Trick or Treat!

Well the kids have been practicing and preparing their 'trick or treat' steps all week. Leaves on the play ground make great 'candy' at recess to both collect and hand out. Building forts in the daycare even creates different 'houses' to practice saying trick or treat at. Yep, I'd say they should all have been well prepared for whatever adventures they had tonight. I can't wait to hear all about it tomorrow...and then have it be over. Now I"m glad with how enthusiastic they are about holidays, in fact I think it's wonderful how over the top excited they get. But we basically had no regular work time today because we knew that they would be so distracted.

Halloween at our school means costumes for all ages, and a little parade of the Children's House around the Elementary classroom. Then the Elementary students usually read poems or sing some Halloween themed songs for the younger children. It's a fun break from routine, and we did a great job this year as adults with helping the children get their costumes on without losing any pieces (I don't think!). Three of us zipped, snapped, Velcro'd and attached countless fairy/angel/princess wings (the accessory of choice for most of the girls in our class) while Mrs. C snapped pictures of the children with our freshly carved pumpkin.

Remember the ones I featured about a week ago? Yeah, they got a little bit soft but luckily we got a donation later and one of our extra staff had time to carve it for us. Hooray!

I do have to say that we had some unique costumes, and even all those fairies and princess were different (though I have never seen so many glittery wings!). We had-

-A squishy Puff the magic dragon
-Olivia the Pig
-A Beaver (with a tail almost as big as the boy in the costume!)
-Princess Lolly from Candy Land (anyone else remember that game?)
-A young king with his older brother Knight
-A plump pumpkin
-A cobra (complete with hood containing heat sensing pits!)

My favorite though was Princess Leia, and not just because it was a home made and well done costume, but from how the boy who was in it explained why he was Leia. "Because Dad is R2D2, my little sister is going to be Yoda, and Mom is Chewbaca." Ahh, family themed costumes, gotta love em.

Games we like to play

I don't want to give the wrong impression that in a Montessori environment that the children never do anything as a whole group. On the contrary we do a lot of things as a big group: birthdays, holiday celebrations, lunch, recess, and outdoor games. Outdoor games are probably the most consistent group activity and all the children who stick around for lunch participate. About ten minutes before the end of recess I'll call out that it's time to clean up and the children know that that's their cue to run their toys to the big blue bin and dash to the side of the school so they can get their 'favorite' spot. The older ones are especially keen on standing in a particular spot,

Normally our games are pretty simple. Things like 'Fishy, fishy may we cross your ocean?", Red light green light, and moving like an animal. We did crab walking the other day and most of the children thought it was hilariously funny, though a few others needed encouragement to even try. All the games we do have very simple rules since even red light, green light is a bit confusing for our younger students.

Photo courtesy of Amazon
(all our domes were picked up by the children
 before I could take a picture!)

And today we had a brand new game to play. Ok, so it really was just Simon says using these colorful domes but the kids thought it was a great new game. After all, it's so much more fun to find a purple dome than it is to touch your nose. And it's even MORE fun when you get to find the purple dome that your best friend is also standing at. And then the teacher asks you to find your favorite color and you not only get to choose but change your mind (just in case you know). Plus what child doesn't want to run around after keeping themselves at a walking pace for the entire morning? Answer: None of the children in our classroom!

They all really enjoy playing, even those who don't fully understand it and those for who it is really easy. We try to keep it non-competitive, not because we don't want them to try hard and feel like they've done a good job, but it should be obvious that there is no way a three year old could keep up with a six year old. Amazingly though children seem to realize this and it's not uncommon for the older ones to handicap themselves. In tag I've seen our biggest and fastest boy purposefully miss the flag when chasing a younger child. In our school they spend enough time with the younger ones to realize that they need to help them, and that if they play too hard they may cause the younger ones to cry. They've learned to give the younger ones a head start, or help them if they fall, and even give them second chances. Mostly without any adult intervention.

Making a book

So this actually occurred yesterday but I got distracted by the chicken pox and forgot to write about it. Please note that I will only be using the first letter of the students name for confidentially, while still trying to keep the story a personal experience (aka. not just calling the girl, 'her' or 'she' through the whole story).

L made a book.

Parts of a Horse puzzle from Montessori Services
(we use most of the same parts for making books)

Yep, an actual book. Well, ok it was 6 or 7 pages of printer paper stapled together, but it's still a book. And she illustrated it herself. L is one of youngest students, this is her second year in the Children's house but she's still only three years old and hasn't started too much of the academic materials yet. So it was a big deal when the head teacher invited her to make a book on the parts of a horse. Boy was she excited. First they took out the laminated cards with the different parts of the horse colored on each one and went over the names. Then L got to pick her favorite one and color that part in on her own, blank copies of the horse. Horse, body, mane, tail, forelegs, hind legs, neck, forehead, ears, she colored them all.

Next came the exciting part--stapling! With her book bound she 'read' it to me, stumbling over just a few of those parts. Hey, it's hard to remember which of the legs are which! And I think L carried that book around the rest of the afternoon she was so excited. She finally moved on to a new work when I promised that I would help her remember to get it into her blue bag on Friday to go home and show mom.

Today I caught her checking on it still in her bin, and showing it off to a few friends. I'd have to say that she's still pretty proud of herself for completing such a big kid work.

What's something every school has in common?

Notes on the window for parents

The passing of germs and alerts to prevent pandemics of school-wide proportions. It's the annual chicken-pox alert at school! Ok, so it's probably not quite an annual thing, but I'm sure it's close to that. We've already had reports of lice earlier this year, now chicken pox, as well as the normal coughs and colds that travel around in this season.

