Gardens Guide

Many of you who are regular visitors to this page are aware that my family's life has become about change.  Our son, Andon, is doing well in his fight against leukemia and we hope he will continue to do well throughout his life.  He has just over a year left in maintenance - a portion of treatment that requires roughly 130 chemo pills monthly, a monthly visit to the cancer clinic for intrathecal treatment and often a back poke with more treatment.  His feet are damaged by the Vincristine he takes and require special boots, which he hates to wear, his executive functioning is affected by the 6-mp, and his bones are affected by the high doses of Prednisone he takes monthly.  After all this he is an INCREDIBLY cheerful and kind child - growing into such a wonderful young man.  He will be 14 before we are done with treatment, and there have been enough scares along the way that the cancer was back and we would be back in the thick of it once more.  There have been way too many of our friends from the clinic and ICS that have relapsed and are fighting again and some who have, sorrowfully, left us.  Our life is a life of change, and it will never be one of stillness ever again.  I am grateful to have him for as long as I am able.  It is worth every moment.

After 9 months of sabbatical I returned to my Montessori classroom and was so different.  Somehow serving of Andon changed me.  I had a calmness I didn't before, and I spent the summer in a beautiful classroom with a wonderful assistant.  When it was time for Andon to return to school I became so fearful of him going into a germ filled school with a depressed immune system and being so far away.  I prayed for some way to take care of this great worry.

I was presented with the opportunity to move all of us (4 of my children and myself) to a new school that had a Montessori Early Childhood classroom as well a couple of Early Elementary classrooms.  The only catch was there was no position for Early Childhood open, only Early Elementary.  I took a leap of faith and moved into Early Elementary for the 2015 - 2016 school year.  I sometimes felt out of my depth, and overwhelmed with all the demands on me as a mother, wife, guide, trainer, and person.  I turned to the wisest people I knew for advise and help and they did help me.  Finally in February 2016 Laurie Stockton Moreno (she teaches at Brookview Montessori School in Benton Harbor, Michigan as well as instructs at Westminster College of Montessori, Utah) visited my classroom for a week and changed everything for me.  I chose to stay there and have fallen in love with Early Elementary and cherish my time with these beautiful souls.  My brain feels about 10 times larger - as well as my heart.  I used to say I didn't want to teach any older than 6 because of the change in the child, but I have such a great blessing to walk with the children through these changes and the explosion in to exploration that happens in these years.  The complexity of their young lives leaves me breathless and overwhelmed at times, as well as the heroic way in which they face their challenges and overcome what they can.  Their hearts are so good, and they strive to do so much good for each other and the larger world.  I miss the Early Childhood classroom.  I don't think I could choose a favorite - ever.  I see that working in the Elementary Classroom has solidified my understanding of the importance of the Early Childhood Classroom.

I do not know what the future holds for me and my family, but I strive and pray to have the courage to face it and take on whatever lies ahead of me.

I have made it no secret that I like many of the materials that are available through Montessori Research and Development.  This has always been purely because of many years of loving their work.  This is the first time I have ever gotten anything in exchange for a blog post, and I am so happy to do it.

If you have read some of my previous posts about Nomenclature or Three-part cards you will know that my classroom has had a big uptick in those cards being pulled off the shelves and used this year.  In fact it is almost certain that at any given time during the day there is at least one set of cards in use.  Since this is the case, I have felt it is in the best interest of the class to have more cards available in the areas at the same time.  I have owned and loved a few of the Three-part Card Trays from Montessori Research and Development for a some years, but really needed more.  I corresponded with Erik Nuno, who is the company director about hoping to get a few more for my classroom.  He shipped them right off and my class has been so happy to have them on the shelf ever since.  I currently have 9 on the shelves of my class.  3 in science, 2 in language, 1 in math, 2 in geography and 1 in sensorial.  Now that they have been set up for a couple of weeks I find that we actually could use a total of 5 in science (depending on what we are studying), 4 in math for currency, fractions, time, and golden beads (my colored bead stair cards are a different type).  I could also use a total of 5 in language for pink cvc cards, blue blends, parts of speech, the farm and metal inset cards, and 4 in geography regularly.  I would prefer to have 4 available for sensorial for sensorial apparatus cards, geometric cabinet cards, geometric solids cards, and color nomenclature cards.  I would lastly put one in art, not all the time but according to the lessons.  So that is a grand total of 23 that I would have in my classroom.  I am far from it, but will continue to order from Montessori Research until I have the number I want.


