Montessori Monday: What's Up and Coming

I've had some new Montessori equipment saved in my closet and now I am ready to introduce them to the kids.

First in the lineup is the complete set of wooden thousands cubes (I initially purchased only nine when you need 45!) as well as the Introduction to Decimal Symbols with Tray set (It was cheaper than buying everything separately and I can use it in the future to introduce decimals) which I will use to formally introduce the one unit, 10 rod, 100 square, and 1000 cube.

Do you see the difference between the golden bead square/cube and wooden ones? The decimal set was most affordable, so I at least have one of each of the beaded ones, but the rest are wooden.
Just for those interested, the left 10 rod is from Adena, while the right is from IFIT.

Then, the geometric solids inside a basket covered with a kitchen towel that Koko has just discovered!

I didn't purchase color box one or two, but color box 3. It was actually hard for me to sort out in the beginning. I ended up color-coordinated some of the tablets with stickers to prevent future confusion if a mix-up would ever occur. I was surprised when Koko caught on right away and graded it from darkest to lightest. Of course, we couldn't leave Cheeky out, so I improvised with pairs of embroidery floss and did some matching with her.

color box 3

My version of color box 1
And my version of color box 2. Koko actually liked this, too.

We've had the metal insets for some time, but they remained mostly untouched. So, I am trying to use them myself more as to pique some more interest. Koko likes to draw faces inside, or swirly lines but I am trying to encourage her to actually draw lines. Any advice on how to go about this? I feel the limitations of my lack of training.

The first pentagon is me modeling how to do the lines. The second is Koko's swirly lines.
We had better luck with the star. When I drew the lines, she followed suit for a while before she started coloring the middle.

We also purchased the North America puzzle map. We have a homemade world map that my kids use off and on. I can't say Koko has "mastered" it, but when I mentioned wanting to buy an actual world map puzzle, my friend suggested just buying North America puzzle map. I am so glad I did! To my shame, I am very ignorant about geography, so we will be learning together! That puzzle has a lot of small countries so it's tricky!

And finally, old fashioned sorting. I think Cheeky finally understands the concept of sorting and with some new thrift store finds, it's a lot of fun. For Koko who has always been reluctant to use tweezers (it's hard for her) I demonstrated on her behalf and pretended that it was also difficult for me. She giggled insanely at all my thwarted efforts and it made her feel more confident about doing it herself. Instead of giving up like she usually does, she was more motivated to keep at it until she succeeded. Since, we're not in a traditional school setting, playing a fool sometimes helps to build confidence in little ones.

I am really excited about these glass sorting dishes I found at the thrift store!
Koko also did some old-fashioned sorting but with a twist: blindfolded. It added another dimension that kept her chuckling.

Last week, I presented the teen board again and Koko really likes the bead stair. I hope to present it to her again this week.