Friday, July 29, 2016

Montessori Materials Wishlist (Elementary)

These are all items that I had in my previous classroom at a Montessori school, which I miss and would like to save up for. Even if I just get the bare essentials and the things that I think are the very best Montessori has to offer, it will still cost me about $5000. Sometimes I miss the advantages of classroom teaching... especially in a well-stocked progressive school!

The very first thing I bought after I moved here was a Harrisville Designs 48 inch standing tapestry loom. I missed the one from my classroom so much!


Update: As you can see, I've worked hard to purchase many of these items over the years!! My current Montessori inventory and wishlist are below.

I've now begun to winnow down a bit and sell or donate some of our extra Montessori classroom materials. I'm extremely proud to support Gavin McCormack's efforts to build Montessori schools in remote areas of Nepal!

This list was updated April 24, 2023.

I joyfully use the Mathematics, Grammar, and Geography materials in my Waldorf classroom. I also present the Great Lessons when age-appropriate.


FromJennifer


Michael Olaf


Hello Wood


Waseca Biomes


Great Extensions


Montessori Research and Development


ETC Montessori


Gonzagarredi


Clocca Concepts


Azoka / Montessori Services


Mandala Classroom Resources


Mortensen Math (which I like best for Algebra)
can be ordered from Crewton Ramone, Anna Tarnowski, and Geoff White


I promise that this video will BLOW YOUR MIND.


Nienhuis Montessori - Primary & Elementary


Neinhuis Montessori - Enrichment - Toys for Life

      already purchased
      Turn Over list of item numbers (this material is extremely hard to find so I'm going to include a lot of information about it)

      329000 - Board Only

      329201 - Set 1

        form discrimination
        the shortest
        pattern discrimination
        shape completion
        filled-half filled-empty
        thick and thin
        left-middle-right
        left-right matching
        left-right matching
        relationship perception
        pattern and shape completion
        direction

      329401 - Set 2

        position
        quantity matching
        homes
        what is missing?
        what remains?
        find the contents
        "less than" matching
        go togethers
        products
        whose shoe is this?
        consequences
        positive-negative

      329601 - Set 3

        same object, different image
        positions of a cat
        geometric shapes
        fruit quantity
        shape discrimination
        association
        posture matching
        animals and their young
        epressions
        positive - negative

      329801 - Nature (instruction manual PDF)

        insects
        tracking
        fruit
        skin and hair
        which tail?
        flowers
        the butterfly
        the egg
        the cobweb
        remove one
        the frog
        the bean


Handmade Montessori Materials


Some of the things I had access to at Tidewater I adored but they are so out of my reach, like the Geometric Hierarchy of Number, a material to scale from one unit to one million. And of course it is color-coded with the Montessori place value colors. We used it in a phenomenal, and spontaneous, lesson after the 2010 earthquake in Chile, showing how the Richter Scale is logarithmic. Laying the Wooden Hierarchical out as we talked about a size 1 earthquake, size 2, size 3, size 4, etc. really drove the point home how powerful that earthquake was! And having the Waseca Biomes of the World Mat out on the floor first, to see if the children could find Chile, and the This Dynamic Planet Map (we have the paper copy... it is much more dramatic to crawl around on it and find all the earthquakes than an online version) spread out afterwards... it was just wonderful.

Here's a very nice article on why Montessori math materials are so fantastic. Montessori materials can be tough, though, since the material is open-ended and hands-on but precisely workshopped to be mathematically exact and philosophically correct (I do NOT believe in DIY Mont. materials) and all the teaching comes from the presentation to the child (which must be done correctly) and then the child's subsequent hands-on exploration, you DON'T know how to use them without help. And now, with YouTube, you can get a lesson on how to do almost anything in Montessori without having to pay for expensive teacher training!

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