This post is long overdue. It’s been a month since I last posted and no we haven’t moved or dropped off the face of the earth.

We’ve taken a little break from school to try and figure out what approach is best for Joey at this time. (I still haven’t figured this one out and he’s becoming more reluctant to do school.)

The middle of March I spent a week in London with my siblings, then came home to spring in full bloom and allergies. Since then our family has been sick off and on (mostly me) for the last four weeks. Fun times.

Oh, and one more thing to share…there’ll be a new Montessori baby in our family come October!

Hopefully, we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled Montessori life soon. For now, I’m working my way out of survival mode.

How have you been?

We’ve been struggling in our little Montessori home (hence the lack of posts). Joey has shown a real lack of interest, and almost aversion, to school the last week or two. While we only have our school time 2-3 hours in the mornings on the weekdays, he’s resisted and wants to play. I’m very hesitant to force him to do school, because he is still so young and I would rather him come willingly and eagerly to school than it to be a fight.

What’s interesting is that he’s interested on his own terms. He loves the solar system theme and we read multiple books on the planets a day. He has the planets memorized, can tell you multiple facts about each, and how they’re different from each other. For example, Uranus spins on its side or he’ll correct you if you say Saturn is the only planet with rings.

I’m noticing he’s in a sensitive period for counting and writing/reading. If he sees numbers or a set quantity, he’ll stop and count it. Before reading books, he’ll often trace the letters in the title. Yesterday, he surprised me by sounding out Antarctica on a map!

I know he’s still learning and has the desire to, it’s just not looking the way I planned. And I like to have things planned. 🙂

So, I guess we’re adapting to where he is for now and playing into his interests. We’ll keep reading books, asking questions, pouring into space, and encourage him along the well.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to flow back into a little more structure. If not, we’ll just keep following the child.

What have been some of your struggles in homeschooling?

A few weeks ago I mentioned having a poem of the week as part of our daily routine as a way to introduce poetry to Joey. Our first poem, “:The Arrow & The Song” by Henry Longfellow, I choose from the Gutenberg’s list of poems every child should know.

I originally thought of doing a poem a week, but realized that would be a lot of preparation on my end and may be too short of time for Joey to become acquainted with the poem. So, we’ll have a new poem every 2 weeks. This has worked out well and Joey has the poem memorized, although he recites it at warp speed.

This is what our Poem of the Week board looks like:

How I Made the Board

I have laminated the labels, put the poem in a protector sheet (I cut off the edge you’d put in a binder) and used double-sided tape to stick it to the board. I cut another protector for the poet section making a  smaller sleeve.

To secure the end I cut, I put double-sided tape between the sheets and on the edges, hence the blue strips so you can’t see the tape. Gotta keep things pretty, right? 🙂

With the protective sleeves, I can just switch the poem and the poet info out.

On the right, I put a cork board and a bag holding pictures of key words in the poem. Originally I thought having a felt type flannel board would be good, but decided it would be too much work and cost to cut my own pictures out of felt every few weeks.

The Poem

For our first poem, I picked something I thought would interest Joey. He likes pretending he has a bow and arrow, so “The Arrow & The Song” seemed a good fit.

Each morning after our calendar, we recite the poem together. Joey picked it up pretty quickly and when there was a phrase he struggled with I’d say it again being careful to enunciate, then we’d say it again. As Joey would pick up the picture pieces, I’d recite the poem again.

The Poet

For the information on the poet, I wrote up a mini bio from Wikipedia and the Longfellow society. I keep the information basic: where the poet was born, his main occupation, famous works, and what style of poetry he wrote.

I wanted to have a basic format that would be easy to keep up with subsequent poets, while still introducing Joey to different styles of poetry.

Key Word Pictures

While we recited the poem, Joey would pick up a key word picture as it was said. This poem was pretty easy, because Joey was able to act out the poem with the pictures. I know other poems will be more abstract, but this was a part he really enjoyed and helped to make the abstract more concrete.

This part also gave us the chance to talk about what the poet was saying and what it meant.

We kicked off our space theme this week and so far it’s been a hit. In our lessons, we did an overview of the solar system–its structure, the planets, moons, stars, asteroids, comets, and meteors.

Solar System Puzzle

This is our Melissa & Doug Solar System puzzle. So far Joey loves it and we seem to put the puzzle together at least twice a day.

Sometimes Joey likes to match the planets from our sensory tub to the planets on the puzzle.

A Space Sensory Tub

While I really wanted to use the moon sand recipe, I couldn’t find sand at our Target or Wal-Mart and couldn’t make it to a craft store. Joey hasn’t seemed to mind. I had this play foam and it’s worked well, except I can’t get the glitter off the table.

There’s also figures from our space toob and glow in the dark planets and stars.

Orbiting the Sun

In one of our lessons we talked about how the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun and orbit is the path an object takes when circling another object.

I tied a ribbon around Joey’s waist and tethered the other end to a weight. Then he orbited around “the sun.” He had a lot of fun and wanted to start walking around different planets.

Constellation Pin Poking

I drew a few constellations on 4″x 4″ black construction paper with a white crayon. For the actual stars I made a circle and then connected each with a line to see the constellation.

Planet 3-Part Cards

These are the 3-part cards I made using the Open Clip Art Library. You can download the planet 3-part cards and sorting planets printables* here:

Planet 3-Part Cards

Sorting Planets Cards

*Note: I made these back in 2012 and since then more dwarf planets have been discovered. These cards do not have Makemake or Haumea.

Gemini Trainer

We took a trip to our local science center and found this! It’s a Gemini trainer. While this particular one never left Earth it helped prepare astronauts in the 1960s for their missions.

It was so tiny! I couldn’t imagine sitting in such a small compartment and traveling through space!

Google Sky

Also, if you’re doing a space unit you might want to download Google Sky. It’s a pretty neat (and free) app. I have it on my phone and whichever way I hold my phone, we can see what is in the sky in that area.

Even if the phone is facing downward toward the ground, the app will show you what planets, stars, or constellations could be seen if you were on the opposite side of the earth. Pretty cool!

If you use Google Sky on your computer, you can see the constellations, different pictures the Hubble has taken and where they are in space, see different galaxies, supernovas, and stars forming. FAQ for Google Sky is a helpful page that answers a few questions about Google Sky and how to use it.

Planets Aligning

Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are aligning. Apparently, this weekend was a great time to see them, but they’ll still be visible for a few more days and Jupiter and Venus we should be able to see into March.

• Planets Align: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, & Moon to Appear
• See Venus and Jupiter in HD with Just Your Naked Eyes
• See Venus, Jupiter & Moon Align in Weekend Celestial Show

Linking up with: