Happy New Year!

No, this post isn't late, today was the start of the new year, at least according to the Chinese calendar. We had a wonderful father who was interested in helping his daughter share some Chinese new year traditions with the class. He donated a workbook and some beautiful decorations for the week so we could tell the children a little bit about how the holiday was celebrated.

Best of all though, he and his daughter worked together to fill some red bags with the traditional orange and 'good luck' envelope for each of her classmates. The little girl was so excited and couldn't wait to hand out the gifts to her classmates! I have to say the funniest part was that we allowed her to pass them out (since she had made them after all!) and she would wait patiently for the child to say "thank you" before going to get the bag for the next child. Not a bad way to help enforce some good manners!

We also put out coloring sheets for the children, with markers even! They were over the moon with excitement about that. I'm not sure how much they all took in about the holiday, but they definitely got the feel that it was a special day. The older children were very interested in learning which zodiac animal was theirs, though they were a little confused about the fact that the animals where for an entire year, rather than a single month.

My favorite part of the day though was something that hadn't been planned. The temperature was hovering just at the 'too cold to go outside for recess' mark and myself and the other teacher finally gave in to not going outside. I'll admit it, we were tired of spending about half an hour getting the children to pack up their lunches and get dressed to go outside. Yeah, we wimped out, but I promise I made it worthwhile for the children!

Thinking about what little group activity we would do at the end of free time a light bulb went off. (Warning: slight smugness and ego boosting ahead!) While keeping one eye on the playing children I pulled off a decent 'lion' mask out of leftover cardboard, construction paper and paper towel tubes. Several of the children watched the process and with some coaxing did guess that I was making a lion for Chinese new year, but they weren't quite sure for what.

When all the toys were picked up I introduced the mask to all the children, and told them about the lion constumes in new years parades that had multiple people in them. At this point some of the older children were catching on to my idea and were already bouncing in their spots and raising their hands to be the first ones to try it out. I called up one of the oldest to be the lion head, showed him how to hold the two pieces and then called up two other children to help make up the body of the lion. one brown sheet and viola! We had a lion costume!

They had a blast pretending to be in a parade. I put on some music (not very parade appropriate music but the children didn't care) and they wiggled around the line on the tile area. The others thought this was pretty cool too and I had more eager volunteers than I could handle to take the next spin the lion costume.

Not too shabby an activity for something put together in about 10 minutes, plus the added bonus of fitting in to the theme of the day!

Starting the day off right

It's not just breakfast that starts a day out right, and even having a good breakfast doesn't necessarily make the day good. But working with children? Something's bound to make the day brighter.

The troop from daycare came in eagerly this morning but I didn't get my usual good morning handshake. I got hugs instead! I don't know if I looked like I needed a hug or what, but it was a nice way to start the morning.

And it kept getting better.

J came in, a giant grin on her face and an eager handshake. She had been sick the day before and just when I finished saying that I was glad she was back one of the 4 year olds came up and said the exact same thing to her. J looked at her, a little confused, and asked, "Why's everyone so glad to see me?" I had to laugh and ask her "Well why wouldn't they be?" And her face just lit up with a huge grin.

Later this same girl took out the moveable alphabet and wrote more words with it than I've ever seen her do before.

But wait!

There's more!

L came into the classroom, literally skipping with happiness. She held up a hand for me to shake, grinned out a good morning and then danced off to find work.

So about that rule for walking...who can stand to curb that kind of excitement?

Words of the day

I walked up to E and asked if she was done with the drawing tray, since she had left her table and was wandering around with the piece of paper in her hand.

"No."

"Well then you need to stay with your work."

"But I need a new piece of paper!"

She held it up, showing off a very small amount of coloring surrounded by a lot of empty space.

"You don't want to add any more?"

"No, it's for O."

"Don't you think she'd like it to have more color?"

"But I blessued on it."

"What?"

"I blessued."

Pause

"You sneezed on it?"

Vigorous head nodding.

"Ah, well then let's get a clean one to color for her."

I hope O appreciated her friends artistic sacrifice in an effort to keep her germs to herself!

Getting ridiculous

So I understand that everyone, everywhere in the USA is experiencing this polar vortex so I can't complain too much....

But seriously, 7 snow/cold days off already this year is getting a bit ridiculous.

And it's only January! Lots of opportunities to have still more days off. And I know I really shouldn't be complaining about getting free time but it gets a little old when it's too cold to enjoy it. Oh well, at least I'm getting lots of classroom materials made. I hope the children enjoy them.