We had 8 children out sick today. 8. I think that might be a new record. It felt so quiet in the classroom with that many gone, and I felt almost in the way. One of the reason Montessori classrooms limit the adults in the environment is because we want to step back and let the children work without interference, even if they're not doing something exactly right. Normally in our classroom there are enough real problems (like thread tangling, or lost scissors) that keep us three adults busy enough to not interfere too much and give the children a chance to figure things out on their own.

But today with so many children gone (and I will admit they were some of the ones who require more attention!) it was a different story. I found that I had to force myself to back to the counter and just observe for a bit, recording what lessons each child was practicing. Now I do want to say that normally I really like just taking time to sit on a stool and just observe. However today we had some students from the local university came to observe and as we had four of them in at a time all the stools were taken and I felt slightly awkward just standing at the counter to observe. It's kind of amazing how the smallest things can throw you off. I have to remember that, it's a part of the reason we really try to keep the environment organized and clean for the children. If everything has a place and is in order, one knows what to expect and can focus on other things.

Maybe tomorrow it will be a more normal kind of day and I focus on really observing. There are some children who need new work to do and I'd really like to observe them a bit and see what they're really interested in. It always makes a presentation go better when they're actually engaged and interested!

Montessori Sunday: Scrubbing a table

I apologize, this was scheduled to post and never did for some reason...sorry about the delay. I did actually write it on Sunday, promise!)

Ah practical life, definitely one of the most relaxing and normalizing areas of the classroom. Dr. Montessori talks about the process of the child normalizing, or coming back to the normal path of development. According to her books children who are this normal path of development are calm, eager to learn and develop themselves. Think about it in context of being an adult. Is there any activity that you do that calms and centers you? Many people run, work on a craft, bake, garden, etc. Usually these activities include some kind of repetitive motion that you can lose yourself in as it becomes habitual (the word cathartic comes to mind).

The lovely table washing set from my Montessori Training cente
(note how there is red color coding to help distinguish the set)

Many practical life activities try to help children lose themselves in these repetitive motions for the same purpose. Table scrubbing consists of these lovely, repetitive circular motions that satisfy the child's need to move while directing that energy into purposeful work. And when I talk about purposeful work I'm not really thinking about the table getting clean. In fact most often the table will end up being soaking wet and possibly even still soapy when the child finishes. Instead the purposeful work is for the child themself. These repeated motions are helping them learn how to control their movements and build up their muscles. Everything the young child wishes to accomplish they must repeat over and over until they master. We as adults have long forgotten how impossibly thick our fingers used to seem when we were trying to learn a new task. For children almost every task is new and requires immense amounts of concentration.

But let's get off theory for a bit and look at the actual activity of table scrubbing. The activity begins with the child putting on an apron and choosing a table which may or may not be dirty and need scrubbing. They move the chair aside and set up a chowki (a small, short table used while sitting on the floor) and lay an oilcloth on it. The materials are all brought over and laid out in order of use on the chowki; scrub brush, soap, sponge and drying cloth. The small basin is filled using the pitcher, and then the scrubbing can begin.

The child is shown how to wet the bristles and apply the soap using a circular motion. The table is then scrubbed, top to bottom and left to right. Circular motions, beginning slowly and then speeding up in the middle of the table, and slowing again as the end is reached demonstrate paying attention to the edges of the table. The circles are overlapped and the child is show up to apply more soap as needed.

After the scrubbing the teacher demonstrates how to wet the sponge and squeeze it until no more water drips back into the basin. The sponges is then drawn in a straight line across the bottom of the table, collecting the suds and stopping just short of the edge. This is the only time a circular motion is not used. The child is show how to rinse the sponge out in the basin and squeeze it dry before collecting the last of the suds. Finally the drying cloth is pulled out, folded into a small mitt around the hand and (using circular motions!) the child is shown how to dry the table.

And of course once everything is cleaned the child is responsible for drying the materials, wiping up any spills on the floor, and returning it to the shelf for the next person. Typical expectations for any Montessori activity. If you're ever having a bad day I honestly suggest setting up something similar at home, it's actually really relaxing and you've got a nice clean table when finished!

I spoke too soon

So this post is a bit late but with good reason. (there's always a good reason isn't there?) Anyways, my previous post was about pumpkin carving, and how trying to have even just one organized activity made the day a lot longer. Well the day after that the head teacher of our classroom was gone for the day to get her son in for a long overdue doctors visit. So after a long Wednesday I found myself playing at head teacher the next day. So yeah, get ready for another me centered post rather than one about the awesome children I work with. Don't worry though, they'll return soon!

Don't get me wrong it went great. The kids were very well behaved, and a few of our youngest children were out sick so the day wasn't quite as busy as it normally would have been. Because it was Thursday the children also had French. For this they go out of the classroom for about 15 mins for the younger children, and half and hour for the older. While the rest of the morning was pretty smooth, it was nice to have the class size reduced by about 10 when French began.

Next came our recess time adventure. Recess is a part of my normal schedule, but dogs jumping the fence into our play yard is not. There's a Shepard/Collie mix in one of the yards behind our school who gets really excited when the kids come out and start running around. We're talking excessive barking, pacing and putting front paws up the fence. Well this particular day the dog got so excited that he used the wood pile as a vaulting block and ended up in our play yard.

Then he must have decided he really didn't want to be where all these screaming kids were and that's when he discovered he couldn't get back over the fence. Of course all the children were so excited about the dog, some were nervous but most just really wanted to go and pet it. Luckily they all respond really well when I yell "Line up at the school" since that's the phrase we use every day to start our game. So we got the children all corralled in one part of the yard and with the help of the neighbor got the dog back over the fence. The children could hardly talk about anything else the rest of recess.

