Sweetness and Light

GREAT Lessons are Fun!

(Repost from Sept. 2007. If you're doing the Montessori Great Lessons as a basis for teaching History to your children, here is an example of how we started. I can't believe how little Sean-Paul looks here, two years makes a big difference, wow!! Enjoy and let me know if any of the links are dead, I don't have time to check them right now as it's a very special birthday today for the children's grandpa :) Many blessings in your day, next up: Botany!)

Well, this picture pretty much sums up how our First GREAT Lesson went on Monday!!  It was FUN!!!

I followed Andrea's lead at Gray Family Circus and used a combination of materials from the above page link and the MTC Albums "God Who Has No Hands" to prepare for and present this VERY Montessori way of describing the Cosmic Beginning of the Universe.   

It was truly a captivating lesson for all of my different aged children and there was a surpise in each of the wonderful Experiments.  Here is the basic progression or order of the Presentation that I gave:

• Discussion of what we see in our world outside our door and in the greater world
• Presented the vastness of nothingness, while waving a balloon filled with confetti over our work space
• Popped Balloon and talked about this new great force of energy (Who was this force??? GOD)
• Lit a candle to signify how God brought Light into the vastness and transformed the chaotic Universe into something more orderly (Sprinkled Bits of Confetti onto surface of water to show order
• Discussion of the Stars, the speed of light and how our Sun was created to warm only our Earth
• Discussion of Size ratio of Earth to Sun (show Picture of Sun enveloping the Earth)
• Talked about Earth's components (Demonstrated 3 Forms of Matter with Honey, Water, and Oil)
• Talked about how the 3 Forms react to heating and cooling (Demonstration of Ice melting, Boiling and Steaming/Evaporating)(Pictoral Sketch)
• Showed how the liquid form of matter flows around solids by filling each crevice and space (Poured water over clear marbles in glass, demonstrated gas by spraying perfume)
• More discussion of Earth's formation and trapped hot liquid matter under the surface (Demonstrated Volcano)  HUGE SUCCESS and SURPRISE!!

We finished up with a Picture Sketch of the Earth ready for life to begin and discussed how God was very precise when he created it for us!!  Here are some more pictures of our day, Matthias tries his hand at the Volcano!

Our Three States of Matter, don't you just love the blue water, I know the kids did!

After we finished up with our lesson, I brought out all the Sandpaper and Homemade Landforms and we explored with some great hands learning on Earth formations!

Seamus trying the Gulf/Penisula Form:

After watching big brother, it was his turn to try the Cape and Bay!!!

Matthias working at the Isthmus and Strait:

Violet trying her hand at the Lake and Island, notice the forlorn Sean-Paul, he just could hardly stand to wait for his turn again...

At last....a little blue Lake!!

Thanks for popping in on our GREAT learning!!!  I have a wonderful set of photos of Seamus's very own Volcano that he created and demonstrated later in the day and I'm trying to make it into a slideshow, stay tuned....Blessings to you! Here's the slideshow, well worth watching :))

Volcanoes in Action!

As an add-on to my post on our First Great Lesson this past Monday, here is a nice little slideshow of Seamus's very own Plastina Volcano in Action!!  Enjoy!

Free MySpace slideshows, photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thanks for visiting!!  Check this out if you're looking for a Pre-School Unit Study on Volcanoes!  Let me know if you use it with your sweeties!!  Blessings!

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!

Our History Shelves

This is our first year doing an in depth Ancient History study as in the past (no pun intened) we've kind of just scratched the surface.  The kids and I are really excited with our initial exploration and I love all the books suggested in Levels 1A & 2 of the Mater Amabilis curriculum.  We've also found many others to go along as well.

Also, as we hit American History pretty hard last year, our new cycle of learning would focus on British History.  There will be much cross over too when we are studying Greece and Rome.

So far we've visited pyramids and devoured a great story by Geraldine McCaughrean of Ancient Egypt and we're working through Elizabeth Payne's "The Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt."  (So far, the kids think this one is a bit dry)  but we're spicing it up a bit with other books like:

Usborne's Time Traveller: Pharaoh's & Pyramids

Ancient Egypt (Make it Work) by Andrew Haslam

The Usborne Encyclopedia of The Ancient World,

and this fun activity kit:  Catherine Nichols, Ancient Egyptian Secrets Revealed: "Go On A Dig" , and we're also awaiting this lovely building set for some great Pyramid architectural discoveries!  Who knew Ancient History could be so fun!

(After we tackle Ancient Egypt we'll be moving on to Ancient Greece and Rome!  We've already started a bit with Ancient Greece with our Science Studies!)

Our British History studies have also gotten off to a smashing good start with the beginning of our current read aloud:  Our Island Story, by H. E. Marshall.  It is a delighful read aloud and nothing like a dry history text at all!  We're going to sprinkle in another Geraldine McCaughrean book to supplement (not that it needs any) with Britannia!  It's 100 stories of British History combined in a beautiful text such as only Geraldine McCaughrean can write!! 

This too will be a joy and a nice compliment to our Ancient studies!