Language materials ready to laminate!

The long road to sleeping

O slept during nap today.

And yesterday.

And the day before that.

And two of the five days last week.

I don't want to jinx it, but I think she may be finally settling in to the routine! I guess it just takes some children...5 months...to learn how to lay quietly on a blanket. We've had to do lots of little tweaks to reach this point.

The first two months were exclusively trying to find a place in the nap room, thinking she just needed to adjust to the space. After it was pretty clear that wasn't the case O was placed on a chair outside the nap room until she could control her body and keep from waking the other nappers up.

Hence began the time of shifting. Shifting her off the cot, shifting her out of the nap room, shifting her to the classroom to rest, shifting her to the coat room, and shifting an adult to sit by the coat room to ensure she wasn't doing circus tricks.

Finally we had gotten her to the point where she could stay on the blanket, though not necessarily still or quiet, for the rest hour. But the crankiness and occasional meltdowns when it was time to go home convinced us teachers that she needed to actually sleep as well.

And so the little tweaks started. Choosing 3 books to look at and help make the transition. A light stool defining the space for her blanket between it and the wall. And a pep talk about how important it is to focus on laying still when she gets impatient.

Phew, talk about a lot of work to get one little girl to sleep.
Welcome to the world of Montessori preschool....I don't recall covering this in training.....

New and exciting

Sometimes brand new things can be exciting, but in our classroom it's more likely that something old is made to seem new.

Yesterday I introduced a new aspect to the clay work. Up to this point our clay has been just the ball of clay and some small wooden shapes. I noticed that the children were not really using the shapes and decided to mix it up some by introducing some tools to add textures to the clay. And the kids took off with it. That clay work was THE work to have. Everyone wanted to use it, they all wanted to observe the other children using it, there were negotiations about who would use it next. With one simple change that work has become of the utmost interest to children who could have cared less about it a week ago.

Hopefully I can snap a picture tomorrow of how interested they have been.

Another old material that became new today was the pink tower and the brown stair. A couple of children where being a little silly with the material and the other classroom teacher gave them a little direction. She showed how they could combine them into a tower and then carefully remove the cube of the pink tower (kind of like jenga). They thought that was just the coolest thing and another child who had just been watching was so excited that he asked to join them. Together the three of them started really exploring different ways to build the tower.

After a while though I noticed they were just sitting talking, and when I heard that they were talking to each other about who was the baby, the daddy, the mommy, etc. I stepped in and asked what they were going to build next. They looked a little lost and I suggested that maybe they could build something long instead of tall. Their eyes lit up and one immediately jumped up to go and get another mat.

The next time I looked they were screeching in delight as they rolled out a 4th mat in order to accommodate the growing 'snake' they had built from the blocks. Their excitement drew a crowd and other children started marveling at how long the work was. Unfortunately it did ramp up the noise level of the room and I felt like I need to ask them to contain the work back on one mat so there was room to walk around again. Luckily they were pretty happy to do so, especially because they each had their own mat to roll up because they had taken out so many.

And when they finally put it away, guess what happened? Someone else immediately took it out and started exploring for themselves. Success.

Learning to work together

Both S and L didn't fall asleep at nap today, so they came in to the classroom with me for the afternoon. By this point in the day the oldest children are about an hour in to the afternoon workcycle and so it's important that any nappers who can't sleep don't disrupt them. I usually try to take advantage of this to work one on one with the younger children but had some cutting prep for an art work to do. So instead I proposed this to S and L-

"Do you guys want to work together?" "YEAH!" I had them set out the color tablets, showing them how to get out only one of each color. Then I used a small indicator stick to point to one tablet and sent both girls out in search of something that was the same color. After a couple more turns, making sure they understood the 'game' and the idea of taking turns, I stepped back and let them run it.

This is one of the hardest things to learn as a Montessori Directress, when to step back and leave the child working. The role of the teacher is simply to guide the child in how to use the material, and then let them explore and learn from it at their own pace.

I purposely set up my cutting work at a table where I could still see and hear the girls without being in their way. S and L did come and check in with me a couple times, mainly to show off what they had found for colors. Otherwise they were quite happy to take turns choosing the color and then both going to find an object to show the other. Finally they got stuck on looking for something gray and kind of gave up and put the work away.

But still, they're 3, that's a pretty good process for them. They cooperated, took turns, and even decided together when they were finished working. Actually sometimes I think those younger children end up working better together than the older ones!

Sometimes there's more chaos than order

Today I stopped a child cutting a table with scissors.

Today I found two children playing hide and seek with the coat room door.

