New materials for September

Having failed miserably to keep up to date with this blog - I am now on 6 weeks summer hols and in between doing paper work for school I am loving making materials for the shelves again!

I am planning for 2 groups of cultural work for the new term.  For that I am making a load of new materials based on the 7 continents and work on Volcanoes.

Starting with the continents I paid for and downloaded this fantastic a-z resource from Trillium Montessori.  To start with I am making a A-Z book for each continent. I bought some A5 folders from WHSmiths ( UK store.. bit like Staples). I have decided to do one continent book a night - as it is a very laborious task!  Laminating the 26 sheets, cutting in half, hole punching and finally putting into the folder.  But I am delighted with them!  These are going to go in continent boxes - which are for slightly older children (6-7 year olds) so will not have as many artifacts in them but lots of information and questions to make them think more about the Continent they are finding out about. 
As you can see below I have made 3 so far... so just 4 to go. 

A treat from the £1 shop!

I  am learning to love our local Poundland store.  It is such a pleasure to wander round and find something for £1 that I know I will be able to use in the classroom somewhere.  Sometimes I do not know what I can use it for.. but I buy it with the intention of stashing it away until just the right time. 
This square trellis was..- yep.. £1 each bit. Mmmmm  - not sure what for, but I bought 2 bits and carried it home!  While on the way home I popped into a new craft store and found some small chalk stars on pegs... mmmmm - bought enough for the alphabet. Brain starting to twirl round and round!
Today I found this printable from Trillium Montessori.  Their blog is fantastic!  You can find it at -
http://trilliummontessori.org/trillium-blog/  (I would recommend you take a look!)

So this afternoon my plan came together!   Let me talk you through it...

 A little basket ( Paperchase in the sale after Easter) which contains the pegs, piece of chalk, duster to wipe chalk off and spring alphabet cards

 

 I printed off an alphabet strip to go at the top (the cursive font that we use at school) and stuck it on. Now it is ready to go!

 

 Matching the initial sounds ( Spring Pictures) to the letters. 

 

 

We have a mixed age class of 4-6 year olds, so I plan for this to be used with all the different ages.  The younger children can work with a teacher, who can write the letters and together they can match the pictures.  The older children can write the letters themselves and use the alphabet at the top to get them in the right order.  For the top end of the class, then the teacher can take the alphabet strip away so that this also makes the children think about the order of the alphabet.

 

The only thing I have not thought of yet is a control of error - I am working on that! Let me know if you have an idea of how I can do that then please let me know!

 

Smelly Playdough for the Freeflow Garden

Our Dragonfly class now opens up into an outdoor area which is open during every session.  I have been supporting the staff in this room by making materials and activities to go out there.  I love thinking about work for these youngest children. So I made a play dough activity for the children to explore.  First I made the play dough and added cinnamon to one and vanilla to the other - so they smelt gorgeous!  I then added to the trays bay leaves, cinnamon sticks and star anise to enhance the sense of smell. I placed this on one of the tables outside with some small rolling pins and some simple cutters. 

 

We had lovely patterns all day and the children really enjoyed the interesting smells!