getting back on track...

We managed to to the 3 hour work period yesterday and I finished my friends present so it was quite a productive day.
We started off doing some PL things such as folding the laundry and watering the plants. Then we went upstairs and the first thing he picked out was the colour matching bag which is far to easy but maybe he just wanted to break himself in gently, I leave it on the shelf because sometime he wants to do something not so taxing. Then he picked out the vegetable cards, I gave him the word cards that go with them and had him matching the words, it is the first time he has tried this and did it really well. He would pick up a word and spell it out phonically before trying to find the matching card.

By the time we had done all that it was snack time, so he rustled up some mascapone on crackers and milk

Then we went back to work, he picked out the sound pouches, so we reviewed the last 3 he did and played eye-spy and then I gave him three new ones to work with. He has had all the pouches out at one time or another but now he has started to show an interest in writing I have decided to do it a bit more structured. We went through the items in the pouches 's', 't' and 'a' and played eye-spy again.

Then we took out the sandpaper letters for the same letters and practiced with those. He doesn't like using the sandpaper letters much so I tried giving him the pencil upside down to trace the letter with and this worked much better than him using his finger.

After each letter he would try writing it properly, he was so chuffed with himself when he realised he could write 's', he wrote a whole page full of them. I haven't introduced lined paper to him yet, I think it would be too difficult and just make it frustrating for him to be able to write on the line. I would prefer that he just enjoys writing the letters and forms the letters properly. This is especially important in our situation because in Japanese the stroke order in kanji is very important and it is something he will be tested on in school and so I feel that I should guide him with correct stroke order now even though he is still so young. (better to stop him picking up bad habits from the start). When he had written the letter to his satisfaction he picked out some 's' words to stick in the book. He can read most of the letters but struggles with the usual culprits 'b', 'd', 'p' so I will introduce 'b' next time.

We finished off with a presentation of the red rods and how to make them into a maze, he really enjoyed doing this and tried to do it backwards too. Although I have given him the presentation with the red rods, he has had NO interest in them at all, I don't think he has ever taken them out. He does know what to do with them though because he put them all away correctly, I am beginning to think that he doesn't bother with the equipment that holds no challenge for him. I have never worked in a Montessori classroom so I am kind of fumbling my way through this, I wonder whether I should be offering him things that are more challenging. He didn't bother with the brown stair until I showed him the extensions, hmm any advice from more experienced Montessorians?

We usually do the 3 hour sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday but we are going to Ghibli museum tomorrow so it will probably be Friday when se do a work session again.