The Change Has Been Great!

Wednesday 26th February 2014

Miss Personality hates writing and spelling. English was never my strong point at school, so I tend to rely on the workbooks or a set online curriculum for this. But I found Miss Personality got bored with each one of these methods very quickly.

Since moving to a more montessori inspired way of doing things, Miss Personality has been enjoying her lessons. 

I have found not seeing a list of expectations has been great. Before I would write up a daily plan, but as soon as she saw what was expected she just reacted in a negative way and our fights and arguing would go on from this point on.

So I put together these folders for spelling, writing, grammar and our butterfly unit study.

It has activities in them, but she gets to chose which one she wants to do and when. She has the option to do more than one if she wants to.

I still need to do more research on the montessori way of teaching these topics, in more of a hands on way. But for now Miss Personality enjoys having a choice of when and what activity she gets to do.

This was a spelling activity. I had asked Miss Personality what words she would like to learn, and put together a list. Miss Personality chose this activity of putting them in alphabetical order.

For writing she chose this acrostic poem on butterflies. We talked a bit about how to do this activity, just to get the ideas flowing. This will be put in to her book we are making for her butterfly unit study.

Miss Personality chose this multiplication chart to do help her answer her equations. She can chose how many she wants to do, before she moves on to next activity. 

We stopped at the library on the weekend, to get a new stash of books. Between her library card and my own, we managed to get close to 70 books. I have found since then, that Miss Personality stops quiet often to read a book to herself. This is great as she hasn't done this for ages. 

Miss Personality then chose out of the Grammar folder, this activity of finding Adverbs for eating.

Miss Personality then chose this addition cup game. She used strips that had addition equations already written on them, then used the cup game to help her answer them. Again she can chose how many of these she would like to do, before she is ready to move on.

This is the subtraction finger board game.

Use strips with single digit equations written on them and then use finger board to help her answer them.

Butterfly Unit Study - Science.
We have been doing activities based around Miss Personalities interest in the monarch butterfly.
These two pictures she had painted a while ago. So I got her to use the internet to look for a labeled diagram of a butterfly and caterpillar. Then she used this information to label her pictures.

These were all the expected activities done for the day, all by 2pm. 

So I asked Miss Personality if she would like to do some baking.

Miss Personality is pretty confident in the kitchen, but still likes me to stand and observe and help if needed. Other wise she can do most of it by herself.

She followed the recipe and got out all ingredients and tools needed to make the biscuits.

Then followed instructions to combine ingredients.

Rolled the mixture into balls, then flattened them with a fork dipped in flour so it doesn't stick to mixture.

Put the timer on while they were cooking, and then waited for them to come out.

Of course then Miss Personality needed to put them to the taste test. YUM!

Daddy you have the all clear to sample some when you come home from work :)

Went to a local second hand shop earlier today, and found this awesome 25 piece magic kit for $3. Miss Personality had a look through it and then decided to have a play with it another day.

We also spotted this Tap Tap Art kit for $7. A great way to experiment with shapes (geometry & maths), using a little hammer, nails, and shapes to make pictures and patterns.

A lovely productive day.

Awesome effort Miss Personality :)