Easy Way to Learn Chess, Solo
As a small girl I used to bike up the hill a few blocks from my house to my friend’s house.* I’d drop my bike in his driveway, cheeks flushed, and bangs matted with sweat against my forehead. I’d push right inside, without a second thought, hunting down my playmate, in hopes that there was…
What’s Hiding within this Extreme Dot to Dot?
Whether you’re looking for visual processing exercises in disguise or quick, take-along math work for a busy day out, look no further than Extreme Dot to Dot. Need some incognito handwriting help? Quiet-time math worksheets? Place value practice? Extreme Dot to Dot helps with that too! I received the Woodland edition of the Extreme Dot…
Beach Memorial (off topic)
On Holy Thursday we set off to the beach. What better way to have your feet washed than by the waves crashing onto the shore. We went to remember baby Benedict on his 4th birthday. My April Fool’s Day baby. At 17 weeks, he was just a bit smaller than the length of my hand;…
The Importance of the Three Period Lesson
–or– Why It’s Ok to Quiz Your Kids. Really! Recently I saw a post on Instagram from a popular Montessori account that warned parents of quizzing their children. She recommended not to ask your toddler to tell you the color of something but rather to point out the color to him or her. Why? Because…
How to Make an Atom Model
Here’s how we created our model atom of Sodium: Materials: 3mm aluminum wire Duck tape styrofoam balls (we used 2″ for the protons and neutrons, 1″ for the electrons) wire cutters fishing line Tempera paint Sharpie hot glue gun First it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of the Bohr model of an atom. Here’s…
States of Matter Sorting Cards
Sometimes if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. It follows, after not finding anything but states of matter cards that exclude plasma, I made my own sorting activity for all four states of matter: plasma included! Poor plasma always getting left out. Plasma is awesome. Plasma is all around us,…
Montessori Stellar Nucleosynthesis
Elements are the ingredients that make up everything. Do you know where those elements come from? Explaining a concept like nuclear fusion and the creation of all the ingredients of the cosmos might sound a little daunting for a homeschool parent (let alone for the elementary child). However I’m here to tell you it’s not…
Element Research Portfolio Printable
Do you have students interested in the periodic table of the elements? Need a simple way to guide child-led research? So did I, so I spent the last week creating an easy to use research guide for my kids! I am super proud of it. There’s even a cover page to print and decorate so…
What are the Montessori Great Lessons?
Whenever someone asks me how to begin homeschooling an elementary-aged child in the Montessori pedagogy, I tell them it all starts with the Great Lessons. What are the Great Lessons, who are they for, and how do you implement them? Why do they matter so much? Consider this a crash course into the five impressionistic…
Ode to a Two-Year-Old and Coffee.
I took a sip of my morning mug of coffee and saw my hands were still stained with red. Red paint from yesterday. The day before, my two-year-old had happened upon the open Amazon package I’d left on the coffee table. I was in the kitchen dishing out dinner. Meanwhile, he unscrewed the lid from…