Today I saw a child encouraging another to dunk their snack in the water cup until it splashed.

Today I spotted a child army crawling around the classroom.

Today I noticed two children using a working mat as a boat. (creative but....)

Today I halted a lot of running/skipping/hopping/twirling feet.

Today I caught one falling child (doing one of the above actions)

Today I beheld several colliding children (also doing one of the before mentioned actions)

Today I watched a child fall out of a chair.

Today I observed a child chewing on a pencil.

Today I noticed two children standing on the windowsill.

Today I found the tablecloth underneath the table.

But today I also taught a child how to sew a button, watched another begin taking responsibility for his work, and yet a third child concentrate, oh so carefully, on building a delicate tower.

Sometimes there's more chaos then order

P.S. Can I blame the full moon...or is that cheating?

Presentations, presentations and more presentations!

A presentation is what a Montessori directress calls the process of showing a new material to a child. Most children love getting presentations, even if they're not particularly excited about what the activity is they love the one on one time with the adult. I normally don't do a lot of new presentations in our classroom because we want to limit how many new things the child is introduced to at a time so they go back and practice what they have already been shown. So my fellow teacher and I have decided that it's best if she does the majority of the presenting and I focus more on showing the children extensions and reinforcing what they learned the first time. Today though it just worked out that I had a lot of opportunities to give new presentations.

I caught L right when she came in and said that magic words "I haven't worked with you in a while, what would you like to do?" The first thing she blurted out was the color wheel. I grinned and reminded her that she already knew that work so well that she didn't need me to help her. Instead I offered to show her the leaf cards and had her set out the mat. She laid out one set of the cards and I read off the names of the leaves before handing her the card to match.

Unfortunately I was interrupted a few times during the presentation. Ideally this should be a time where the teacher is completely focused on the one child, but with one of the other teachers busy greeting children at the door I had to step away from L to remind other children to stay in the classroom. Luckily L was patient and I did try to leave her with a card to match when I stepped away. Overall I think L enjoyed matching the cards and she was really quick even though there are a lot of different leaves to look through, and since they're real leaves they aren't truly identical.

My next presentation actually started before I even finished doing leaves with L. A came in and the first thing she asked me was if I was going to give her the presentation I had given her friend M the day before. I told her sure, surprised she had remembered that I wanted to show her subtraction and seemed pretty excited about it. So I had her start setting up the cards for the golden beads. That's one of the really nice things about working with the older children, they can really take direction, and set up even new works independently.

A and I flashed through the process of doing subtraction. She knew exactly how to count the beads, remembered the numbers she needed to get and eagerly followed the steps. In fact she had such a good time that as soon as we finished reciting the problem she asked if we could do it again! I apologized that I needed to work with some other children and suggested a few other friends who knew subtraction that she could ask to work with her. Unfortunately they all declined and she just cleaned it up instead.

Next I reviewed a counting work with one of the four year old boys, helping him recognize his numbers and double check his work. I got another boy started on the sound book he was supposed to be making, helping him find a table where he wouldn't get distracted. I also tried to engage one of the four year old girls in to doing a fetching work since she wasn't working, but rather being silly and distracting her friends. She didn't like that idea though and turned me down. Ouch. Though she was polite about it. Just asking though had desired affect of getting her to buckle down and choose a work to do.

As the day was drawing to a close I saw N running around the classroom, trying to play chase with some other children. I got him to stop running, asked if he had a work out and then told him to come with me and choose one of the chains. This was the first presentation I gave today that wasn't optional. Usually it should be optional if the child wants to come to the presentation, but occasionally, like in this situation, it's necessary to divert them to something more productive.

So N chose the short 7 chain and I introduced him to the arrows that went with it. He quickly caught on to the idea of counting and placing the arrows. Since it was so easy for him I also introduced him to writing the numbers down on special graph paper. Why hold him back when he's obviously ready for more challenging work? It took right up until the end of the work cycle, but N finished writing his number for the chain and I'm sure he's excited to bring that paper home.

Whew, a lot of new materials today. Now hopefully they all liked the work enough to try it again tomorrow.

Quote of the day

Overheard from the hallway- "When I grow up, I want to be an adult."

Good goal little girl, good goal!

Lunch!

The children are really settling back in after having a couple of long breaks with the holidays and the snow days (that were technically cold days), and one of the easiest way to see this is how well they follow the lunch routine. The children are dismissed to wash their hands, grab their lunch box and find their name tag in the lunch room. The name tags are a relatively new addition to ensure that the younger children end up at a table they can reach properly.

