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Rebecca
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| Posted: May 27 2007 at 5:37pm | IP Logged
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Please list your homeschool's favorite Montessori items here.
I am really fond of the small, real brooms, mops, handtools and aprons. They have gotten so much use over the years. I just replace them when they wear out for the next child in line.
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: May 27 2007 at 6:39pm | IP Logged
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For my 5yo dd, so far the things she asks for most consistently are the rice pouring/measuring/etc activities, water dropper color mixing, CGS stuff, food group cards and foods to sort, the feel and find, and sink/float activity.
The beads that I made, and the number tiles, teens and tens boards are working very well, also.
The pink cards and moveable alphabet are used regularly.
My 3yo dgs used a lot of the practical life stuff like pouring (rice, beans, water), spooning, bead stringing, cutting bananas.He likes to sweep and mop and wipe.
He loves any sort of puzzle type game and sorting activities. He likes the shakers, too.
He likes to use any of the cards as a memory/matching game.
My 1yo dgs like anything that involves taking things in and out or opening/shutting. He loves his shape sorter puzzle and I would love to have the knobbed and knobless cylinders for him and his brother. He would LOVE that.
He also like to sweep and wipe.
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Theresa
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Mackfam
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We aren't as experienced as most of you - just starting out really - but we have developed a few real favorites! In no particular order:
~ scooping/pouring activities - this was so easy to start with because I could get everything from the thrift stores - small pitchers, tiny bowls. I like using lentils (because they are small, but not liquid) and those puffs you can get from Michaels. We do use water sometimes, but the kids love this activity so much, and we've already mentioned the chaos factor...I also recently bought some chopsticks and small tongs of varying size and differing pinch strength (does that make sense? I mean that some tongs require little finger strength to open and close, some require a lot more.) These items have also been a big hit, helping a lot with fine muscle control and movement with my ds6.
~ Matreshka dolls (Russian nesting dolls) - I have to say, I didn't see this coming! I bought them because they were neat, and thought they might intrigue the 6yo. And they do, but it's the 2yo that really loves them. We work on big/little, and matching the patterns from the bottom doll to the top. That's a little tough for the 2yo, but he just can't get enough of those little dolls. They definitely weren't expensive! I got them at Montessori Services
~ Nomenclature Cards - I am completely in love with these because they allow me to build lessons from a set of cards. I am a huge fan of Lori's website/blog Montessori for Everyone I have a number of her cards that I just bought (pdf only so I could save to a disk and reprint in case they become sucked into the black hole of missing socks and lost Lauri puzzle pieces) and they are just beautiful!!! So well done - you just print, cut, and laminate. I'm building most of my science curriculum from these Nomenclature sets. We started with some of the free downloads and I just built lessons from a set of cards much like you'd build a lesson around a unit study or a living book. Rabbit Trails - Montessori style.
I don't have any of the really nice Montessori equipment yet. I'll have to go it a little at a time, though I plan on buying a few investment pieces for next year after I do some extensive research! I personally, would really love to hear from some of you that do have $$investment pieces. Could I ask about some in particular that I am leaning toward?
1. Knobbed cylinders
2. Golden Beads - I don't have the time or patience to make them, but am very drawn to their ability to facilitate visualizing math. Anybody got em? Could you suggest a basic "must have" set size? I'm thinking of this set from Alison's Montessori
I really can't wait to see what you guys love to use in your learning centers - might help me whittle a few things off the list! 
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Jen Mackintosh
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mary
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| Posted: May 27 2007 at 8:50pm | IP Logged
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here are the tried and true favs at my house:
wooden stacking clown. the plastic stacking toy is never used, however.
peg board
nomenclature cards and animals
bead and bead sequencing cards
hundreds board and tiles
easel and plastic "sponges" with picture to paint and press. (can't remember what these are called.)
wooden kitchen and food.
sequencing cards
opposites puzzle cards
nesting blocks
wooden blocks
pattern blocks and cards
lentils and scooping tools
sorting colored buttons in muffin tin (matching colors)
musical instruments
clay and tools
counters and matching number cards
sand and water
pouring water
feel and find toy
waldorf treehouse
puzzles
pull toy
triazzle & scrambler puzzles
fraction circles (lauri)
pounding boat (discovery toys)
i'm not sure if these are montessori, but they get a lot of milage!
melissa and doug wooden magic kit
doctor kit
things that have bombed going on 4 children. i keep them because i think they are great and surely 1 kid will like them! so far, 3 of my 4 do not.
dress cube
sandpaper letters
movable alphabet
magnetic wooden items (like trucks or dinosaurs)
sound blocks
shape sorter
lacing toys (some interest but not much)
emotions bear puzzle
ring counter
large bead frame
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AndreaG
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This is hard as my kids seem to like whatever "new" thing I present- it becomes a favorite for awhile then they move on. I think the pink tower and the brown stair get used the most- but the knobbed cylinders are also popular. Pouring and tonging activities also go over well, but need to be changed frequently to hold interest. The Geometry cabinet gets used alot- and by all 3 of my kids (8,5 and 3). The other items listed above are mostly my 3-year-old's interests- she likes to repeat these things over and over- my 5-year-old is harder to keep up with I think because of being older he likes more variety. Oh yes! The 100 and 1000 chain- the boys love when they can stretch those out and count so high!
My kids really haven't gravitated to the baric tablets, sound boxes, or the dressing frames.
