Tuesday 1 January 2019

The First Great Lesson.

On of the items I made for my local Montessori school for the start of 2019 was a few items for their First Great Lesson. If you are not sure what that is click here.

I mainly create things for the younger classes which has children from ages 3 to 6 years in them. So fairy easy and still in the play stage of development.

While on Pinterest I came across some stones that had the planets on. They were painted black and white speckles on them. Im not keen on painting on stones as I prefer to work with items that are more flat and easier to work on. And me and speckles never turn out to look like speckles just big blobs of paint. So I changed it up to suit me.

I bought these laser cut circles from Ebay. When they came they were perfect! And that is what I used to paint the planets on.



I painted them white first. I always paint everything white as it give any paint colour a boost of light beneath it.

I then painted the planets....I just used images from Google to use as a reference and made them a bit more child like and slightly different so there was a difference for the children to see.



After that I painted round the edges in black...very slowly to keep the circle shape of the planets. I didn't want to paint the planets onto a black surface as that would dull the colours.



I knew I wanted to add some sparkle instead of flecks, so I grabbed my this Modge Podge ( which I love and would cover my whole house in )


The words of each planet were typed out and adhered to some play bricks. I once bought two packs of children bricks. They have been brilliant for anything I want that is cubed. But they had some long thin ones as well and they were perfect for the names of the planets.



As with all of my educational creations that I make the activity has control and error for the children to check if they are correct. So each planet and name has the corresponding colour on the back.



Now I know true Montessori people would say this next step is not needed but I did it anyway.



The activity will be put on the shelf for the children to access in a basket as with all other activities or in a plain box. But they have to be stored in something in the store room when they are not being used and I don't like the idea of them being in a plastic bag...So I made a Planets box to keep in them, so they are all safe together.



I spend a lot of my summer wondering round boot sales. The things you can find for 10p to use, adapt or alter is amazing.

I found this little box for 5p on one of the tables. It was painted pink but I just painted the whole thing black to keep to the space theme.

Added some letters to spell the word planet....now.... I know that it should have been in lowercase letters. But I really struggle to find lower case wooden letters anywhere. But as it was just to keep them in I figured it didn't really matter.



Re painted the whole thing black again and added the same Modge Podge onto the entire box, inside and out.

 I hope the children like it. I think things like this last longer than the normal Montessori cards that would have been printed off and laminated. Add a grey mat for the children to use and it was done!

I also made a space peg doll diorama which was made on a wooden base that started life as a bread board! so stayed tuned for that.

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