At the beginning of the year we send a note home with parents giving them some specific instructions for their child's lunch. We are a nut free school and it's important that parents do not send peanut butter sandwiches or trail mix to avoid this. We also request that they specifically pack a protein, vegetable and fruit in their lunch box. The children are taught which food is which and eat them in order to ensure that they get enough healthy and filling food. This is super important because we have some children who stay until 5 o'clock and not having a full stomach can make those last few hours miserable. The children are also in charge of cleaning up their own spot, sweeping or wiping with a sponge as needed, and packing everything back in their lunch box.

Today all the children where in the lunch room in under ten minutes. They remembered which food they needed to eat first (after all it takes some willpower to eat that chewy sandwich before those sweet strawberries) and generally sat nicely in their chairs. We have really been focusing on having them sit properly at the table and they have been really responsive to the point where it only takes asking "Could you scoot in?" to have them turn forward and eat over their place at the table.

The best part of this? When the children are settled and focused at lunch they eat faster, which means they get dressed earlier and we get more outside time. Recently we had a group sled dog race, I explained a little bit about the Iditarod and then paired younger and older children to be sled dogs and mushers. The children loved it and it's been hilarious to see them continuing the game independently during the recess free time. All this because they have a good lunch routine that fills them up, and still gives time for playing.

Where they're going

Today I want to devote some blog space to the other classroom community in our school: the elementary. Currently the elementary class has 44 students. Yes, 44 as opposed to the 32 in our room. Granted there's less need for physical help, but it's still a busy room. 99% of the children in that class have moved up from the Children's house and it's incredible to see where they go, both socially and academically as they get older.

Unfortunately I don't get to see much of the actual classroom work, but I do get to see the end products. Beautiful posters on a huge variety of topics, a multitude of salt dough sculptures, numerous handiwork crafts, and (strangely) a desire to get a jump on that work in morning daycare....

The main thing I get to see is the social community that's built by having children who basically grow up in a community where they're not just stuck with other children their own age, but have a mix of older mentors to look up to and younger children to mentor themselves. This is especially apparent in the children who come for before and after school care. Most of them have had the same schedule for years and so have spent a lot of time together. They know how to work together...and push each other's buttons.

The foundations of talking out problems peacefully in Children's house can be seen when this group argues. They police each other, stand up for those who need it, and are so great about including others. Not that they're perfect. They're still elementary students and trying out different social roles, including some not so savory ones. Regardless, how they end up working together can be staggering.

Case in point: The snow fort on the playground.

Every winter the elementary playground turns into a plethora of snow forts. The four corners where the snowbanks are the highest command the most attention. Usually there ends up being a lot of small forts but this year one excavation site has become the property of nearly half the elementary class. The older children have been instrumental in the overall design of the fort but they've allowed the younger ones to help with tasks more within their abilities.

The end result? A snow fort with three rooms dug nearly down the pavement (FYI this snowbank is about 7 or 8 feet tall!) including solid stairs to crawl in and out of them, outer walls that extend for about 30 feet, belly sliding hills with carved stairs to get back up, an 'office' to check in (via snow computer since we are in the 21st century), and a newly added snowball mine with a block about 3 feet in diameter currently under excavation.

Remember these children are 12 and under. Not only have they built this impressive fort over the past two months, but they've done it by engaging about half their class in the project in one way or another. Our younger kids aren't quite up to  a social challenge like this yet, one or two friends working together is about all they can handle, but I hope they'll get there some day.

Montessori Sunday: Color Tablets

Welcome back to another Montessori Sunday, the educational part of the blog. Come on, I'm a teacher, there has to be more on here than just cute stories! Today I want to talk about the color tablets since they've been mentioned quite a bit on the blog lately.

The color tablets are part of the sensorial area in the classroom, specifically the sense of vision. I want to remind readers that the point of the sensorial materials is to teach children to refine their use of the senses. The materials isolate one property of the world (color in this case) so that is easier for the child to grasp the concept. Think about it this way, telling a child "this pencil is blue, and so the rug, and the sky, and this piece of paper. They are all blue." can be confusing as is might be difficult to notice what these various objects all have in common. With the color tablets everything is the same except for the color of the tablet, so it is easy for the child to differentiate.

There are actually 3 separate boxes of color tablets. Box 1 has pairs of the three primary colors: red, blue and yellow. Most children come in already knowing the language for colors and so they begin with the next box. Color box 2 also has pairs of tablets but has even more colors. This box is first presented as a simple matching activity which can be extended to matching at a distance, or matching with objects in the environment. The child is shown how to handle the tablets by the edges so as to not mar the colored part with fingerprints.

