Acorns Montessori Rush

All my colours!

Madison loves creative mark making and to chat about all her favourite colours as she does so. Some wonder what a child learns from "scribbling"? Well shes building her hand muscles for writing, shes expressing herself creatively and shes building her language and conversation skills! So quite a lot!

Learning our Sounds.

This year the older children are directed their own learning of sounds. At lunch time they started up their own "sound of the week". They pick a letter and gather items from the room starting with this sound and we have fun playing eye spy as we eat our lunch.

Time flies...

Sand timers give children a visual representation of time. They can help children understand and manage their own time aswell as encouraging problem solving and exploring mathematical concepts. They're also very calming!!

Second day on the job!

Ayda has only been here a couple of days and she already knows the drill! Anticipating the start of circle time she begins to bring all the chairs from one end of the room to the other...pint sized girl power!

Zoo Time!

Sophie came up with the idea of using our Pink Tower and Brown stairs to make a zoo for all the animals. It wasn't long before she had a team of enthusiastic zoo workers on board. Super example of children's play developing social skills, cooperation and positive energy.

Admiring our puzzle skills!

That feeling of satisfaction after completing a job...

Super sensory play

Sensory play includes any activity that stimulates a child's senses: touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, sight and hearing. Sensory activities naturally support learning through investigation and exploration and encourage creativity. Maria Montessori always knew that this age group learnt best through the senses.

Littlest Busy Bakers

Sieving and stirring flour is a great sensory activity for children of all ages, and is particularly good for those younger children still enjoying parallel play.

Happy water play.

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Process Art!

Process art it when we give the child materials and they create whatever they want with it. There is no formula or steps to follow. There is no teacher example that they are trying to reproduce (product art). This allows the creative juices to flow and the imagination to blossom. Then you can ask the child what THEIR art is about! Lovely Autumn creation here from Killian.

Animal Fun.

I had great fun with Ayda making these simple animal jigsaw cards. So much conversation about animal noises and Ayda really enjoyed the challenge of matching the right legs to the different bodies.

Spooning grains.

Here Killian is just spooning grains from one bowl to another. All children love this activity. It develops their fine motor skills, concentration and gives them practice in learning to be independent in life.

Favourite Job!

We have a jobs board which allocates a job for each child every day. Today it was Alisha and Killian's job to give out the lunches, the most wanted job on the board! The children develop a sense of satisfaction in helping others and learn to say thank you and you're welcome as they go along. Today we were having a teddy bear picnic!

AUTUMN FUN!

Dress Up!

All the kids love dress up and again its another way for children to express themselves and their feelings while letting the imagination explode!

Making shapes!

Here the girls and Samuel are learning about shapes in what we call a "kinesthetic way", meaning they are moving around and using their hands to create. This is a great way to learn, especially for children this age, storing full body memories as they go.

Samuel's new colours.

Another example of children learning best through doing rather than listening! Here Samuel has guessed what colour he'll make if he adds yellow to blue. He got it right! Can you?

Fairest of them all?

Here Molly is playing with a practical life activity that all the children love. It is basically just a mirror with a soap dispenser, a little brush and a cotton cleaner. They get real satisfaction out of making it clean and seeing their lovely image in it once again.

Terrifying Tall Towers!

There's not many things that the children enjoy more than building tall towers...the taller the better!. Actually teaches them so much about cooperation and team work, balance, cause and effect and problem solving. Pure satisfaction.

Making a mud kitchen!

Harvesting sunflower seeds.

Amelia and Jake are collecting the seeds from the sunflowers and putting them in a jar to be taken out late Spring for planting again. Nice way for children to experience a life cycle. Also its a great activity for relaxing children (and adults!).

What broken arm??

Mia's broken arm did not in any way deter her from all classroom activities! She was truly amazing. You can see the scissors beside her here. Yes, with one arm she cut up the leaves, painted a picture and glued her leaves on. Hats off to this little lady!

This is me.

At the start of the year we had a big chat about how we are all different and how we are all special. We talk about our hair, eyes, skin colour and our favourite things. It is so important to point out what makes us different is what makes us wonderful. All the children use the mirror to make their own self portraits.

How tall am I?

We used wool to measure the kids against the wall and here you can see them using the measuring tapes to see how long their wool lengths are. Such creative mathematics from the children!

Geometrical shapes

The children usually go through a phase of loving the geometric shapes. This Montessori activity allows them to explore triangles in a meaningful and hands on way.

The Usual?

Samuel loves pretend play and here he is playing at being the hairdresser. Amelia was delighted and sat patiently while Samuel worked on his new style. Pretend play helps support a child's language, social and imaginative development.

Minding our babies.

The children love caring for their babies in school. Here Natalia is changing babies nappy after giving her a bath. Pretend play helps children to process what goes on in the world around them and supports their vocabulary and conversation around different topics. It also helps them to express their ideas and feelings about what goes on in the adult world.

Bath time babies.

Boys too!

Process Craft!

Bob!

Every so often Bob comes out to say hello! The kids all get very excited when he joins the group. He's a great fella for chatting about important stuff like being kind to our friends, making sure nobody is left out and encouraging us to mind each others feelings in preschool. Good man Bob!

Story time!

"There were 3 in the bed and the little one said...Roll over, Roll over!!" This is one of our books and the children love it because they know the words and they love singing along. These kind of interactive books are super for building up children's confidence and also keeping them interested in story time.

Outdoor music.

The children love to bring the musical instruments outside for playtime. sometimes they organise themselves into an orchestra and sometimes they just want go solo.

Fun in the garden.

Samuel has hidden all the dinosaurs around the garden and Fiadh is delighted with herself because she found the T-Rex!

Pat -a-cake.

Outdoor play is a very important part of the early learning curriculum and we try to ensure that they get at least 20 minutes outside in the fresh air each day. They develop and learn so much from what they take in through their senses at this age so outdoor play is perfect!

I found a Caterpillar!

Reading to Ayda.

In the Library.

The children love to sit in "the library" during the morning and read together. Here's Jake really enjoying reading a wildlife book to Samuel. This is an example of why mixing older children with younger can be beneficial for both.

Sticky Situation..

Part of our responsibilities in school is to look after our pets and the children enjoy taking these little guys out for a play after feeding them. Jake wasn't initially their greatest fan but now he loves them and will them have a good crawl up his arm!

Sophie's pets

Sophie adores the stick insects and wants everyone to feel the same love for them! Sometimes children are a little standoffish (for obvious reasons!) but Sophie encourages them to be their friends and let them into their lives! Here Alisha is having a good laugh while Sophie tries to introduce one of her little mates.

Autumn Maths

These matching and sequencing activities are super for children this age. Here Jake is sequencing the life cycle of an Oak tree with matching cards and also support his numeracy learning.

Did you hit a wrong note!?

Megan and Natalia sitting down to play a spot of piano during the morning. The piano can be a great expression of how they're feeling and also help calm any restless kiddies! I love Megan's look here! I wonder did Natalia play a wrong note??

I made a rainbow!

Killian uses his imagination and creative mind to make a 3D rainbow!

In the Flour!

The kids love baking. Sometimes we just make play dough, sometimes we bake play dough shapes and sometimes we bake buns...yum yum. Madison didn't hesitate to roll up her sleeves and get stuck right in! Baking with children is actually a super fun activity for teaching social skills such as taking turns and using our words (instead of grabbing!).