Izzy discovers her world!

  These are a few videos of Izumi who has started to crawl this week.  The first where she is concentrating on a small wooden ring and the second video she is climbing on a chair.  She has discovered the world is hers for the taking and is determined to explore everywhere and everything within her reach. 

This may be my number 4 but the pressure is still on when it comes to babies and small objects. AGGHH

Rei and Missing Middle

Here Rei is working on putting the correct middle letter onto the word and picture cards.  The noise you can hear at the beginning is an aeroplane overhead.

I love that when Rei has finished her work she quietly just packs away and places it back on the shelf.

Cai's school show

Today we went to watch Cai's school show, I know this has nothing to do with his English learning but I hope you enjoy. He is in the back row on the right side and second in.  You can see that he really enjoyed himself.  He speaks at 3.20.

Weaving

Rei really enjoyed this activity yesterday. 

We used thick Blue paper folded in half, we cut lines to about 3cm of the edge of the paper.  Rei opened the Blue card flat and began weaving her colored paper in and out.

Blue series - Cai

Cai is using the top part of the shelves, he can use the lower pink series shelves also if he wants but he tends to stick with the top Blue series shelves.  We do not have much space so I am using 2 little set's of draws to keep Cai's Blue series in.  They are very beautiful as well as handy.

The brown pot on the top contains 4 and 5 letter words and is used for reading and also with the movable alphabet to spell the words.  The 3 draws contain beginning, middle and ending cards.

The top yellow basket contains Blue series spelling cards and the white basket contains frequently used words written on hands and the children can call out the words as you hold up each hand (I will demonstrate later).  The 2 lower trays contain 2 letter missing beginning and endings.

The top 2 draws contain word and picture match, the third draw contains pictures and 2 letter sounds like pl, cr,fr and Cai will match the pictures to the beginning sounds.  The last draw contains pictures that end with double L, Cai spells them out.

Pink series = Sakura and Rei

So these are the shelves that contain the Pink series, Sakura is working 3 times a week with these shelves, she gets to choose the order in which she does them but she completes all the activities.  We have a work sheet with a list of all the activities on the shelf and when an activity is competed we put a stamp to show it has been competed. 

There are sentence cards and spelling cards all using phonic 3 letter words.  There is a basket of 3 letter words that is used with the movable alphabet.

This top shelf has a basket containing  phonic 3 letter pictures cards which the girls will spell out using the movable alphabet.  On the tray are spelling cards and the dish contains the letter cards for them to spell out the pictures on the cards.  The lower shelf baskets contain missing middles and missing endings.

The top shelf contains Rhyming cards and a Domino set.  The lower shelf contains missing beginning cards.

The top draw of the box contains colors and their written names, the second draw contains numbers to ten and their written names and the lower draw of the box contains the months of the year.

The new shelves

Okay so the new system seems to be working, I am only using Montessori's method.  Sakura and Rei are using the Pink series and Cai is working with the Blue series.  Here are some photos of the shelves.......

I wish I had more space but our room is so small I can only use this space.  Luckily Montessori's style is so organised with everything having it's own place I think it is working.

Bizzy Izzy

I was very happy to find this activity for Izzy, It is a small wooden ball that she puts into the hole and it comes straight back out through the holes in the side.....well she is supposed to put the ball into the hole, but here is what actually happened............

Okay...a ball and a box...

 UUGGGG don't want eat this...

 OOHHH this looks good....

 BORING MUM......

 Okay, the ball is cool...thanks Mum

Teaching your own kids is very hard!

