Back to business

No, I did not forget about yesterdays Montessori Sunday. But after our extended break with snow days and the weekend I figured it was too soon for another technical post. After all, you want to hear more about the kids right?

Today was a day of glitter.
And glue.
And glitter-glue.
Oh, and regular glue and clip art pictures, and stickers and stamps and swirly colored paper.

Yeah, kind of kid-art paradise. I guess one child went back in to the classroom and was actually hopping up and down she was so excited to have been a part of the art project. Not that I let them use the glitter personally. Most 3 and 4 (also some 5) year olds just do not have the coordination for meaningful application of glitter products. But they did get to choose their design and color so I'm going to count that as their own work.

Anyways, we were busy making stationary this morning. While we know that not all of our families celebrate Christmas, most do and so it's a good season to make a little extra gift to send home. Each child got to decorate the headers of 4 little pieces of stationary with all manner of art things. Before we started I explained how we were making stationary and needed to leave the bottom part blank for them or their parents to write little notes on. Overall I was pretty impressed with how well they respected this rule, most kept their stickers and pictures and stamps above the line and it actually looks like stationary.

They independently chose their stickers, peeled them and put them on, and also glued on their own clip art pictures. I helped with the glitter application (as previously discussed) and added the final touch of a line of glitter glue from the hot glue gun. The children then made sure their finished stationary stayed with the correct envelope, cleaned up the paper backs from stickers, and helped me store the extra supplies back into their bags. They pushed in their chairs and went back into the classroom and back to work.

Ah it was great. I love how even though this project was adult led they could do it mostly by themselves--including the clean up!