Letters From the Homefront

A YEAR AT A GLANCE JANUARY AND FEBRUARY Started this blog, had a blast in the snow, and did my first full and mini themes - Valentine's Day and President's Day Had a blast doing some fun shopping for wish list items, two fun new games were born (the money game and pantry shopping), DIY play-dough and DIY Moveable Alphabet came in very handy for an Easter theme, and we spent LOTS of time at the library! We had so many picture opportunities in May and June, including Spring Pictures, Mother's Day, and Baseball season! We also had an amazing weather unit, and some sensory fun with dyed rice and DIY sound bottles! Summer came, and brought swimming, extra library trips, TONS of reading, fireworks, painting, and a mini-ocean unit! We started the 2013-2014 school year in style, with half work days, park trips to ride the train, and bicycle riding. We also enjoyed new sensorial materials, a fresh classroom, a new little reader, TOT scho...

                 *LINKING UP TO TOT SCHOOL GATHERING PLACE* Seeing as how these are such 'girl colors' (yes, in our house, they are still girl colors! We have enough girls that we have never had to tell our boys that they are girl colors - they figured it out on their own!), I wasn't sure how much Buddy was going to enjoy these colors. In fact, oddly enough, I had the least of all for these colors, I think. I had a little of this, and a little of that, but nothing that screamed out for much creative genius in tot trays. So we went a little simple with the ideas - things that were easy to put together, which is a good thing since life seems to be extremely busy for us here lately. Here are the trays: Pink and Purple Sorting Pink and Purple One-To-One correspondence - hand transfer Pink and Purple puzzles: Purple Grapes and a Pink and Purple Elephant Pink and Purple Sensory Bucket: Pink Scoop - Target Dollar Sp...

So I have been totally MIA from the blog lately. I haven't written anything, haven't kept up with my  normal reading, and have barely begun to draft ONE tot school post. Life sometimes just smacks you in the face, doesn't it? I have never wanted to take an 'unschooling' approach at all, because I feared that just wouldn't be enough, and yet we've done so much more *life school* the last month or so than usual. I don't know where it started, or exactly when - I just realized last week that it had been probably three + weeks since we have had a completely productive day in our actual lesson plans. *whew* Now that I've gotten that confession out of the way... Enter the unplanned unschooling that has gone on during this unplanned break.  Little Mama declared a few days ago that she knew what decimals were all about, since she understood money, she knew what half of 7 would be, because half of $7 was $3.50, so half of the number '7' would...

*LINKING UP TO TOT SCHOOL GATHERING PLACE AT 1+1+1* *LINKING UP TO MONTESSORI MONDAY AT LIVING MONTESSORI NOW* Well, I am finally getting around to posting about our Brown/Orange weeks!  Since I didn't have as large a variety in the two colors, I decided it would be ideal to combine them. Add to that the season change, and Fall fit right in with the colors! It worked out to just devote the entire month of November to the brown/orange theme with some Fall inspiration. I also wanted to keep it simple because it turned out to be a very busy month! Due to that, I only started with three main trays/activities to see if 'less was better' with Buddy Boy. Without further ado, here are the trays: The first one was oh, so simple: A basket of brown and orange Unifix blocks :) The second was a small puzzle that I found at the Dollar Tree in a 3 pack. This one just so happened to be a brown and orange monkey. He also had a  brown / orange /Fall senso...

All the posts I have done in my Montessori Experience series have been leading up to this one - What I Learned From My Montessori Experience THE CLASSROOM The classroom must, MUST meet my needs. A great piece of advice that the primary teacher gave me was this: "Do what works for YOU - not necessarily what works in the classroom here." As profoundly simple as that sounds, it's so easy to compare your own personal surroundings to those that you have seen, both in a classroom and in other homeschool rooms! This is also possibly the worst mistake you can make. You see - what works for a mother of 2 children, ages 3 and 5, isn't going to work for a mother of 5 or 6 children, especially those who span all grade levels! While it may be possible for that mother of 2 young children to fill her shelves with every practical life and sensory work possible, that's impossible for a mother who must share her shelves with all grades. While some have entire rooms...