A Valentine- Love and Its Source- the Child

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. In the primary classroom we had strawberries and a heart shaped snack, wrote Valentine's Day cards for our friends and family, and learned to say I Love You in American Sign Language, Chinese, Hawaiian, French, and Spanish.

In the Montessori classroom love is a part of every day, not just Valentine's Day. Each day in the classroom we teach about peace and about those who have spread love around the world as peacemakers. We teach the children how to be good friends and  how to be independent and responsible citizens of the classroom and citizens of the world. We show them love by respecting each child and providing them with an environment in which their developmental needs are met and an environment in which they feel valued and loved.

  Yesterday's post on mariamontessori.com was titled Seven Ways to Love a Child: A Valentine for Parents. Jennifer Rogers a Montessori teacher and mother of three says in the article, "Parenting is not consistent or predictable.  Loving a child is not always fun or easy. Establishing a few flexible, healthy habits is a parent’s best demonstration of love" .

One of my favorite excerpts  from Dr. Montessori's writings can be found in her book The Absorbent Mind. 

Love and its Source the Child. 

If we want to produce harmony in the world, it is clear that we ought to think more about this. The child is the only point on which there converges from everyone a feeling of gentleness and love. People's soul's soften and sweeten when one speaks of children; the whole of mankind shares in the deep emotion they awaken. The child is a wellspring of love. Whenever we touch the child, we touch love. It is difficult to define; we all feel it, no one can describe its roots or evaluate the immense consequences which flow from it, or gather up its potency for union between men. Despite our differences of race, religion, and of social position, we have felt during our discussions of the child a fraternal union growing up between us. This has conquered our shyness and dispelled those defenses which are always ready to spring up between man and and man and between groups of men in the daily affairs of life. In the vicinity of children mistrust melts away, we become sweet and kindly because, when we are gathered about them, we feel warmed by that flame of life which is there, where life originates. In adults there is an impulse for defense which coexists with the impulse for love. Of these two, the fundamental one is love, the other being superimposed upon it. Love, like that which we feel for the child, must exist potentially between man and man, because human unity does exist and there is not unity without love. 

Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!

The primary classroom learned about Chinese New Year during a visit from a classroom parent. At a special morning circle we heard a Chinese New Year story about Nian the New Year Monster and a story about the Chinese Zodiac.

Nian comes out of hiding from the mountains in the Spring. The villagers realized that the ferocious Nian was afraid of three things: the color red, fire, and noise.  The villagers came together and agreed that when it was time for Nian's annual visit towards the end of winter they would start a fire in front of every door, hang a board painted red in front of every house, and make noise. So one night when they spotted Nian coming down the mountain they started the fires, hung red boards, and stayed up all night long making noises. The monster came down and heard the noise, saw the red on the doors, and the fire and retreated to the mountain. The next morning everyone had a big celebration and the tradition passed down generation to generation in the custom of guonian. To celebrate Chinese New Year people hang red papers in windows with wishes for the new year written on them, they light lanterns, and set off fireworks.

Another story that was told to the children was about the Chinese Zodiac. This year is the year of the snake. The story goes that all of the animals of the universe were invited to a banquet, but only twelve came. It was decided that each of these animals would be given a year on the lunar cycle. Children born in that year would acquire the personality traits of the animal assigned to that year. In order to decide their order in the Chinese Zodiac cycle, the animals held a race across a river. The first one to cross the river would be granted the first year, the second to come in would be the second animal in the cycle, and so on. The Ox was in the lead. Then when he was almost to the other side, clever Rat jumped on the Ox's back. At the last second before reaching shore, the Rat jumped on land, winning the race! The Ox came in second, the Tiger third, and so on. The happy-go-lucky Pig took his time and came in last.

After the story the children cut out a snake from red paper and each child cut out his/her own animal sign from red paper.

We enjoyed dumplings with soy sauce for snack.

Special Persons Night

 Each year the Meadowbrook primary class participates in the tradition of "Special Persons Night". Each student in the primary classroom invites one person to share his/her school with. 

