My rediscovery of Montessori

It's been a struggle lately keeping the little girls (4 and 2.5) busy while working with my 6 year old. I had a couple activities previously made and in a box, so I pulled them out today. The girls loved them!

This sent me looking for more activities for the girls. We also do Sing, Spell, Read and Write, but their attention spans for it are rather short. So I found some great Montessori sites with templates to make your own materials and I'm posting them to the right.

Today Katie did a sorting activity while Dani worked on a grid that is self-correcting for placing the correct number of objects. I realize now that I didn't give her the number cards to go with it, but she did well anyway. Each number has it's own specific objects (for example for the number 8 there are 8 pumpkin erasers). She had a great time!

I reintroduced the number beads to Maisie today. We did the snake game--we started with problems that were broken down into tens, then I taught her how to use the remainders, then she built her own problems. There are videos of what to do HERE under the Snake Game Lessons. We didn't, however, use the remainder beads, we just used the appropriate number beads for the remainder. She loved it and was anxious to build her own problems. I love how it teaches them to think in terms of 10 for quick addition. Here is the problem she wrote herself:
8+1+7+2+5+7+3+1=34

I'm off to find some more resources. I think it'll make our days a little calmer with my middle two girls busy.