Setting Up Pink Series Work
Many years ago I taught at Midwest Montessori School, the school that was run by the Midwest Montessori Teacher Training Center. Because it was a training center school, our classroom was visited by many Montessori teachers and interns.
One thing I noticed was that any people who visited were very interested in the set up and layout of the materials on the shelves. It seems that no matter how long you’ve been doing Montessori, there’s always a new way to arrange the work.
In our language area, the Pink, Blue, and Green Series work was grouped by color. There was one long shelf of Pink Series work; directly underneath that was a long shelf of Blue Series work, and under that, a shelf of Green Series work (I plan to do a post for Blue and Green Series soon).
At the far left of each shelf was a basket of objects that matched the color scheme. The objects were used for more than one work (matching to printed cards, spelling with movable alphabet, and story writing). Next to the basket was all the other work for that color – matching cards, pictures, rhyming work, word lists, and spelling cards.
Because I’m in the process of moving, I don’t have all my materials with me, but I did take some pictures that could be helpful. Here you’ll see a tray (lined with pink paper) and some pink series objects; You can also use a basket, and line it with pink felt or pink fabric instead:
Objects are (l-r, t-b): cup, pan, bug, pot, can, jar, tag (cut from cardstock), and hat
They can be used for spelling with the movable alphabet:
The objects can also be used for matching to printed labels (make some in Word and print on pink cardstock, or just handwrite them on pink cards):
For a look at all my Pink Series pictures, with helpful captions, please visit my Montessori Facebook page!
Nice job! I wish you’d have been with me when I was first starting to set up me Lower Elementary classroom!
That’s sweet – I wish I had been too!
Thanks Lori! So helpful!
That’s really interesting – because I was taught to do the word building before the label matching. I don’t know if that is a UK tradition but the reasoning was clear. Children word build (sometimes long) before they read so it makes logical sense to work with the movable alphabet before moving onto the the reading exercise.
What do you think?!
Sorry, my mistake. I updated it. Thanks!
Can you please explain the reason for the colors? What is the connection to the words? I noticed that the pink series consists of cvc but other than that, I don’t understand that set up.
Thank you.
Hi, Cindi! Great question. I blogged about that here: Montessori Basics: Pink, Blue, and Green Series. Take a look!