Drawing Letters in the Sand

Sand is such a sensual material, it draws children to its boxes and adults to its shores. No one can escape the satisfying feel of sand between the toes. Yes, there are some mothers who complain about the hassle of washing it out of hair, clothes and car seats. . . but these mothers have lost the memory of the excitement they once knew- of getting that first sand castle to flip out of the bucket intact!

Colored sand adds that much more excitement to the experience. I know how excited I get to see the White Sands of Carmel or San Destin! So when I presented Pink Sand to Lil A to draw the first letter of her name, she could not wait to give it a try. Some stragglers :) came around to give it a try also, Big A was one of the first stragglers, but S Man and Z Man could not resist neither. It's no wonder that these Zen Gardens are popular in adult office spaces.

Costa Rica- World Study

Our current country in North America is Costa Rica.
Our activity was making the beautiful painted Ox-Carts of Costa Rica.
All of our World Study Printables can be found at Montessori-World Study.


*We start our World study by reading books and internet sites about the particular country.
*Then we enter all important information in our North American Passport books with an emphasis on Geography. We also use a dry erase board to reinforce geographical items.
*We use a Montessori inspired printable to study the country based on the Fundamental Needs of Human chart.
*We look at the History of the Country using a Montessori inspired timeline.
Finally we have an activity that is based on the particular country:

Movable Letter Magnets

Movable Letters are a traditional Montessori item used to spell words. Many Spelling/Phonics programs now use a similar version including our curriculum All About Spelling. All About Spelling sells a nice one that includes the blends, diphthongs, etc. I made my own to use with the All About Spelling program and to use with my word cards for ABC of the Quran for Lil A. You are more than welcome to download them here. Most craft magnet strips come with an adhesive back and I have found them to be under $2.00. I cut the magnet to the size I need and stick them on. Putting them on a magnet board is so much easier than storing them in a sectioned craft or tackle box.

Playdough Letters

I want to keep a running view of Lil A's Playdough letters as we complete them, so this blog post is just for that purpose. We use the same printout for the Letter Collage from COAH, we just keep them in a sheet protector in Lil A's ABC record book.

A really yummy recipe for Kool-Aid playdough can be found at Mama Jenn
UPDATE: Chasing Superwoman's recipe is better!

Panama- World Study

Our current country in North America is Panama.
Our activity was recreating the beautiful Mola of the Kuna people.
All of our World Study Printables can be found at Montessori-World Study.

*We start our World study by reading books and internet sites about the particular country.
*Then we enter all important information in our North American Passport books with an emphasis on Geography. We also use a dry erase board to reinforce geographical items.
*We use a Montessori inspired printable to study the country based on the Fundamental Needs of Human chart.
*We look at the History of the Country using a Montessori inspired timeline.
Finally we have an activity that is based on the particular country:

Passport to World Travel

We are traveling the world starting with North America. We are using the Montessori- Fundamental Needs of Humans Chart and 3-part cards to study each country. My children will look at each country to see how they met their fundamental needs in the past and how they currently meet their fundamental need. We will not shy away from talking about how bigger countries encroach on smaller countries ability to meet their fundamental needs. i.e. cutting down rain forests, mining all of their precious natural resources. We are also using a Montessori inspired timeline to look at important historical dates of each country.

Well you can't very well visit a country without a Passport, even when you are World Homeschooled Traveler.  I laminated the cover and left the inserts plain white paper. I glued a picture of my children on each inside cover. Their passport number is our phone number in case it gets lost, maybe some caring person will try to return it to us. They use a skinny marker to outline the country and a colored pencil to color in the country on the North America Map and then they fill in the country's facts.