Learning about the Six Kingdoms of Life

One thing I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about Montessori education is the "cosmic" approach which teaches children to see the big picture.  Since I've decided to incorporate more Montessori principles into our homeschool, I have looked extensively at the free online Montessori Biology albums to decide how to teach about scientific classification of living things.  After studying the recommended sequence of presenting these concepts, I purchased the Six Kingdom Chart from Montessori For Everyone (I have a feeling Lori at MFE is going to get LOTS of business from me in the near future.  Her materials are so beautifully done!)  I also purchased the Six Kingdom Nomenclature Cards.

I presented the chart to both of my boys (although my oldest son was somewhat familiar with it from his first and second grade years at a private Montessori school) and they each recorded the six kingdoms in their science notebooks.  My older son used some of the cards from the chart set to write a bit more information about each kingdom, but I just had my first grader list the six kingdoms.  After all, I'm pretty sure no public school first graders are learning about the six kingdoms of life!!  Interestingly, Lori has recently modified her charts to include a sixth kingdom.  Apparently for a long time (and in the online Montessori album), scientists had been using only five kingdoms.

I had done a Google search about "six kingdoms" to learn more and came across a fabulous online resource called BrainPOP.  We are currently doing a free trial of it, but I may end up subscribing.  I found a video on the BrainPOP website that explains about the six kingdoms.  It also has separate videos (and correlating quizzes and activities) for bacteria, protists, fungi, plants and animals.  Pretty awesome!

The day after I introduced the six kingdoms with the chart, I had the boys watch the BrainPOP Six Kingdoms video and also the Bacteria video.  Then they recorded some info in their science notebooks.  We also played a VERY cool game on BrainPOP which required us to create our own bacteria, choose a virtual "host" to infect, and allowed us to "spray" our bacteria on various places in the hosts home so we could ensure contamination.  It was hands-on learning at its best!

The Six Kingdom Nomenclature cards are shown below. (Two of them, anyway!)

 Six Kingdoms Chart..........

Fourth grader's notebook page of the Six Kingdoms.

First grader's notebook page of the Six Kingdoms.

Apparently fuzzy photo of first grader's notebook page about Bacteria (with some help from mom on the written info.)

Math with Golden Bead Material

One of my favorite Montessori math materials is the Golden Bead Material.  This manipulative is used for helping children understand place value concepts in a very concrete way.  I decided to bite the bullet and purchase some of the bead material since I know that I can use it for many concepts for years to come.  I checked around and found that the best prices to be had were from Caliber Montessori.  I ordered 27 unit beads (sold in sets of 9), 2 sets of 10-bars (sold in sets of 9), 2 sets of 100 squares (sold in sets of 9), one thousand cube with golden beads, and a set of wooden thousand cubes (sold in a set of 9).  The photos in this post show my youngest son doing 2-digit addition (without regrouping or trading) using the bead material.  In addition to purchasing the beads, I printed out some decimal cards.  I cannot find the source for the ones I have, but these small decimal number cards are available from Montessori Print Shop for 99 cents.  You can print the large decimal cards there for FREE.   It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but the cards are color-coded for place value, tens are blue and units are green.  I realize now I should have taken a photo of the whole layout, but I forgot.  I'll take one the next time we do this work.

For the work shown in the photos below, my son was solving the problem 42 + 26.  This problem was one that I purchased in a set from Montessori for Everyone.  First, he had to find the correct decimal cards to represent 42, then show the numeral with the beads.  You can see he's done that in the photo below and is getting the beads he needs for 26.

Now the beads and matching decimal cards are laid out to represent the problem.  At the far right in the photo you can see the equation card he's working from.  That's the one from Montessori for Everyone.

We used a ruler for the "equals" sign.  I showed him to put the units together first, count them, and find the large decimal card for the total (8 in this case), then he put the tens together, counted them, and found the correct decimal card (60 in this case).  When the cards are stacked, they show the correct answer, 68.

Finally, I had him write the equation on this paper that I downloaded and printed from Montessori Print Shop (for free!)

This work was fairly easy for him, so our next lesson will be on "dynamic" addition equations which will require regrouping.  We'll start with 2-digit, then move to 3 and 4-digit.  

The "A-ha!" moment.........(or was it the "Duh!" moment?)

