07/02/2024
Physical education is an essential part of a well rounded education. But I don't really see so much information out there - how do we teach PE in an engaging way?
This is why experienced Montessori guide Kelly Johnson has made the brand new webinar called Learning Readiness: Physical Education for Body and Brain.
After watching this webinar, you will discover the essence of Montessori-style physical education by engaging students in cooperative, non-competitive classic games and modern variations.
Through these experiences, we impart the principles, practice, and importance of fitness, fostering a lifelong connection between children and their bodies. Welcome to Physical Education for life!
Write ME to get the link to sign-up for f.r.e.e.
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01/10/2023
✨🎉 ANNOUNCEMENT ✨🎉
This is just a friendly reminder that today is the LAST day to sign-up for the 10 Days of Freebies Extravaganza!
These printables are brand new and are not available anywhere else! After today, these resources will no longer be available for free.
WHAT'S INSIDE YOUR 10-DAY TREASURE CHEST?
✅ Linear Calendar extending until 2025
☑️ Landforms 4-Part Cards
✅ Hummingbird Life Cycle
☑️ Deciduous Biome Food Web
✅ Sunflower Shapes Pack
☑️ Nature Color Sorting Activity
✅ Fall Close-Up Matching Activity
☑️ Animals of North America Bingo Game
✅ Travelers and World Explorers 4-part cards
☑️ Vincent Van Gogh Paintings Sorting Activity
Sign-up here: https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
29/09/2023
Unlock the stories of incredible travelers and explorers and inspire the next generation of adventurers with this F>R>E>E resource!
Dive into the fascinating journeys of both historic legends and contemporary explorers.
Introduce your children to diverse personalities like Ferdinand Magellan, Sarah Marquis, Ynes Mexia, Mario Rigby, and Jacques Cousteau, among others.
🌐 Hurry, only a few days left to download this FREE resource:
https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
28/09/2023
10 Days of Freebies Highlight
DECIDUOUS BIOME FOOD WEB
https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
3-part cards
First, begin with 3-part cards showing select animals and plants from the deciduous biome. Choose from cards featuring real photos or drawn images.
Definitions
Introduce the definitions of different trophic levels to your students. This will be useful for the hands-on activities and crafts included in this PDF package.
Booklet making
Children can make their own booklets. They can color the images and write the labels. These cards correspond to the color 3-part cards provided, including a cover image.
Tip: offer different art mediums such as coloured pencils, watercolour paints, markers, etc.
Make a food chain - craft
Use the strips provided to make a hanging chain. Children can fold each strip or bracelet, securing them together with a dab of glue or tape on the gray portion. Ensure all the rings are firmly attached to one another, with the text and animals facing the same direction.
The craft provides a visual representation of a food chain. Seeing the different elements of the chain, including the text and animal illustrations, helps children visualize the flow of energy from one organism to another.
Trophic Levels
Use the blank energy pyramid. Children can glue animals onto the pyramid based on their trophic level. A control of error poster is provided, as well.
Food chain craft
Children can colour in circles with images of animals and/or plants. You can use a hole punch to make holes at the top and bottom of the circles. Attach the circles in order of the food web using string, pipe cleaners, or another convenient material.
And more!
Sign-up here: https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
25/09/2023
The 10 days of F.r.e.e.b.i.e.s. Extravaganza is underway! We are about halfway through and some folks have already downloaded:
1. The 2024 and 2025 linear calendar
2. Colours of Nature Sorting
3. Hummingbird Life Cycle
4. Autumn Close-up Activity
5. Sunflower Shapes Pack
Have you signed-up? Which resource are you looking forward to presenting?
https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
23/09/2023
Day 2: 10 Days of Freebies Extravaganza
COLOURS OF NATURE SORTING
🏞️🌻 Discover the beauty of nature with this gorgeous resource made from I Believe in Montessori Education
Children can sort lay out the colour cards with the name of each colour and a circle. We love adding Colour Box 3 tablets to activities like this one.
Afterwards, offer the remaining cards to your child to sort.
👉️Tip: If you are introducing an activity like this for the first time, offer fewer cards/variations.
This can mean only including primary colours or offering 2-3 cards per colour.
