Baskets of Discovery!

There are many ways to *Rabbit Trail* with a Montessori Education and I have decided to call our learning in various areas Baskets of Discovery.  For our picture books I have already made a new side bar labeled Baskets of Sweetness because for us, that's what reading lovely picture books is all about, sweetly snuggling in for a good time of listening and enjoyment. 

Right now I have four Baskets of Discovery set up for the children to explore at their leisure.  Some may call this Strewing, and indeed it is certainly in that vain that I wanted to set up these baskets so my sweeties could make their choices based on their interests of the day or week! 

Today I presented our Dinosaur Basket of Discovery (pictured above) and at the same time introduced the Time Line of Life!  Everyone worked at their own level and picked an activity based on their desired interest level.  We all listened a great audio book called Brontosaurus and everyone chose to draw a picture (or a few).  Violet used our Time Line of Life Research Guide to delve deeper into discovering the Anatosaurus and wrote a beautiful narration based on her findings! (And this is from a little girl who has never wanted anything to do with dinosaurs :)  Here is her picture of Anatosaurus and Deinonychus:

Seamus worked with the Dinosaur Stamp and Sticker Kit  and then drew his picture of Ankylosaurus and labeled it by copying the Nomenclature label, he's very proud of his work and I am too :)

Matthias enjoyed looking at and reading our Mammoth Book of Dinosaurs and The Colossal Book of Dinosaurs which happens to have a *killer* dictionary in the back which we will be using extensively for expanding our Nomenclature and Definitions!! After much exploration of the books he chose to draw a picture of Triceratops!

While the older three were busily working I had some wonderful one-on-one time with Sean-Paul.  He wanted to read Dinosaurs Dinosaurs our favorite Byron Barton board book, then he worked on his Triple Stacking Shapes, then he asked for the Folding Activity.  Here is he is marveling at his marble shoot he built all by himself :)   He then asked me if he could go outside and play!!  You betcha!!

We had the best morning learning and discovering together, I really think they are going to enjoy our Baskets of Discovery, it's all part of the Sweetness for sure!

Please stay tuned for our other Baskets of Discovery which will include: 

• Butterflies,
• Rainforest
• and Shells!

Comments

[Theresa ♥]

I love these baskets Meredith! How fun to explore these.

I may have to borrow your idea. :o)

[Valerie]

What a fantastic idea! I have a little guy who likes dinosaurs, has quite a collection of big and little ones, and we have a few books. Hah...why not pull all those things together to use in the learning area??? You are just brilliant!