Fun Holiday-themed Activities to Engage Your Children with Math and Language Arts

If you haven’t seen our free winter printables pack yet you are in for a treat. This pack is the perfect addition for your Montessori based at home schooling. But I don’t want to spoil the surprise or bore you to tears by describing every detail of all 32 activities. So I wrote a little poem that I’d like to read to you instead. Or you can just watch Jonathan read it to you in the video below...

5 Montessori Works You Can Create With Materials From Your Craft Supplies

Montessori materials can be extremely expensive. The cost of materials is often off-putting to families looking to begin homeschooling, or a co-op.   I know when I began working in a Montessori school, I was amazed at the sheer amount of materials and works. Our head of school happened to be a frugal and financially-minded woman who had a lot of creative ideas to save on costs.   When I began homeschooling my son, I decided to look in my arts and crafts supplies to make my own Montessori Materials for our homeschool. These are some of my favorite works which you can easily create yourself at home!

The Top 5 DIY Montessori Materials

Montessori Color Matching

This work can be created with tissue paper, colored paper or cardstock. You have a couple options for variations.

Beginning color matching- Clip out two 2-inch x 2-inch squares of 6 different colors of paper. Use the same type of paper in each color for very young children (2 and under), for older children try using different types of paper. The child will then match the correct sets of colors to one another.

More advanced color matching- Use the squares of paper from above and cut one into smaller squares. Start with 3 colors at a time. Place 3 of the larger squares at the top of the work area and all the smaller squares into a bowl. Allow the student to place the smaller squares on the proper corresponding larger square. This also works well with beads, buttons, or other small items in the corresponding colors. You can also choose to cut our circles, hearts, or any other shape you desire for the child to use for matching.

Math Counters

Counters are a huge part of Montessori Math. These are extremely easy to create yourself from beads or buttons. It is fun to change out the counters based on the month, using hearts in February and pumpkins in the Fall, for example. You may also want to cut out counters into the desired shapes from paper. Wrapping paper can also be fun to use and cut out the little shapes found on the pattern.

Fabric Textures

Texture matching with different fabrics is a classic Montessori material. Raid that basket of unused fabric for 4-6 different textures of fabric. Cut them into equal sized squares (usually somewhere between 4-inch x 4-inch to 6-inch x 6-inch). Younger students match the fabrics by touch and sight. Older students can be blindfolded to match the fabric textures by feeling only. It’s also fun to put the fabric scraps into a bag or pillow case and have the child find a match by feel. This also works well with different grits of sandpaper.

Lacing Cards

Save your old greeting cards for this one! Or, use scrapbooking paper, or cardstock. Use a hole punch to punch around the outside of the card. Provide the child with a child-safe needle and some string or thread. Then allow them to lace around the card. This is also a pretty activity to create holiday decorations when laced by hand with ribbon. Older students can work on different types of stitches and even different patterns.

Pouring, Spooning and Scooping

Gather up all those cute little things in your arts and crafts supplies. You know what I mean, all those cute buttons, marbles, small trinkets, and beads in the $1 bins that you just can’t resist and then never do anything with (or is that only me?). These, along with basic dried beans and rice, make the perfect materials for Practical Life works. Use them in the ShillerLearning pouring cups to practice pouring back and forth or pouring into cups and bowls. Place them into a bowl and allow kids to practice spooning them back and forth between bowls. Give students a small child-sized ladle and watch as they ladle the materials. The possibilities are endless.

Hope you enjoy these easy to create Montessori works. Go raid your arts and crafts supplies and see what you can come up with, we’d love to see your DIY works!

Like these ideas?

Check out these monthly activity packs that are full of DIY Montessori activities and FREE Printables:

This Planner Created By Moms for Moms Will Help Set Your Best Homeschool Routine Yet

FREE Montessori Based Summer Activity Pack for Homeschoolers

FREE Montessori Based Spring Activities For Kids

How This FREE Grace & Courtesy Printable Pack Turns “Chores” into Games

12+ FREE Montessori Activities for Thanksgiving

Autumn is upon us. The crisp cool air lingers throughout the day. Beautiful fall leaves line our streets. In our homeschool we have found the steady flow of our school year. We embrace relaxed mornings in our jammies and afternoon math by the fire. Our printers whir out warm Thanksgiving printables that we work on over a slice of hot apple pie.  What’s not to love about this time of year?

