Zapatos is the Spanish word for today. I love zapatos planos. Sign up here for the Spanish or/and English word of the day.

Montessori Foundation has a nice overview for scope and sequence for ages 3 through 12. It’s nice to see how the Montessori program evolves.

Happy Valentines Day! What can I say, I love the day of love. It’s more than a day for couples, it’s for everyone.
I’m going do things I love to do-just kick back and watch one of my favorite DVDs Rumpole of the Bailey and might even dance a little jig just for fun.

I’m making my daughter a black forest chocolate cake ala vegan for her birthday-I used the recipe from cooks.com Instead of eggs I used ener g egg replacer and 1 cup of chocolate Silk soy milk with 2 teaspoons of canola oil for replacing the milk. The cakes turned out great! I can’t wait to assemble it with Soyyatoo Soy Whip.

Tim’s Mom has a great synopsis about Montessori. Check out her blogs about Charlotte Mason too!

You can make any Montessori reading scheme with pink, blue or green words!
A child first uses the pink pictures to “spell ” words with the moveable alphabet. The pink scheme introduces phonetic, three lettered words.
Here is a picture of a pink scheme kit.
First you printout phonetic, three letter words with pictures. Your child matches words to pictures. If this is too difficult, I go back to using 3-part cards.
Next your child chooses a card page exercise. This sheet has 6 unlabeled pictures of objects that have been introduced in the previous exercise of matching words to individual pictures. The child matches the labels to the pictures.
Next, I make a mystery egg game. For advanced readers, I fold a word ( use more than one word if this is too easy) that was introduced from the previous lesson and put it in a plastic egg. I don’t use objects at this point.
Also, you can make a pink word lists. Of all these activities, my kids liked the word lists the best. Every student will have their preference, which is the nice thing about Montessori’s method.
Another activity you can do is command cards. For beginning readers, use pink words such as hop, sit, run and jog.
Finally, introduce booklets. This is a thrill for most kids. These are easy to make! It can be one or a two pages. Find nice pictures from extra photographs, old calendars, magazines or free clip art. Introduce articles, such as “the” “a” “an” so the story flows. Also, introduce plural words such as rats, bats, hens, and so on. Here is a Montessori word list to find pink words. Introduce the challenge words from this list by using the 3 period lesson.

My daughter and I are making this excellent key lime pie. My daughter is a wonderful vegan cook. This is really the best I have ever had! It’s also healthier than most desserts-really amazing!
It’s for my baby’s sister’s 50th birthday-she’s going to love it.

I love puppets for language development. They are also great for dressing skills, putting a puppet on your hand is like putting on a mitten!
Here are some nice animal finger puppet patterns, just use left over felt. This fox has a free printable pattern.
This bat finger puppet uses two fingers and would be a great addition for a bat theme.
This has printouts for paper finger puppets, great for a quick idea for parties or rainy/snowy days!
This rooster, lion, pig pattern can be used with felt pieces or paper.
You’ll need a finger puppet stage for your productions. Kids are great at writing and making up plays for their puppets.

Here is a free pattern for making cloth baby blocks. I like the idea of using different textures! If you want to make the blocks “more Montessori” make them plain with uniform colors without letters or numbers. My kids had some homemade ones made from pink gingham. They were one of their favorite toys! They played with them for long periods of time developing their concentration and sense of order.

When my baby was about 8 months old, I gave her one block to hold and study. Next time, I would add the second block and slowly show how to stack 2 blocks using both my hands to grasp each block. I added the third one when she could stack the 2 blocks. By doing this a little bit at a time, the blocks were a very fun and interesting activity.
Moving from simple to more complex activities is the basis of Montessori’s method. Stacking blocks helps develop motor skills, visual-spatial relationships and sensory skills.