A few months ago, we finished reading our first chapter book ever!!! It was Charlotte’s web by E.B. White and Illustrated by Garth Williams.

Her past Montessori class was reading the book, so she got back home very excited wanting to get it at the book store. I didn’t know about this book before (shame on me….or shame on my old Puerto Rican traditional school system). It was great to read the book together every night and finally watch the movies. We found two movies: one an animation, and another with persons. This helped us to compared the movies and the book. This seems an activity for older kids but I got amazed by all the details a young kid can remember.

Then we added a few hands-on-activities or Montessori-inspired lessons to go with our beloved book.

Characters spelling activity

Charlotte’s web small world

(She played with these for ages….sometimes reciting parts from the book or movie and others just using her imagination. Great way to bring a book to life!)

Characters:

Pigs: Wilbur and Uncle

Spiders: Charlotte and daughters (Joy, Aranea and Nelly)

Rat: Templeton

Girl with eggs basket: Fern Arable

Boy with fish: Avery Arable

Woman and man next to boy: Mr. and Mrs. Arable

Man with calf: Lurvy

Geese and Gander

Sheep (not pictured) and lamb

Horse and colt

Cow and flies

Man driving the tractor: Mr. Zuckerman

Woman next to tractor: Mrs. Zuckerman

 

Origami farm

(From Michael’s but I recently saw it at the Dollar Tree Store)

 

Books to complement

(These books are from our own home library)

Books about The farm.

 

Books about farm animals.

 

Books about spiders.

 

Books about pigs.

 

We did a few more activities that will share later on!

Have a great weekend!!

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Pinky is getting really good with her Spanish since my super duper idea of just letting her to play all day long with her “we just speak Spanish” little cousins. We spent two weeks last summer in Puerto Rico where she just: played!

5 cute cousins sitting on a couch….there’s comes….

 

No lessons, no frustrations, no mommy interventions……just free time to play with other Spanish speaking kids.

Now that we are back home, she is speaking in English again!!! Arrrggg! Therefore, I am trying to start short lessons with her to keep practicing Spanish while we get to visit our family again.

We are sharing today our first lesson as a follow up of this post about the Spanish Vowels.

Montessori-inspired Spanish alphabet boxes

 

Since Pinky is reading pretty good in English, we are not using her Alphabet boxes anymore. Therefore, I decided to change them into Spanish Alphabet boxes just by changing the objects from their initial sound box in English into the initial sound name in Spanish. Easy!

 

First, we looked around the house and inside our English alphabet boxes for objects that started with each vowels sound. Then we made a pile. 

 

Later we matched the objects with their vowel initial sound.

If you will like to try this activity with your kids, here is a better look of each one of the vowels and their objects.

I bet you can find most of them right now at home!!

 

Letter a is for:

• ambulancia= ambulance
• almohada= pillow
• ave= bird
• abeja= bee
• arbol- tree
• avion- airplane
• aceituna= olive
• arana= spider
• azul= color blue
• auto= car
• alfombra= rug
• anillo= ring
• anaranjado= color orange
• abanico= fan
• arcoiris= rainbow
• amarillo= color yellow
• agua= water
• ardilla= squirrel
• angel= angel
• alce= elk

Letter e is for:

• Elmo= Elmo
• elefante= elephant
• espejo= mirror
• escalera= stairs (vowels)
• elastico= elastic band
• emparedado= sandwich
• estrella= star
• espada= sword
• escoba= broom
• escritorio= desk

 

Letter I is for:

• iman= magnet
• iguana= iguana
• insecto= insect
• indio= indian
• iglu= igloo

 

Letter o is for:

• Olivia= Olivia
• oso= bear
• oveja= sheep
• orca= killer whale
• octagono= octagon
• ojos= eyes
• olla= pot
• ovalo= oval
• ocho= number eight
• orangutan= orangutan
• oreja= ear
• oruga= caterpillar

 

Letter u is for:

• unicornio= unicorn
• uvas= grapes
• uno= number one
• uniciclo= unicycle
• Urraca= magpie (not pictured)

 

Do you have any hands-on-activity to learn a new language?

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Well, I am kind of late with this post, as always! lol

Here are our Favorite Five Practical life activities. Since Pinky is an only child and she expends most of her time with me, we don’t do trays for practical life.

Instead, we do everyday tasks as they come. Here are a few examples:

• Table setting. Here is our post.

• Laundry time. Here is the first time we started to help.

• Cook. Here and Here and the posts.

Around 2 years old making pancakes! That’s her proud face!

Oh…my baby!!!

2.5 years old helping to sauté the vegetables.

At 4 years old using an electric chopper. She is fascinated!

Preparing her own chocolate milk! (4.5 years old)

Here she is preparing lunch for both of us: Peanut butter sandwich!

And that’s our cheap Montessori-inspired stool version; a 2 step metal folding ladder.

I think she learned how to use it around 2 years old.

• Organizing around the house. Grocery shopping. Here is the post.

Saving the grocery shopping!

Look at her tiny fat hands!!!

 

There is a place for her shoes!

 

• Cleaning dishes, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning her bathroom

Here is a post about the dishwasher.

Helping to clean the Kitchen cabinets during our moving.

Disclaimer: Don’t try this with younger kids and always watch big kids while helping with this task.

 

Pinky’s very own bathroom which comes with responsibilities, too!

I will try to share later on!

That’s it! Simply activities that include your child at home and don’t get mommy all stress out preparing practical life trays and then looking for a spot to display them and never get touch again.