Then the afternoon rolled around. My normal afternoon is pretty relaxed. After getting the younger children into the nap room I have almost an hour to take my break and prep any materials we need in the classroom (usually cutting paper or designing artwork). Then when the first group of nappers gets up I go back into the classroom to help with the children who are awake. With our regular teacher gone I was busy all afternoon. The extended day children (those who stay awake all afternoon) kept themselves busy brainstorming ideas for 'we missed you' cards for our missing teacher (there was a decided Halloween theme!) while I helped get the nappers ready.

Myself and the older children read a chapter from the boxcar children and made cards, then got back down to serious work. The older children have these checklists they are supposed to complete during the day. These checklists are just to make sure that they do a writing work, another type of language work, and a math work. It also helps prepare those who are going in to Elementary where they will plan their own projects and make the deadlines for them. Right now though only two of our children are confident readers, the others need help reading the options on their checklist. And I made the mistake of just reading the lists aloud without seeing what was on there. That was how I ended up trying to give three new presentations as well as trying to deal with the normal mishaps that come up in the course of the day. Oh, ad did I mention that soon after starting this I had the newly awakened nappers come join our classroom? Luckily there were only two who didn't sleep. But still, it was a far cry from a normal afternoon when there are two adults in there for the majority of the afternoon.

So yeah, while it went well I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day. But I'd already told some friends I would go climbing with them. Waiting for them to get to the gym all I could think about was doing this-

Oh, and then on Friday one of our other staff left at 1 o'clock instead of 3:30 like normal. So I was in charge of taking out all the garbage in the school (it's amazing how much we generate, mainly from paper towels) and extra daycare duty after school. Nothing that I haven't done before but it was a good thing that it was Friday. A day of pumpkin carving, having our regular teacher gone, then filling in for yet another staff member wiped me out. Hopefully next week will be more normal....except for there's Halloween....I better rest up.

Why I don't teach regular preschool

It's because of the pumpkins, or more specifically what I ended up doing because of 4 little pumpkins.

Obviously Halloween is coming up. For school we'll have a little 'parade' of costumes through the elementary classroom who will then perform some poems for us. Then we'll get a special snack (pumpkin seeds) and that's it. Pretty simple as far as halloween parties go. However, we had a really nice couple of parents donate pumpkins to us for decorations, and decided that we had enough to let all the children help clean and carve them.

I want to say that it was great to be able to get all the children involved, normally only the children who stay awake for the afternoon help in this special project. These are children who are kindergarten age or close to it (the others are napping). Since we had 5 pumpkins donated we decided to let the older children do one as a group,  including measuring it, guessing how many seeds it contained, and then counting the seeds. Meanwhile the younger children would just clean out the 4 smaller pumpkins and draw faces for me to carve later.

The plan didn't sound so bad. I'd get the pumpkins all ready to go, bring the kids out in groups of 6 and when they finished I'd bring out the next group. And I have to say that the first group went pretty well with only a few unforeseen circumstances. The pumpkins we had were so little that it was hard for even the children to get their hands in the hole, much less the scrappers. So instead of letting the children scrape I had to loosen up the inside periodically so they could pull the guts out with their hands. 2 children took turns with that, while the other four sorted the seeds from the guts so we could save them for snack. Some children were a little hesitant about touching the squishy, sticky insides, but when they saw the others digging in most joined in with enthusiasm.

The other problem was our aprons. Because there was so much pumpkin gunk and sticky hands aprons were pretty much a necessity. Our normal aprons in the classroom are velcro, and definitely designed to be taken on and off independently. Unfortunately there aren't enough that I could borrow six for the entire morning, so I had to borrow the spares. All the spares, though, are tie aprons. I think we have 2, maybe 3 children in the classroom who can actually tie a bow, and none who can tie one behind their back. So guess who ended up tying and untying aprons for group?

Are you seeing the problem yet? Not only had I put myself in charge of the whole group, but given myself the added responsibility of scrapping the pumpkin and tying/untying aprons. Oh, and because of the time crunch and messiness of the project it wasn't worthwhile to let the children help clean up lit normal, so that was all on me too. After an hour and a half, and 24 children later I was exhausted, and there was a very orange, sticky table and floor.

In a regular preschool this kind of group activity happens most of the day, and in even bigger groups. The adults seem to spend most of their time going from one child to another, trying to make sure everyone is at roughly the same point in the project so they can all finish together. Some schools have the children clean up, but even then the clean up is minimal, like putting all the markers in a basket. I want to give a thumbs up of appreciation to anyone who works like that five days a week and still likes doing it. This little project really made me appreciate how helpful teaching the children in our class to be independent and not only work without direct supervision, but to also clean up afterwards. It makes it so much easier for us teachers as well actually giving the children the opportunity to have quality one on one time, since we don't need to focus our attention on multiple children learning how to do the same project.

Oh, and after all the busyness in the morning I still spent almost an hour in the afternoon actually carving the pumpkins and finishing sorting the seeds. Though they did turn out pretty cute!

Our children designed pumpkins,
(just a little soft from sitting inside over the weekend...oops!)

What happens at home, doesn't always stay at home

Even as an adult it's sometimes hard to leave the troubles of home there rather than bring them to work (and vice versa), children have the same problem. A lot the kids come in, either really excited for the day or sad and dragging, wanting to go home. Sometimes their parents can tell us what's bothering the child when they drop them off. The other day one girl was in a pretty foul mood because she was only allowed to have one flavor of yogurt instead of mixing all the containers together. Yep, that was it, yogurt. Yogurt led to an extremely scowley face and stomping feet.

