Mother Teacher Scatterbrain

My two year old son found his knife in the silverware drawer today.  Them he asked to have a peanut butter sandwich. I asked him if he wanted to make it himself, he said yes. So I got out his Mickey Mouse plate, cut a slice of bread in half (because is knife is only good for spreading), and put the food on the plate.  I got the peanut butter from the jar and put it in one of Mickey's ears and put the bread in the big part of the plate.  I gave him his knife.

Now, I have done several posts on how to make Montessori materials. I love to figure things out. This has been like a brain teaser or puzzle for me. I have enjoyed figuring how to make these materials and sharing it. I have more coming. Don't worry. I know the title of this post may make you think that I am quitting, but I am not. There are just a few materials that are not worth the trouble.

The first material that is not worth the trouble is the Knobbed Cylinders. Now I am sure this can be done with a scroll saw and a lot of patience. In fact, if you are willing to cut the base into two pieces and then cut the cylinders, it is perfectly doable, but this is just not worth it to me. It is too much work and if you don't get it perfect, the pieces won't fit together for the extension activities. I would just buy the Knobbed cylinders.

If I decide to use the bead materials, I would just buy them because to even calculate the necessary bead would be quite the daunting task and by the time I finish, my child would be grown. When you add in the time spent, the cost is just too high. Even so, buying the materials is quite expensive. As a teacher, I have yet to see much that can be done with the beads that couldn't be done with base ten blocks or some cuisenaire rods. If it really bothers you, you can paint the rods the Montessori colors and add lines every centimeter to simulate units. You could even go so far as to carve the lines into the plastic. If you insist on natural materials, wooden base ten tens rods, cut to the appropriate lengths and painted are another alternative to the expensive beads.

However, if you want to attempt to make them, be my guest.

I used salt and pepper shakers with spices wrapped in cloth inside. I got the shakers as a set at Dollar Tree. I bought small scraps of fabric from Joanne's. I took the cloth and cut it into small squares. I bought two different colors to distinguish the sets. I put the spice in the square, sewed it shut, and put it into the shaker. One of each spice into each color scrap cloth.

For this you will need 5 rectangular balsa boards, two different grades of sandpaper, and some cardstock.

Cut the first board in half and cover one piece with the roughest sandpaper and the other with the cardstock.

Cover the second board with roughest sandpaper on the right and cardstock on the left.

For the third board, you will cover the board with four strips, two of each as described: roughest sandpaper, cardstock, roughest sandpaper, cardstock.

For the fourth board, you will cover the board in thirds: cardstock, medium sandpaper, roughest sandpaper.

For the last board, you will cut it into thirds and cover each third with a different piece of material: cardstock, medium sandpaper, and roughest sandpaper.

Old film canisters or cardboard boxes from a craft store work well. They can be filled with beans, rocks, rice, pasta, marbles, etc.  Be sure to glue them shut with--like--superglue!  I am sure I don't want them bursting on the carpet!

Go to a craft store and buy some inexpensive tin cans. They come in circles and squares. Any closed container that conducts heat will work.

These are quite simple to make. All you need is a fairly thin board (balsa is easy to cut), some wooden dowels, and

For each board, you will need...
For your base boards, you want the wood 1/2 inch thick at least. It will need to be 11 and 1/2 inches long by 2 inches wide. You will also need a 1/4 inch dowel that is 12 inches long. As an optional piece, you may want 12 inches of balsa board cut into 1/2 inch x 2 inch strips.

Now to assemble the board, you will begin by drawing a line down the center of the board hot dog style. Then, you will mark the board every 2 and 1/8 inch perpendicular to the hot dog line. (This is where you will glue your dowels.). Next, you will cut the dowels into 2 inch lengths and glue them on top of the lines you drew for them. If you chose to have the extra board strips, glue them to the tops of the dowels to form a lip.

Now, you need to paint on the numbers and make the cards. All you need to make the cards is a sheet of balsa 5 inches by 2 inches. Cut it into 5 rectangles, each 1 inch x 2 inches.

You would need two for the tens boards and two for the teens boards.

If I choose to make this material, I will use linoleum and paint.

Here are the templates in color and black and white. The color will help with painting the linoleum prices. The black and white use less ink when printing for use as a template.

I will probably glue the paper onto the linoleum with a washable school glue and use an Exacto knife to cut the pieces. Then I will paint them with an oil based or epoxy paint. There are nontoxic options available.

If I decide to make my son some geometric insets, I will use linoleum tiles. I will find the patterns and cut the tiles with an Exacto knife. You can even paint them if you choose. I will likely break thumbtacks and use the top for the knob, adhering them with superglue. Here are the shapes that you will need. I am going to blow them up and make a template to trace on the linoleum.

And you can make any puzzle this way. If you choose, you can even glue a full sheet of linoleum to the back. They aren't very thick, but they serve the purpose and can be easily tailored to the subject matter at hand for the low low.

Now, I have an excitable child in a small area. With a meter-long, inch-thick piece of hardwood, I just know he will bust something. So I decided, after looking at Montessori Outlet's Small Numerical Rods, that these were more suited to our small apartment life. Now, I did a tutorial on making DIY Montessori Number Rods and Red Rods, but I think I would rather have something smaller for my son. We just don't have the space. If you don't have the space either, or you are needing to make something more manageable, this is for you.

Montessori Red Rods and Number Rods are basically the same. The only difference is that one set is all red and one set is red and blue. Since they are the same, it only stands to reason that these pieces be constructed at the same time. Basically, the pieces for both sets are between 10 cm and 100 cm with eight pieces in between that are between those lengths varying in ten centimeter intervals. Here is how I would make them.

Now, I got the idea from the Moosehuntress Blog. I really sat down and looked at the cost to make these materials and began to feel quite upset at the prices that Montessori sellers charge. Now, before I get into the details, I would like to make clear that the difficult part of this is finding someone who will cut in metric units. That having been said, here is my plan to make a Montessori Pink Tower and Brown Stair.

Now, I have seen all sorts of tutorials on making a paper movable alphabet and if you are on an ultra tight budget, these will serve the purpose, but I wanted a set of wooden letters. So I went to Hobby Lobby last weekend and bought some small wooden letters: Plaid Dancing Wooden Letter Pack and Plaid Poster Wooden Letter Pack. I am painting the front side of them (to reduce the flipping of letters) blue and red just like real Montessori movable alphabets. I bought two packs of each set, but three would be ideal. I also bought 2 craft organizers from Walmart.

Total cost for capital and lower case movable alphabet:
6x $4 for each set of wooden letters
2x $7 for each craft case
$38+paint

A decent movable alphabet will cost this much for just the lowercase letters!

As far as paint, I haven't had the chance to look into that, but I don't need much because I will be only painting one side of these small letters.  (I am concerned with him being confused about which way the letters go.  We don't need any of this.) I am considering getting a sample of a paint (starting in the oops section of my hardware stores); if that fails, spray paint is awesome, too!

I have seen several tutorials that suggest gluing sand onto the land parts of a globe. These tutorials say that you will need multiple layers of sand. Now, for me, this is acceptable for use with island chains, but for continents, this can be quite messy. For my sandpaper globe, I will use Emery Cloth.

All I had to do was put it on the stove. So what happened?

When I have laundry to do, my two year can actually be so helpful. He loves to throw things into the washing machine. When things are done washing, I take them out of the washing machine and he puts them into the dryer which is great because he and the dryer door are low to the ground. Then, he takes the clothes out of the dryer and puts them into the laundry basket. Then I take them and fold them.

We did a lot today and will continue with this for a while (until Baby gets it or gets bored!) Cilck on the baby to read the rest of the post!


So today we did some rote counting. We counted with Greg and Steve.

We worked with the letter M using the following:

Mimi Mouse's song and a larger image

Object box with a man, Mickey Mouse, and a mitten

And with Coilbrook's Shawn the Train

More on the letter M.

..



We also reviewed colors and counted as we strung beads for fine motor skills.

I read my own Bible verses (Genesis 1:1-2:3) aloud to him. He pretended to read along with one of his own books. As I wrote this on paper, he pretended to write as well.

We also watched a bit of Muzzy in French.


Additional resources:
Coilbrook's Shawn the Train
Colors
Counting
Shapes

Greg and Steve
Numbers
Days
Months

Dr. Jean
Alphabets

From Harry Kindergarten:
2D shapes
3D Shapes
Count to 20

Here is a months video

Here is another M song

We will also begin with A Rhyme A Week: Jack and Jill. (Lesson Plan, Poster, Riddle Rhymes for Older Kids, Picture Cards)

And my son loves this rat!