My very own experience!

Now is your turn to visit MONTESSRI MOMents for more Friday fives!

 

This has been such a hard task! We moved 2 months ago and I just found the almost best way to organize Pinky’s bedroom. Oh well, she has way too many stuffs!

I love the point behind the Montessori method: beauty, to follow the child’s interests, child friendly environment, simplicity, etc. However, it is hard to find a Montessori bedroom example for older kids!

If you follow Pinterest, (if you don’t…you are missing wonderful ideas and more stress into your life!) you can find plenty of Montessori bedrooms or Montessori-inspired bedrooms for infants and toddlers. But, what about preschoolers, and bigger kids that are very brain washed with princesses, fairies, My little pony (OMG! we are in this stage right now), Dora, Hello Kitty, etc? I bet, you got the idea that I have a girl at home!

Well, now you understand why it is so hard for me to organize Pinky’s things. Did I day she has too many stuffs? My fault!

Since, I couldn’t find any example to follow (If you have any, let me know PLEASE!!!)….here is my attempt again!….(here is our first post about the same issue when Pinky was a preschooler) to incorporate the Montessori ideas into our brain washed space:

This is Pinky’s bedroom seen from the door. It is her bedroom and playroom since we live in a 2 bedroom apartment, yet.

I tried my very best fitting all her things as organized and available for a kid as I could!

As you can see, bookshelves are a great way to displace toys. We don’t rotate them because of the lack of storage available, so all her toys are always on sight. Actually (as a 5 years old), she is in love with all miniature houses, toys, ponies, princesses, ponies, animals, cars, ponies, etc. Everything tiny and small!!! 

 

Behind the door, we have her bed. It is a wood twin bed, not a floor bed like the one you always see related to a Montessori room. The reasons are:

1. I didn’t get to know about the Montessori method until Pinky was around 18 months old.
2. We bought a regular crib (well, it was a gift!) that we could change into a toddler bed.
3. Pinky really never liked her crib/toddler bed, so we were co-sleeping until almost her first 2 years of life.
4. Finally she got to use her “big girl” bedroom and toddler bed until her 3 birthday when she was outgrowing her bed.
5. Mommy found a great deal $20 for this kind of vintage wood twin bed. Mattress was bought new with the money the store gave me for my I-didn’t-know-my-baby-crib-had-a-recall!

There you have our bed story…..let me tell you that Pinky loves it and the bed height is suitable.

The decals on the wall are from her 3 birthday Tinker bell and fairies obsession love.

She doesn’t want to get rid of them and I just, well, followed my child’s desire! At the end of the day, it’s her bedroom, yes?

Besides the bed there’s a night table holding books (in need of some TLC!), and a bookshelf holding her houses. (Did I say she loves all mini toys?)

 

Frames. Pictures from her 2 past schools, a dance writing, and a drawing made by her best friend with their photo.

Her Princesses/Barbie’s house.

Toy box holding pretty much every thing that doesn’t have a place like her market/kitchen stuffs, musical instruments, balls, etc.

The basket contains level books she can read by herself.

The night table holds mini dollies in the first drawer and all the toy houses parts in the second drawer.

The two green baskets are theme/seasonal books. Right now we have books about community helpers inside one and books about going back to school in the other.

Next to the night table, there is another bookshelf with baskets for toys by themes like: cars, pets, ocean, pond, farm, mixed-up toys.

The 2 big purple baskets contains fruits, vegetables and food for her toy kitchen.

The chest contains Pinky’s clothes. I still need to print-out a few labels I made for her in order to know what’s in each drawer.

As you can see, she also has princesses decals.

Got to love little girly girls!!!

Then, there’s a small table/desk which I had to put another house (it was a gift from a family friend and Pinky uses to complete her pretend “Ponyville”.)

Next, is her toy kitchen which sincerely I don’t know why I keep it. She doesn’t use it anymore that much. We will keep it for a bit longer and see if she gets another pretend cooking sensorial period or something like that!

On the wall you can see our bows frame holder. I made it with a piece of wood, a recycled receiving baby blanket and ribbons using my glue gun. It’s amazing!

It saves time in the morning!!!

Next to the toy kitchen and behind the closet door, we have the puppet theater and puppet’s basket.

Just like the kitchen, I am holding into this one for a few more months and see if she gets her attention into it again.

We also, double use it as our market counter.

Behind the closet door we have a shoe holder which it has been holding our princesses and Barbie for quiet a time now and it is the most amazing idea ever! Not mine!

Inside the walking closet we have a reading nook with her old crib mattress on the floor with stuffed animals and a bookshelf full of awesome books waiting to be read.

We A.D.O.R.E books at this house and they are always read many many times with the same excitement as the first time!

Small stuffed animals are organized into wired baskets from Target (I think!)

Here dresses, skirts and dressed-up customs at a child friendly level.

This girl LOVES dresses!!!

In the middle of the room there’s her favorite rug (from Ikea) which she uses every-single-day to play “Ponyville”.

Before that she used to play with her cars.

That’s It! My hard attempt into a functional, organized, child friendly and brain washed modern kindergartner bedroom.

I know it is not a TRUE Montessori room but it is the most approximated one we could get at our home using the amazing idea behind the method!

Plus this is what my little princess told me as soon as she got from school and saw her room:

Thank you, thank you thank you mommy!!! You really did a good job in my bedroom. I love it!!!!

Aaaahhh! It melts my heart!

Until the next moving experience!!!

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