Sometimes though we don't get to know what's up. This morning I shook hands with lots of happy children, a few who were even jumping they were so excited to be back at school (yeah, my job's usually pretty nice huh?). But there was one hand I didn't get to shake and I didn't even realize it until about halfway through the morning. Some kids get louder, act out or cling to adults when they're feeling off; this girl clammed up and kept to herself all morning. It was such a change from her normal, chatty demeanor that I flat out asked her if she was feeling ok, thinking that she must be sick. A lackluster nod didn't make me feel much better so I invited her over to the conversation area, hoping I might be able to figure out what was bothering her.

Unfortunately I didn't find out anything. We chatted about the other children's bins, discovered that almost all the pictures on them were things you could ride, etc. Not really any helpful hints for me, especially since this is usually a very verbal child with lots to share. So I let invited her to work with me and we practiced identifying and tracing the sandpaper numbers. She perked up a bit and was really eager to try writing the numbers on a chalkboard.

I wish I could say that cured her for the rest of the day, but it didn't. She was pretty reserved at lunch, entirely missed recess because she couldn't focus enough to get dressed, and repeated this lethargy through snack and afternoon recess-even with a 2 hour nap! Sometimes you just can't push the right buttons to get the child perked up, and just hope that tomorrow will be better.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was another girl who is usually so hyper she can't contain herself, gets in trouble for it, and then gets upset. Today she came in laughing and eager to work, and though we teachers had to remind her a few times to slow down or quit bothering her classmates she had a relatively calm morning. But most amazingly at recess she managed to sit quietly on the bench when asked. The bench is somewhere that is sort of like a time-out area, but we don't call it that and really only direct the children over there if they really need to calm down. Usually when she's sent there this girl will whimper, whine, bounce and constantly ask when she can get up. Today she sat so quietly that I almost forgot she was there and actually ended up thanking her for doing so.

Who knows why these two girls were so contrary to their normal behavior today. I don't know what they did over the weekend, how much sleep they got, what they had for breakfast, if the snow on the ground disturbed them. All I know is that each day they're going to be a little bit different.

My bin, your bin, we all have a bin

My bin, your bin, we all have a bin...for work! Most Montessori schools have bins for the children to keep their 'work' (art projects, writing strips, handmade books, etc.). At our school the children bring this work home at the end of the week in their blue bags. They all get super excited for 'blue bag day' and often there are tears if a child forgets to bring the bag back and so cannot take their work home.

Because we like to review what the children are bringing home, to see how they're progressing and what they are interested in, a teacher fills up the bags right away in the morning. This week it was my job and I have to admit I found some of the most interesting items in the children's bins. Some flower petals, a broken pencil, hoarded colored pencils, hair ties, and a sweater (which just barely fit in the plastic bin).

Probably more interesting though wasn't the items themselves, but the stories they told. One younger students pin was packed absolutely full of beautiful artwork. None of which she had drawn herself, but she has a very loving older sister who loves to draw pictures for her and give them as gits. Actually finding gifts in other children's bins isn't uncommon, and it's usually best to ask if you find a piece of paper with a different child's name on it in a different bin.

I also found a bin nearly entirely empty except for a couple of scribbled drawing an a thick, stapled stack of writing strips. The strips had some really well formed cursive letters on them, completely contrary to the half-hearted scribbles of the coloring work. I would have guessed this was a younger child's bin, with the letters being  a gift from an older student, but unfortunately that's not the case. This is the bin of a student who was just on the edge of being old enough for kindergarten this year. She should have lots of beginning math and writing work filling her bin right now. Unfortunately the scribbles are more her usual style right now. The only reason the nice letters are in there, is because her mom came to observe and the little girl wanted to show off some for her. It's just frustrating because looking at the letters she has written she's more than capable of doing the more advanced work...the problem is she's not interested in focusing to learn MORE letters or even practice her numbers to get beyond these basics. We'll just have to find something to inspire her with.

Anyways, while we can learn a lot from what the children choose to put in their bin, there's always the aspects of school that can't go home. Like the help I get when it's time to hang all those blue bags back on the right hooks. I have so many children ready to help me that I can't hardly fill the bags quickly enough to keep up. I grab a bin, scan the work quick and dump it in the blue bag. One child looks at the little picture on the bin (which matches the picture near the hooks) and brings the filled bag in the coat room to hang up. Meanwhile another child returns the empty bin and helps me find them next one, which I can hopefully empty before the first child returns. Meanwhile there's still a crowd of children wanted to help put blue bags away. It's a pretty exciting process since it only happens once a week.

And I have to admit, they're pretty good about getting them on the right hook, or at least coming back to tell me they forgot who they were looking for!

Yum, it's snack time!

It was cornbread today for snack today, yum! Ok, I'm just guessing that it tastes good because the children devour it so quickly that I have yet to be able to try any. I'm taking that as a good sign though.

You know what else is good about cornbread though? The crumbs. Yep, that messy part of it actually works perfect with the grace and courtesy lesson my fellow teacher gave today. It was called: "How to have snack". Yes, that is an actual lesson in a Montessori classroom. Along with how to blow your nose, shake hands, introduce a friend, etc. And I will admit that the children probably get the most excited about the snack one.

If you think about it, having snack can be a really long process, even if it's already prepared in individual servings. Some schools simply put out a big bowl or two of whatever is for snack and then use a chalkboard or dry erase board to help the children get the appropriate amount. At our school though we portion out the snack of the day in dixie cups so it's ready to go and doesn't take as much time. However the full cycle of activity is quite long.

Now imagine that you're hungry, and decide that you want to have snack. But before you even get to snack you  need to wash your hands...with soap.
And if there's a line you need to wait in it. Oh, and if there are already 2 children having snack, you need to wait your turn for that too. Then, and only then are you actually ready to pick a snack and sit down. Unless of course you want a drink of water. Then you need to pour yourself a glass from the small pitcher on the hutch and carry it to the table. Ah, refreshing.