Color box 3 is the most complex and has an impressive 63 tablets in it. Unlike the first two boxes, the tablets are not paired, but rather graded. Each color has a progression of dark to light and the child is introduced to the idea of grading by the shade of the tablets. This is done first with just a single color at a time and the child works up to doing multiple colors. As a culminating event the child is shown how to make the 'sunburst'. The sunburst involves grading all the color tablets around a centralized object (usually a globe). I can say from personal experience that it is a daunting task to sort out and grade that many tablets. The children love the finished product though and it's pretty common to see them working in pairs to complete the sunburst.

Forgiveness

This is an event that actually began yesterday, but I wanted to see how it played out between the two children before posting it. Enjoy having your faith in the future of humanity restored.

I heard the desperate, exasperated voices before I even entered the coat room. J and E were standing just a few feet apart. E was pointedly ignoring J, primly pulling right side out the sleeve of a purple sweater. J, meanwhile, was standing there, arms stiffly held at her side and angry disbelief clear on her face. She could barely sputter out that E was wearing her sweater she was so distraught. I looked at E and she earnestly told me she had found the sweater in her bin.

"No she didn't!" J shouted. I turned and asked her if she had worn a sweater that day and when she said no, still insisting that that one was hers I suggested that maybe she and E had the same sweater and hers was still at home. It would not have been the first time that happened to one of the children at our school. J thought about that for a bit and I asked E one more time if the sweater was hers. She affirmed once more that it was and I saw another one of my fellow teachers nodding from the hallway where she had been watching.

So I sent E off to the bathroom to change, and J lost it, whimpering and hiding herself in her snowsuit hanging on the hook. I knelt beside her for a second, telling her that we could check with her mom when she came to see if they could look for the sweater back at home. She kind of ignored me and I let her be sad while I helped the other go homers get dressed to go home.

Then E came back in and the first words out of her mouth were, "It's my sweater." That pushed J over the edge. She cried out "No it's not!" and started actually crying. I chastised E, letting her know that we had already solved the problem and she didn't need to bring it up again. I nudged her back in to the classroom and then helped J into a separate room where she could calm down without disturbing anyone else (or being bothered by E again!).

When I got the other children dressed and mostly ready to go I fetched J and said I wanted to show her something in the classroom. We tiptoed in to where the children who stay for lunch were having group time and I whispered at her to look at L and Q. "Do you see what they're wearing?" She covered her mouth but I could still hear the giggles. L and Q were wearing the exact same dress and J thought it was just hilarious.

J was actually so cheered up that she completely forgot to ask her mom about looking for the sweater when they got home and I let the subject drop. The two other adults in the classroom let me know that E had also told them that the sweater was hers and we all figured it had been a misunderstanding and that it was over with.

Not the case. E goes home after lunch and I was really surprised to see her standing in the door with her dad during nap. She apparently had broken down in the car with her dad, howling about how she had stolen J's sweater. E's sobbing and guilt was so bad that her dad actually turned the car around so they could go back and return the sweater to J. All us teachers just nodded when we heard this, and directed her to hang it on J's hook since she had already left for the day. E was obviously feeling guilty enough we didn't need to say anything more to her.

Today when E came home she sought out J right away and apologized. I missed hearing the actual apology but I did see the results. The two of them were inseparable for the rest of the morning. They worked together, they ate snack with one another, they read books with each other. Then later I found them in the coat room where E was putting on that purple sweater once again...the sweater we had discovered had actually belonged to J. I asked why she had it again and J piped up, "I want to give it to her!"

Absolute forgiveness. This wasn't prompted or even hinted at by any adult. This was J's pure desire to show E her forgiveness about the incident of the stolen sweater. She had completely and utterly forgiven E for her selfish actions. Children are so amazingly capable and kind.

Was it worth it?

We had 10 minutes of recess today.

Now that doesn't sound so bad until I add this part in- it took about 10 minutes to get ready. Still doesn't sound too bad does it? Especially considering I work with very young children. Now let me add that it took almost 15 minutes for everyone to get back inside and snow clothes off. 25 minutes of prep and cleaning for 10 minutes of play time.

Was it worth it?

The kids sure thought so!

