Volcano

Week 1

Anyhoo for the past 3 weeks we having been learning about volcanoes. We followed the instructions in the Geography Trail Guide, there was not much information in the trial guide nor the Ultimate Geography Guide so I thought I would look for some suitable resources from Montessori. I thought it would be really good for Nuh to know the different parts of a volcano so  I  found some 3 part cards from the Helpful Garden blog ( this blog is a gold mine, link below). So for week 1 we read the information in the GTG, then used the 3 part cards. He particularly enjoyed the thought of volcanic bombs. We then made a volcano model using lego, we did this together Nuh, Zuh and I. As we were building we ran over the vocabulary we had learnt and named the various parts of the volcano.

Week 2

In week two, we looked at the Ring of Fire on the world map which on our dining room table, Nuh was fascinated by the fact that 250 volcanoes are situated here, we also looked at some volcanoes erupting on youtube.

We then made a volcano with vinegar, food colouring and bicard of soda. (sorry no pics) The children really enjoyed this, we had to make the volcano erupt several times. We made the volcano from tinfoil, a plate, some plasticine and a plastic cup. You can see a similar one here:

TIN FOIL VOLCANO

I was pleased that Nuh pointed out the 3 states of matter that were present. I chose this method rather that paper mache because it is quicker. We have completed plenty of paper mache projects in the past and they are brilliant but time consuming.

Week 3

I also wanted a bit more information about volcano's in a age appropriate format for Nuh, most of the stuff I was finding was for grades 4 and above. I happened to stumble across this Montessori blog, I have never bought anything before but her volcano stuff is brilliant, it is a paid for resource. i cannot remember how much I paid, even though it was only last week that I bought it. ( fibro fog strikes again) The pack came with 3 part cards for volcano parts and volcano parts explained, a label the volcano diagram and volcano facts.  I did not use the 3 part cards as instructed or as you would in a normal Montessori way. I simply cut out all of the 3 part cards, with labels in tact,so they were effectively 1 part cards( he, he, he) I also cut out the explanation sections with the label in tact. I then got Nuh to lay them all out on the table and told him we would be making a book about volcanoes. I then asked him to locate various cards by the name of each volcano part. He did this using a mixture of identifying the image and reading the label. I was so pleased that he could read words like 'volcano fragments'.

We also did some copy work, I read out the facts to him from the pack and asked him which one he was most interested in, he said "which ever is least amount of writing", HONESTLY what are you gonna do.