Why I can’t dress myself has a great color blindness test. Some children, especially boys, had difficulty with some of the Montessori color tablets. If a child has problems, especially with certain colors, take out those colors so the child has success with matching and grading the colors.

Parenting: Stop Drop and Roll is an excellent idea to keep in mind when your discussions with your teens reach the boiling point. The three familar words are easy to remember when you are emotionally shutting down. Stop, drop and roll can be a realationship saver!

“Children suffering from ADHD may be ignoring visual information to their left” is interesting because their condition gets worse when doing boring activities. Boring activities cause a “left negelect” for even normal chldren. Basically, unexciting and mundane lesssons cause hyperactivity in many children.

This site has some real pictures and stories of farm animals for children.
Also, has actual pictures and stories of plants

The Kids Organic Club has information about organic gardening, fun farm activity area, recipes and much more.

Here are some farming lesson plans-

Introduces the four basic food groups and where food comes from-lesson one

Intoduces natural resouces, weather and climate-lesson two

Introduces uses of wheat and line graph-lesson three

Introduces different seasons and grain elevators-lesson four

Introduces different types of farms and sevices-lesson five

When using lesson plans, use them as a guide for ideas. Introduce new material with Montessori’s three period lesson.
This is great for homeschooling too.

Mike McGroarty has a helpful website for gardening and farming. I just signed up for his newsletter, it has an easy method for composting.
The different types of plant propagations are numerous and easy to do. You can even do a small farming business on a small plot of land!
This site would be very helpful for homeschooling or Montessori farming.

During the middle school years my son did organic “farming” in our backyard. He had free reign in the yard and also displayed his results on his web site. He not only did earth science, but math, engineering, writing, programing and web design. His biggest project was making and designing a pvc green house using architectural cad software.
He also composted with worms. They still winter in my garage!

We were in the beginning phases of a drought. He thought of this as an opportunity to change the vegetation in our yard. He studied xeriscaping for our local environment. We helped him replace the grass areas of the yard with native grass, buffalo and gramma grasses. His research found that our kentucky blue grass took much more water to keep it alive.
Our water bill is the lowest it has ever been, but we have a wonderful lawn and garden.

Children of any age love to grow plants. Even if you don’t have a garden area, grow herbs, lettuce and even small carrots in pots.

This is a great news resource for autism and asperger syndrome. It has the most current research sites.

Montessori Bells-free example and directions!

This web site has easy to follow directions and ideas for using the virtual Montessori Bells. Check out the rest of this site, there is valuable information for Montessori Homeschooling.

10 Things to do When Telling a Story.

1. Pick a book that is well illustrated for younger children. You can use more text for older children.
2. Read the story 3 times to yourself in order to memorize the words so you can “tell” the story.
3. Use voice inflections, give each character a personality.
4. Use a less involved plot for younger children. Repetition of words, sounds, or phrases will keep a child’s attention.
5. Use clear diction to help develop proper sounds of words. Use melody and rhythm to keep a child’s attention. Poems and fingerplays are great for this.
6. Set the reading mood with a concrete object, such as a puppet, stuffed animal, piece of fruit, etc. You can even use the illustrations of the book.
7. Tell your child if the book is pretend or not. I don’t think it is wrong to read fantasy stories to your children as long as you tell them “it is pretend.” Being truthful avoids confusion.
8. Tell the name of the book and who wrote it. You can explain that an author is someone who writes books. A title is the name of the book.
9. Let your child think by pausing between events of the book.
10. Allow your child ask questions about the book while you are reading it. You can encourage your child to think about the content by asking, “What do you think will happen next.” This helps your child develop comprehension skills.