Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Montessori Homeschool

Can you give me some names of specific materials you use besides those rods (I am looking them up right now!)

I do think I am going to use Right Start math instead of some of the Montessori stuff...

sorry nursing at the keyboard nak

Not Montessori, but if I had to do it over again, I'd shop here -
http://shopping.hwtears.com/category/products-by-grade
as it's very common that highly gifted kids are merely 'age-level' in handwriting. Take a look and see what you think...
Grinity

I'm just about always nak too.

Some of them I can, some of them I just picked up at junk shops or whatever. I have been looking for materials for about 2 years now, I also have some handmade materials from when I was teaching. This is for my 5 yo and 2.5 yo.

On my maths self, atm, I have:

� MAB blocks and some cards and other material I made when teaching for use with these.
� Cuisenaire rods and book of patterns to go with it, downloaded for free.
� A foam number puzzle I got at a junk shop, showing numerals to
� 0-9 and the four operation signs
� pattern blocks and some pattern block trading games
� Homemade spindle 'boxes' from plastic cups and straws
� homemade felt and card 'sandpaper' numbers
� Dinosaur counters
� Learn about time magnetic book
� Counting mats, addition and subtraction cards, number stickers (for when DS1 won�t attempt the writing)
� We use Miquon, assorted stuff I had as a teacher and free downloads to keep it fresh and interesting.

Is that what you mean?

What I find the best approach is to familiarise myself with what is covered in the Montessori curriculum and grab any substitutes when I see them. So I knew the geography unit covers things by continent, so when I saw a good book that covered it in that way, I grabbed it. I'm always looking! This didn't happen overnight, either!

I'll pm you a link where I talk a bit about things we have donek, if you like. It�s mostly for friends, though, so I don't write about giftedness there.

I just read on another thread, Grinity posted the elephant analogy, which could apply to Montessori IF the director/ess wasn't flexible.
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/analogies.htm

(thanks Grinity, for reminding me I wanted to ask about that )

Our experience was less than desirable as well. My DS just isn't into hands on things, he's an abstract kind of guy.


The teachers at his Monty school were wonderful, and it was his head teacher who actually mentioned the "pg" possibility to us first. It's just that the method of Montessori, as much as I adore it, isn't a good fit for my gifted dude. He doesn't want to do something three times, he barely wants to do it once, he understands it, why does he have to show you? KWIM?


You can imagine the year we all had! I believe the teacher to be a compassionate and very capable teacher, it's just there is only so much tweaking you can do before it's not Montessori anymore.


I truly think DS walked into the 3-6 room already passed that stage of development.


This isn't to say it won't work for you, I just think it's a tricky fit for gifted kids. I can see it working for some, and not others.


(I am not NAK, I type on an iPad that has a mind of it's own!)