Friday, April 18, 2008

What is your favorite Montessori material?

I'm thinking of buying a few more Montessori items, and I'm wondering what other mamas consider as "must haves." We love the knobbed cylinders, but O is a little young for a lot of the other things I've bought. I want to have sandpaper letters, but I can't decide whether to buy them or make them. I think I can make them fairly easily, but I don't know where to find the board to put them on. I also want the red rods, and I know they would be easy to make but I'm not sure if it would be cost effective to make them since I can buy them for $25. Any input is greatly appreciated!

11 comments:

  1. My favorite Montessori material is the geo-solids. Maybe it's because I'm an artist also but they were the first material I completely fell in love with when I first visited a Montessori classroom. I love how the shapes relate to real life, finding similarities and differences, and the smooth blue paint.
    Another favorite: Metal insets
    These appeal to every child I've ever taught! They grow with your child and can be used many different ways.
    Too bad you couldn't visit a Montessori program in your area and see which Materials O is drawn to.
    PEACE
    Jennifer

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  2. I agree with you about the red rods. I was planning on making them, but realized it would be more cost efficient to buy them.
    We don't have too many materials yet, but I want them all! It's so hard to decide what to invest in. I do have to say that the sandpaper letters that I have for Tatum were a great choice. She's drawn to them so much more than the cardboard ones I got first, and they're very versatile. If I could go back, I would hold off on buying math materials and buy more sensory.

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  3. H really likes some of the practical life activies we've gotten for him. He has "Hammering Tees in a Tray" and 3 different boards with various types of screws and bolts and holes to match them into. The Hammering is definately his favorite.

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  4. I want to add something helpful to this conversation but am really struggling with a good suggestion. I bought the metal inset from ebay and they are plastic. I saved a ton and so far no regrets. O is still pretty young so you are, I am assuming, mostly focused on PL and sensorial. Most of these items I made or replaced with similar. I made my snadpaper letters too and am happy with those.

    Hmmm, I guess, the golden beads for later seem to me to be just too much to make. We actually are using base ten blocks instead because a Montessori Teacher in the area is having us test out a curriculum he is trying to develop but if not for that I would want the golden beads. Oh, I know, the puzzles are all so beautiful, we have botany and anatomy ones but the maps would be real nice!

    Hope this helps!

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  5. I wanted to add...a laminator!

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  6. lets see....we made the red rods and he hasn't touched them, i think he has had them out once. He loves the sound pouches, metal insets, cylinder blocks and now the knobless cylinders.
    I gave up having PL activities on the shelf because he never used them but he will fold napkins, hang out laundry etc. i do have a couple of things on the shelf such as using tweezers etc. When we first got the pink tower is was about 18mths old and he used it a lot then but recently he hasn't touched it. He does like the moveable alphabet - I dropped lucky with that and actually got 2 sets for the price of one and the woman who sold it let it go really cheap. I made the sandpaper letters but he isn't that bothered with them.
    I think the most consistantly used are the sound pouches.

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  7. I agree with Jo about the sound pouches (mine are bags). I made mine and Josh loves these! I just found items around the house for each letter, about 5 for each. I bought little bags and put a letter sticker on the outside of each bag! VERY EASY!

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  8. Thanks so much for all of the input! You've given me lots to think about. I made sound pouches for O several months ago, but I haven't introduced them to her yet. She's so young, but the main reason is that I'm not totally sure how to introduce them. Does anyone have any suggestions or have a resource I can use. I don't want to do it wrong :) Thanks again, ladies!

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  9. HI, This is unrelated to your post, but here is my recipe for pizza dough in the bread maker that you asked about.
    1 1/3 c water
    1/4 c olive oil
    2 1/2 c all purpose flout
    1 c whole wheat flour
    1 1/2 tsp salt
    2 tsp yeast

    For me this makes 2 pizzas, but I like thin crust. You can try altering the proportions of whole wheat to regular flour, but the more whole wheat you use you need to add a bit of water and it will become to tougher to roll, so best to try the original recipe out first.

    Good luck.

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  10. Hi there... you had asked about our pattern blocks on a previous post. They are wood and they were given to me by a teacher friend. I picked up the cards at Lakeshore, I'm pretty sure they have the pattern blocks there, too. They're universal, all the blocks should work with any pattern cards you find. I like how versatile they are, you can even use them to make the other shapes (for example, using two trapziods to make the hexagon, etc).

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  11. Melissa and Stephanie
    I have downloaded several pattern block sheet online, if you are interested drop me an email
    sjbacb@yahoo.com

    I bought our pattern blocks at Discount school supplies.

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