Please note that this post was written toward the beginning of our Montessori journey. I no longer recommend this way of letter learning, nor do I find trays like this necessary from a Montessori perspective. This isn't to say that none of these could be used in a Montessori environment, but these are Montessori inspired and not often found in traditional toddler environments. - Nicole, 2018
Another week down at tot school! Letter O was not my favorite to put together, but I think it came out alright.
The first tray was a combination of science, art, and practical life -- color mixing to make the color orange. I placed to small pitchers of water -- one yellow and one red on either side of a small cup. Then I included a 1 ml syringe. The children could then use only the syringe to suck up water and combine it to make the color orange in the small cup.
This was by far Henry's favorite and the most used at co-op. I encouraged experimentation with the colors to make different shades. And I'm very proud to say that they pitchers were not spilled once the entire week.
The second tray was owl tracing. Here, I included a wooden owl shape, a few color pencils and paper. The kids could trace and decorate. It was actually a difficult task for many of them. Henry never attempted this tray, but that's not shocking since anything "art" is really not his favorite. But, I think I need to include more fine motor and writing trays, since this was a good challenge.
The third tray was octopus counting. Here, I made little cards varying numbers of octopi. Then, included various number choices at the bottom of the cards. The kids could then place a glass bead on the appropriate number. This was another one that I never saw Henry choose this week.
Other things we did this week included:
Orange Owl Transfer: transferring Pom-poms between two glass owls with tweezers. This was a repeat from tot school letter O last year. I was shocked how much better Henry suddenly was at using tweezers than last time!
Ocean 3-part Cards
Circling O objects: Here I made a sheet with a variety of objects and included some dry erase crayons. The children could then find the things that started with O and circle them. Henry did this quite a bit this week, but needed help recognizing less popular "o words" like oven and Oscar.