But even when you finish eating snack isn't over, oh no. There's crumbs to be swept up, water spills to be sponged dry, and that darn chair to push in. Then you can wash your dishes. Oh, and if there's a line you might have to wait (again!). Scrub that water glass, rinse away the bubbles and place it in the rack to dry. Whew! Now it's time to go back to work...wait...wasn't it a lot of work just to have snack.

Apparently not for some kids, since they decide to have snack twice, even though they are only supposed to have one. Oops!

A Sticky Situation...

...in more ways than one. Today I dealt with a sticky floor, an oilcloth with dried up apple juice, and (using the double meaning of this phrase) explaining to a parent how her daughter cut her shirt with scissors during nap....

The most prominent sticky situation was that we took up the line yesterday. Yes, I typed that correctly (that's for you mom!), the line. The line is a line of tape stuck to the floor in the shape of an ellipse and is actually a pretty important Montessori material. The children are allowed to move about on the line, and help improve their balance by trying to place their feet precisely on the taped line.

And ours...well it was broken. Yes, a line taped on the floor can break. Usually from children fidgeting and picking at it with their fingers, but also just general wear and tear from being walked on. So we decided to take it up. And let me tell that was some good tape. It did all come up nicely, but left a nice sticky line behind it. Now a lot of things in our classroom get sticky, especially around the snack area and when food work comes out, but it is something we try to avoid as a general rule. Luckily some goo be gone did the trick before the children came in for the day.

Funnily enough though, despite the fact that the children KNEW the line wasn't there, they kept walking on it. Or more precisely on the space where the line used to be. Some of them even went and go flags to go and walk on the line with. Just goes to show how deeply habits can become ingrained.

The other teacher and I did lay a new line on the floor after school, making it bigger to accommodate all the children in the class and trying to smooth it out into a more proper ellipse (which is a lot harder than you'd think!). It came out a little wonky, but hopefully the children will enjoy it. We'll find out tomorrow!

A little lopsided, but it works just fine!

Montessori Sunday (on Monday!): Moveable Alphabet

Oops, seems like I missed my opportunity yesterday to exclaim the wonderfulness of Montessori materials. Guess I'll just have to make it up today. Don't worry, nothing particularly interesting happened in our classroom...or at least that's what happens when you spend most of the time completely absorbed in working with one of two children at a time.

Today I'd like to introduce you to the moveable alphabet, one of my absolute favorite Montessori materials, and such a great idea I can't believe that it has never come into more common practice. Seriously, once the purposes and uses of this material were pointed out to me I couldn't believe I never used one in school myself.

The moveable alphabet is a language material introduced to children when they are around age 4 to 4.5 and have demonstrated a solid knowledge of the sandpaper letters. Once the child can recognize the individual letters and recall the sound each makes they are shown the moveable alphabet. The letters of the alphabet are usually cut out from wood and colored pink (for consonants) and blue (for vowels). Ideally the letters are in cursive, though print ones are also made by companies.

The moveable alphabet provides a way for the child to write words BEFORE they can really control a pencil enough to write legibly. Dr. Montessori found that young children were more than capable of writing: they knew that words were made up of individual sounds, that each letter had a sound, and that they had ideas of their own that they wanted to write. The only thing really holding them back was the inability to control a pencil with enough precision to produce legible letters. So Maria Montessori designed a tool for writing that only required children to know the sound they needed and to recognize its unique shape. They could now write before they built up the hand strength to control a pencil.

When the teacher first presents the material she shows the child how to carry the rather large box to a mat and how to open it. The child is asked to get their favorite sandpaper letter and bring it to the mat. The teacher then assists the child in finding that letter in the alphabet box, and lets them know that each sound they have learned with the sandpaper letters is in this box. Together the adult and child come up with a phonetic word (such as 'plant') and the teacher assists the child in identifying each sound in the word and then finding it in the box. This is repeated several times, with the student being encouraged to think of their own words.

Later the children are shown how to write short phrases (like 'the red rods') and eventually short stories. For the latter they are shown a much smaller alphabet where the letters are simply printed on plastic tiles or laminated paper and not cut out into their shape.

All the writing is done phonetically, and the directress does not worry about the child's spelling at this point. Often the child may spell cat with a 'k' instead of 'c' but as long as it is clear that they are listening to all the sounds in a word the spelling does not matter. This work is designed simply to introduce children to a new way of expressing themselves using written words. Focusing on abstract concepts like spelling can frustrate the child and potentially dissuade them from wanting to write.

Did you notice that nowhere in this article did I talk about reading with the moveable alphabet? That wasn't an oversight, but done purposefully. In a montessori classroom writing comes before reading. Amazingly when you step back and think about it writing is actually an easier process than reading. Writing requires taking a known idea, analyzing the sounds in a word, attaching the sound to its symbol, and transcribing the symbol with some sort of tool. Meanwhile reading is almost the reverse process. An unknown idea is presented, the symbol needs to be identified and the sound attached, then the sounds need to be blended together to create meaning/understanding. 

Because of this Montessori children are first taught writing, then reading; the reverse of what is done in most elementary schools. Reading usually comes about 6 months after writing and hopefully from the spontaneous understanding/connection of the child between their own writing and other written words. But it's all in the preparation, and it's a long road to get there!

What were they thinking?

This blog comes in two parts today to answer the question, what were they thinking? Please enjoy in any order.

A child's story-

So I talked in an earlier post about how we have some job slips for the kids to draw at the end of the day so they can help tidy up the classroom. Now I don't expect them to get the job done perfectly, but every little bit does help. Usually it's great, the 'dust a shelf' job slips have been especially popular, which is great since dusting is pretty low on our teacher to do list and the children do a great job of it. Another job we have is 'check for dull pencils'. The child is supposed to pull the dull pencils out of the color coded holders and put them with the regular pencils to be sharpened. Well this is what I found today when I went to sharpen the pencils-

Now I'm not sure if the girl who checked the pencils just has really high standards for sharp pencils, didn't quite understand the word dull, or just really liked taking each pencil and placing it the big container. Either way, she did take out the dull pencils and they did get sharpened...so mission accomplished right?