The Three-Part Card Tray from Montessori Research and Development is a economical and lovely tray for the classroom, running only $9.00 each.  The compartments are spacious enough to hold even larger cards, and certainly the cards that I create.  The depth of the compartments is a feature I like as well.  These are both something you want to watch for when ordering trays.  They are easily cleaned by even smaller children, with the control of error being a gleaming white surface.





The other tray that I looked at in the same price range had the control on the right.  That went against my core feelings when it comes to Montessori works.  I have always been taught, and ascribe to the standard that all work should move left to right.  Since we place the control first it should be on the left hand side.

I am so happy to recommend the 3-part Card Tray from Montessori Research and Development.

This year I have changed classrooms and responsibilities.  I moved from my safe little classroom to take over for some teachers who left our school.  It is my job to make this classroom successful.  I am in the Spanish dual language program classroom now.  It is a mixture of children from several classrooms, but there is a core group of children who were there last year.  These children have really needed retraining this year.  About 80% of them are boys.  I have spent a lot of time during the first 3 weeks of school observing all of the children, becoming emotionally available and a confidant, creating structure in the classroom, following through again and again with ground rules, and setting the stage for correct treatment of the environment and each other.  It is tiring work to be sure, but sticking to the difficult work at the beginning of the year really pays off.

For the first two weeks I pulled out over 25 different manipulative works and had several shelves dedicated to them just to give myself a pulse on the room and where the children were.  They used these works with gusto.  It has really helped to have only manipulatives in retraining the children to become careful with their work, return the work ready for another child to use, walk around and not through rugs, walk in the classroom in the first place, respect when a child has already chosen a work and not to disturb them etc.  This is certainly an ongoing process.  It seems like it can take an entire year for some of the younger children not to walk on their neighbor's rug if something grabs their attention.

During the third week I noticed that the older children were bored with the manipulatives so I began giving lessons.  Some of the record keeping was spotty so I had to test out to see where they really were in the different areas.  On Thursday, this week (being the 4th week of school), we noticed that it was 2 hours into our work time before any child chose a manipulative work.  YIPEE!  I only have one shelf of manipulatives now, and only the ones that the children find the most interesting.

These are some images from our last week of work.

Exploration of Metal Insets by a returning student

Mouse House turned into a Spanish Work.  Es el raton debajo de la casa anaranjado?

Hanging Bead Stair

Writing Words using the Large Moveable Alphabet

Initial Sound Object Sort - This is the Pink Mat I am so excited to have these new mats.  I handmade the set I have been using and just got these new ones this week.

Gluing noodles on apples work.  Next week we will paint these works. This allows the work to be done in more than one step but still follow the Montessori rule that art should be a shelf work.

Parts of the Plant Nomenclature Cards.  This child completed this work  beautifully and could even tell me every part of the plant and later the Fruit.  He then made the booklets for each work.

Rainbow Rings.  My children LOVE this work.  It is actually Wine Glass Markers that I found at a kitchen store in Park City.

Using Clay Lesson.  You can see how the little one is using his "watching arms" during this presentation.

Parts of the Snail Puzzle.  We wouldn't usually have this work out right now, but this child found a snail in the school garden and was really interested so I pulled it out.

Weaving with ribbons

Parts of the Flower Puzzle

Parts of the Fruit Nomenclature Cards and Magnetic Parts Puzzle

Baby Spooning Stars.  This work is pretty challenging for this child. She has been with me since last year and has needed this long to be ready for this work.

Sandpaper Letters with Initial Sound Booklets. This child was successful at all the letters in the first set and was subsequently hiding them in the classroom to then find them again.

Hand Transferring.  I just have to say how much I love the elliptical shape of these wooden bowls.  There are mung beans inside.  They sound just like rain when they hit the wood.  Many times the child will remark about this when they first have this lesson.

Object to Object Sorting with two Space Toobs.  Because I have so many boys I have geared some of the Pre-reading works to pull them in.  We are also beginning the year by learning about our place in the universe.

I am a bargain hunter.  This is definitely something very true about myself.  I believe in quality and in spending good money where it really matters - on the materials.  However, I have a hard time spending my own money or my classroom budget (small as it is) on something I can make for less.

Until I can get a pattern uploaded this picture can at least give some help with measurements.  I took some width out of the shoulder area and rounded the corners.  I like the look of the softer corners on these aprons.