Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

I downloaded and printed these Life Cycle of at Pumpkin cards at Montessori for Everyone. I cut and laminated the cards. After reading Pumpkin by Ron Fridell I laid out the cards and had Jacob put them into order.

To keep Jake's interest I told him we were going to play farmers. I told him that the cards were our "plans" and we had to put them in order so we know what to do next. That worked, he was excited to start his farm work so he put the cards in order quickly.

I feel it is important for him to know where his food comes from and to know the process that farmers go through growing crops. These cards are a great visual for learning the phases.

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December Project-Based Learning: Sharing Through the Season

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Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter. As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge...

Structured Play

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