New Math Work {and awesome work day}!!!

Well today I stayed home this morning with the girls and got them into a really steady work period! It started off with Bunny wanting to write in cursive! Yikes! I was not prepared for that! So I quickly printed off a chart showing cursive letters and I showed her how to write her name in cursive! This led to me showing Bunny how to write on the lines with that think lined manuscript paper that the use in schools. It took a little bit, but she enjoyed trying to make the letters look like the sample page I wrote out! I was happy that she took an interest in this since her handwriting is something that we needed to work on! I guess keeping my mouth closed can lead to her taking an interest in exactly what she needs to learned! Montessori is awesome! :)

After she wrote a few words on her own she moved on to a new work that I made for her {does anyone else make materials while their kids are working hard at something else?}. This new math idea came from a blog Kingdom of the Pink Princess and I just had to try it! I wrote some simple addition problems on Popsicle sticks that didnt add up to more then 9. I then pulled out the spindle boxes, minus the spindles! The work for Bunny was to add them up and put the sticks in the slot that had the right sum on it. For example if the stick had 3+4, then Bunny would put the stick in the 7 spot. It is am amazing way to reuse the spindle box! Bunny loved it! She has been really excited about being able to add and subtract with her fingers and this let her practice that! As I watched her work, I realized that with all the adding on her fingers, she has memorized quite a few problems! She just knew so many more then I realized! Yeah for her!

While Bunny was working, Pup was hard at work too! Pup worked on the ring stacker and it was great to watch her self correct when she put them in the wrong order! After that she moved on to doing our napkin ring work from our thanksgiving trays. She really enjoyed this! After she got them all in the rings, she took them out and folded them all back up! Another work I was able to get her interested in was the red rods! I asked her to get the longest rod and lay it on the floor in another part of the room and we did this till the rods were built. Then she took them all back and put them in the proper order! I was shocked that she was able to do it well! She hasnt been able to do it before and I have been waiting for her just "get it"! She hasnt been able to line them up at an end though, but she did try! Maybe in the spring she'll be ready for some sandpaper numbers! But sandpaper letters is what we moved on to after that! She loved tracing the sounds and then trying make them in the sand. She memory of the sounds isnt quite there, but I think it will happen as we go! :) I have tried to play sound games with her, but she just doesnt have any interest in it. But I will keep trying!

When Pup was working, Bunny had really had taken off in math and wanted to learn more. So I pulled out some work that I thought Bunny would like, the squaring beads! I used the presentation that was in the Karen Tyler albums and she loved it! First we explored the beads by laying them all out in line with the squares at the end. Then i had her pick one of them and we saw how it folded up to become the same as the square. The we counted the beads one by one. Each time we got to the end of a bead bar, we put an arrow there with the number there! At the end I would say "9 is the square of 3" and we would do another one. We worked until we got too hungry and went to eat lunch!

 It was a really great work and I really motivated me to try harder to get more time in. They do so well when I make time to work with them! So I hope that you all have had a great week so far! We went together to see the Christmas Lights at our zoo tonight and the girls had an amazing time! Will be post pictures on that tomorrow!