Springtime activities (part 2)

www.fridayschildmontessori.com

Make paper daffodils

Make a cheerful piece of springtime artwork with 3-D daffodils. Find yellow cupcake frills and glue

these onto a circle or star shape of brighter yellow.

You might need to cut this out for your child if he or she isn’t able to do this solo – or it could be a

good moment for teaching your child how to use

scissors to cut things out.

Don’t forget to use the proper Montessori teaching technique of demonstrating

slowly with a full explanation, followed by the child having a go under supervision.

This flower head can be used in a larger picture to make a floral scene, or you can glue/staple the flower head onto a stem of green

paper.

Or attach them to strings and hang them at

different lengths from an old coat hanger to make a

mobile.

Plant a garden

Even on the Gold Coast, things slow down a bit in the garden over winter, and fire up again during

spring.

This is the best time of year to get your children planting vegetables and

flowers.

Children are much more likely to eat a vegetable

that they’ve planted and tended themselves.

Things that get really big are a lot of fun to grow – sunflowers are popular, but

so are pumpkins and melons.

Start the pumpkins and melons off indoors in

cardboard containers (you can plant them directly without any risk of small fingers harming the roots) and move them outdoors in

about mid-September.

Spring cleaning

One of the things that Montessori education aims to do is to teach children how to be good citizens and members of the

community.

And knowing how tidy up is part of this learning

strand. It’s also a means of self care, which is another Montessori

principle.

Go through those cupboards with your

children and sort through things – you’ll be

surprised at what you find and what your children

have grown out of.

Involve your children in as much as you can – kids are great at chores like

dusting and vacuum cleaners are a lot of fun.

Who needs a pretend toy vacuum cleaner when you can use the real one?

If you have the sort of vacuum cleaner that has a

long hose and a head rather than an upright one, you can have fun with it and try to catch each other with the sucky

hose…

And if you do any cleaning that involves warm soapy water, wear rubber gloves to protect your skin and make sure that lots of bubbles are involved.

Observe a tree

If you have a deciduous tree nearby that loses its leaves in winter, watch it come out in leaf again.

Check the tree daily, every two days or weekly to watch it changing from bare branches to full leaves. If the tree has blossoms, so much the

better!