New Year

"Only through freedom of experience is it possible for human development to occur."- Maria Montessori

The prepared environment of the Montessori classroom is tended to with great care  It is essential to a child's development. Dr. Montessori observed that the child's environment greatly effects how he/she learns. The Montessori classroom environment meets the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of each child. The classroom environment is regularly maintained, but it was so lovely to come back to the classroom in the new year with everything fresh, beautifully organized, and new once again. This feeling was evident amongst the children as they came into their familiar classroom after the break. A calm and peace was observed as the children chose their work for the morning. 

The peace place gives children a place to go when they need time to alone, need some inner quiet, a break from classroom work or need a soothing place to go.

 The care of environment materials allow the children to develop coordination, concentration, a sense of order and independence. Taking care of their environment also helps to develop a sense of responsibility to the community and a respect for the classroom environment.

 The practical life area of the classroom is the core of the Montessori curriculum. Through the practical life materials a child learns coordination, concentration, independence, and order.

 The snack area is placed next to the practical life area of the classroom because the work of practical life extends into care of self. The snack area is set up so that the children can independently prepare and serve themselves snack and clean up after so the table is ready for the next child.

 The Sensorial materials are organized by the sense that the material isolates. The materials are further sequenced within each sense.

 The language area includes the book nook for quiet reading or reading to/with a friend.

 The math shelves are organized in sequence. The materials of the decimal system and passage to abstraction are not shown in the photo.

 The geography shelves introduce the child to his/her place in the world, then to the properties that make up Earth, to the study of landforms, the continents, biomes and the cultures of the people around the world

Pumpkin to Jack-O-Lantern

In October we had great fun with the many pumpkin themed works throughout the classroom. 

We had many opportunities to connect this unit with other areas of the classroom. The photo on the left is secret number work. A child chooses a secret number written on a slip of paper, he/she then has to fetch that number of pumpkins from a basket on another work mat. When he/she returns a second child guesses what number the first child chose. The photo on the right is the sets basket work. The basket contains sets of objects for numeration work 1-10. After the child has sorted the objects into sets, he/she counts each set and places the objects under the numeral card for that quantity.

We also brought the pumpkin unit into the Practical Life Area of the classroom. The photos above show two friends hammering golf tees into a pumpkin. These friends are practicing concentration, coordination, independence, order, and safety while having fun! This was a very popular work!
The photos below show two other Practical Life works; transferring colored water with a baster and stringing pumpkin beads onto a pipe cleaner. Love the concentration and determination of our friend stringing the beads!

We read several books in the science area of the classroom about pumpkins. We learned a pumpkin is a squash. Many of us think of a pumpkin as a vegetable but botanically speaking it a fruit. We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin plant. After the seed is planted if it gets water, the right temperature, light and air it will germinate and a seedling comes up, which grows into a vine. Yellow flowers grow on the vine and as the flower dries up a green pumpkin begins to grow. The pumpkin is ready to harvest when it ripens to orange.

"Pick a pumpkin from a vine

Pumpkin round, pumpkin fine.

Pick a pumpkin from a vine. 

Let's pick pumpkins"

Before Halloween we carved our classroom pumpkin. Some friends enjoyed removing the "guts" from the pumpkin, while other friends were less than interested in that step. After the pumpkin was carved, we rinsed and dried the seeds, we spread them on a baking sheet, and sprinkled on some cinnamon sugar. YUM! After Halloween, we placed our Jack-O-Lantern into a large glass container and sealed the top. We have begun to make observations of our decomposing pumpkin. We will talk about how decomposers such as bacteria and fungi break down the pumpkin into tinier parts. We can put the pumpkin out in the compost bin. Rotting old plants provide food to grow new ones. 

Reading buddies

Throughout the year each full day friend in the primary classroom will be assigned a reading buddy from the elementary classroom. So far it has been a wonderful experience for friends in both classrooms. We began the reading buddy project by making "mail boxes" by decorating large envelopes to place at the back of our reading buddies cubby. The "mail boxes" will be used throughout the week to trade letters and drawings with our reading buddy. Once a week we meet to read to each other.