Inspire your children with these beautiful cards! Here are a few more ideas for extensions with this material:
1. Make a nature painting based off of one of the cards
2. Search for nature objects outside and sort by colour
3. Select a few images and go on a nature hunt. See if you can find similar objects that are relevant to your environment.
How would you use this gorgeous material?
https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
22/09/2023
Starting today!
10 Days of Freebies Extravaganza organised by Katherine from I Believe in Montessori and I for our project - Educational Initiatives.
The first freebie released is our newest linear calendar covering 2024 and 2025! 📆
This resource also includes:
Days Of The Week Sheets
Days Of The Week Spinner
Circle Time Page - Date, Season, Weather, Moon
Tomorrow, a new resource will be unlocked!
SIGN-UP HERE:
HTTPS://EDUCATIONALINITIATIVES.TEACHABLE.COM/P/FREEBIE-WEEK
19/09/2023
COMING SOON! Kick off your school year with a bag of goodies!
How does it work?
💻️You sign-up for f.r.e.e.
👉🏼Starting on September 22 and running through October 1, and I will be releasing a new, exclusive printable each day.
You will end up with 10 new printables - 5 from each of us!
➡️These new materials are not available anywhere else! ⬅️
What's Inside Your 10-Day Treasure Chest?
🍎 Linear Calendar through 2025
🍎 Detailed Hummingbird Life Cycle
🍎 Comprehensive Landforms 4-Part Cards
🍎 Deciduous Biome Food Web
🍎 Fun and Silly Sunflower Shapes
🍎 Nature Color Sorting Activity
🍎 Fall Close-Up Matching Activity
🍎 Animals of North America Bingo Game
🍎 Travelers and World Explorers 4-part cards
🍎 Vincent Van Gogh Paintings Sorting Activity
Sign-up here: https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
17/09/2023
Today, I want to share some ideas for learning about landforms. The printables referenced here are available in our 10 Days of Freebies Extravaganza!
https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
Landforms Activities
3-part cards
Introduce the types of landforms with 3 or 4-part cards. Children who are reading can use the information cards to learn more about each type of landform.
Booklet making
We have included two options for booklet making in this pack:
Difficulty level 1: Children can trace the word at the bottom of the image and colour the different landforms
Difficulty level 2: Advanced writers can use the definition booklets and information cards together. First, they colour the image, and next they write the definitions for the landforms.
Sandpaper Landforms
Children can match the control cards from the 3-part cards set to sandpaper landforms.
Make a model
Offer blue and green clay to children. Ask the children to make some landforms using the clay.
Tip: Use quick-dry clay that will harden.
Group map making project
Offer children a large roll of paper. Ask them to work on a collaborative map-making project. They can draw some of the landforms included in the printables pack.
Felt Landforms
Adults can cut out tan/brown as well as blue felt squares. Next, cut out different land and water forms using the same coloured felt. Do not secure the pieces to each other.
Offer the felt parts to the children. They can arrange the shapes to make different land and water forms. Use the 3-part cards as a control of error.
Edible landforms
Offer children graham crackers and blue frosting (or a healthier alternative based on your family/classroom dietary needs).
Children can put frosting on the crackers in order to make some land or water forms.
15/09/2023
Guess what 🤗
and I have a special surprise for you!
Ten days of never before released free printables
Starting on September 22 and running through October 1, we'll be releasing a new, exclusive printable each day.
These new printables are not available anywhere else! Not even in our paid membership communities - you will have access to them first and completely for free!
🍎 Linear Calendar through 2025
🍎 Detailed Hummingbird Life Cycle
🍎 Comprehensive Landforms 4-Part Cards
🍎 Deciduous Biome Food Web
🍎 Fun and Silly Sunflower Shapes
🍎 Nature Color Sorting Activity
🍎 Fall Close-Up Matching Activity
🍎 Animals of North America Bingo Game
🍎 Travelers and World Explorers 4-part cards
🍎 Vincent Van Gogh Paintings Sorting Activity
Sign-up here: https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/freebie-week
23/07/2023
There's something so magical about the Great Lessons! You can present them each year, and each year, the direction you will go in afterwards will be different!
With each presentation, the classroom takes a unique path, exploring different follow-up work and delving deeper into specific areas of interest.
During the start of a school year, the First Great Lesson is presented. These are impressionistic lessons that introduce children to the way our earth was formed, the history of our solar system and galaxies in general!