I cannot really explain why I haven't blogged here for so long.  If I am completely honest, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I haven't felt for several months that my homeschooling with the boys is quite how I wanted it to be.  Without making this post just about that topic, let me just say that for quite a while we've been getting our "basics" done every day, but we haven't delved much into the more "meaty" curricular areas such as history and science as much as I'd wanted to.  When I decided to homeschool my sons, the idea of learning with them was one of the things that really appealed to me.  I got off to a great start at the beginning of the year planning all kinds of enriching activities and projects, then after Dad passed away in October, pretty much all I could manage for a while was getting in the three Rs.  I'm not trying to use his death as an excuse, though, because I'm sure that could have happened anyway since in addition to homeschooling the boys I'm teaching 12 piano lessons and 2 Kindermusik classes each week to bring in additional money for our family.  Anyway........for quite a while it's been weighing heavily on me that I wanted to be giving the boys "more" in terms of content.........so over the past few weeks, I've been researching and planning and I now feel like things are coming back together again the way I'd envisioned.

In addition to not being completely happy with the breadth and depth of our content area study, for quite a while now I haven't been really thrilled with math for my youngest son.  I started the year doing Right Start for both my 4th grader and 1st grader.  I'm still happy with it for my oldest, but got to a point where I wasn't keen on it for my youngest anymore.  I ordered Math Mammoth which we tried for a few weeks.  It's very workbook oriented, which I didn't like.  He didn't seem to mind, but it wasn't what I wanted.  Then I ordered Singapore, but when I got it, I realized that what I'd ordered was too easy.  It was also mostly workbooks, so that was a negative for me as well.  I also looked into MEP which is actually very good (and free)........we used that for a while when I had the "a-ha!" moment that I refer to in the title of this post.

As many of you know, I am a trained Montessori teacher for 3-6 year olds.  I wrote a Montessori blog called My Montessori Journey for three years.  When I stopped writing that blog to start this one, I had a few comments and emails from my faithful Montessori readers asking me why I wasn't using a Montessori curriculum for homeschool.  I responded to their questions in THIS POST.  My "A-ha!" moment, resulting from my dissatisfaction with my first grader's math program, caused me to ask myself why I wasn't using Montessori math materials with him.  I have always believed the Montessori method to be excellent and the math materials/curriculum to be superior to anything else I've ever seen.  So............over the last week or so I've been digging into these great Montessori elementary teacher albums that you can access online and printing and laminating a TON of materials.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be writing a lot about how I'm incorporating these ideas and materials into our homeschool day.  DUH!!!  Why didn't I do this sooner?  I am super excited to share with you all about it!

Feeling guilty & Curriculum Sale

I feel guilty that I haven't posted on here about homeschooling for so long.  I am going to try to get back into the habit and catch everyone up on what we've been up to for the past several months.  Today I'm just popping in to let  you all know that I have some curriculum for sale.  It is all in like-new condition unless otherwise stated.  It is curriculum that we have either not used or are finished with.  I felt it was time to do some spring cleaning as I look ahead to next year's curriculum.  If you are interested in purchasing, please email me at lambertlaurak@aol.com with your address.  Depending upon how much you want to purchase, I'll estimate shipping costs, send you an "invoice" with my address and ship it to you once I receive payment.  Thanks for browsing.  I hope someone can find something useful.

Right Start Mathematics Level B Lessons & Worksheets $40

Right Start Mathematics Transition Lessons & Worksheets $25

Abacus for Right Start Mathematics: $5

Math Mammoth Grade 4 Complete Worktexts (4A & 4B), Tests and Cumulative Reviews & Answer Keys: $20 for all (this includes 4 workbooks)

 

Math Mammoth Add & Subtract 2-A: $5 (one page written on)

Easy Grammar Grades 4 & 5: $5

Singapore Primary Mathematics 1B Workbook & Textbook: $10

Handwriting Without Tears Printing & Cursive Teacher's Guides: $5 for both

Well-Trained Mind First Language Lessons Level 1: $12

Primary Arts of Language Writing Teacher Manual: $12

Math in Action: Operations Activities 0-50 & Numeration Activities 0-100: $8 for 2 

Daily Math Practice Grade 1: $5

Trail Guide to Learning Giveaway

Hey, all!  Kris over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers is hosting a giveaway for the Trail Guide to Learning from Geography Matters.  I have been very intrigued by Kris' posts about this curriculum and she just wrote a great review of it.  Head over HERE to check it out.

Giveaway

My new shop, Walnut Hill Handmade, is being featured today on Fabulous Friday Freebies.  I'm giving away either a custom pillow or a custom doll.  Click HERE to go to the post and register to win.  Winners will be announced next Wednesday.

On the homeschool front, I'm planning to write some blog posts this weekend to tell you about what we've been up to with school.  I'm finally ready to start posting again.  Sorry for the long slump.  It's been a bit of a rough year with my dad passing away.  Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Popping in

I promise to get back on here to write about homeschooling sometime.  Really.  I am just popping in to link to my sewing website where I've added some new photos of name pillows I've made recently.  I'd love it if you'd stop over for a peek!!  CLICK HERE.