I am wondering if any Montessori teachers can offer ideas for teacher made activities for my language shelves?

Question

I am a first year Montessori teacher (pre -k). I have a lot of the Montessori language materials available in my classroom, but I am finding that I need a lot of supplemental activities for the children. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions, things you've done in your own classrooms, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Answer 1

For the beginning of the year, I generally structure my language shelf with the following (Note:  I am thinking about this off the top of my head, so it is sort of out of order):

--Sandpaper Letters

--I spy materials for beginning sounds, ending sounds, and middle sounds.

--Movable Alphabet

--Letter sound cards (see below)

--Reading cards

--Pictures to write stories to

--Sand in a tray for tracing the sandpaper letters

I also have on the wall the letters a-z in whatever style writing the sandpaper letters are.  Students can match up the sandpaper letters then bring them to me to learn the sounds using the 3 period lesson.  I keep track of them on a sheet they also bring.

The Letter Sound cards are cards with the same beginning sound.  There are three or so letters in a box.  So if the letters are "s," "t," and "m," I have 6 pictures beginning with "s," 6 beginning with "t" and 6 beginning with "m."  A control of error is the number of cards.

The child matches them up and then "reads" off the cards to me.  If they messed too many up or asked about too many vocabulary words, I have them practice it again next time they do the activity, but they can move on.  It's a good idea to have "a" and "e" together, since they sound so much alike.  It will take a while for the students to get through that box sometimes, but it is definitely worth it.

Students coming back may be interested in doing the movable alphabet or writing activity right away.  That is fine, but I always let them know that sometime soon, I want to just make sure they know all their letter sounds and we should work on the sandpaper letters sometime.  Then when I notice they are wandering, I might pull them aside and ask them to do it with me.

The sand in the tray is another important piece I use.  If you're not familiar with it, the child traces the sandpaper letter and says the sound.  They they trace it in the sand tray and say the sound.  Shaking it lightly back and forth will make the tray ready again for the next sound.

Matt

Answer 2

I spy and little object boxes set aside for the individual sounds are always a popular supplement to the Language shelf.

We have a "wheel", the children refer to it as a "sun" but same idea really. A cardboard/poster board circle laminated with pictures (6-8) around the edges corresponding to the sounds. Our school has the letters divided up into colour coded groupings so you would have an orange wheel with pictures corresponding to the letters: t,s,b,n,c,a. Child uses clothes pegs in same colour with a letter on each of them. Child then looks at picture, identifies sound it starts with and puts corresponding peg on the wheel. It's a great reinforcement for the ones that know many sounds but still need more work but it also allows the teacher to see just how well the child can do the one-to-one correspondance.

Another favourite activity - What doesn't belong. Just a laminated sheet with 6 pictures on it. In the middle is the letter that you are focusing on. 4 of the 6 pictures start with the letter you want and the other 2 "don't belong". Child would then cover up, (I have used "poker" chips as a "cover up"), the pictures that don't belong. Your control of error is that there are only 2 chips per page.

Hope this makes sense and gives you some ideas.

Answer 3

Rainbow letters. I just printed out some bubble letters - fairly large about the size of 1/4 sheet of regular printer paper. Kids traced the letter with each color in the rainbow.

You can go to the hardware store and buy the plastic organizers for nails and screws. I just went to the dollar store and teacher store and even craft store to find little objects that matched specific sounds.

I used die cut shapes for a monthly theme. So, for September maybe apples. I would then write the uppercase letter on one side and lowercase letter on the otherside. Then I would cut it in half to make a puzzle piece