CSI #138 - Geometry

Well, we've got the first week of school under our belt and everyone survived, so I'd say we're off to a good start. :)  This week's case file was perfect for school photos, and the Crate Paper Noted line that came in my Citrus Twist Kit for August was the perfect line for this theme.  Here's my layout and of course the fabulous CSI case that inspired it.  CLICK HERE to see the rest of the design team line up.

At first the colors freaked me out a little bit.  I'm a fan of bright, and the muted tones looked hard to work with.  Luckily I had just gotten my CTKit, and it was filled with colors that fit this case perfectly. For my evidence, I used woodgrain paper, an envelope, tags, numbers and clips.  Here are some closeups.

For my testimony, I used the prompt to journal about school.  In these pictures, the Little Lady is laying the ground work for a solid foundation in math, and I talked a bit about what each activity was, and how it relates to learning.  At first glance, it looks like a simple game of stacking, but it's so much more.  The journaling reads:

One of the most famous visual representations of Montessori is the Pink Tower, which is introduced to first year primary students around age 3.  Through the simple act of building the tower, children learn visual discrimination of dimensions, while refining visual-motor coordination and getting early preparation for later math lessons.  Shapes play a big roll in early Montessori learning, and after a child has exhausted the Pink Tower work, they may move on to work with geometric solids.  This builds on the foundation of dimensional awareness, and refines the stereognostic sense.  Children learn the names of the forms, including sphere, ovid, ellipsoid, cone, cylinder, cube, triangular pyramid and square pyramid.  Children grow their language by learning the proper names of the solids, eventually matching labels to the corresponding object.  All of this shape work sets the stage for geometry, by allowing the children to explore the relationships between the plane and curved surfaces of the shapes.  Once again, Maria Montessori's approach is nothing short of genius in its simplicity.

For the title letters, I pulled out some more of those good old canvas thickers, and I covered them with some Tim Holtz distress pain in spun sugar, then going over them with a cream color to tone down the pink a bit.

And there you have it.  I hope you have lots of fun planned for your weekend.  It has been really hot here lately, and I am looking forward to the fall weather that has been promised for the weekend!

xoxo,

Shawna