Showing Gratitude in Our Homeschool

A spirit of thankfulness and gratitude is always a good spirit to have. It’s especially prevalent this time of year. As we approach Thanksgiving, here are some ideas to incorporate a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness into the rhythm of your schooling.  

• Stick a poster board or large piece of butcher paper on your wall. Encourage your children to record moments of gratitude throughout the day. For example, your youngest might write about how they were thankful their older sibling helped them with math.

• Research your family history. Find out where your ancestors immigrated from. Learn more about their journey to get here, what early life was like, and the lineage of people who brought you to this moment in history. Learning about our past can be a great way to bring gratitude for where we’re at today.

• Tell your family members thank you more often. So often we ignore the simple act of thanking one another for their kindness.

• Make “caught in the act” cards. Write the word “caught in the act of ___________” on a small paper, or make business card size cards. Everyone in the family gets a stack. Family members hand them out to one another to show appreciation for one another. Examples of times you may wish to use them, when you see someone else doing a kind deed, going above and beyond, or working hard at something they struggle with. Fill in the blank for the recipient.

• Write “Thank You” notes as part of your daily Language Arts or Writing time.

• Visit your local library and do something nice for the librarians. As homeschoolers, librarians are some of our best helpers! Bring them a nice card, ask if there’s a way you can help, or tidy up the toys.

• Cook a meal for a local military or public service member’s family.

• Start a “Thankfulness Jar.” You’ll find all the information on starting this in the FREE Activity Pack download below.

FREE Montessori Activities and Thanksgiving Printables

In the spirit of gratitude and harvest season, we have put together this Homeschooling Harvest Pack. You’ll find activities for preschoolers through teens, including works for mixed ages to work on together. This pack of free Montessori activities is one you may want to include in your shelf works. It would also be fun to have these Thanksgiving printables available while you’re in Thanksgiving-prep-mode.  

You’ll find a couple projects designed to enhance your Thanksgiving meal. We included a fun and easy craft for your student to make place cards to put around the table. They’ll also learn how to roll napkins. It’s amazing what pride and joy our children find when they get to contribute something beautiful to the family table. We also have included a couple Thanksgiving research activities. Your children might enjoy sharing what they have learned over the Thanksgiving table.

Your students may also enjoy completing these activities on Thanksgiving Day if they start to get a little restless. The Apple Taste Test Comparison would be a fun activity for the whole family over Thanksgiving weekend.

We hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving and are able to find a new season of joy and gratitude in your homeschool this year. Make sure to fill out the form below for your download of our Harvest Activity Pack.

Have Your Best Homeschool Year Yet With These Great Planning Tips

What is it that happens between the fresh excitement of homeschool planning and the Spring slump? Why do we go from being motivated, organized, and passionate to burned out? The back-to-school season is a season of excitement. Even those who homeschool year-round feel it. The season comes with a crisp touch in the air and a renewed motivation in our hearts. Only to find a few months later we’re exhausted, disorganized, and in a slump.

Burnout at Home and in the Classroom

I came to homeschooling after years of working in schools. First, I worked in a traditional Montessori Preschool for almost a decade. It was actually my first ever “real” job. I stayed in that job throughout college. My head-of-school gave me a chance to work in every single classroom. I also worked in the before & after school program. I even helped in administration and office duties. Throughout college and my first few years after graduation, I continued to work in education in one capacity or another.

After a few years, I landed at an incredible school for Learning Disabled and Special Needs kids.   I worked in a K-2 class and sometimes substituted with older kids. I was given the chance to see many different teaching styles and approaches. I stayed there for several years until my son was born. Now I continue my work in education as an at-home-educator with Montessori homeschooling.

Why do I tell you this? Because teachers burn out too! In fact, I observed that many teachers burn out faster than moms at home. What I have observed through all my years in education is something that seems to separate those who burn out from those who don’t. Systems and organization. Those who came into a school year with an organizational system seemed to stay motivated. I also noticed they were much less likely to get in over their heads. Yes, the systems adapted as the year progressed. And, yes, sometimes things didn’t work.   Now I have worked my way from class educator to home educator. I find so much value in having good systems in place to bring ease to our days.

