Montessori Monday~ "T" is for Tools!

All right....Post number 2 for the day! This really should be two posts, but hey, life happens! :) So I will put it all in one post. So take a seat and get ready! This week is "t" week and we are using the theme tools! I have a ton of great trays (at least I think they are great) and we have a new storyboard! My sister again came to the rescue and drew a really cute picture for me! Today I showed it to the girls during circle time and told them the story of Tim the Tool Fairy. Here is a version of the story I told:



"Out in Alphabet Forest there lives Tim the Tool Fairy. Tim has a special job in the forest. He is the person that helps the other fairies fix things that need to be fixed. One day, while Tim was out for a walk, he decided to wander out into the meadow. As he headed out into the beautiful green grass, he noticed Mr. Turtle. "Hello Mr. Turtle," said Tim, "How are you?" "Oh I am ok, someone stepped on my house and now it needs a new roof. I am off to find someone to help me fix it!" "But Mr. Turtle," said Tim, "I thought you had your house on your back!" "I do, but sometimes I like to have a place that I can stretch out  and have friends over in," said Mr Turtle.  "Well," said Tim "if you would like some help I will go and get my tool box." " Oh Tim that would be so helpful!" So Tim flew off to him little house in the big oak tree and grabbed his toolbox!" Tim the Tool Fairy got right to work and before Mr. Turtle knew it Tim had put a bright red roof on his house! "Oh thank you so much Tim. This a wonderful roof! I think it is perfect!"
Once again I know that I need to work on my story telling skills! But the kids liked it and It even inspired Bunny to draw a picture of Tim! The girls did so much work today I think that it was a pretty good day! So now on to a million pictures! Here are my trays for the week, followed by the pictures of the girls working hard!

Nuts and Bolts

Tweezing Nuts and Bolts

(one of each in each cup)

Sifting nuts and bolts

Transferring

(for Tadpole)

Wrenches Biggest to Smallest

(this was inspired by Montessori At Home! In the book Mr. Bowman uses sockets instead of knobless cylinders)

Tracing Tools

Book Basket

Sound Basket:

~ Train

~ Turtle

~ Tiger

~ Tool

~ Tape

~ poT (ending sound)

Tadpole Working

(he is still really into putting object into containers)

Bunny Making her picture of Tim the Tool Fairy

Bug doing nuts and bolts

Pup tried this work. I may need to represent it, but she did try.

Bug was inspired by Pup!

Chalk board work

Tadpole likes to try these. He just does one cylinder at a time

Pup attempted to trace tools. I helped a little. She got most of the way around it! It was really hard for her!

Bunny colored the strawberry fairy from last week.

Color matching

Pup wanted to build a tower with the red cylinders

Bug joined her and they worked together for a long time! They had a really hard time trying to put that last skinny cylinder on the top!

Bunny saw them working and pulled out a set of her own! I love that social part of Montessori work!

I then showed Bunny how the sandpaper letters we have been working on could make words. I laid them out in a word and she READ it!!!! We were both really proud! She is so close! I can feel it! She even wanted to get the rest of the sounds out and make other words. I think that she doesn't see moveable alphabet as fun, so I tried this instead! This idea was also from John Bowman's book Montessori At Home!

She even made her own word!

"jrum"

("drum")

This is a work that never made it on the shelves. I had her screw the screws I started. She loved this and did all 6 of them! Then she wanted to make it into something for her daddy. She took our dyed yarn and wrapped it around the screws!

When she finished the screws, Bunny wanted to try nailing!

So that was the work of our day! There was of course a ton of playing that happened too! It turned out to be a good day! I hope you had a happy Monday too! If you want to see more Montessori fun, check out Montessori Monday!!!!