EGAD!!! I haven't posted since 2006, which is very, very sad. So, I've changed the name and the focus of this blog, so that (hopefully) I will remember it exists.
I'm now homeschooling my pre-school daughter using the Montessori method, and I would like to use this as a pictoral and written account of this adventure.
Here is my homeschool classroom:
My daughter, now 3 1/2 is fascinated with geography. She just adores studying that map. We're now learning the location of the continents while doing a unit on Antarctica. Hopefully this will counteract the winter "blahs" that have been invading our household.
Here you can see my Montessori materials. Some I made, and some I bought.
Now for the detailed close-ups, plus how I use them...
Above, you can see the yellow knobless cylinders and my version of the colour tablets box #2. I bought both the cylinders and the colour tablets - although the box of colour tablets I bought was box #3. Rather than going to the expense of getting both box #2 and box #3 (box #1 would have been way too easy!), I have taken out a dark and a light tablet of every shade in box #3, so that she can match two differing shade of the same colour before sorting a range of shades.
This is our geography set-up. I bought the map of the world on e-Bay, and then traced and cut out each continent/piece on black bristol board and glued them onto a piece of cardstock onto which I had printed the name of the continent. The National Geographic "Our World" is a fantastic beginner atlas (Canadians, make sure you get the Updated Edition so that you get a two-page spread of Canada and its provinces, otherwise you'll just get the U.S. and its states!) - and the pictures are actually deliberately made to look like puzzle pieces (did they hear about Montessori???) and the "Antarctica" book is from Usborne. Soon we will have a little globe:
I've been painting (and painting and painting) this globe for her, and it looks so good. But I've come to hate South-East Asia and the Arctic - WAY too many TEENY-TINY islands!!!
My miserable failure of sandpaper letters. I went about it entirely the wrong way, and the only difference between the red and the sandpaper letters is the colour - the painted area is WAY too rough. Next time: I'll mount red bristol board on the wood and then mount the sandpaper letter on the bristol board. MUCH easier!
Practical Life activities: pouring rice and using a turkey baster to transfer water. She LOVES the turkey baster activity.
Dressing frames. I made them with "paint your own" photo frames and tea towels from the dollar store, a variety of buttons from Mum, some hook-and-eyes from I don't know where, pretty white upholstery tacks from the hardware store, and belts from a different dollar store. I have a few more in the making now.
Four little cups and a variety of buttons for a sorting activity. Note the oh-so-classy Cheez-Whiz bottle as a holder!
My number rods (small) in a tin. I nagged my father into cutting a square dowel into the right lengths for me, but I measured them in inches, rather than centimetres. Mostly for his sake (Dad refuses to use metric), but also so they would be a little larger than the classic small number rods.
A little peek into our phonetic "mystery bags." Letter, lion, and letter; Tambourine, train, and towel; Hat, heart, and horse.
Ahhh... the teacher's corner - the messiest spot in the room. What can I say??? I try!
Next time: pictures of activies in progress...
Labels: classroom, colour box, continents, dressing frames, globe, homeschool, Montessori, number rods, phonetics, practical life, puzzle map, sandpaper letters, sorting task, yellow cylinders
Ella often begins with a practical life activity. Here she is pouring rice from one creamer to another. 
She is very careful to pick up any little spills of rice that sneak away!
From the very beginning, Ella's favourite activity was transferring water from one glass to another with the turkey baster. She is very adept at it now.
Her new challenge was the belt buckle dressing frame that I had just finished making. After a lot of "But I can't do its!!!" she succeeded in unbuckling and buckling them all. Oh - the room isn't very cold, but she saw the blanket and just had to wrap up in it!
Little fingers hard at work!
I bought these yellow knobless cylinders online. They are such an excellent tool.
Almost always she prefers to organise something horizontally, rather than vertically. She will, however, sort vertically if I initiate it. 
She's got it going vertically now. The key at this point it to keep her from knocking it down!!! But she doesn't want the paint to chip either, which works in our favour.
"Tuh, tuh, tuh..." She's using her sandpaper letters and repeating the phonetic sound. She will repeat this with "Tuh, tuh, tuh, towel." "Tuh, tuh, tuh tambourine." "Tuh, tuh, tuh, train."