 We end the evening with a friendship walk. Each friend has a flower in front of him/her at circle. We play the song "That's what friends are for" song by Dionne Warwick. :) One child starts by placing his/her flower in a vase. He/she then walks around the circle and offers the vase to another child. This continues until all of the children have added their flowers to the vase and walked around the circle. The result is a beautiful friendship bouquet made up of a special flower for each child. The friendship bouquet will be on display in the peace place.

Thank you to all of the special people who visited our classroom!

Winter birds

 

I gave a hundred valentines.

A hundred did I say?

I gave a thousand valentines

One cold and wintery day.

I didn't put my name on them,

Or any other words

Because my valentines were seeds

For February birds!

 A few weeks ago we noticed a squirrel hanging upside down from a tree branch finishing off the suet from a feeder that had been left unattended by the birds. The children thought that we should put out some more seed for the birds after the naughty squirrel ate it all. So we did and the birds came. We have been talking about the different birds that have visited and have added work to the science shelf about the parts of a bird.

We have two feeders hanging now in prime viewing locations for bird watching. The grapefruit feeder below was made today and the inspiration came from my cousin Erin's blog readingmytealeaves.com. 

The chickadees took turns visiting the feeder this afternoon.

The squirrel is planning his next move.

Eggcellent

 Today we made egg salad for snack. I love food preparation work because there are so many skills practiced together. Like the other practical life works, food preparation work aims to build independence, coordination, concentration, and order. The work is set up with the materials carefully prepared for a child to independently follow a sequence of steps that require coordination of movement and concentration on the task. Food preparation work also extends into the language and mathematics curriculums. 

Each day the quantity and names of ingredients for snack are written on the snack board. A visual cue is also drawn, so if a child can't read the word he/she can "read" the numeral and the visual cue instead. I also often include recipe cards. I use the "Cookin' Cards"  by Montessori Services. Each card has one step to the recipe, both written and simply illustrated. I also make my own recipe cards based on the style of the "Cookin' Cards".

Two trays were set up on the snack shelf and the materials for each step were arranged on the trays from left to right. The first tray (pictured below) contained a cutting board, an egg cup, and a bowl for the shell. The second tray (pictured above) contained a container of lite mayonnaise, a scoop for measuring the mayonnaise, and a bowl for mixing.

First a child got an egg from the carton. Then he cracked the shell and peeled off the shell.  

Next the child chopped the egg (not pictured). This friend decided to do further chopping with the spoon after deciding that the pieces were too big once he put them in the mixing bowl. 

Then the child mixes in a scoop of mayonnaise.

Finally, the egg salad is ready to enjoy! Each child then put the egg salad on his/her plate and used crackers to scoop up the egg salad or made little egg salad sandwiches. 

Strings Konzert: Four Seasons

The primary class loves music class, especially listening, learning about, and singing along to Mr. Andrew's guitar, violin, and mandolin. They have learned the names of the parts of these instruments, as well as musical concepts including melody (the singing side of music), tempo (how fast or slow the music goes), rhythm (the heartbeat of music), dynamics (the loudness or softness of a sound or a note), and pizzicato (the method of playing a string instrument by plucking the strings with the fingers, rather than using the bow). The kids love singing with a "big Daddy voice" songs that have a steady beat and a fast tempo.

They were able to use all that they have learned with Mr. Andrew during their field trip to a strings KinderKonzert titled Four Seasons by the Portland Sympony Orchestra. The KinderKonzerts teach about the different families of orchestral instruments in a fun and interactive way. Before the Konzert we learned the song "I Love Mud". The kids did a superb job of singing "I Love Mud" during the Konzert. After I asked them to finish the following sentence: My favorite part of the Konzert was....

"... the music" - Celeste
"...when we sang mud"- Erika
"...when everyone was clapping" - Ewan
"...when we said our favorite season" - Parker and Olivia
"...getting to sing"- Ian
"...the big bass"- Owen
"...seeing the bass" - Ethan