Monday, October 23, 2017

Fall Printables


I'm in the middle of making different fall and winter printables for classrooms and to use at home. This scarecrow I illustrated last night and I’m so excited about how he came out! 






He is up for sale on Etsy and will soon be on Teachers pay Teachers. You can print him out, creaet a booklet and allow the children to make their own booklets!

I’ll also be illustrating this week, parts of a Christmas tree, snowman, and pumpkin. Spanish versions of these will also be available! All art work is by me. Links below

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SimplyMontessoriShop

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Halloween Crafts


Halloween Crafts 


This month I decided to do some fun crafts with the children for Halloween. I don't normally do much for Halloween because Montessori doesn't normally recognize it but I wanted to have a little fun... so I did.  The ideas came from a teacher that I work with.










Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Fall Work Time!

Don't you just love fall! I know I really do and this is one of my favorite times to create work! Here are a few ideas for you and if you would rather purchase then buy, just go to my Esty Shop.  :)


These items I got from the dollar bins at Target and the Dollar Tree. They are erases but are great for sorting and matching work! Most of this was found in the party section of Target or Party City. I like to use table favors and different small objects!














Monday, April 3, 2017

Easter Is Coming!

As a Montessori teacher, there have been always certain things that get me excited in my classroom, new work, yard sale finds, cool items that parents donated, holidays, etc. With Easter coming up, I'm getting pretty excited. I love searching the stores to find everyday items that I can make into work for the shelf. So, I troll the dollar sections in hopes of finding that one amazing item that can be something exciting for the children to use.


Here are the great things I found to make!


I find these amazing pink and purple toothpicks, they aren't too pointy but still enough where they can go into the shaker. The children go crazy over this!






Tonging work that I just couldn't pass up making! I just love the pastel colors. 



Spooning work using those plastic ice cubes you can get in the store, they are pink so how could I pass them up!




Fun Easter eggs that are all glittery for spooning work.


This one has chick erasers in it, I just love using erasers for so many reasons!


All the work shown on this post has been made in doubles and are up for purchase on Etsy 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SimpleCreationsStore?ref=hdr_shop_menu 




Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Montessori Art: Curved and Straight Lines

Montessori Art, this is probably my favorite areas of the classroom. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all areas of the Montessori classroom... I basically bleed Montessori but if I had to pick a favorite it would be art area. When I decided to start years ago to really getting in depth with the children about art, I wanted to start from the basics of what art is and how its created. Sometimes its messy and loud and sometimes its clean and quiet. There is just so many sides of art and how to incorporate it into your classroom. I would like to take a few post and show you guys what I have done in my classrooms to expose children to the beauty that is art!


First I always like to show basics, so this is just work on lines. I know it sounds silly and way to easy, but I promise you it will hold their attention and wonder! Lines are great to start with because it shows children how some art is started, it may just be a line here or there but when you connect them it can be just about anything. Children see what just making simple lines can and do and the next thing you know they are creating their own work with just using lines. 

This is just sorting curved and straight lines.



I went online and found different pieces of art work that had lines in them. Then I just printed them, put on black backing (why I don't use bright colors, because you always want the work to be the focus on the child's attention and nothing else). I have the chirlden sort the straight and curved lines



On a tray, I have a basket full of cut yarn pieces, glue, construction paper, different pictures of lines. They children can choose which picture they would like to do and they can take it home when finished.  




I always like to show different artist who use lines in their work. I will also put these on my shelf to allow the children if they want to try to make their own version of the art work. 

Piet Mondriaan
Geoff Slater
Lyubov Popova
And so many more!

I had an extra Geometric Cabinet, so i was fortunate enough to be able to use the extra squares insets on my shelf for this work. I know this is a rare that a teacher would have this but if not you could always teach the children to go over to the cabinet and use what they need out of it. Anyways, I have a different sized insets, primary colored pencils and one black, white paper, and a picture of Mondriaan's work. One thing I want to point out is that I don't ever tell the children it has to look like this exact work. I want them to get ideas off f it and if they want to do it just like his then that's great also. 

If you go to google and just type in "color pages" and add what your looking for, you can find a ton of stuff. I found this by just putting in "color pages Mondriaan" I colored a master and laminated it and made copies for the children. 


This was just a piece of work in the art area that had strips of black paper, primary paints and white paper is all. Just some different ideas for your classroom. 




Monday, July 18, 2016

Part of the Body and Skeleton

 We are always trying to make different work for the classroom. I found these great copies of the human skeleton and a child's body. So, I made a billion copies and started labeling them to make a master copy for the children. I them laminated them all, placed them on rings and made copies for the children. We are excited to have this on our science shelf... now if you are thinking that the Parts of a Skeleton is too much for the children, its not! Sometimes it takes a few days to complete but most of the children will spend a good time on time wanting to finish the whole thing. I encourage the children that if the need to take a break from it they can put it on a tray with their name card and finish it the next day. This works great, I have yet to have someone not finish it.




Oh the joys of Montessori work!

 This is a great piece of work I found online and I just had to make for my classroom! It's super easy, just go out find a few rocks or buy them. I looked online for free clip art and found some pink series words and printed them on card stock. Then I put pink paper for backing and laminated them. I used a sharpe pen to write on the rocks and there you have it! I great piece of work for the language shelf.




I use scrape paper in my everyday life adn decided that the kids would like a change of cutting paper. This is just a fun idea for scrap paper you might have laying around your house. p.s. this was gone within a few days, I love that they all worked hard on their cutting skills building those muscles and coordination!




I made this work from just felt and printing labels. Its a little more time consuming but such a great activity for the science shelf in the classroom. The children loved using it and labeling the work.


Parts of a plant work for the science shelf that I also made from felt. I just traced the back of it and cut it out that's it!






Can you tell what we are studying! Since we are studying plants/rain forest I decided that we need a rain forest one since the children went crazy over the first two pieces I made above.