The First Grammar Lesson with Montessori Grammar Farm

We have been on grammar study and I am very much thrilled to share our first grammar activities.  Montessori grammar is the best way to introduce grammar to young kids as it is taught in sensorial way.  There are many Montessori grammar activities – The farm game-grammar symbols for introducing the parts of sentence and grammar boxes - grammar cards for practice and analysis.

It’s best to introduce grammar after 6 or when the child has become a fluent reader.  My little one is 7+ and she is good at reading and writing. So, this is the time to introduce grammar.  In the first grammar week – we studied about articles, adjectives, and noun.

 When I started making our grammar farm, my littleone was curious and started asking me what it is.  When I told her about the grammar farm, she wanted to see some images in google. (Whenever she heard about something new, she used to see the related images in google).  “Wow, these are all beautiful. Amma, ours should be equally good. Ok?”

We began with a play.  I started telling,

“Go to the kitchen.”

“Go to the hall. “

“Take a pencil.”

“Bring me a Plate.”

“Go and touch your Dad.”

My little one happily ran here and there to follow what I said.

When I said, “Bring me------.” 

                       “Touch ---.”

                      “Go to ------.”  

She was confused, laughed and started asking me ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘whom’.
            “So, I need to say the names of persons, objects and places.  Don’t I? In grammar, these names are              called nouns.”

Then, I arranged the grammar farm and asked her to name whatever she found in our farm.

Then I introduced the ‘article’ which will always be associated with the noun – ‘an’, ‘a’, or ‘the’.

“Use ‘a ‘or ‘an’ to choose one among many and ‘the’ when there is only one.”  (I purposefully replaced the tractor by a bullock cart)

Then, we added adjectives to give more details to the noun.

 “Which rooster you like?”

“This one.”

“Which rooster?”

“This yellow rooster – the big Rooster.”

“Good.  That is adjective. Let us add some details to the noun to identify them easily.”

We are going to continue our grammar work and I will share it soon.

Rowing our Favorite Stories 2: The Little Red Hen

Here is my second post on FIAR (Five In A Row). 

We rowed the story “The little red Hen” which is again not in the actual FIAR curriculum.

It’s the story of a hen who worked hard to plant, grow and harvest wheat while her friends, the cow, the dog and the pig were lazy and not ready to help her. But, after baking the breads, she asks them who will help her  to eat the breads.  All the three happily volunteer.  But, the little red hen declines it. The story teaches about helping and cooperation in doing a work. Those who do not contribute cannot enjoy the result.

You can download the pdf of the story here.

Here is how we rowed the story.

Literature:

`My little one knows the phonics sound and she has just started to connect sounds to make simple words.  So, I asked her to write the words like hen, cow, pig and dog. 

I also asked her to point out the sight words I dictate.

We sang the rhyme ‘Old McDonald had a form’

Math:

I thought of introducing fractions to my little one. We made some sand breads  (Sand buns????)  and i asked her to cut them  into pieces to see the fractions like ½, 1/4, 1/5 and 1/8. She shared the pieces with her friends and they pretended eating it.

Art & Craft:

My little one drew this little red hen.

She also made this cotton chicken with my help.

Here is our paper little red hen. You can find the tutorial at krokotak.com

Science:

When we are reading the story, my little one asked what a mill is. So, i wanted to show her how a basic grist mill works.

First, we spend some time in our traditional stone mills.  We tried to make rice flour in our stone mill. 

My little one tried to rotate it.  She couldn't.  She found this from her wooden toy set and played with it.

 We also see how the mortar and pestle is used to grind the wet grains.

We watched these videos (video 1 , Video 2) which show how the same principle is used in the old flour mills.

Social Studies:

As Madhya Pradesh is the highest wheat producing state in India, we located the state in our India map.

Small World Play:

I thought of including a small world of farm animals as the sixth activity for my little one to play. Here is our small world of farm animals.  I wanted to put farm animals and foods what they eat. I put rice straws for cows, grass for goats and sheep , grass and horse gram for horses and some cereals for poultry.

My little one feed the horses with cereals i put for the poultry and started giving them bath.