Thursday, March 5, 2015

Inspired to Blog

       I have recently been inspired to start my blog again! I am not going to take on another Global project at the moment but   I want to share, inspire and collaborate with other educators out there!! Whether you are a Montessori teacher or not, we can all learn from each other and share our ideas for lessons! I recently presented Types of Clouds to all my children even though all second and third years had previously had a lesson and completed their follow-up. The children have been so excited to create their own follow-up work and each is always unique and different.  I found a great lesson on www.teacherspayteachers.com written by Kristen Smith (http://adayinbcasfirstgrade.blogspot.com/) about weather and was inspired by some of the lessons. I decided to use the Type of Clouds lesson and give a whole class lesson.
      First, we read (as it was World Read Aloud Day #Read4Fun) The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola. Then we used one of Kristen's lessons and made a cloud in jar with shaving cream and food coloring. The children loved this simple experiment. We then discussed adjectives that we could use to describe each cloud type. We used the adjectives to write a little about each cloud and then we ended with rotating art activities! One table was making Cumulus clouds out of shaving cream, one table had Cirrus clouds with white paint and the last table had Stratus clouds with tissue paper. The children were enthusiastic and eager during every aspect of this lesson. We normally do Writer's Workshop and Reader's Workshop in the afternoon but there are days we do Montessori lessons. I had a child say to me, "This was so much fun!" and that to me is what it is all about; making learning fun. It is our job to spark the child's natural desire to learn. It is our job to give them the tools to be independent learners. I often wonder if I am doing this and yesterday I was encouraged.