In The Classrooms With...Our Four Year Olds ~ Part 2

Here is Part 2 of In The Classrooms With...Our Four Year Olds. These photographs were taken during the months of January to April.  Please note that the children in these photographs are in their second year of the three year Montessori casa (preschool) program.  These children will all turn five in this calendar year and are of Junior Kindergarten age.

Montessori Pink, Blue and Green Reading Scheme

As discussed in Part 1 of this blog post, reading in the Montessori classroom begins with learning the primary sounds made by the letters of the alphabet.  This is done with the Sandpaper Letters which will be discussed in an upcoming post.  This work begins at 2 1/2+ years of age. Children in their second year of the Montessori casa program are reading and spelling words.

There are three reading schemes - pink, blue and green.

Pink, Blue and Green Object Boxes

The pink scheme consists of two and three letter phonetic words such as fox and sun.  The blue scheme consists of words of four or more letters.  Blends such as fr (frog), bl (blanket) are introduced along with double letters such as tt (button) and bb (rabbit).  The green scheme introduces phonograms, two letters that come together to form a totally different sound such as the 'or' box pictured.   The phonogram 'or' is in red on the reading card.  This highlights the sound we are working with.

The children in the following photographs have been reading independently for some time and take home their own reading books each day.  In the photographs, they are using the Large Moveable Alphabet to spell the names of the objects found within the boxes.  Vowels are in blue and consonants are in pink. This is one of the many ways that the object boxes are used in the classrooms.

Large Moveable Alphabet

A. is working with one of the Pink Object Boxes. Her teacher will place an object on A.'s tray.  They will say the word together.  A. will then take her tray to the Large Moveable Alphabet and find the letters needed to spell the word.  She will show her teacher and place both the object and the letters on her mat. 

A. is spelling words with the Pink Object Box.

A.'s work on the tray.

A. is placing her letters on her mat.

E. is working with a Blue Object Box.  The procedure is the same.

There are many different language activities for all three reading schemes.  In these photographs, K. is independently reading the Blue Reading Books that are part of the blue reading scheme. These are not the reading books that the children take home. These materials are found on our Language shelves.

Blue Reading Scheme Reading Book

When spelling words with the Green Phonogram Boxes, the children use the Small Moveable Alphabet Boxes.  One box has black letters and one box has red letters.  The red letters are used to highlight the phonogram. 

Small Moveable Alphabet Boxes

Five year old A. is working independently with the 'ow' phonogram box.  She chooses the object she would like to begin with and finds the letters needed to spell the word.

A. is spelling snowman.

A. is placing her letters on her mat.

Once A. has spelled all of the words she reads the reading cards and matches them with the objects and letters.

A. is reading and matching the reading cards.

(Ontario Curriculum Note: When reading the Ontario Language Curriculum document, I found the expectations for spelling and reading to be somewhat vague.  The document does state that by the end of Grade 1 children are expected to use phonics as an aid to learning new words.)

Telling Time With the Clock

The Montessori clock material consists of a wooden clock face and loose numerals in a box.  

The Clock Face

Loose Numerals

The red numerals are numbers 1 to 12.  The blue numerals represent the numbers needed for the 24 hour clock (13 t0 24).


N. has worked with the clock before.  Here she is constructing the clock face by putting the numerals in order. 

Once the numerals are all in place, her teacher asks her to make certain times.  N. is currently working on 'o'clock'.

N. has formed 3 o'clock.

Once the child has done a lot of work with the clock, the clock game can be played.

The clock game consists of a box with clock faces - o'clock, half past, quarter past, quarter to - and labels.  (Please note that a child must be familiar with fractions in order to introduce half past, quarter past and quarter to.  Our five year olds have worked with fractions and are learning to tell more complex time.)

The Clock Game Material

S. is working with the o'clock cards.  The cards were mixed and he has placed them in order on his mat. 

On another day, S. worked with the clock and a clock sheet.

S. is working with the clock and a clock sheet.

(Ontario Curriculum Note:  The Mathematics curriculum states that by the end of Grade 1 children are expected to read analog clocks, and tell and write time to the hour and half-hour.  By the end of Grade 2 children are expected to read digital and analog clocks as well as tell and write time to the quarter hour.)