An adult's story-

It was recess, I was spending the last half-hour of work playing four square with the few remaining elementary students (tough job isn't it?) when a car pulls up. A dad for one of the elementary students had arrived and the student quickly ran inside to get her lunch box and homework. Instead of just standing by the fence and waiting, the dad gets in line for four square and asks how to play. I don't know who was more shocked, the children who explained the rules to him, or his daughter when she came out and saw him playing with her friends. He stayed and played for a good 15 mins to her absolute delight. Four square isn't a hard game to learn or play, but when the area you are playing in is bigger it helps to have longer arms and legs. This student may have been one of the younger ones, but having dad there more than made up for the difference.

I still don't know why he decided to come and join our game, what he was thinking. But the elementary children were very impressed and stepped up their game to keep up with him.

Visitors Day

Wednesdays are observation days at our school. Parents are invited to sign up for a slot to come in to the classroom and observe their child at work. Today we had four visitors at once due to a scheduling mix-up (normally there are 2 or 3) so it was a very crowded room. Needless to say, all the children who's parents visited did not have a normal day.

The first was the set of twins, two boys who are right around 3 years old. Normally in the classroom they are pretty busy, and though they sometimes have trouble choosing a work to do they are quite open to suggestions. They usually treat their work gently and clean it up without being reminded. Today, instead one of them took out all four boxes of colored cylinders, dumped all 40 cylinders out on the floor, and proceeded to stack the boxes into a stool to sit on beside his dad. Oops, not exactly what you want a new parent to see their child (or another) doing in a classroom that revolves around respect for both people and objects. Meanwhile the other twin kept going between the shelf and mom, never really taking a work out to show her.

Another parent was treated to observing her daughter sit at a table and stare at fraction pieces for the whole half hour, seemingly unable to create a design and color it in. Meanwhile the younger sibling stood in line waiting to wash dishes the entire time. Each time I tried to help the child currently washing so someone else could have a turn, the other girl would wander off and someone else would take her place. Yes, we are trying to teach the children that there are consequences for their actions and to stick with what they are doing, but today was not the best day for that.

Sigh. Not the impression we were hoping to make for the parents. It's too bad we don't have one way windows for them to peek in to, or video days like yesterday when the classroom was much calmer. Oh well, hopefully next week's observations are better.

Sometimes work really is just a lot of work

"276, 277, 278, 279....."
"What comes after 79?"
"70, 10?"
"Sort of. Do you remember what we call it when we have 7 tens and add 1 more 10?"
"80!"

This was my afternoon conversation with one of the older students in the class. He was counting one of the long bead chains which are the cubes of a number in physical form. Still with me? Yeah, I wasn't there the first time either, and we actually don't tell the children this fact until the elementary years. I'll put some more pictures at the bottom of the post if you're interested in just how they work.

But on with the story.

In the ideal world the boy counting the chain would have immediately started counting "281, 282, 283..." etc. etc. Instead this happened-

"280, 290, 300..." Hmm...doesn't sound quite right does it? Obviously he has the concept of the numbers 1 to 10, and knows that these numbers repeat, but he hasn't fully understood it yet. The head teacher and I were discussing the matter and think that one of the preparatory materials for this work was actually making it harder for him to count linearly. Oops.

Especially in the math area of the classroom, early activities lay the basis for later ones. In this case the child had done a lot of work with the thousand chain. This chain has a thousand beads on it, bound together in sections of 10. The children are supposed to count the beads, and place the correctly numbered arrow at the end of each section of 10. This student had quickly realized that all the arrows he needed to place ended in 0 and that he just needed to put the first number in order. A pretty good shortcut, and one we wanted him to figure out eventually but it's making it really hard for him to do the 9 chain as the sections now each have 9 beads in them instead of 10 and the pattern of arrows is much harder to recognize. This means that he now needs to actually count each individual bead, an exercise he skipped earlier when learning how to do the thousand chain.

Now an activity that was super simple for him, has suddenly become a lot more work. And not work in the Montessori sense of the word. In a Montessori environment the activities of the child are generally refereed to as work. This is because the job of the child is to build up themselves into the adult they will become. The term work is used as a sign of respect for what the child is doing and is not meant to seem as though we are submitting them to drudgery as a adult might think when we say the child is doing work. To the child work is purposeful and fulfilling; they enjoy it.

Unfortunately, nothing ever works flawlessly, and even with all the preparation materials in a Montessori classroom you run into stumbling blocks like this one. So I spent about half an hour gently coaching him on how to count linearly. Together we made it up to 250 and will tackle the chain again tomorrow. Hopefully the work will make the shift from drudgery to purposeful.

Some more explanation of the bead chains for anyone interested-

The chains come in two different types, short and long, and there is one of each type for the numbers 1 to 10.  Below is an example of the short 5 chain-

The short chain shows the number squared. So since this is the 5 chain there are 25 beads total, separated into sets of 5. The square in the upper right is bound together and helps to subtly introduce the idea that this chain is the square of a number. The long chains on the other hand show the cube of a number (125 in the case of the 5 chain) and instead of a square the end of the chain is symbolized by a cube, such as in the photo below.

So yeah, there's a lot going on in these chains. However, when the children take them out in the environment they are simply counting the beads and placing the arrow with the correct number next to it. The idea of squares and cubes are supposed to be passively absorbed and pulled out again later when the child is introduced to this concepts in their elementary years.

