read the word and then place a clip on the correct color.

Brown Stair Extension

I traced the brown stairs and copied it onto brown paper.  The students then cut the stairs out and glue then in order from largest to smallest.  Another extension that could be done is to have the students trace the brown stair themselves and then pin prick the individual stairs.

Halloween Sensorial

I got these cut printouts from 1plus1equals1.  I stored them in a large mailing envelope for lack of a better place to store them at the time. 

The students cut the pumpkins or spiders out.

After they have cut out all the pumpkins/spiders, they lay them out from biggest to smallest and then glue them down.  The students love doing cutting and gluing work so that they can display their work around the classroom for others to see.  They are so proud of their hard work.



Color Tablet Box 3 Variation

I got this idea from Our Montessori Homeschool.  I got some paint samples from a hardware store (2 of each).  I laminated on set and then cut the other set small enough to fit onto the clothespins.  The students then match the colors on the clothespins to the color on the paint sample.  This helps with color grading from darkest to lighest.  This work also helps with their fine motor skills.

Making Shapes

For this work the students create the shapes and learn how many sides each shape has by placing the popsicle sticks on the lines of the shapes.  Each shape is a different color and they have matching sticks.  The hexagon is red and their are 6 red sticks.  The shapes that are included in this work are triangle, square, diamond, pentagon, and hexagon.  Colored match sticks could be used so that you are able to fit shapes with more sides on the paper.  I was only able to go up to a hexagon because an octagon wouldn't fit on the paper.

 

This activity is adapted from Make Like a Montessori Mama

Color Sorting Task

This work has pegs that vary in color from darkest to lightest.  The children have to sort the colors first.  Then they take a peg and drag it along the color board to find the matching color.  Then they place it in the holder in the correct place.

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. 

Brown Stairs and Pink Tower Extensions

Here one of my students is building an extension with the pink tower and the brown stair.  He used some picture cards that we printed out from our Montessori classroom guide book.  But you could get extension cards from The Montessori Print Shop http://www.shop.montessoriprintshop.com/Pink-Tower-Broad-Stair-Pattern-Cards-Set-1-SenF-8.htm

Here is a blog that shows pictures of some brown stair and pink tower extensions http://montessoristory.blogspot.com/2012/01/free-pink-towerbrown-stair-extensions.html

Knobless Cylinders

The knobless cylinders are a sensorial work that teaches the students to recognize similarities and differences in sizes and to strengthen their eye hand coordination.  The Montessori Print Shop website has some printable extension cards to use with this work http://www.shop.montessoriprintshop.com/Knobless-Cylinder-Pattern-Cards-1-SenF-1.htm.  The Work Plan blog also has some great ideas for knobless cylinder extensions http://www.theworkplan.blogspot.com/2011/04/knobless-cylinders-extensions.html

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.