Montessori Monday ~ A is for Apple

Well I have been away from my blog for quite a few days! I'm sorry for that! :) I have been super busy helping a friend out and getting a super special project finished for the girls! I'll give you a hint...its an outside work area! Wait till you see it! Its gonna be great!

Anyway...back to this post. Today we officially started our alphabet of the week. We started with"a" is for apple! I made a few trays and the girls did some pretty good work. I think Bunny got almost a full 2 hour work period in. Its a good start! Bug and Tadpole were here today and I think that they had a lot of fun too.
One thing that I am really thinking about is the way we work together. We are a homeschoolers and I think that we need to keep that in mind. I really notice that when I let go of my idea of what they should learn, they learn better! This is especially true for Bunny. So I need to make sure that I let her tell me when she is ready for more work, and really watch her to know when that is. I also need to realize that I will never have a perfect Montessori room. My girls will never truly run the house the way Montessori children care for their "children's house". Why? Because they are in our family home. So my kids are allowed to go where they want to in out house, and they are responsible for helping take care of the house. But instead of it being their work, its our work! We are a family and our work reflects that relationship.  I think that it is the thought that will make our year so much better and easier. It allowes me to have our girls really work with me and that will help us to grow close! So that being said, here is the pictures of our first real day of work.

Here is our alphabet basket for the week.

"A" is for apple, alligator, and art.

Our sandpaper letter for the week.

Here is what our weekly shelf looks like.

Polishing an apple work.

Spooning acorn tops.

Pouring "fairy jewels". :)

Here are the geometric solid I have on a tray.

 It was a desperate attempt to get someone interested in them. Its not working! :(

Here is our weekly book basket. This is something that I am really going to focus on. I want the girls to really fall in love with living books, so this is something that we will have every week!

Bug, Tadpole, and Pup all worked with cylinder blocks.

Pup is mastering the buttoning frame! I am proud of her. She chose this work herself last week and she has been working with it alot! Today she had at least 15 min into working with this! Total concentration!

She and Bug loved polishing the apples. They also got to learn how to wait their turn! ;)

Bunny took a lot of time to color her Apple Blossom Fairy picture today! She did a great job!

There also was a lot of work today with the rough smooth boards. Bug loved them, and Pup and  Tadpole wanted to do it too!

This is not a great picture, but I was really proud of Bug for rolling her own run!

Bug and Pup were reading stories together!

Bunny did a couple of addition problems with exchange. She was a little unsure of what she did last year, but after a few minutes, she jumped back in! She did a great job!

Painting. You will see a ton of this this year! Bug and Pup are totally in love with this work, so I will really try and find a way for them to paint more. I guess I need to find a way to have an art area.

Here is Bunny's picture of Mrs. Applebee. Mrs. Applebee is the first character that is in Elizabeth Foss's Along the Alphabet Path and she really did a great job! I love that she wrote apple!

So that is the start to our school week! Its going really well so far! To see more Montessori work, check out the Montessori Monday link up over at One Hook Wonder and Living Montessori Now!