Montessori Sunday: Polishing Activities

Welcome back to another Montessori Sunday! (actually on Sunday this time even). Today I wanted to introduce the polishing activities commonly used in a Montessori classroom. Polishing is in the area of practical life and is often introduced to the children very early on. My training covered activities for wood, glass and metal. Objects made of these materials are scattered throughout the classroom environment for the children to polish. The reasoning behind scattering the objects is so that they may also serve as beautiful decorations and hence the polishing has a purpose behind it as the child helps make the classroom a lovely space.

The picture below is the wood polishing activity from my Montessori training. An oilcloth is laid on the table to make it easier to clean any spilled polish and the child wears an apron to protect their clothing (shown folded on the left). The items are laid out in order of their use (and ideally stored on the tray that way as well). This helps the child remember which action to carry out first and introduces them to the idea of sequencing steps. Many practical life activities focus on the sequencing of steps so the child is better able to follow the more abstract sequences of math operations or written words later on.

To present wood polishing the Directress will first invite the child who is ready to learn the activity, and show them how to put on the apron and lay out the oilcloth. Next she introduces the tray that holds the polishing materials and demonstrates how to carry it. At the table each object is taken out in order and named. Next, the teacher and student go together to choose an object to polish. The teacher demonstrates how to put just a few drops of polish into the bowl and then soak it up with a cotton ball.  She explains how the polish is toxic and that we do not eat it and will wash our hands afterwards. The Directress applies the polish to the object using circular motions and then polishes it with a finger mitt using the same motion. Finally she folds the small buffing cloth into a mitt and shines up the objects using circular motions once more. The child is invited to repeat the activity and shown where the new cotton balls are kept to replenish the tray.

You might notice that there is a lot of repetitive movements in this activity (did you notice everything was done in a circular motion?) and not a lot of talking. Children at this age are still building up their coordination and many practical life activities focus on giving child some type of movement or motion that they can repeat over and over until they master it. In fact, all the polishing activities use the same basic motions to encourage the child to repeat and refine their movements.

The other point is the lack of speaking that occurs during the presentation, this is intentional. Children in the Casa dei Bambini are in a sensitive period of language according to Dr. Montessori. This means that they are still basically enthralled with language and desperate to absorb it and use it for themselves. Children of this age have trouble listening and watching at the same time. It is best to first show them without the distraction of speaking. This doesn't mean the Directress sits there, cold and silent; quite to the contrary she will warmly welcome any comment or question the child might have. Yet she was will not attempt to break their concentration by speaking herself unless necessary. This facet of a presentation occurs in most activities in the classroom, especially for those activities directed at younger children.

An interesting fact that Dr. Montessori observed with many exercises in practical life is that the children were not interested in the finished product (here a nicely polished object) but rather the act itself. I know that I have seen children apply polish to an object over and over and over again, even though it is already covered in it. The point for them is not polishing, but rather the refining of their movements through doing the activity.

Children who love to clean! (yes, really!)

In my blog post yesterday I mentioned how our play yard was currently under construction and was in pretty rough shape. Well today we found out that it was going to be at least a week until the new permanent fence was put in. Unfortunately in the meantime the playground is still a mess. A temporary, plastic orange fence, a messy pile of dirt and roots and sticks scattered everywhere....lots and lots of sticks.

Now I'm proud to say that I think a lot of schools would have continued to avoid the yard until everything was 100% back together, but we figured our children were smart enough to handle the mess. Before going outside I made an announcement at lunch that we were going to play in our normal play-yard, but that the fence was not to be touched, and the pile of dirt was not for playing. Simple, to the point and I am proud to say that I only needed to remind one child to stay out of the tempting pile of dirt.

We adults were a little bit more worried about the sticks though. We generally have a rule that the children do not play with sticks that are longer than 5 or 6 inches so there is minimal chance of their accidentally (or occasionally on purpose) hitting someone else. Usually the play yard is pretty well swept clean of these off limits sticks, but after some serious tree trimming yesterday they were scattered all over. I started gathering some of the large ones, intending to get them out of the yard before they were discovered and turned into toys. But with my first armful I found that I had several helpers with their own arms full of sticks. Expectantly they looked at me. "I'm going to put these in the truck* so no one pokes themselves." (*this is an empty plastic sandbox shaped like a dump truck in our yard). There was a chorus of children exclaiming that they were going to do that to. I kept hearing little voices talking about how they didn't want anyone to get poked and screeching a bit in excitement as they found another stick. And with all those eager to help (I didn't ask or make anyone pick up sticks) in about five minutes we had basically all the sticks cleaned up.

And they kept going. Several of the children kept searching for sticks even when all they kept coming back with were little twigs that almost got lost in their hands they were so small. I thanked them as profusely for these little slivers as I did over the larger branches. After all, who doesn't appreciate some extra help while cleaning, especially with the added bonus of enthusiasm while doing it!

This isn't unusual to get such eager help from the children at school. I think one of the main reasons it happens is because we rarely demand that they help clean up. The children are responsible for a mess that they personally make, but a lot of accidental or bigger messes usually draws a crowd eager to help. Often if I find something messy in the classroom (like something one the floor) and don't know who is responsible I will just ask the nearest child to help me clean it up. The key word here is ask. Usually they help out without even thinking twice, or if they hesitate I mention how we want our room to be clean so we can find the materials and work with them and that usually convinces them. If they really don't want to help I do it myself, repeating aloud the mantra about keeping our classroom clean.

One of the best thing about working with young children is how eager they are to help out. At the end of the day in our classroom we have a small basket with slips in it that have different jobs written on them. Today I had made some new job slips into the basket and the children were extremely excited to to not only see what new jobs there were, but to find out if their favorite old job was still an option! Spray and wipe tables is always a favorite, as is using our new carpet sweeper.