Today I hope to offer a few homeschool time management tips. It is my hope these tips will be something you can incorporate to avoid slump and overwhelm later

Back-to-School Time Management Tips

Pick a method and stick with it- Don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” too fast. It takes at least 40 days to adjust to a new routine. Just because a routine or planning method doesn’t work at first, doesn’t mean it will never work. You may need more time to iron out the wrinkles.

Expect the unexpected- We lay out our bright, shiny new schedule at the beginning of the year. Then life happens. Someone gets sick. There’s a job transfer. You face a death in the family. Your schedule gets out of whack and you get frustrated. Leave in flex time! Add in a few “buffer” days- sort of like how public schools add in extra days for snow days.

Buffer your day- Often we forget to add in transitional time to our daily routine. It can take children a while to transition from activity to activity. This is not because they are stubborn or not listening. It’s because their brains take longer to transition and transition is sometimes hard. Give yourself a 5-10 minute buffer between each activity. You may even need to make that longer if you have young children, a baby at home, or a child with special needs. This can make a dramatic change in your homeschool routine.

Plan like a funnel- Start out with a broad overview of where you hope to be by the end of the year. Then schedule out each element. It can be helpful to have goals for each month set at the beginning of the school year. Then, perhaps, only do a detailed schedule for every six-eight weeks. Keeping the idea of a funnel in mind is helpful. Broad for what’s to come, narrow for what’s happening now.

Schedule in time for YOU- Give yourself at least an hour a week of YOU time. No kids, no responsibility. Make it two if you can. An hour to relax and unwind alone does remarkable things. If you can add in another hour to take time to learn and nurture your interests, even better.

Track your time- Use a time tracker app, a Bullet Journal spread, or a piece of paper. Write out everything you spend your time on in a week. Then evaluate it and see what you can drop, outsource, or needs better balance. Use this to help inform your decisions about scheduling.
 

Put it down in paper and pen (or pencil)- The neurological process is different when we plan with paper vs digital. Using real paper and writing out goals, schedules, and plans can be revolutionary in and of itself. We even made it easy for you with a beautiful FREE printable planner. Homeschool planning takes on a new life on paper!

Give loop scheduling a try- Instead of scheduling specific subjects on certain days, try looping. This way if you have something come up on, say your “History Tuesday” you won’t miss it. To loop, write down the subjects you want to cover daily and the subjects you want to cover weekly. Start at the top of your weekly list and cover at least one of those subjects a day. The next day, move to the next subject(s) on the list. Then if you miss a day of school, you won’t miss a topic- you move to what’s next on the loop.

Follow the lead of the child- This is a core component of a Montessori education. If your child needs to spend an entire quarter covering the same 4 sections in Math Book 1, that ’s ok. Adjust your plans to follow their lead. This also applies you find your child dawdles, struggles with focus, or seems to zone out. We’ll talk more about this in an upcoming blog. Montessori homeschooling is the perfect environment to follow your child’s lead.

Get a little help from ShillerLearning- We have made planning easy for both parents and students. Check out our FREE printable planners- there’s a set for homeschool parents that we brought you last month. This month, we’re happy to bring you a Student Planner Pack. In it you’ll find back-to-school activities your kids will love. We have activities like timer races, schedule card creation, cutting strips, clockworks, and more! Plus it has a FREE Student printable planner to help your child get organized along with you!

Focus on your next best thing- A time will come in planning, or in your year when you’ll get overwhelmed. Or an unexpected situation will arise, a new baby will come, etc. and your schedule will get backed up. In those moments of overwhelm, ask yourself “What is my best next thing?” Maybe that’s working on Math, or maybe it’s going out back to lay in the grass and watch the clouds. In moments of overwhelming- all you need to focus on is one thing at a time. No matter what it is, go from one best thing to the next and before you know it- you’ll be feeling calmer.

I hope some of these tips and tricks are helpful. I would love to hear about some of the things you do to help schedule and plan too. Plus, make sure to check out these other blogs and resources:

Montessori Homeschool Parent Planner Pack

How The Montessori Three-Period Lesson Changed My Homeschool

TED Talks For Homeschool Reading Inspiration

We hope this pack will encourage you to enjoy and learn more about Homeschooling. Plus this month’s pack is just as free as fresh air and sunshine! So download it now and start reading with your child!