So far we have been trying to do an hour everyday...but it is not working, we are just getting upset and frustrated.  Rei is easier because she is home with me all day but Cai and Sakura are in Japanese school all day.  They come home at 3.30 then want to play out till 5.00, bath, dinner and finally English and Japanese homework.  It is already 7.00 usually and my time to wind down with 7mth old Izumi plus their daddy is usually nearly home.
 Not working....so we are going to try Monday,Wednesday and Friday they will not play out after school and work with me from 3.30 to 5.00........Tuesday and Thursday is all theirs and mine to actually.
So we will stick with challenge Friday and keep learning vocabulary through the week,  Monday we will work on  how a sentence is made (we have already started nouns) and Wednesday we will work on handwriting.
If it does not work we will change again, it is hard trying to work with 3 children of different ages and levels, trying to find interesting and fun ways to help them learn. I don't want them to hate learning, that is not what my Montessori training is about.  I want to give them activities that make learning English interesting and fun.   They spend their whole day in Japanese school sat behind a desk in a be quiet and listen atmosphere, don't ask questions or disagree just follow.  I want to give them a passion and interest for reading and learning.
I will keep you updated on this new routine..wish me luck :)

Making a soft block for Izzy

Not a lot of money around at the moment but luckily all of Izzy's toys are easily found around the house.  I wanted something soft for her to hold and throw around with her brother (he wants to play catch with her but his baseball is a wee bit hard!).  So some cotton material, needle, thread, stuffing and dada....one soft block.

Halloween - Rei

Challenge Friday

Last week we tried something new, I gave the children a list of words and they had to practice reading and writing the words all week and we would see how many they remembered on Friday.  Just for entering the game they got an ice cream, I made it very clear to the children that the results were not important, just to try their best and have fun playing a game together. They all played and got about 80% of their words right, so I was very happy.  We will continue "Challenge Friday" every week for as long as it works.

I began reinforcing Cai's knowledge of Nouns and introduced Nouns to Sakura.  We started with basic Nouns then moved onto Proper and Common Nouns and also Singular and Plural Nouns. Cai remembered them all, Sakura was so good, she understood at once  that a Noun was a place or a person and soon  grasped that a thing is also a Noun.  We will work all this week on Nouns.

They both work so hard in Japanese school I am trying not to push them to hard and to make everything I am teaching them fun and interesting. 

Movable alphabet - writing a sentence

Here Rei is reinforcing all the work that she has done with this reading book.  She is using the movable alphabet to write the sentence from the book.  She is reading the word, choosing the right letters and then positioning the letters to form the word, she continues until the sentence is complete.

Rei's joke

Me and Rei were walking to the supermarket this week and she said
"Mum what is half of 8"
I said "You know the answer Rei.....yes"
"3" she said
"Ohh nearly it is 4"
"No its 3" she said laughing
"If you cut 8 in half its 3" 

Okay I got it ...look at the figure 8 and if you acually cut the 8 in half the right side becomes a three.

I asked who had told her the joke and she said no one...Rei made her own joke..cool

Different ways to read a book

I printed this book for Sakura then cut of the sentences, I mixed them all up then she had to match the sentence to the picture.  She then just took the sentences and read them.

Basket of fun

Me and the girls made a basket of fun for Izzy......we thought about color, size, sound and texture...
Her favourite is a small whisk from the kitchen.

Ice cube

Rei put an ice cube on Izzy's tray, Izzy had so much fun touching and trying to pick it up.  She got a hold a few times then dropped it.

Reading and Writing your own book

 

This activity is to encourage Rei with reading and writing and connecting them together. 
Rei has just started reading this book and so to encourage her I printed the picture side of the book and asked her to write the sentence that matches the picture.  She has the book infront of her so she can find the matching picture and copy the correct sentence.
When Rei finished we stapled the pages together and made her own book.  Rei will then be able to read her own book and hopefully this will encourage her writing skills because if she cannot read a word it will be because of her own writing.   

The small movable alphabet

I have kept the movable alphabet in a small easily moved box, there are enough compartments for each letter of the alphabet.  There are are least 5 cards of each letter in each compartment.  Rei is using them to sound and spell 2 letter words.  She then writes them into her activity book. 
This is an alternative way to interest Rei in writing,  she will often sound and spell her own words when using the moving alphabet.

Sakura is praticing her writing, she has not written for a while and is a bit rusty.  She was getting frustrated when writing with paper and pencil as the words were not as clear as she wanted and she was constantly erasing the words, so using the message board and easy wipe pen from the kitchen is perfect.  She writes and practices her words on the board before using the pencil to write the words in her activity book.