The best part is that it is usually the youngest children who are eager to place the classroom back in order. We have a set of twin boys who are not yet 3 and they are always the most eager to start picking jobs. Since they can't read yet they have to bring the slip to a teacher and it always makes me smile to see how quickly they hurry to choose a slip and then the eagerness with which they seek out an adult to reveal its secrets. Then they set off with a determined look on their face to take care of their important job. And that is even more important than that the job actually gets done.

As simple as going for a walk...or not

A beautiful fall day. The kind of day where the leaves are just starting to fall and change but it's still warm enough to walk around in a t-shirt. Add a slight breeze to make the leaves go skittering across the pavement and rustle together and you've got a great day for a nature walk. Especially when there's the added excuse that the normal play yard is currently under construction to trim back some trees and put in a new fence. Now the children in the classroom were more than excited to watch the men cutting down trees and tearing out the old fence. They were even more excited when the miniature bobcat drove around the corner to help cart the debris away, but it definitely was not a safe place for recess. So we planned a nature walk for recess instead. Unfortunately that wasn't as simple as it sounds.

Our normal recess schedule begins when the first group of children finish lunch and change into their outdoor shoes. Usually these are the older children who are quicker at eating and cleaning up due to years of practice. While an adult takes this first group of children outside, another helps the younger ones finish cleaning up their lunches and changing shoes/putting on jackets. Normally this is about a 20 minute process (there's quite a spread between a 6 year old who is racing to put on their velcro shoes, and a 2 year old still trying to figure out the zipper on their lunch box).

Then today with our plan for a nature walk we added in a new kink in the system- a bathroom break. Normally in a Montessori environment the children are responsible for realizing when they need to use the bathroom and reminders from adults are kept to a minimum. The only instance where an entire group is actually brought to the bathroom by an adult is right before nap time (for what should be obvious reasons). But since we were not going to be near a bathroom we needed to get 21 children to at least try and go before we left. Now that is a long process. All in all, by the time each child was ready to go we had about 5 minutes left of recess.

Now I don't want this to  seem like I'm complaining. When I actually think about it, that's quite an impressive feat. 21 children have eaten their lunches, packed them up, cleaned their table and swept (if needed), changed their shoes and put on coats, and stood in an orderly line. Oh, and remember, they are all under the age of six AND did all of this with little adult intervention. That means that while we might have helped them snap shut a tricky container, even the 2 year olds put them into their lunch boxes and zipped it up on their own.

So after all that work, for a nature walk we went. Hand in hand the older children helped direct the younger ones to the safe areas in the grass or sidewalk. We walked in the sunshine, listened to the rustling leaves, and even picked a few flowers. Then we reached the end of the block and turned right back around. Ok, so we only made it one block from school, but did the children mind? Nope, not in the least. A few did ask why we weren't going further, but they completely understood when we explained that recess was over. Dr. Montessori recognized that children are process oriented, not product oriented. While an adult might have felt disappointed to not really achieve the product (the walk) the children were happy simply taking part in the process (getting dressed, lining up, etc.). Though as an adult, I still hope we can go a little further tomorrow!

The Bigger Picture

When Dr. Montessori first began her Casa Dei Bambini she had huge classes of children (close to 40 or 50 children) that would never be allowed in schools today. And for that I am grateful. The classroom I currently work in has 32 children and 3 adults in it and we are plenty busy.

Now let's take a step back and think about what this large class size actually means.There are 32 children between the ages of 2 (almost 3) and 6. They are all at varying levels of skill (both physical and mental) and a wide spread of interests and personalities. It is extremely difficult for both adults and children to all gather together for any lesson as a entire group. Instead, over the course of 3 hours in the morning these children are all basically free to move around the classroom, choosing whatever activity they want (provided they have been shown how to use it). Some choose to work with others, some by themselves, and others to do nothing at all. While we really try to discourage them from doing nothing (mainly because it ends up becoming a distraction) it does happen.

So 32 individuals (35 if you count the adults) engaged in different activities, sounds like chaos right? Not as much as you think. While things are not always running perfectly smooth in our classroom as hoped (we're getting there!) there are some key rules that keep it running smoothly. 

Probably the biggest one is that a child can work with a material as long as they like, but when they are done it needs to be returned to the shelf for the next person. Returning the material also means restocking it (such as paper for art activities) or drying objects that may have gotten wet. A perfect example right now is our stamping activity. Yes, we trust children at age 3 to work without direct supervision and not poison themselves on the ink pad! We also trust them (after a demonstration) to get a new piece of paper from the stack on the counter and place it on the tray with the ink pad and stamps for the next child. 

Now I won't try to pretend that this always happens, and often one of the teachers ends up replacing the paper, but it is becoming less and less frequent as the school year progress. By independently allowing the children to prepare the tray we adults lessen the burden on ourselves. Other than the obvious effect of not having to keep the tray stocked we can also say when a child brings us the empty tray "Oh, it looks like someone forgot to get a new piece of paper. You can find a piece for yourself on the counter." And believe me, when there are 32 students busy at work, saving yourself that extra minute or two to dig a piece of paper out of the cupboard will add up!

Other basic classroom rules include-

• Not taking a material out until you have been given a presentation on how to use it
• Respecting the work of other children (usually by not touching their materials)
• Generally being kind to others
• Maintaining safe control of ones body (ex. not hitting, pushing, etc.)

All of these add up at a classroom community that may be busy and look quite chaotic until you take a few minutes to observe and see that the buzz of activity is purposeful and productive. Here is one of the main differences between Montessori and standard daycare. The children are taught to be responsible for their own behavior and actions, rather than being enforced by an adult. Hence why we can have only three adults in a class of 30+ children, and not worry about a mutiny!