Montessori Musings: Spring Practical Life Tray Activity

I wanted to show you this easy Practical Life Activity with a spring insect theme. The children make the pattern on the cards by stringing insect buttons on a pipe cleaner.

This activity trains fine motor skills as the child places the pipe cleaner through the small button holes. Mathematical skills are trained as well through the recognition of patterns. While this activity is mainly for 4-5 year olds, a couple of older children found it interesting as well on Sunday. They began to make up their own patterns after a while instead of following the cards, which is a logical progression.

I found the buttons at a hobby shop, and then made the cards myself by downloading free clip art images.

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

Sunday in the Park

The weather in Berlin has warmed up enough that our bi-weekly Family Brunch can meet in the park again.  How wonderful it is to meet with God right in the middle of his wonderful creation!  This week I combined two Young Children and Worship stories, "Jesus Commissions the Disciples" and "Ascension".  Das Wetter in Berlin ist endlich schön geworden und wir dürften den Familien Brunch (ein Angebot von Haus Berlin e.V..) draußen im Park veranstalten. Es war wunderschön Gott mittendrin in seiner Schöpfung zu begegnen! Diese Woche habe ich zwei Geschichten von Young Children in Worship, "Jesus gibt seinen Jüngern einen Auftrag" und "Himmelfahrt", kombiniert. 

The story time was actually a bit rough this week, because the children were so distracted by having church outside for the first time in a long time. But that was okay.  It was exciting to be outside and who wouldn't be distracted by the adorable squirrels and cool bugs?  Das Erzählen von der Geschichte ging ein bisschen schief diese Woche, da die Kinder so  aufgeregt waren den Kindergottesdienst zum ersten Mal draußen nach dem langen Winter zu haben.  Aber das war in Ordnung. Es war einfach toll im Park zu sein und wer hätte sich von den niedlichen Eichhörchen und faszinierenden Insekten nicht ablenken können?

One of the activities that the children could choose from in the Creative Phase was the Ascension Art Project that I wrote about in my last post.  In addition to the artistic aspect, this project involved counting (the children had to make 11 dots for the 11 disciples and 2 white dots for the two angels) and recognition of emotions (I asked the children to imagine how Jesus' friends felt when he left them and if they were happy, sad, surprised, angry, etc.). Während der Kreativphase gab es mehrere Möglichkeiten.  Eins davon war das Kunstprojekt zu Himmelfahrt, die ich im letzen Post gezeigt habe. Zusätzlich zu dem kreativen Aspekt, konnten die Kinder die Zahlen üben, indem sie 11 Püntkchen für die Jünger und 2 für die Engel malen mussten.  Auch habe ich die Kinder gefragt, wie die Jünger sich gefühlt haben als Jesus plötzlich weg war.  Das war eine gute Gelegenheit für die Kinder unterschiedliche Emotionen und Ausdrücke zu überlegen. 

Painting the mountaintop.
Ein Kind malt den Hintergrund.

Drawing the disciple's reactions to
Jesus' ascension with a felt-tipped pen.
Dieses Kind malt die Reaktionen 
der Jünger mit einem Filzstift.

The finished paintings made me smile! Die fertige Bilder haben mich total gefreut!

I set up two Montessori Practical Life activities for the children to choose from as well.  The first one, pictured below, involved stringing buttons in the shape of ladybugs, butterflies, and other insects onto pipe cleaners.  Es gab auch zwei Montessori Angebote vom Bereich, "Praktisches Leben".  Bei der ersten unten sollten die Kinder Knöpfe in der Form von Marienkäfern, Schmetterlingen, und andern Insekten auffädeln.

In the second activity the children used tongs to find and transfer acorn shells from a bowl of sand into the compartments of an ice cube tray. Bei der zweiten Aufgabe sollten die Kinder einen Pinzette benutzen um Eichlen vom Sand in eine Eiswürfelform zu übertragen

The older children who could read had the opportunity to put together the words of the Great Commission.  The control card is in the bottom right hand corner. Die älteren Kinder konnten die letzen Worter, den Auftrag, von Jesus puzzeln. Die Kontrollekarte ist unten rechts.

This was the first time that I have set up a focus table outside.  It looked so beautiful surrounded by the plants in the park.   Ich habe zum ersten Mal einen Fokustisch im Park aufgestellt.  Mit den ganzen Pflanzen herum sah es hübsch aus. 

Have a wonderful Ascension! We get the day off here in Berlin, so we are especially excited! Bis zum nächsten Mal!




Linked to The Magic Onions

What I'm learning . . .

I shared in a previous post that I am doing on-line Montessori Training with Karen Tyler from Worldwide Montessori. I am learning so much and am able to incorporate many things into both my work as a children's pastor and my work as an ESL teacher.  I'd like to share a couple of ideas that I used on Sunday at our Family Brunch.

One lesson that we learn in Karen's course is a simple Practical Life activity where children take nuts and bolts and screw the nut onto the bolt.  Little hands like the challenge of turning the nut until it fits all the way onto the bolt or seeing how many nuts will fit onto the bolt.  This exercise develops their fine motor skills and is actually a preparation for learning to write by training the muscles in the hands. I added a twist to Karen's original presentation by painting the nuts and bolts with coordinating colors so that the children could also work on sorting and categorizing skills as well. 

The tray with the color coordinated nuts and bolts.

Another activity was inspired by the Naturkinder.  Here the children have the opportunity to plant cress in egg shells. This activity is wonderful on several levels. It trains the fine motor skills, allows the children to see the wonder of nature in action, and allows them to reap quicky what they have sown.  Cress starts to germinate overnight and tastes great in salads!

The trays with the materials for planting the cress.

Sowing the seeds . . . 

And the harvest!