Printing

Learning to write begins very early in the Montessori classroom with the preparation of the hand.  A variety of materials and activities in all areas of the classroom - Sensorial, Practical Life, Mathematics, Culture and Language - indirectly and directly prepare the child's hand for writing.  The Sandpaper Letters play a major role in both preparing the child for reading and writing.  They will be discussed in a future post.

Along the path to writing, the children begin with the Sandpaper Letters.  They then move to practicing their letters on the unlined chalkboard, the lined chalkboard and pink-lined paper.  At this point in the Montessori curriculum, all of our four year olds are writing letters and words.  In some cases they are also writing small sentences and stories.

Here are photographs of E. printing in her printing book.

E. is printing words in her printing book.

E. is displaying wonderful powers of concentration.

A page from E.'s printing book.

(Ontario Curriculum Note:  By the end of Grade 1 children are expected to print capitals and lowercase letters as well as leave spaces between words.)

The Hundred Board

The Hundred Board consists of a board divided into one hundred squares and a box with wooden tiles numbered one to one hundred.  This material challenges the child to order individual numbers to one hundred.

L. and N. are working with the Hundred Board.  Both boys can count and write numbers to one hundred.  They are also working with the Golden Bead Material to form and read complex numbers up to 9,999.

There are a few ways that this material can be worked with. In the following  photographs the boys have taken all of the tiles out of the box and ordered them into piles.  The numbers 1 to 10 are in one pile, numbers 11 to 20 are in another pile etc.  They then take one pile at a time and organize the numbers to one hundred. 

L. and N. are working with the tiles for numbers in the forties.

N. is placing a tile in the forties row.

Another way to work with this material is to leave all of the tiles in the box and randomly choose one.  This can also be done by placing the tiles in a bag and randomly choosing one. N. particularly enjoys this way as it is like a surprise.  Once a tile is chosen, N. places it in the correct spot on the board.

(Ontario Curriculum Note:  By the end of Grade 1 children are expected to read and print numerals from zero to one hundred.)


In The Classrooms With...Our Three Year Olds coming soon.

Our Easter "Hoppenings"

Our little yellow school was hopping this week as the children engaged in some Easter activities.  Our favourite activity was decorating eggs with our egg spinner.

Each child got to choose their own dye colours and squirt a little on their egg.  

An egg and dye in the egg spinner.

Next it was time to spin the egg.

After a few spins the egg was ready.

A Finished Egg

Each child made their own delightful little basket to hold their egg. 

The Baskets

Ready to Take Home

Wishing everyone a very happy long weekend!

Happy Easter!

In The Classrooms With...Our Four Year Olds ~ Part 1

Here is Part 1 in a continuing series about what our four year olds are currently working with in our Montessori classrooms.  We previously discussed the work our five year olds were doing. These photographs were taken during the months of January - April.  Please note that the children in these photographs are in their second year of the Montessori three year preschool curriculum.  These children will all turn five in this calendar year and are of Junior Kindergarten age. 

Skip Counting with the Bead Chains

The Bead Chains were described in detail in the post titled In The Classrooms With...Our Four Year Olds - Part 2.  At the simplest level, the chains are a counting exercise to practice the order of numbers.  That after 42 comes 43 etc.  At the next level, this material illustrates skip counting, counting by ones, twos, threes etc. all the way up to counting by tens. Towards the end of the casa program and in the lower elementary, this material is indirect preparation for the memorization of the multiplication tables.

In the following photographs, recently turned five year old S. is working with the cube chain of 5 (5 x 5 x 5 = 125).  

First, the chain is counted and the number arrows are laid out. In the case of the five chain, the numbers on the arrows will correspond to every fifth bead counted (5, 10, 15, 20 etc. to 125).

The chain has been counted.  S. is setting out the squares of five.  There are five of them and one cube of five.

A close up of the chain.  The square above the 25 represents one square of five.

As an extension, S. was invited to make his own paper five chain. He went to the files and took out the five chain paper. He then wrote all of the numbers of the cube chain of 5 (numbers 5 to 125) and coloured the beads.

S. is writing the numbers of the cube chain of 5.

S. is holding the completed paper chain.

A close up of the completed paper chain.

