Follow the Child (literally)

As I've said before in this blog, I have such a small class that I don't have an assistant with me. Usually this isn't a huge deal, though of course there's always times where I wish I had another set of eyes and hands to help out. However, a big part of the Montessori experience is having the children learn patience while waiting, and work to solve problems on their own. That's what most of my students experienced today while I was busy shadowing one specific child.

In the beginning of the year I told the children that the three rules of our classroom were: 1) Walk in the school, 2) Return things to the shelf when you're done, 3) Wait to touch something until you've been shown how to use it by the teacher. It's the third one that has been giving C, trouble.  When he doesn't have a work out he's most likely to be found standing at a shelf, fiddling with the materials on it. He's not trying to take them out to try and figure out what they are for, he's just fiddling with them.  Now I know it's pretty natural for the children to be curious about the materials, but this is going a bit beyond that. I've even had to take a few materials out to keep him from playing with the small pieces.

I've given him some mixed reactions when this happens. Usually remind him we don't touch things we haven't been shown how to use and that he needs to wait. If it's a work that he might be able to handle though I will go and ask if he'd like a presentation. Unfortunately there are a few specific things that he keeps fiddling with that are not appropriate for him to learn right now, I know he doesn't have the concentration to use them yet. So I spend much of the time reminding him that he needs to wait, he's not ready yet.

Because it's been such a recurring problem I made it my mission to try and spend all day shadowing C. I put together a special clothespin work to present to him; he LOVES pining up wet cloths on our drying rack and commonly uses up all the clothespins in the basket. I made a point to also show him a pasting activity that he's been trying to use with the watercolor paints. He spilled quite a bit of glue and so spent more time cleaning up then actually pasting, but hopefully knowing how to use the glue applicator will stop him from using it to try and paint with!

Follow me!...though I might not know where I'm going....

All day I watched C, trying to catch him before he tried to take things off the shelf, showing him new materials and suggesting things when he looked a bit lost. It was a tricky balance, trying to let him work independently while keeping such a close watch on him.

We'll see tomorrow if all that shadowing has any effect on his inquisitive fingers. At least it gave me a chance to spend some time connecting with him, and the other children were pretty good about keeping themselves busy. It just might take more time though....hopefully I can keep being patient about it.