Preschool Totschool Wrap Up: Montessori Fruit Themed Trays

We've been continuing to be hermits this winter.  In fact, due to cold, snow and illness, at least one of my children hasn't left the house in two weeks!  The rest of us haven't gone out much more then that, either.  It has made it a little easier to stay with our routine and get school work done, though, so there are some pros!

One of the lessons we had for the big kids this week was parts of fruit, so I thought it would be a great time to pull out some fruit themed trays.  

Tot Trays:

I set out trays geared to Explorer (2y 5m), and some for Mini Cooper (4y 6m).  They are free to try each other's trays, but a lot of times there is no interest since they are not at their level.  

Explorer is really into colors right now.  She absolutely loves any activity that will allow her to talk about them.

Printable is FREE from Boy Mama Teacher Mama.

Fruit matching from 1+1+1=1.  I used this as a chance to have her try and say the names of the different fruit.

Explorer also loves matching puzzles.  This was a hit.

This printable is (free) from Kidsparkz.

Preschool Trays:

Sorting and counting fruit.  She doesn't love these types of trays, but when she tries them I know she needs them.

I printed 2 copies of the file folder game pieces from Christian Preschool Printables, and then cut out different quantities of the fruit.  

Types of fruit 3-part cards free from Montessori for Learning.

We also read the parts of fruit cards together with the big kids and she tried making a little booklet.  These are available (free) from The Helpful Garden.

Montessori Materials

Mini Cooper had her third presentation of the teens board.  She could quickly set it up and put the correct amount of beads on each number.  However, I suspected that she wasn't truly understanding the concept.  

Turns out I was right.  I gave her little slips of paper with just one number at a time.  She just started randomly taking beads.  It took a few numbers, but in the end she was finally understanding the concept.  I plan to do a review of individual numbers this week and move to the tens board.

I encouraged Explorer to try the pink tower again.  I am not exactly sure if she understands it or not (I guess that's a trend).  She wouldn't build it the way it was supposed to be built, but she did keep teasing like she knew she was doing it wrong.  She preferred to build Wall-E on the right.   She may just be bored, so we will try adding in the brown stair this coming week.

She also requested a presentation of the bead stair.  Mostly, this was because Mini Cooper had just been working with the teens board and Explorer wanted to work with the pretty beads, too.

Food Preparation:

Since our theme for the week was fruit, I thought it would be an excellent time to try some fruit prep.

Cutting a banana went pretty well.  

I think this was the first time we had ever given Explorer a knife (she started trying to use it before I got to show her how-note to self, don't put ALL materials out right away).  She did a pretty good job.

Of course the eating part was lots of fun :).

Apple prep was harder, but she stuck with it and was successful!!  I didn't have Explorer try this one.  

Peeling an orange was, by far, the hardest of our activities.  She gave it a very solid try, but in the end I finished slicing the peel so she could peel it herself.  She broke the slices in half so she would have more.  

 Probably the favorite activity of the week was getting to play with all the kitchen items-the REAL ones.  We also used the classification cards from the 1+1+1=1 E pack and matched the objects with the pictures.  But, mostly, they just played...for a couple of days!

Certainly, this week was a lot of fun!  We are looking forward to this coming week of F is for Frog :).  I hope you had a great week, too!

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa

Weekly Wrap Up 2014 Week 8

Another fun week!  It was much lighter this week, though.  I think I prefer lighter :).

Parts of a Fruit

Our biggest area of learning this week, was the parts of a fruit.  We labeled apples, bananas, and oranges.  I took it a step further and added some food prep activities.

Banana prep.

We also tried 'opening a banana like a monkey' which was going around Facebook this week.  Turns out, you can just squeeze the bottom end and it will pop open!!  We were all quite impressed.

We used our apple slicer for the apple.  Charger found it a bit harder then he thought he would.

Orange prep, we used an orange peeler.  This was the most challenging, but I could tell the most rewarding, too!

Printables used:

We used the FREE parts of fruit cards from The Helpful Garden.  They are part of the Botany Nomenclature Set.

We also used the FREE parts of a pear book and definitions from Montessori Workjobs.

This added to the workplans the parts of fruit mini books which are also in the set from The Helpful Garden.  

Black History Month

We completed our Black History Month studies this week.  Our discussions were about Ben Carson, Mae Jemison, Pres. Barack Obama, and Michael Jordan.  

We read The Young Jackie Robinson, which lead to a discussion about what a stolen base is in baseball.  It was classic.

We discussed slavery and the things that were given to slaves, and not given to slaves (at least on average).  After I presented them, I cut them apart for the kids to sort later.  

We then discussed segregation laws after slavery.  These cards each represent something that was not equal for whites and blacks.

With this map and cards shown below, we also discussed which states were in the Union and which states were in the Confederacy.

Using the map and the shape of the states, one of their works this week was to sort the Union and Confederate states.  

Printables used:

For our calendar this month, we used the Black History Month Calendar Connections FREE from 1+1+1=1.

The three last printables: map and sorting states, things slaves were allowed to have, and the segregation laws all came from a FREE printable pack from Every Star is Different.

Geometry and Math:

In Geometry, we reviewed a solid, point, line, and plane. 

I introduced the line segment, ray, straight lines, and curved lines.

I also introduced vertical and horizontal lines.  The jar of water is part of the Montessori lesson on horizontal lines. 

In math, I presented the second half of the subtraction strip board lessons.  I think they both got it really well before, and probably I could have skipped the lesson.  BUT, I always hate to do that just in case.  Mustang went ahead and completed the rest of the booklet of problems, I suspect Charger will next week.

Our last highlight of the week was in honor of our 'fruity' week.  I decided we needed to graph...RUNTS!!!!  So, we drew our on graphs, put pictures of little fruit at the bottom, colored some boxes...but mostly we just ate Runts.  Yep, great way to end a Friday!!

Printables used:

The Montessori Geometry Lessons came free from Cultivating Dharma.  Unfortunately, it looks like she may have taken them down for now, but she says they will be back at some point.

The parts of and types of line cards were FREE from Homemade Montessori.  Thank you, Homeschool Den, for letting us know about them!!

We are awaiting yet ANOTHER snowstorm tomorrow which has put a wrench in a few of our plans.  But, *hopefully* this will be the last one for the year???  One can pray!  I need a new printer cartridge, so it will depend on the weather as to what our school plans for next week become.  Could be interesting :).

I hope you had a great week!  Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa