Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Sensory Bins

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April 1, 2019 By Jennifer Lambert 8 Comments

Sensory bins are a great activity for little ones.

We used to have monthly and seasonal themed sensory bins.

We also made a nice frugal light table out of a plastic bin and electric strand lights.

My husband made a little table where I could fit in a plastic tub.

I would gather materials from the dollar store and set out some spoons and scoops for the kids to play with loose parts.

Sometimes, I would gather items to go along with a unit study, like cars, dinosaurs, The Wizard of Oz.

Since I made sensory bins for my own children and know they have no allergies, it was no problem. For items for larger groups, I would make sure there were no wheat allergies or the like.

Why Sensory Bins?

Sensory play allows children to explore, discover, imagine, create, and learn – while engaging their senses.

Sensory play can be used to help kids calm down. We often used a quiet sensory toy during read aloud time or while waiting to occupy busy little hands.

They’re educational – helping kids develop important skills like language, emotions, fine motor, social, body awareness, science and math, and more.

Sensory play is great for special needs! Many therapists use sensory activity with even adult patients.

Sensory Bin Bases

  • I saved packing materials like styrofoam and bubble wrap.
  • Dyed rice or pasta.
  • Dried lentils
  • Dried beans
  • Sand
  • Oats
  • Bran kernels
  • Coarse wheat kernels

Sensory Bin Fillers

Themed items:

  • bells
  • plastic and wooden beads
  • ribbons
  • small boxes
  • stickers
  • die cut shapes
  • plastic planter decor (hearts or stars)
  • marbles
  • pom poms
  • decorative pebbles
  • shells
  • toys

Our Monthly Themed Sensory Bins:

Make sure you store your bins away from pets!

My kids loved playing with the sensory bins until they were about 8!

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: Montessori, preschool, sensory bin

Kindergarten Boy Fun

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April 22, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 5 Comments

Alex has been loving school lately.

I make sure I set aside at least an hour of uninterrupted one-on-one time with him every day.

We play trucks.

IMG_1718

And we have to have an audience!

trucks in line

He recently announced that he wanted to do math.

So I got out the Unifix and Cuisenaire and we counted and colored blocks.

unifix color

He loves All About Reading and we reinforce his learning with blend ladders and our movable alphabet.

letter matching

I made this with Lauri letters and phonograms tiles similar to these letter tiles. I got the case at Walmart, similar to this scrapbook organizer case.

Lauri Letters

These ladders are fun for reinforcement of the sounds.

blend ladders

I love the time we spend together, learning and exploring.

Recently, Alex has started saying to me: “When I was a boy…”

I asked him what he meant. What is he now if not a boy?

“Mama, when I was three, I was just a boy. I’m a big boy now.”

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: Montessori, preschool

Montessori 2.5 Years

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September 11, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

My son had lots of fun this summer!

He went to preschool nature camp with Dad at Ogden Nature Center.

We learned fun stuff at library Dig Into Reading sessions. We learned about other countries, history, language, art, animals, and more!

gracias

Alex made mashed potatoes almost all by himself. That cool knife? They’re over here. We have 2 of that one and 2 of this knife and the kids love them!

slicing potatoes width=

Alex still loves Tot School and Animal ABCs and Raising Rock Stars Preschool.

koala coloring page

He’s snuggly and likes to watch the iPad with sister

big sister and little brother

He gets so excited when our cat, Sinéad, allows him to pet her.

Sinead and Bubba

Alex helped in the garden lots. He helped dig up our potatoes.

He likes to help Liz with science. They do experiments together. He dropped the antacid tablets in the water/vinegar solutions to learn about concentration

helping sister with science experiments

A rare moment of peace between these two

holding hands

Watching Tori play Reading Kingdom

Reading Kingdom

Alex has a lot of freedom. I try to make sure he’s learning by all the everyday things we do. I want him to love learning and never get discouraged or frustrated. We limit our seatwork since he’s an active little boy!

Check out our Logic of English review…

Logic of English

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: LOTW, Montessori, nature study, preschool

Spelling Work

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May 22, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

We’re reviewing a fun unit study that comes with a spelling component and I thought we’d see how we do with this new thang.

I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.

– Mark Twain

They love the idea.

So, here we begin some new spelling work.

Liz and I are naturally good spellers and drills are just fun for us. I wonder how Tori and Kate will react.

We’ve about conquered reading with Kate. She’s on chapter books now! She still doesn’t write or spell well though yet.

writing spelling words

They have a sheet each day to complete, but I realize that they need extra help in between since this is so new and they have no experience with spelling.

Tori still needs practice reading.

spelling worksheet

I chose ten words from the recommended list and they wrote them five times each and wrote them each in a sentence. I wrote what they said on the board for the sentences and they copied them.

It’s just not enough for such a new concept. Their pretest was 3/10. But I loved how excited and optimistic Tori was that she got 3 right! That’s the way we should think, eh? Not focusing on getting 7 wrong, but 3 right!

So we multi-tasked on the deck this afternoon. Liz quizzed the girls while they prepped juice for lemonade and limeade. I think the sun was in her eyes or she was mad at me. Not sure what I did! {whatever}

making lemonade

Tori and Kate loved the squeezing of the limes.

squeezing limes

I printed these spelling cards on fun sherbet-colored paper and laminated them.

We will practice a few more and re-quiz on Friday.

Montessori Spelling Task Cards

Download your own Spelling Command Cards linked on this page. I love Montessori spelling.

One of our favorite apps is Montessori Crosswords. I just need to be more intentional about having my girls play it.

Looking to add Spelling City to our repertoire. and other apps and games to make spelling fun…

Alex loves Starfall and apparently, they have an advanced app: Learn to Read.

We’re using All About Reading Level 2 (we’re on the home stretch!) and I’ve heard rave reviews for All About Spelling. Probably a purchase in our future. It’s recommended by IEW.

Liz used Spelling Workout (recommended in The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home) and she liked it well enough. I’m hesitant to go the workbook route right now with Tori and Kate.

I like the idea of notebooking spelling and want to do something more creative and kinesthetic than just workbooks, but if Tori and Kate like workbooks, I’ll get them.

A new adventure with both girls mandated to be in school this coming year.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: classical, Montessori, spelling

Africa Continent Box

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April 18, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

I got 7 photo boxes at Michael’s last year during a major sale.

Alex used our Arctic and Antarctic box during our winter and snow unit a couple months ago. And you can see the girls in action with Kindergarten Antarctica last year.

Alex recently started asking questions about African animals, so I chose to capitalize on the learning excitement to create a unit for the kids!

We have subscriptions to Ranger Rick, Zoobooks, and all the National Geographic magazines. I found the ones that went with Africa and put them in a basket.

paper doll

Here is the box in progress. I cut out all the flags for matching and we have more printables now, including the lovely paper doll above.

Montessori Geography Africa Continent Box

I gathered some fun books from the library and printed out some fun activities and coloring pages.

Alex loves playing with the animals and coloring.

coloring Africa page

Tori  and Kate loved coloring and doing mazes and studying animals. Kate wants to work with animals when she grows up. She carries around an animal encyclopedia and just about has it memorized.

coloring Africa page

We’ve been watching Nature on Netflix and the girls love telling me what we’ve already studied – animals, climates, places. I love it.

Want some resources? Of course you do.

Printables (some cost)

  • education.com (I don’t have a membership here, but I get all sorts of great printables!)
  • abcteach.com (I do have a membership here and I love it!)
  • Montessori Print Shop
  • Montessori for Everyone (lots of great free printables)
  • Geography

Follow Jennifer’s board Geography on Pinterest.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: geography, Montessori

Math Cards Review

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March 1, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

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We were all very impressed with the Target Vocabulary Pictures, Set 1 from Lone Star Learning. They are brightly colored, laminated for durability, and come with a handy dandy definition card (which I stored in a safe place!). They are high quality and well worth the $29.99 price.
Photobucket

These ain’t your mama’s flashcards, y’all.

These cards are versatile in the extreme. I don’t think we even touched the tip of the iceberg in all the ways we can use these cards. I look forward to getting creative and allowing my kids to have lots of fun with these over the years!

They’re for multi-age use and we prove it! My son is almost 3. My girls are 5, almost 7, and 12 years old. And I’m an adult {ahem}. We all enjoyed using these cards. The girls requested all the other sets as presents! I have no problem obliging that request.

The cards completely appeal to the visual learner. The teach math vocabulary by using a picture within the word. I am not a “math person,” by any means. These are amazingly enticing to my two highly verbal daughters and me.

Tori is the “math girl” and she really loved using these.

We used these math vocabulary cards in centers, mathbooking, and art!

I set up math centers, kind of Montessori style, on floor rugs and my kids worked on those centers for several weeks.

Here is one where Tori is placing numbers in order. The DEcreasing and INcreasing cards help her to understand this number order concept.

decreasing and increasing numbers cards
place value cards

Then, Tori sorted EVEN and ODD numbers. Look at the little white blocks on the math cards to help visualize that concept.

even and odd cards

Greater Than and Less Than cards with the symbols helping to spell out the words. We also use the alligator idea (he “eats” the number).

greater than and less than cards

And the geometry cards were perfect for Alex to sort his 3D shapes!

shapes matching cards

Liz helps her brother match the shapes all up with the cards and they counted the sides or discussed the shapes and compared/contrasted them.

matching shapes

Here, Tori matches some Montessori 4-part cards and uses the fraction card to help her remember that Denominator is Down and Numerator is North. Gotta love that alliteration!

fraction Montessori cards

Tori fills in a little fraction book with that card to help again. She’s a perfectionist and got very frustrated with herself, second guessing and getting confused by the part=numerator and whole=denominator. She understood which was down and which was north very quickly though.

fraction book

Tori plays a matching game with fractions and uses that Numerator/Denominator card again. I think she really understood the fraction concept after these activities and the mnemonic on the card! Tori narrated to me each match and which number was the numerator and which was the denominator and why.

fraction matching cards

Here is Kate working out a fraction puzzle with the Numerator/Denominator card. She got the concept really quickly. She learns very differently from Tori and doesn’t like to repeat activities once she has mastered them.

fraction puzzles

And here’s our symmetry math art project! This was loads of fun – even I did it!

Alex holds up our card teaching the concept. I gave instructions and we discussed mirror images. We looked at lovely pictures from nature earlier of symmetry in peacock spiders. Love how everything worked out for this lesson!

symmetry math card

Liz and Tori fingerpaint on one side of their papers.

symmetry finger painting

Kate concentrates to get that paint just right.

finger painting symmetry

Alex paints his picture.

painting symmetry

I folded the papers in half and carefully pulled them back apart and voilà! beautiful Rorschach-like SYMMETRY paintings!

symmetry math art

So, we cannot praise these math cards enough! They are versatile, high quality, fun, colorful…they appeal to all my different learners – right-brained, left-brained, the visual, the numbers whiz, the verbal learners, and the kinesthetic. How cool is that in a single product?

From the site: Target Vocabulary Pictures Set 1, 2 or 3 consist of math vocabulary presented visually to facilitate recall. Target Vocabulary Pictures can be purchased in 2 sizes of brightly colored, coated cards for an easy-to-display, colorful classroom presentation. 50-56 cards in each set. $29.99 for each set

Sets are not arranged by grade level. Please view sets to determine the appropriateness for your students.

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Filed Under: Schoolhouse Review Crew Tagged With: art, math, Montessori, review

Snowy Preschool

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January 5, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 4 Comments

We got a bit of snow last week. Almost up to Dad’s knees!

Survival Mode

Helping Dad remove the hideous pink and blue flowered wallpaper!

Cleaning Wall

rolling the winter clothing die and putting stickers on the chart is a favorite!

Graphing Game

Alex really liked using Bananagrams to spell winter clothing words.

from Winter Fun Tot Pack

Letter Matching

I tried to make it simple and lay out one card and the letters for that card.

He wanted all the cards and all the letters all out. I was super impressed.

Bananagrams

Cutting out his jellyfish for letter J – from Animals ABCs

Cutting

pasting on his jellyfish for the letter J craft – from Animal ABCs

Gluing Jellyfish

To the right of our calendar is Alex’s theme board for the letter J.

Letter J Board

He likes his Lauri ABC puzzles. He usually hammers in the letters.

Lauri Alphabet Puzzles

Dad took Alex to the local nature center for a preschool winter class. They made snow paint with salt. They colored snowflake pictures.

snow-class-2.jpg

And….

Oh my, just look at him in his little snowshoes!

snow-class.jpg

Tonight before bed, Alex got so excited that it was essential oil time: “Ya gonna rub the oils on my foots?!” as I rubbed his “foots” with Thieves oil, he sighed like it was heaven: “Aaaaah!”

He is precious. and hilarious.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: LOTW, Montessori, preschool, snow

October Montessori Works

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October 8, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Bubba loved our Halloween sensory bin.

Thank you, Walmart and Target! There are oodles of fun little things at their dollar spots right now!

Our October Tot School and Montessori Works:

Halloween Sensory Bin!

Halloween Sensory Bin
Fun with Halloween Sensory Bin

He copied my pattern with erasers and beads

Pattern Play with Halloween Sensory Bin

Then he wanted to “stack” them

Stacking Erasers Sensory Play

Sorting apples and leaves. He also told me their colors.

