Here are the blocks used for the advertising layer build pictured in the previous post, all assembled like high school students at an event.  I want this to be the step done after the child has finished their picture, ostensibly to make clean-up easier, but also to nudge the child toward tallying.

The sketch of the front of the Montessori house is by Reppy, a parent, from before the arbor was added. I've built a layer of sticks and points on top. Below is a closeup.

This is the kind of thing I want to give the kindergarteners with the best fine motor skills during the inside work periods at summer camp.

I've been subbing three days, and have introduced: Knitted balls as turn-taking sequence (this idea really works), knitted balls for a version of Duck, Duck, Goose ( needs only two balls at a time, maybe?), Box 2 (popular, and hard for children to press pin into solid if demo'd with string already on scaffold. Would pressing it upside down work, I wonder?), and Box 7 tiles. With these, matching to their embroidered felt labels is a work in itself. We need laminated cards or else larger felts to hold enough for collection before returning to the box (this will be the key to tallying, when we get there). The tiles are popular, of course - they are so very beautiful. B (5?) concentrated 20 minutes, so focused my comments drifted over his head like clouds. M ( 4) made rhythmic patterns, killing time while waiting for the 100 board so she could make a rubbing. M (3) made "a swimming pool", and graciously hosted the other two, who gradually joined in, though I'd initially said it was "one person work" with "watchers" allowed, while I sat there. But they were all appropriate with the pieces, and focused, so I told them three were doing fine and could continue.

Next: get out Gifts 3 & 4, as many as we have, and do group lessons.

Montessori added to the environment: 1:1 (popular, and needed - 3's can count well verbally, but without matching to fingers) Zoophonics (popular, kids are ready to say each other's names with alternate consonants), object boxes put with sandpaper letters (need more cafeteria trays), and large number tracing.

Idea for next week: try making a topographical map of the pink tower out of cardboard. Match the tiles and sticks to the drawing sequences book C (5) had out - it's got to be in the language area somewhere. 

Update, April 20
That idea didn't happen - maybe over the summer. I'm planning to have an analog adult work table, where I will demonstrate projects to adults and children in the afternoons, and then sit and work silently on my own projects, artist in residence style. I'll wear a hat to indicate when not to talk to me. I'll hang the sign I made, I Thrive On Quiet. Mornings I'll do the admin end. 

In the past three weeks, I've started as director of a Montessori preschool, and have free reign with the afternoon staff to try all my Froebel Gift ideas. The school will buy the materials, a bit at a time. Tonight I met with my core team, Bekah, Taran, Dominique, and Lydia, and roughed out the plan: write a book about trying the ideas over the course of the next year, have some of the ideas fail, have children invent others, etc. Be more Waldorf. Be project-oriented, love and gift-oriented as the children are naturally - even though this is not Montessori in its strictest sense. I've never been Montessori in the strictest sense, I know now.

Place Card Project: Group 1 (Red) With blocks and children in a circle, discuss dinner time. Have children build a table with a chair for each person eating together tonight. Begin by showing Box 3 and describing it as "being the whole family together". As children build, invite them to name the people in their family. Let children play as briefly or as long as they like, building anything they please.
    Pro tip: Survey parents at arrival via sign-in sheet as to #eating together tonight is _____or not sure_______, to manage children's expectations.
     Prep needed: buy enough blocks, write up the survey.
     Extra nice: teachers take notes on what children say.
                              Group 2 (Orange) With small pieces of very nice paper (ideally), fold into enough parts for members of family. Talk about the whole piece of paper as symbolizing the family, "and so we will always use all the parts of the paper if we do any tearing or cutting in our projects." Show children how to spend time creasing the paper with their fingernails, and then begin to practice tearing neatly. However the paper ends up torn, it will make a beautiful place card. Make initials for family members by rubbing small sandpaper letters, or having children copy a letter if they can't yet write it. Decorate with googly eyes.
     Pro tip: Tell children after creasing but before tearing the paper for the first time that "even when people are good at tearing paper, sometimes the piece of paper has its own idea about what shape it wants to be, and the tear goes a different way than you asked it to when you were creasing it.  Try not to be upset by this. This is the spirit of art talking to you. Throughout your life, you'll slowly learn to hear the voice of art."
     Extra nice: We will talk in the future about the whole piece of paper also symbolizing a person's whole self - values, habits, manners, aspirations, tastes, humanity.  Another perspective we will suggest: the children of the class as a whole. The six pieces of the self listed could be connected with the knitted balls, as a concrete object to sustain thinking about an abstract concept. 

              Group 3 (Yellow) On the playground, use the parachute and bounce a ball in it. Talk about the ball as being... what? I don't know. Yet.

Okay, I have an ulterior motive here, which is to celebrate the progress I've been making on my novel. Finally!

But truth is, the Froebel Gifts have a lot to do with how the story is unfolding - the very fact that I find myself illustrating as a way to discover more of what's happening in various scenes is directly attributable to playing with them.

This picture isn't quite done yet...just like my novel.

Back to work!

Here's the color tally for the picture Still Life, sorted by palette.
The percentages came out like this: 59% of the total blocks were from palette A, 40.6% from palette B.
In more detail, the color black = 38%, the color green = 25%, and purple and yellow were both 8%.

Analysis notes, for math education:
1. When I began disassembling Still Life, the embroidered felts became useful for collecting pieces, so that I could sometimes just be sorting, and then count my tally and write the results. This is less taxing than needing to collect, count, write, and put away a type of block all in one session, for me anyway.

2. The felts could be rearranged in order to decide on what the layout of the written tally will look like. I made the written chart first, as an adult learner. Learning style variations apply!

Language notes:
1. Older children might enjoy writing captions for photographs of their work and assembling into a little presentation, as I've done here, bringing a creative writing activity into the process.

Work habits notes:
1.  This slideshow is a playful way of returning to the project of tallying after a break. Still Life was so large I needed to allow two days and several separate sessions to complete the disassembling-and-tallying process.  It was refreshing to take a break from that mental work and have a creative writing piece. When I was lifting the pieces on their felts to return them to the boxes, I really did pretend they were individuals riding home through the air! I'm VERY fond of the blocks :-)

I used a watercolor and ink painting from home as a model for this layered Boxes 7, 8, 9 piece.

It's a bottle of olive oil, an eggplant on a yellow tray, and a blue flower pot with a green plant.

There will be a big tally on this one! I estimate use of 80% of the available green and black pieces from Box 7.