(Forced) Progress!

Link is finally making some progress with the teen boards and beads!  He does fuss about it every time we do it, which is not ideal.  One thing I've always liked about Montessori is that it fosters self motivation and self-directed learning.  This just isn't happening in our house though.  I have to choose the work and I have to tell Link that he has to finish it.  Usually that means I say "we can't do any other fun things until you have finished your school work."  I only require two works every day!  I alternate between the Collective Exercises and the Teen Boards with Beads for math.  Then we do at least one lesson from Logic of English.  Link enjoys the lessons and sometimes we do more than one.

He is (in my inexperienced opinion) doing well with reading.  He is slowly starting to differentiate p, b, and d.  He can read cvc words, and words with blends like bl, gr, sl, tr. We haven't learned ch, sh or that type of blend yet.  He is still at the point where he has to say each sound, then think about what the word is with the sounds blended together.  So I try to get him to practice as much as possible.  Soon I think I'll start doing some matching activities with pictures.  Next week he gets his first LoE reader and he is very excited.  The first readers he will actually "build."  They have the words and pictures separate and he can cut and glue them in.  I actually laminated the first one and put velcro on the pictures so that he could take them on and off.  After that one I'll just let him cut and paste.  So they are pretty much matching exercises, but in a book format to make it extra special :)    He is writing well in cursive too!

Bumblebee manages to keep himself pretty busy while I'm working with Link.  I just put some toys in the room for Beya, and Bumblebee spent the entire time yesterday playing with those.

He knows most of his letters already, but cannot blend words.  So I work on sound sorts with him.  He's also working on the number rods and cards right now too.  Sometimes he'll choose the number spindles or some other work as well.  Sometimes we plays letter games with me and Link.

Beya isn't joining us in the school room much.  But if we aren't finished with our two works when he wakes up, I am now letting him come in.  I used to just stop and leave when he woke up, which was a little disruptive.

So what about music, geography, botany, zoology and all those other great Montessori subjects?  We get to those when I get around to putting something new on the shelf :)  Otherwise, we do a little of those when we go on walks or are hanging around the house!