The Lineup of bosses.....

A Good Play

We built a ship upon the stairs, all made of the back-bedroom chairs, and filled it full of sofa pillows to go a-sailing on the billows....

This reminded me of the Robt. Louis Stevenson poem. The children made a pirate ship and normally I would have encouraged them to put the chairs away and work from the shelf but they were all having such a good time sailing on the billows. Notice the Commanding Officer, Caleb, and the Executive Officer, Andrew, studying the map they had made. And then there is Connor, just comfortable in their ability to steer the ship wherever and Nevada lying on the chairs waiting for Alyssa to cover her up with the mats. I am not sure what Dawson, in the background, is thinking. He is probably wondering about the make and model of the ship.

Whitlee puts the finishing touches on her map of South America.

1st grader, Whitlee, is writing huge numbers and learning place value.

More Daily Work

They watch everything we do. Scary! Alyssa watches me teach piano and is "teaching" Nevada. Little sweethearts.

Caleb was working with parts of trucks while Tanner was making a large equilateral triangle from four smaller equilateral triangles.

Caleb and Connor's little sister. Such a cutie!!

Dawson is using the fraction skittles to make whole skittles. At first the children just set the skittles together but later it helps with understanding fraction parts. The the little bulb on top of the skittle encourages the use of the three fingers with which we hold a pencil. There are many activities in a Montessori school which are designed to strengthen those muscles used in writing.

Sweet Kadan is cutting bread into cubes and after she cleans the tray and puts it back on the shelf, she will offer cubes of the bread to the other children - if she wants to. She may choose to eat it herself but most of the children always share it. Alyssa waits fairly patiently for her turn.

Chef Tanner is helping make his birthday cake for his fourth birthday!! The children wear the chef's toque proudly but I think, after seeing this picture, that we should put some starch in the top of it.

Little Nevada carries the little glass cup for the water very carefully, gets just a spot of water, carries it to the table and then "paints" with water. Notice how she is holding the top of the brush carefully so that she doesn't press too hard on the bristles and scratch the board. This is some kind of special board which, when painted on with water, makes the design and then in a few seconds fades away. She is very careful with it.

Kadan's Birthday

Sweet kids - they love to make the Birthday cakes. When we put in the baking powder I always tell them that it makes the cake rise. Then I always ask this same question, "What made Jesus rise from the dead?" They vociferously tell me, "The Holy Spirit!" Someone must have not paid attention the other times or was one of the "new" kids, but today when I asked what made Jesus rise from the dead, the answer came, "baking powder!" Sometimes it is tough keeping a straight face but when they are being serious and not trying to be funny, you simply must not laugh at them.

sweet Maria Theresa helping make the cake for Kaden's birthday.

A Couple of Tidbits of Information for you

Did you know that diaper rash causes arthritis? Or maybe arthritis causes diaper rash... I am not sure. At the circle a little gal prayed for her baby sister who had a bad diaper rash. Then she looked up at me and very seriously told me her sister had arthritis. It's a good thing I have had much practice in not laughing at things children tell me when they are being very serious.

We are making a set of planets in school and at least a couple of the children asked me why God made Pluto not be a planet anymore. (Well, that is the way they worded it) I'll have to work my brain around awhile to try to figure out what I must have said somewhere in the explanation of planets that made them figure God had just taken Pluto out of the planet line-up.

There are several of the four and five year old children who have nouns and verbs down pat. I'm proud of them. They may not be able to tie their shoes just yet but they know those nouns and verbs. (They also know what the top of the turtle shell is called - do you?)

Funny stuff

We made a little "gal" doll from a burr oak acorn yesterday and the sweet little gal whose Dad had brought us the acorns said, "Well, Martha Stewart would be surprised!" A few weeks earlier she explained to us just how to kill and dress a hog. Do you "dress" a hog? Well she explained how to slaughter it and a few more details. She figured she could do all of it except shoot the hog cause if she shot and missed, she would just make him mad and then she could get hurt, so she better let someone else shoot it and then she could take care of it. This gal just turned five this week.

A few pictures

Hello, We are proud of your children and some of the work they do. I am anxious to show off your children and their work on this site and I am glad that some of you have turned in your permission form so that we can post your child's picture. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I will not put the address of the school on the site and I will only put the child's first name with a picture.
Must go make some dinner so I will quickly put a couple pictures on that were taken today.
Warren had his third birthday today!!! His family brought brownies for us. Yummy!
I will work a bit harder at getting the pictures suited to captions but for now I will just tell you that the cutie in one of the pictures is Alyssa who was sitting on a drum, doll in her arm and playing a different music maker to the doll. Very cute. In another picture she is stacking the eighth block onto a stack of blocks. Eight is very good for her age (I think; I will look that up).

hmmm,

I wonder why the post time on the first note is several hours early. Marcella and Adam, who told me about this lovely way of spending time instead of working on taxes, will wonder how I made a blogspot while I was at their house. Very tricky. Bilocation, of course-heh,heh. It was actually written around 11:00 p.m. which is why I needed to "hit the hay."

Hello

I have tried a web page without much luck on my own. I do have savvy children who can help me with the web page but lo and behold, they have other things to do than just take care of mom's stuff - imagine that - so I am going to have a blog spot also - I can do this. Hmmm, I thought I could; I cannot even underline! Maybe you cannot underline on blogs - I bet you can though - darn where are those kids!?! Anyway, I intended to underline that word "can" about three lines up (as in, "I can do this.")
If you are mildly curious about seeing the web page, go to www.keystonemontessorischool.com - you won't find much but it is there. John put a picture on it for me.
I guess I cannot put children's pictures on here until I ask permission from the parents so I will just put a couple general pictures on and then after I get permission you can see some fun pictures. Kids really are pretty cool. If you are taking the time to look at this, then I suspect you already know that, though.
Getting late and if there isn't much ice tomorrow, we will have school so I better hie myself to bed pretty quickly.