The first great lesson in Montessori's lower elementary curriculum is an essential component of the Montessori approach to education, and for good reason. By introducing children to the story of the creation of the universe and their place within it, this lesson instills a sense of awe and wonder that can inspire a lifelong love of learning.
The goal is not for children to memorise the scientific concepts introduced. The general knowledge obtained from these lessons, the interest peaked, sense of wonder, are instead the focus. Who knows!
Maybe some students will be so fascinated, they will begin their own projects, whether it would be a research report, an art project, or whatever else they come up with!
After the initial presentation, filled with demonstrations and experiments, children can be offered follow-up work to dive deeper into the lessons.
You can discover more about the Great Lessons in our Great Lessons Storytelling Course!
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18/07/2023
Imagine as you read...
On a warm early September afternoon, a group of 6-9-year-olds sit in a large circle. The sun filters in through the late summer trees and a warm breeze drifts through the window screens. An assistant teacher gets the children organized while the lead teachers are nowhere to be found.
The youngest of the group don’t know what’s about to happen, but they feel the excited anticipation buzzing through the older students. The older students, big smiles on their faces, relish the secret like a special prize they are about to award.
Some remember all the details, others just the feeling, but they saw the supplies for the experiments set up on the rug when they came in from recess and know what’s coming. The vast universe is about to be laid out at their feet - complete with hands-on experiences and cosmic wonder...
The lights turn out…
From around the corner they hear the familiar voices of their lead teachers say, “In the beginning, there was nothing….”.
Their wonder is sparked. It’s going to be a fun afternoon.
“If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and far more satisfying.” Maria Montessori.
Igniting childhood wonder for the magnificent cosmos and the big world around - this is what is so unique about the Montessori Great Stories.
The Five Great Lessons are key stories that are presented to students to ignite their curiosity and inspire further exploration. They cover broad topics and provide a foundation for learning across various subject areas.
We collaborated with amazing Sharlie Burnie, who is the master storyteller, to bring you the Great Lessons Storytelling course where Sharlie shows you exactly how to present each lesson.
Prepare for the upcoming school year, and get inspired and energized to present the Great Lessons!
https://educationalinitiatives.teachable.com/p/great-lessons-storytelling
21/06/2023
🌿🔍 Dive into the Enchanting World of a Pond!🌊💫
✨ Join us on a mesmerizing journey as we explore the captivating layers of a pond through an array of delightful activities! 🐠🌸
🃏 Unleash the power of learning with our engaging 3-part cards! Watch as children become familiar with the various layers of a pond and the fascinating pond life that thrives within them. 🌾🦆
🔨 As the adult, it's time to prepare the puzzle! Gather tan felt and four shades of blue, wield your trusty fabric scissors, and bring the layers of the pond to life! ✂️🖨️
🌸 Let the creativity bloom as children arrange the layers of the pond, offering the printable plants and labels. Use the printable posters as a control of error, creating an atmosphere of discovery and independence! 🎨✨
That's not all! After exploring the layers of the pond puzzle, it's time to embark on a delightful journey of booklet making.
Offer the black-line cards and watch as children's imagination takes flight. Whether they prefer paint, colored pencils, or markers, let them express their artistic vision in their very own booklet! 🖌️📒
💡 Pro tip: Encourage children to explore different mediums for their booklets, igniting their creativity and adding a splash of uniqueness to their creations! 🌈✨
Discover more: https://welcomemontessori.com/exploring-pond-life/
20/06/2023
Take your children on a journey through time with our History of Clocks activities.
Everything from 3-part cards and timeline activities to make-a-book and writing strip options, your students will get hands-on experience to learn about the evolution of clocks - all while working on memory, reasoning, and sequencing skills! 🧐📖
Activities we have on the shelves
✔️ Timeline of Everything Book (great encyclopedia!)
✔️ Timeline work
✔️ Matching images to dates
✔️ 3-part cards
✔️ Booklet making
✔️ Information cards and corresponding blank cards
Our oldest can dive deep into research and look at a specific type of clock in more detail.
Our youngest has been very excited about colouring/drawing and handwriting. She can patiently and meticulously work on these skills for hours at a time!