My oldest would always frustrate me by taking some material I had spent hours making- doing it once and then never touching it again. I think this is the hard thing about not having all the materials, by the time I get something or finish making it, the intended child will have moved passed it and not be interested. Now that i have a pretty complete materials stash I am hoping to do better at hitting those sensitive periods. I'm glad I have younger kids!
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Theresa
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| Posted: May 27 2007 at 10:16pm | IP Logged
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What a great list!!!
We are just starting to explore the Montessori side of homeschooling for my 4 year old.
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Theresa
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SeaStar
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| Posted: May 28 2007 at 6:20am | IP Logged
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Pouring activities are a favorite of both my kids. Also sweeping.
Sink and float, "feel and find" bag (I got mine from Discount Education) and any water activity- using droppers, syringes or turkey baster. I made a "lids basket" (patterned after an activity I saw in Montessori Services) that they also really like. It's just a collection of different types of bottles and boxes with different types of lids and caps to take on and off.
I made a spindle box that neither kid has the slightest interest in, except to play with the straws we use as spindles. Also, my homemade color box (using paint chips from Lowes) got a ho-hum review. I had better luck with with dd with her "color rings". I took two plastic rings (leftover from my sling making days), and tied different colors of ribbon onto each one. She loves to wave the rings around and dance with them, and she goes through the ribbons and names the colors.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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Maryan
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Right now the favorites are: Pouring, tweezers, sweeping, cutting, puzzles and the Mass kit
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
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Katie
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In no particular order, I'd consider the favorites to be:
Melissa and Doug locks and latches box
Pattern blocks and cards
Russian dolls (we have lots of these after being in the former Soviet union!!)
Architectural blocks
Musical instruments
Sand trays
As far as must haves go, I would add a couple of items to the list that are used over and over and have had a big impact on educational development. In other words, these are the items that I see really aiding their development, or in the case of the moveable alphabet, being a pivotal and necessary part of learning to read and write. The golden bead material we use almost daily for math right now:
pink tower
brown stairs
knobbed and knobless cylinders
moveable alphabet
golden bead material (or wooden equivalent)
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Mother of 5 in South America. No 6 due in April.
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lapazfarm
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Katie, at what age (approx, I know it will vary) does interest in pink tower and brown stair wane? I am hesitant to purchase them for my 5 (almost 6) yo dd. They seem more like a 3-4 yo thing to me. Am I wrong?
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Theresa
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Katie
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Theresa,
I'm no expert and should be cooking dinner but I would agree with you to some extent. In terms of a sensorial material the pink tower and brown stair are usually exhausted by the age of 5 or 6, depending on the child. However there are many activities you can use the pink tower and brown stairs for with older children - a box of prisms and a box of small cm blocks turns them into interesting math lessons on volume, multiplication, measurements etc.
HTH! And maybe a real expert will chime in. 
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Mother of 5 in South America. No 6 due in April.
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Meredith
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Katie wrote:
Theresa,
I'm no expert and should be cooking dinner but I would agree with you to some extent. In terms of a sensorial material the pink tower and brown stair are usually exhausted by the age of 5 or 6, depending on the child. However there are many activities you can use the pink tower and brown stairs for with older children - a box of prisms and a box of small cm blocks turns them into interesting math lessons on volume, multiplication, measurements etc.
HTH! And maybe a real expert will chime in. |
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NOT a real expert here, just shuffling along here with the rest of Ya'll, but I'm glad to know about the older math applications with these items as I'm on the fence as well.
And do you buy the red rods, or just wait and get the blue and red rods and know they won't have the red ones to compare them to  And do you buy table top or the larger floor model?
My 2 yo is SO ripe for all these beautiful (and so expensive) sensorial material and I'd love to be able to have them for him, I just don't want them to overide my ability to pick out some materials for my older three. We try and do things fairly even-steven around here, but with Montessori I'm finding that perhaps they will go alot farther than may be epxected due to different learning styles and progression??? Any thought on this?
Oh, and our *must haves* are so much like your lists above I thought I wouldn't repeat!! So good to see so many working with all this great material 
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Meredith
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Philothea
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Pouring. He never tires of it.
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Angel
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Meredith, I bought the red rods. My 3/ now 4 yo wasn't terribly interested in them; my 9/now 10 yo thought they were somewhat interesting because they're in decimeter units, so the long rod actually measures a meter and can be used as a meter stick. I had to put them away when the babies started using them as swords/bats/clubs, though.  They're in my closet, and whenever the babies make it into my bedroom, they raid the closet for the rods. So... now may be the time to bring them out for the babies. One of them is actually starting to count, so... technically it's a little early (20 months), but I guess you never know.
I bought the tabletop set of blue/red rods, because I figured they'd be more versatile. My 4 yo hasn't quite been ready for these yet, though.
--Angela
Three Plus Two
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Angel
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The favorites around here right now... for the babies (20 months), baskets/containers/flower pots to carry (both empty and full), scooping and pouring activities, a tub of water with rags and cups for washing and pouring outside, brooms and dustpans...
My 4 yo really likes the animal puzzles and garden tools. Washing the floor was also a big hit.
My 8 yo likes using the beads for math. We've also had success with the days of the week and calendar material from the Montessori Materials site, as well as clock and thermometer stamps.
I haven't added any of the card material yet, but I think that in general this will be a big hit with my 8 yo as well.
--Angela
Three Plus Two
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SuzanneG
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I just found Lori's Favorites from her blog, Montessori for Everyone
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Suzanne in ID
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: Montessori Must Haves
