Ok I promised to share our latest finds so here goes. Before Colin went back to school he had a dental appt. In typical fashion for our family we got there at the wrong time. In Atypical family fashion we were actually early lol! With an hour to kill we ran over to the Christian homeschool/book/gift/you name it store. Colin waded through posters and tee’s and I dove into the school books. I got hooked on these Evan-Moor Take it to Your Seat Centers. WOW!
Some background is in order. I have been moving towards a more Montessori approach for my elementary kids but materials have been a challenge. There are lots of make it yourself sites for preschool and early elementary materials – mostly math and language. I drooled over the Albanesi card sets but they really would break the bank. Still I liked the independent learning and the command card format. Enter the Evan Moor bks!
The first book I bought was the Geography Centers for grades 4-5 for Moira. We found that some of the games were plenty challenging for Alannah (12) however. They are like file folder games grown up and then some. Each center in this book is stored in a file folder. The full color graphics are ready to go. (no coloring!) There is one to be glued to the front of the folder. The Student Directions go on the back cover. In the inside right pocket got the task cards, maps, self checking answer keys, and other learning materials. Reproducible record sheets (ie the worksheets) and writing paper where necessary go in the left pocket. The cards and record sheets for the twelve centers included are all in different formats so there is plenty of variety. At this level students cover the 50 states, a world puzzle and mystery country game, learn the countries and characteristics of North America, globe work,parts and kinds of maps, and landforms and bodies of water. (hello! Montessori!)
We are having a lot of fun with this and look fwd to collecting the rest of the series. This won’t happen overnight however. There are books for six subject areas and six grade levels. I will let you know what we think as we get more books!
Starry Sky Journal 
These look fantastic! Perfect for my hands on learner. I’ve put a bunch on my wishlist at paperbackswap.com and Amazon! 🙂
Did you find these at Mardel’s? If so, I’ll have to take a trip there soon. Thanks for sharing this neat idea.
I have been using these since spring of last year! We use a lot of them. I have centers for the older ones and the younger ones..(and for my almost 4yo that wants to be a big kid and do school his way…LOL…the ones for him keep this little guy out of the big kids’ hair) and the ones for my 6 and almost 8yo really work out well for them doing work while I have to work with the older ones! Since we have quite an age range I need all of the levels going.
It is like this…we have structured and kinda unstructured work. The Evan Moor Center books are great…I just keep the kiddoes moving around the room on different activities …sometimes they work in pairs and sometimes independently and school time has definitely been more fun and interesting for all of us. I keep three or four centers available at a time to keep the pieces parts under control. They pull out big trays to do the work on to keep things together which helps my very scatter-the-pieces minded 8yo ds.
Anything you want to know? You can view the whole book online at http://www.evan-moor.com/ Just click on the individual center you want to look at and they have a feature to look at each page!
I feel that working with a lot of these centers have helped fill in some gaps I had in my curricula because of some little things I couldn’t get to…like with the Language Arts Centers…. The only ones I haven’t seen are the Math Centers.
We have a store nearby that sells these. I bought some of the language arts books for my oldest. They are easy to assemble and are a big hit here.
I’m a member of the teacherfilebox.com. Quinn still doesn’t like to do any type of paper work, and the twins Calvert, but I do use the Evan-Moor materials for our homeschool co-op classes.
Hey, we finally got some snow yesterday!!!!! love, Dani
How cool is that? After switching over to a work-plan last week in an effort to help the older kids be more responsible and self-directed in their own learning, I spent much time looking for Montessori materials for geography.
I don’t like re-inventing the wheel, and I like the idea of geography command cards for the older kids. Then I came across a post by Donna Marie on the 4Real Forums about the Take Home Centers.
I really REALLY like the Evan-Moor viewer thing to page through the books before you buy. I wound up purchasing the same center book that you got. I spent yesterday evening in front of the Patriots-Colts game with my cold laminator, center book, and paper cutter creating the first center.
The only thing that would’ve made me happier with the center book was if it was downloadable! I hate having to wait for my shipments. We also have been using the Evan-Moor History Pocket books for adding interest and projects to the study of American History.
I really love coming here, Kim! Thanks Dani for the reminder for the teacherFileBox site. I was just looking at it last week. I decided to take the plunge and I am sooo happy with what I have found. There is so much to choose from…I have a few ideas for making the centers a little more cost effective for me. I hope to put a blog post up about it later. You can’t beat the first month’s cost..just .99!
I’m so glad you found a good set of materials that aren’t so crazy expensive. The pocket folders sound handy and comprehensive in scope!!
We have the geography one the level below yours. The boys love it!