She really enjoyed the writing strips! Do you see the heart sticker? The different colours? She spent time picking which colours she wishes to use and the order in which she would use them.
Discover more https://welcomemontessori.com/montessori-history-of-clocks-timeline-and-ordering-activities/
13/01/2023
Penguins Sensory Bin ❄️
Sensory bins are a fun play and exploration activity. We do not use ONLY Montessori learning activities in my home, which means sensory bins do make an appearance.
This is because these little invitations are opportunities to explore. I add them to the shelves or leave them on a table for my children to discover.
They can touch the cool hydrogel balls, explore the objects, or just ignore it all together (a risk with any work, of course!)
NOTE: keep hydrogel balls out of reach of children who may still put objects in their mouths. 🛑
Why Use A Sensory Bin
They can be calming and help to soothe big emotions. The sound of the filler as it hits the metal tray, the sensation of cold, the smooth feeling of the hydrogel balls - they all CAN be relaxing (depending on the child).
Plus they're fun!
You Will Need
-white hydrogels
-Safari ltd (or other brand) penguin figurines
-small snowflake manipulatives
-pom-poms
-optional: spoons and bowls
TIP: After finding the penguins in the bin, children can count how many penguins they can find. 🐧
See more here: https://welcometomommyhood.com/montessori-antarctica-theme/
12/01/2023
Landmarks In Antarctica Cards
This beautiful material was created by the amazing for the HOKA Club.
MAKE YOUR OWN FLAGS
I used double sided tape to secure the small small flags to tooth picks or pins.
I placed one of our foam mats underneath the map of Antarctica in order to prevent damage to our working surface.
📍 Note: I am struggling to find the perfect size pins to use with our flags and therefore we used toothpicks. I've done this for all of our flag work.
Provide a pin puncher to make a hole on the map before inserting a tooth pick if you are like me 😉
If you do have access to the perfect length pins, then I would fine ones with a white top to stick with the white Antarctica colour scheme from the Montessori continent maps/materials.
Children can find where to put each landmark by using the Landmarks of Antarctica 3-part cards. Use the information cards to read more about each area.
Discover more here: https://welcometomommyhood.com/antarctica-montessori-elementary/
10/01/2023
Let's get to know each other!
If you're a homeschooler, how old are your children?
If you're a teacher, which age do you teach?
08/01/2023
Let's Explore Antarctica
Start by working on a map:
1. Paint it! I provided blue paint here, but normally if we are working with such a map - I do try to match the colors to the Montessori continent materials.
2. Laminate the map or place it in a page protector. Provide play dough. Ask the child to make the continent from play dough.
Us Montessorians must really love some color coordination, don't we? Provide play dough or clay that corresponds to the Montessori continent materials (white for Antarctica).
If you use clay, let it dry and then you have a clay Antarctica. You can make all of the continents to have a clay collection.
Pin punching! Pin punching is a favorite! It's great for strengthening hand-muscles, improving concentration, and of course working on patience!
There are several countries that have made territorial claims in Antarctica. Some parts are even disputed. To learn about the different territorial claims in Antarctica, we used the Territories of Antarctica material to learn about where the territories of Antarctica are.
The children first are introduced to the territories with a set of 3-part cards. Next, they can draw the territories on a blank map of Antarctica.
🐧🐧🐧🐧To practice number sense, and continuing with our theme, we used penguin figurines from Safari Ltd.
https://welcometomommyhood.com/montessori-antarctica-theme/
24/12/2022
We hope those that celebrate have a wonderful Christmas and Christmas eve!
There are different Christmas traditions and celebrations all over the world.
In the Netherlands, we have 2 days of Christmas. The First Christmas Day is December 25th and the Second Christmas Day is December 26th.
What are your traditions?
18/12/2022
What does your school year look like?
- Do you take summers off?
- Teach year round?
15/12/2022
Christmas tree color sorting:
Children can sort the manipulatives based on the color of the tree.
This activity is quick to prep and great for children to practice their colours!
WHAT YOU NEED
-Christmas Tree Color Cards (available below in this post)
-A bowl
-A small manipulative
-Optional: A tray
Ideas for manipulatives: pony beads, pom-poms, play dough
F.r.e.e. printables: https://welcometomommyhood.com/christmas-color-cards-for-toddlers/
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