October's Montessori activities and Reformation Day

I have to admit, my miscarriage last month knocked the creative side out of me.  I felt flat about everything and therefore we just did the basics.  Even the "basics" felt overwhelming at times though as there are an awful lot of "basics" around here.  One thing I just did not do was to introduce any new Montessori activities to Solomon.  I felt sort of bad about that but of course he was just fine without them.

Last week though, I got it together better, and made a list up of 5 new activities.  I only ended up putting together 3 though, because Solomon enjoyed working with them so much and wanted to repeat them every day.

First was a color matching activity.  Solomon can match colors pretty well, but he still gets all the names of colors confused much of the time.  I painted 4 of those Styrofoam blocks that are for artificial flower arranging.  I also painted several toothpicks to match each one.  Solomon pushed the toothpicks into the matching blocks:

Solomon did this activity many times in a row.  Then he added his own twist.  He got out his cars and matched them to the blocks:

A bit later, I was deeply engrossed with schooling Hunter.  I suddenly became conscious of a strange noise coming from where Solomon was working.  Oh no!  He had been using his fingers to dig deeply into the Styrofoam.  Pieces of all sizes were gouged out and all over Solomon, the tray, and his mat.  What a mess!  We "played" clean up next.  And I threw the activity into the garbage.  Bummer.  I wonder if those white Styrofoam blocks would work better - they seem to be a bit stronger than the plant type ones.

The next day, I gave Solomon an object-picture matching game I had made.  I had bought a little farm set and then took a picture of each piece.  I printed out the pictures, laminated them, and cut them into cards. 

I gave the activity to Solomon and helped him spread out the cards and then showed him how to match a farm animal to the appropriate card.  He loves matching games and so he quickly went to work.  Even Hunter was interested:

It is cute how little kids think out loud.  For each piece he would say "Let's see ..."  Then when he put the animal on the card to match it he said "There!"  When he finished everything he's say "Do it again!"  This activity was a big hit. And ... did not make a mess.  At some point I'd like to re-print the pictures and write the words on each.  That way he will be exposed to words more.

For the third day, I took some scrap fabric and cut it into squares.  Then I got some of the old style of clothespins:

 

 

This activity proved to be much more challenging than I would have thought.  I also gave him the kind of clothespins you pinch to open, but after trying them, he went back to the other kind to continue to work with them.

The next day, Solomon made up his own activity.  He got out some plastic cups, plastic utensils, and some plastic bears we use as math manipulatives.  He kept busy pouring, scooping, and stirring:

 

Solomon played with the farm animal cards and clothesline activities every day, so I decided not to do anything new for Friday.

Friday was Reformation Day!  I wasn't up to getting together all the activities we did last Reformation Day, but we still celebrated the day.  I read a little bit about Martin Luther to the kids. I used several quotes by Luther for Tabby's dictation work.  Tabby made a "Diet of Worms" cake.  (Worms was the city in Germany where Martin Luther was told to recant his writings by the Catholic church.)  And we watched our favorite movie about Martin Luther (the 2004 version starring Joseph Fiennes).

Tabby covered the cake with gummy worms

Finally, here are two projects that Hunter did last month.  One of the many benefits to homeschooling is that there is time for this kind of exploration and experimenting.  My hair dryer died, and of course Hunter took it apart.  He then turned it into a flashlight:

He also received a hard drive in the mail from his Uncle Dennis.  Dennis included several pages, explaining how everything in it worked and how to take it apart.  Hunter was thrilled with this activity:

I'm armed with a fresh list of activities for Solomon this week.  I will share what we actually do.  I like getting ideas from other blogs, and maybe you will get an idea or two from this one.  :)

"A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." - Proverbs 16:9