Following the interest

And I'm back! Between winter break, snow/cold days and weekends we have had only 2 days of school over the last 2 1/2 weeks. It's gotten to the point were not going in to work feels more normal, and the sleepy children today convinced me that it was true for them too. The classroom volume level was higher than normal too, with a few children even coming and telling me it was too loud for them to concentrate. I made an announcement to the entire class the first time, and then encourage the children to go and speak with specific children who were being extra loud. They were....semi-successful.

Not that there wasn't any work happening. N was painting at the easel and requested that I get him some red and white paint so he could make an American flag. Not only did he do the stripes and blue field, but he painted on a few stars as well. After getting him the paint I told him to come find me when he was done and I'd show him some new work to do with flags.

Now most children love getting presentations, working one on one with an adult is really special to them. N is no exception, but he usually doesn't continue the work for too long after the adult leaves.

I worked with his younger cousin for a little bit, showing her the constructive triangles. Part way through N wander over, done with his painting and clean up. He had not only remembered that I wanted to show him something, but he was excited to. I took N over to the flags and had him choose one. I helped him get set up with paper and colored pencils to make a replica while I checked in on his little cousin working with the triangles. When N showed me his colored flag we went to work looking it up in the new flag book.

Now this flag book was brand new, N was the first child to use it. I had made it over the break because our original flag book from the store didn't have some of the flags we have in our classroom. It also just had a lot of dry facts, or historical facts of the flag that really weren't interesting to the children. So I had made a small booklet that had just the flags we had in the room, and wrote just a short paragraph with some facts. Things like what the color represent and how the flag was designed and has changed over the years. Over the cold days when there was no school I had bound the laminated pages and was getting really excited to have the children use it.

Well, N used it and we discovered that I had missed a flag. Oops. Of course it would have been the one that he chose. Oh well. He managed to find it in the big book and we wrote the name down. Then N decided that he wanted to do another flag.

That was awesome. Like I said earlier, N isn't one to keep working on something new without an audience. And I had left him to work independently for a good chunk of the flag work. N successfully made an American flag and then brought me over the book to read the story of it. The fact that not only did he work alone, but wanted to continue showed me how interested he really was in the flags.

Now I just need to figure out how to turn that interest to helping work on his handwriting.....

Back in action

Whew, back after an almost two week break for the holidays. It was nice to have some free time, but I did miss the children. Boy were they happy to be back! Actually now that I think about it, it's kind of surprising that we didn't have anyone who was reluctant at the door.... though that might be connected to the fact that the short week had a lot of families just taking some extra vacation time.

Those who did come back though were ready to work. After doing some greeting at the door and giving a little assistance in the coat room I came into a classroom that was just humming with activity. Yet I had almost half an hour to sit and observe what was going on. Then I made the mistake of leaving the stool. I'm beginning to think that a teacher sitting quietly on a stool is absolutely invisible to the children. It's actually kind of funny.

J, one of our smallest students was wandering around, telling me she didn't know what she could do so I suggested she get out the color tablets. J couldn't find them and I didn't remember if she'd had a presentation or not. I showed her the box and asked if she wanted to invite S to work with her. I knew S had been shown the color tablets but she is also pretty shy and doesn't like to try out new work. I was really hoping that J might convince her to not only repeat this work, but to branch out to something new. Yeah...it didn't really work out that way, but oh well. So instead I decided to give J a quick refresher on how to use the tablets.

I showed her how to handle them, taking out a few colors and matching them. It was pretty easy for her, and she even knew all the names. Pretty soon she had the entire box out and mixed up for matching. Another three year old, Q, had wandered over at this point and was really interested in what we were doing. I asked J to pick out a tablet and ask Q if she could find the match. They were just delighted! Q and J thought this was just a great game. I stuck around just long enough to make sure they got the idea of taking turns and actually verbalizing the color.

And then I left. That's the ideal role for a Montessori guide; giving the child just enough to get started, working and curious for more, then leaving them to explore.

Ideally.

Because that's sure not how my next presentation went.

First off, I will give M some leeway because being invited to help make birthday treat is enough to make anyone forget what they were working on. Anyways, after that M had come back in and chose a new work like he'd been taught. I caught him, and asked him to clean up the practical life activity he had out and go back to the number rods. After he did that though I found he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing with the number rods. So I sat with him, and kept him on track....and kept him one track...and helped him some more...and realized he had no recollection at all about how to do combinations of 10 with the rods. Finally after about half an hour we had made all the combinations, written them down, and I had him start cleaning up while I read a story to some 'wanderers'.

I have to say, with as much trouble as the actual process was, M has the concept of clean up down pat! That's got to balance out not remembering how to do all the steps right? Well at least it's a transferable skill!