This work took a good deal of time, yet S. never lost interest. His mom told us that this work is so precious to him and that he keeps it in a special place at home so his little sister won't touch it.

(Ontario Curriculum Note:  Counting beyond 100 is part of the overall expectations by the end of Grade 3.)

Montessori Blue Reading Scheme

Reading in the Montessori classroom begins with learning the primary sounds made by the letters of the alphabet.  This is done with the Sandpaper Letters.  (These will be described in the upcoming posts about our three year olds.)  Children in their second year of the Montessori program are reading and spelling words.

There are three reading schemes - pink, blue and green.  The pink scheme focuses on two and three letter phonetic words such as ax, web, and ant.  The blue scheme consists of words of four or more letters.  Blends such as tr (trunk), bl (blanket) and dr (drum) are introduced along with double letters such as ck (truck) and tt (button).  The green scheme introduces phonograms, two letters that come together to form a totally different sound such as sh (shell) and oy (boy).  Each of these reading schemes consist of object boxes and various reading exercises.

The child in the photographs has worked with the blue object boxes and is able to read, write and spell words of four letters or greater.  He has a reading book which he takes home from school each day.  In the photographs, he is working with the Blue Reading Comprehension Cards.

Recently turned five year old L. takes the reading comprehension cards and the basket of objects.  He sets the objects out on the mat and reads a sentence card.  He then finds the objects and does what the card says.

Sentence Cards and Objects

Acting out "The hog drinks from the pan."

(Ontario Curriculum Note:  By the end of Grade 1 children are expected to use their knowledge and experience to understand what they read.)

The Montessori Printed (Story) Alphabet

The Montessori Printed (Story) Alphabet is a material that is in constant use in our classrooms by children in their second and third years of the Montessori preschool program.  In October 2013 a blog post was written about it.  It can be accessed through the blog archive.

This material consists of a box filled with the letters of the alphabet printed in lower case on one side and upper case on the other.  The box also contains punctuation symbols.  This material is used for writing words, sentences and creative writing.

In the photographs, recently turned five year old E. has written a story with the Printed Alphabet.

E.'s story about flowers.

She has written it in her storybook and is now making an illustration to go along with her story.

E. has written her story and is drawing a picture to go with it.

E.'s Story

 (Ontario Curriculum Note:  By the end of Grade 1 children are expected to write simple but complete sentences using capitals to begin sentences and a period at the end of a statement.)

The Puzzle Maps ~ Map of the Continents

The study of Geography begins with the introduction of the Land and Water globe. This globe is introduced to our youngest students ( 2 1/2+).

The Land and Water Globe is on the left.  The Continents Globe is on the right.

The Land and Water Globe represents the surface of the Earth and shows land (the sandpaper surface) and water (the smooth, blue surface). 

Once the child is familiar with this globe, they are introduced to the Continents Globe.  The continents globe has a smooth, blue surface for water.  Each continent has a raised, smooth painted surface - yellow for Asia, green for Africa, orange for North America, pink for South America, white for Antarctica, brown for Australasia and red for Europe. When the child is familiar with the Continents Globe, they are introduced to the Map of the Continents.

The children in these photographs have worked with the Map of the Continents and would like to make their own paper map of the continents.  Although each of the children in the photographs can read, one of our graduates, Z. (on the far left) is helping them to read the continents labels.  In a Montessori classroom, older children help the younger ones. The two girls on the right are of JK age while the girl sitting beside Z. is a preschooler, illustrating that age is not a restriction in the Montessori classroom. 

Labeling the Continents

  
The girls then coloured their maps and wrote the names of each of the continents.

Writing the names of the continents.

The completed map of a JK aged child.

The completed map of a preschooler.

Recently turned five year old L. also wanted to make his own map of the continents.  L. can read and decided to use the atlas to help him label his map.

Five year old L. hard at work.

L.'s completed map.

(Ontario Curriculum Note:  By the end of Grade 2, children are expected to identify the earth as a sphere and demonstrate an understanding that the globe is a model of the earth.  Continents are also introduced at this time.)


In The Classrooms With...Our Four Year Olds ~ Part 2 coming soon.