Sorting Apples and Leaves

Coloring a pumpkin page from the Letter of the Week curriculum

P is for Pumpkin

Sorting hot and cold for fire safety

Sorting Hot and Cold

Matching shadow leaves. He thought this was great. Did he want to do it again? Nope.

Leaf Shadow Matching

Pin pushing a pumpkin page. How do you like that alliteration?

Montessori Pin Pushing Pumpkins

Floam. He wasn’t sure what to do with this.

Floam

Matching shapes. I named them for him. He knew most of them.

Shape Matching

Words with Tots app. The only thing I don’t like about this one is their picture of a chimpanzee: they call it a monkey.

Words with Tots App

Dot painting an A with apples

Dot Painting Letter A

Scarecrow tot pack. He did this letter maze finding all the S’s! I was impressed.

Letter S Maze

He loved cutting these fall leaves on their lines.

Cutting Leaf Lines

He was so happy with himself doing his school work.

Proud School Boy

He woke Daddy up super early this weekend and demanded to do his schoolwork. He cried when Daddy told him it was still dark and too early. It must’ve been before 5 AM! That’s my boy.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: fall, Halloween, LOTW, Montessori, sensory bin

Fall Sensory Bin and Light Table

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September 28, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Alex is busy, busy, busy!
He loves helping me make dinner and he loves to cut veggies with own little doggie knife!

Chopping Green Beans
He was SO excited to color with markers and watercolors with his sisters!
Tissue Art
Watercolor Acorn

We tried to learn about seasons and appropriate clothing. This game lasted only a few seconds and he was “done.”
Season Matching Cards
Our fall sensory bins. Alex loved playing with these clear plastic acorns and pumpkins on his light table.
Autumn Sensory Bin
Autumn DIY Light Table
I raided the dollar spot at Target. Lots of great stuff!
Fall Sensory Bin
H is for hippo. We started I for Iguana. We watched videos on BBC about hippos and iguanas. He actually narrated to Dad what he learned!

These little beetles took over the park. They were all different shades and patterns of red and orange and black. I think they’re fire bugs. Perfect name.
Fire Bugs
Alex loves watching Abby and Dinosaur Train and Diego.
Watching Sesame Street
Alex says he’s DONE WITH NAPS. Lord help me.
Alex’s attention span is about non-existent. I hope that changes over the next few months. Our schedule has been crazy keeping up with him and trying to get the girls’ schooling completed and chores done. He begs for constant companionship. He will not play alone so someone always has to be with him. This makes for sporadic lessons. Right now, it’s barely working for us.
Tori, Katie, and I do morning school with Alex while Liz gets her math, Greek, and other work completed. When she’s ready, she takes Alex outside or somewhere to play while I get some reading and lessons done with the girls. Then we have lunch and we try to get “one more thing” done after that. Some days we do. Often, Liz completes some history or science and the girls play with Alex.
So, this means no rest time or alone time for Mama or the girls.

Can you say exhausted?

Linking up: Kids Activities Blog, The Resourceful Mama, Life of Faith, Written Reality, Kiddy Charts, The Educators Spin On It, ABC Creative Learning, Living Montessori Now, Simple Life of a Fire Wife, Los Gringos Locos, Growing Hands on Kids, JBMumofOne,

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: fall, light table, Montessori, preschool, sensory bin

Tot School 2.5 Years

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September 20, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Alex still loves hammering those golf tees into Styrofoam.

I had to get a new block for him!

Styrofoam Hammering

Liz played a game and taught Alex fractions with these fun wooden fraction blocks. He loved it.

Fraction Blocks

We made letters with Magneatos!

Magnetos Name Building

We stacked our ABC nesting blocks and Alex was excited it was almost as tall as he is!

Measuring with Blocks

Look at that proud pose!

Stacking Blocks

And, of course, knocking them all down!

Knocking the Block Tower Over

Big sister Lizzie helps Alex with his poster centers. I bought two posters, had them laminated, and then cut one out so he can attach it with Velcro dots. It’s great. He loves it.

Color Matching

Dinosaur stamping was a favorite this week. He also played quite a lot with stickers.

Dino Stamping

The Piggy Bank toy is still a favorite.

Piggy Bank

Alex can play Boggle Jr., but he quickly tired of it.

Boggle Junior Play

I made a painters tape road for him to drive his cars on in the basement. He loved it. For a minute.

Painters Tape Road

I am impressed by Alex’s general compliance with helping to clean up his works and mat. He is mostly eager to do this and I am glad I trained him to put away his work this way.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: Montessori, tot school

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