Repost: Montessori homeschool #1

Repost:  I posted this over 7 years ago.  I checked the links and they are all still good.  It is still  one of my favorites posts.  

My journey through Montessori began a few years ago.  I visited a Montessori school with a friend of mine.  I was fascinated by the equipment and the ideas behind Montessori.  I had taught full time, but had never learned of Marie Montessori or her methods.

Montessori fits so well into homeschooling.  Whether you set up an area of your home with Montessori  activities, include your children in chores, have them cook with you, or use the 3 card system of learning your kids will benefit.  Children become competent independent  people when participating in Montessori.  It is worth looking into.  Below are some of my favorite Montessori resources and hopefully they are a place to start.

My father found the book Teaching Montessori in the Home the Preschool Years at a used book sale.  I kept it on my shelf for many years before reading it and realizing what a gem it was.  The author talks about how you can use Montessori principles with your children at home.  A great book to start with.

My Montessori Journey is a fabulous blog. She lists all of her activities she has in her classroom for the week on her blog.  Many times I will use her activities with my kids.  She gives you downloads and many fabulous pictures. She has stopped blogging, but all the information is still there.

Montessori for Everyone is another great site/blog.  Their company makes downloadable materials to use in your homeschool.  Many are for sale, and their are always lots of freebies.  This a family run business and they are incredibly attentive to their customers.  I have the Elementary CD. I have really enjoyed it, and we use it in our homeschool.

Allison's Montessori is a supplier of Montessori supplies.  It is fun to look around and get ideas.  Montessori Services has a home and school side to their business.   I love their catalog!!  I would highly recommend getting it to look through for ideas. I began to realize that having my children help me in the kitchen, and teaching them chores was all part of Montessori.  I realized I had underestimated their abilities and not realized the great potential  they had.  Montessori changed my view.  I would encourage you to read about it just to be informed.  My grandmother use to talk about the importance of being informed on topics. 

Hopefully this will get you started.  My next post will show our Montessori area and some of our activities.
Becky

Repost: Curricullum: Math

I have written extensively about the math curriculum(s) that I use.  I will link those to this post so they are all in one place. If you click on the name of the math program it will take you to the post I have written about that program.

I use ADD (Arithmetic Developed  Daily) to start off math with each child.  It reviews all math skills throughout the year and has daily word problem practice. 

I love my son taking AOPS (The Art Of Problem Solving.)  He continues to enjoy these classes.

My daughter continues to use Teaching Textbooks and really enjoys this program.  She is not a "mathy" person and this works well for her.

This year I have added Singapore Math to the mix.   I really, really like this program.  They have pre-tests to determine the level you should start with.  I highly recommend taking the pre-tests so you will have a successful experience with your child.

My child who is on the Autism Spectrum uses Math U See.   He really likes it and works with a tutor on this program.  It is not my favorite, but it is a good fit for him.

Have a good week,
Becky

Phonics Museum App by Veritas Press

This year home educating has been rather challenging as we navigate the cancer treatments of our middle son. I have had to use different resources to meet everyone's home education needs.

I tried the Veritas Press App Phonics Museum with my kindergarten son. We have used the app along with the Memoria Press Kindergarten program. For us it has been a great fit. My son has learned to read and I feel like he has had more practice learning to read then he would have had with just our kindergarten program. I could not provide all the support he needed and the app helped me do that.

The app is only available for use with an iPad or iPhone. You can find out more about it here. I bought the one year subscription for $98.99. It is $9.99 for one month or $98.99 for twelve months. I have not seen anything else out there that is a systematic phonics program in an app format (but please let me know if you have).

I feel like this would be good for busy moms who want their students to be able to practice phonics on their own, whose students may need extra practice, and for anyone who uses the Veritas Phonics Museum Program and wants to use the app with it.

I have written customer support before and they have always been very helpful. If you read through the app reviews you will see that the longer you use the app the more data it uses. We have had to uninstall and reinstall the app several times. I am hoping that is something that will will be fixed in the future, but I feel like it was still worth it for our family to use the app. To me the good outweighs that issue.  Our son would not have learned to read as well without it.  I am hoping this might a helpful option for someone else as well. 

Repost: Who controls the information?

As the end of the year draws near. . I am often in a quandary as to whether I should finish a textbook.  I found this post in the archives and reposted for me. . I hope it helps you. 

I think in theory most of us know that we are in charge of our home education.  We make plans, we decide what to study, and we tell the textbook what to do.  Well. . most of the time.  Sometimes I think we let the textbook decide what is best for our students.  We let the text decide how many problems our students need to do for mastery of a math concept, we let the text decide what stories are good to read, how much grammar should be included, and when our students should take a test.  In a way we give the text book authority in our lives, and it comes with enough stuff to keep us all busy.

Back in my Reading Masters program  I remember having this discussion with one my professors in our class.  He said that most of us will trust the text book over our ability to teach our students.  We will listen to what it says without questioning.  I was fascinated with that.  I am a rule follower and it is easy for me to follow the rules of the text book.

Knowing this about myself so  I try to modify how I deal with my math texts, and some other ones.

1. In Math if there are too many problems I  have my student do just the even numbered ones or just the odd numbered ones.  Some kids need a great deal of practice in some areas and less in others.  The textbook is just a resource.

2.  I remember that I do not have to do every question, activity, or suggestion in the book.  There is no textbook police.

3.  I do not have to finish the text book.  I remember my first year teaching I thought I did have to finish the Social Studies textbook.  I made sure we covered all 50 states in the text.  If the students wanted to work more on a state I said no . . we must finish all 50.  We trudged through.  I remember telling one of the other 4th grade teachers and she said.  "Wow, really??  We have never finished a text. "  I remember thinking, really??  I appreciated her for her wisdom.

4. Textbooks and books can be wrong. I can disagree with them.

5.  If a students knows the materiel I can have them take an end of the unit test and if they do well skip that section of the text.  Or we can just decide to.

6.  I try to remember that I know my students' needs better than the text.   So do you!


Do you feel the need to follow the text?    Let me know.